Chapter 1
The light glared into my closed eyes. They stirred next to me, and we all rose with the sun. The morning dust settled and the sky warped from the pitch blackness of night to an astounding plethora of sorbet colors. I see a smile of wonder spread across Rowan's face as he set eyes on the sunrise. Across a great span of desert, large black masses loomed on the horizon. Before the nausea of seeing the ruins could hit me, Rowan Tugged on my nightgown.
“Sissy...Terra?” his timid voice chirped. “Wha-....what is that?” It is now that I remember that Rowan had never seen a sunrise, for he was born before the last solstice. I knelt beside him and kissed his forehead.
“That, sweet brother, is the sun. I know you've heard stories of the Lord and the Lady, well, he is the-”
“The Lord!” he chirped in excitedly. He then bounced over to the window and his smile melted into a frown.
“What's wrong?” I kneel beside him again, this time drawing him into my lap.
“Where has he been?” his voice whimsical and wondering. I licked my lips and pulled him onto my hip. “When I learned about the Lord and the Lady, it said the Lord would rise each day, as would the lady.” I nodded reluctantly and thought a moment. I scurried with him into the kitchen and grumbled into Echo's ear. She turned quickly, her long red hair whipping my face lightly and frowned.
“Tell him.” my quizzical look must have irritated her. “All of it.” I sighed heavily and asked politely, “Ma'am don't you think he's a bit young?”
“He's Eight years old, he deserves to know.”she nodded and turned back to her artwork. My feet grew heavy as I trotted him and I back to our bunk. I sat him in front of me and sighed.
“Two years before your birth, the world was a different place. Tall, shining metal buildings...the people called them skyscrapers.” He tilted his head. “The desert was no more, just,” I pulled him into my lap. “just houses, stacked close together. Side-by-side. Children went to school and played in asphalt streets.” He gasped. “The air was somewhat clean..not as much as now, but still livable.”
“Well? What changed, Terra? Where did the houses go? What happened to the schools?”
I sighed once more and as I spoke, I saw it play out in my mind.
“Then, humans did bad things to animals in labs. They took particles of DNA from one animal, and put it into others. Little did we all know then, but they were making something awful. I remember...sitting in front of the television...” his quizzical look amused me; I pointed across the room to the radar device, which was made out of a TV. “...and a warning flash onto the screen.”
-Flashback-
Lock your doors! Board up your windows! By executive order, president Mason has announced that we are in a state of worldwide panic. A research lab located in the soviet union has been destroyed, releasing a mutant breed of animal, which is now reeking havoc across Europe, Russia and Asia. “A picture flashed onto the screen of a mighty beast, slimy and gray with the armor of an armadillo, wings of a condor and body of a panther. Large spines bordered it's face, I recognised them as that of a porcupine.” Terra dashed up the stairs into her room and pushed her dresser in front of her window. Terra's parents did the same, standing up couches and tables against windows and doors. When she returned to the television, she saw the reporter, standing in front of a procession of tanks lumbering down an Italian street. She sat down close to the screen and watched the woman's eyes gape in horror as the beast pounced on her and began to rip her to unrecognizable shreds of flesh.
Within moths the military had exhausted all resources possible, destroyed cities and states...even countries in their efforts to rid the world of the Crawlers. And sadly, along with the crawlers there came a disease. That disease was manufactured in the same lab as the crawlers, and was dangerous. However, in comparison to the crawlers, the danger of the disease, which came to be known as Bel's curse, was tenfold. It was an airborne virus that turns it's victims to ash. It slowly starts with a fever, then spreads to patches of ash on the skin. Some were cured, some weren't.
It didn't take long for the world to fill with ash and the population to diminish into what we now have.
He blinked at me, arching his neck and tilting his head to the left, then to the right. “what....happened to mom and dad?” I was really hoping he wouldn't ask that. He crawled out of my lap and looked at me.“Terra?” I sighed and flopped back onto the bed.
“You weren't born yet, but dad was one of the scientists who tried to develop an antidote to Bel's curse. In order to make an antidote, he was exposed to the disease. It didn't take long for him to get infected. Mom was pregnant with you when he died.” he looked blankly at me as I took a deep breath. “Mom had you about eight months later.” his look told me I didn't answer his question, and he was getting impatient. I scurried out of the room and brought Elda to him. “I cant explain it...it hurts too much”. She nodded and knelt beside him. I looked at him in anguish. It must be hard. I remember Mizu saying slowly. If he were ever to know, he'd think she killed her. Of course, it's not his fault she died during childbirth. I sighed deeply as I saw his face melt. I crept over to his side and sat down next to him, holding him as he burst into tears. After a while, his tears exhausted him and he slipped into sleep. I lifted him into the cot, tucked him in and sat his stuffed rabbit, Baki, next to him.
I wandered slowly into the kitchen, and grabbed Elda's hand. "Gran....?" i stuttered over my words slowly. her hands were cold and her face mortified. "Elda....ELDA!!" i shouted her name and shook her furiously. In response, she raised a bony finger and pointed out the window. "They cometh...." She whispered, frozen with fear. Her neck arched and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Off in the distance three sleek, black figures pounced toward our small camp.
"Oh, god...Gran what do we do?!" I tug on her sleeve, terrified. The crawlers were approaching rapidly and we had no defenses.
