Once the World Ends

Chapter One

I raced through the dark, winding alleys, the moon and stars the only source of light. Suspicious, eerie noises, the tinkle of breaking glass, the clang of metal on metal, echoed through the unusually silent night. My grip on the iron poker I held in my hands unconsciously tightened.

It had been two weeks since the virus had broken out. Two weeks of hiding out in my apartment, eating nothing but canned food. Two weeks of living hell. In the hours before the power ran out, the world had been cast into mayhem, and logically every news channel tried to get as much information as possible out to the public.

It was a mutated virus, constructed by a country somewhere in Asia, accidentally leaked into the air, spread worldwide within hours. It targeted the brain, the heart, and all central nerve systems. After driving you slowly insane, of course. Just a day at the beach, really. Nice to think what our fellow humans would do to us if given the chance.

Before you ask, no, I never burst into spontaneous tears, cursing the life that had been thrust upon me. There simply wasn’t enough time. Besides, I was alive and that was something.

My name is Coraline Harvey. I am thirteen years old, born in London and raised in New York City. Just happened to be chilling out on my couch, watching TV when all hell broke loose. My mum had been out shopping when the first people started showing the deadly symptoms. I never saw her again. My dad was one of the first infected. He jumped out the window, onto the pavement below. Twenty three stories. My older brother Alfie was stationed in Afghanistan when disaster hit. I don’t know what happened to him, I can only hope that his and my mum’s death came quickly and painlessly. Considering everything else that has happened, it hardly matters at this point. To anyone other than me, that is.

I will never forget my mum's smile, the fact that she was the gentlest person on the planet, unable to harm a fly. The fact that this mess I now call life would have destroyed her. My dad stood nearly at seven feet, had biceps larger than my head, and was the sweetest, most loving person on the planet. My  eighteen-year-old brother Alfie had always wanted to be a soldier, talking about nearly nothing else and, at first, dragging me along to various self defense, survival, and life skills courses. Until I developed interests of my own, like rock climbing, and camping, and fishing. He was now living his dream, as a Navy SEAL, serving somewhere in Afghanistan. We hadn’t seen or spoken to him in six months, and now I’m almost certain that I never will see him again. Between the three of them, and me being the baby, five years younger than Alfie, I was spoiled rotten. How I would long for the days of the past during the bleak present.

Never the less, I knew that the fact that Alfie and I had so many valuable survival skills, from starting a fire with just a pair of twigs, to be able to set several types of snares, and the fact that I knew all kinds of edible plants, along with the other, weirder ones that we had picked up, like throwing javelins, and capoeira, were the things that ended up saving me.

I don’t know why I’m still me. Why the virus apparently passed me over. All I know is that I had been given another shot at life, and I wasn’t about to mess it up.

So welcome, to my world.