My APOCALYPSE

Chapter 4

I shoved the last of the bricks off of Luke. He scrambled free of his prison and launched himself into my arms. We cried together for a few seconds, before I sat him down on piece of stone and began to shift the rest of the roof beams, stone and glass off of Matt. Luke recovered and began to help, though his frail little arms couldn't lift much. Our brother came into view, and Luke's eyes filled with tears as he saw his older brother with blood running down the side of his head. I swallowed a lump of fear and carefully extracted him from his tomb... prison.

Laying him down, I pressed my fingers to his throat. The relief I felt when a pulse thudded under my fingers was enormous.

"He's alive," I told Luke. "He's just sleeping."

Luke nodded, eyes huge. Nine years old was too young to be going through this.

But, I asked myself. How long would he sleep?

I glanced up at the sky. It was still blood red, but it was becoming overcast. Ash was drifting slowly to the ground, like macabre snow. From what I could tell, it was about midday. On a normal day, I would have been sitting down for some dehydrated noodles in my office's kitchen.

"What happened this morning?" I asked Luke.

He and Matt had been having a cubby competition. With Mum and Dad out of the house, they had taken over the linen closet, building ridiculously big cubbies.

"Matt had just crawled into mine to see whose was the best. Then the Earth shook, and the house broke,-" His voice cracked.

Thank god the coffee table was considered a base point for the majority of their cubby houses. Both had been underneath it.

"We need to find shelter," I murmured to myself. "Food, water, clothes."

I think I was already coming to terms with the fact that a whole new era was beginning. A whole new Lyla would welcome it.

We left Matt on his slab of stone, and began to dig through the ruins of our house. Luke unearthed a pack that we had taken on trips, whilst I uncovered a folded blanket that would be invaluable. Everything else was too deeply packed under for us to get at.

"Wait!" Luke cried as I packed the blanket into the pack.

He scrambled over to where he had been trapped, climbed bravely into the hole and from inside, passed me an old tin canteen.

Bless them; they'd been pretending they were camping.

I shoved the canteen in the pack.

"What else have you got in there?" I called down to him.

From their old cubby we got two pairs of old jeans, two jackets and two shirts. Two scrappy blankets and a torch went into the pack with them.

Unfortunately, the clothes were little-boy-sized, so I was left with only my white short sleeved work shirt, grey dress pants and black ankle boots. I was also very reluctant to return to my apartment.

"We have to leave," I realized suddenly. "Looters will be scavenging, and I don't think we want to get in their way."

I slung the pack onto my back, and lifted Matt. A few seconds later I realized I wouldn't be able to carry him. Eleven year olds are heavy.

"Right..." I stood and surveyed my surroundings, wondering what to do with him.

"I'll carry the pack," Luke offered. He looked tiny in the rubble. "You can piggyback Matt."

I handed him the pack without a word and hoped that he was strong enough. I managed to pick Matt up, hoping that he didn't have any internal injuries. His arms hung loosely around my neck, but I could hear him breathing in my ear.

"Let's go." I said to Luke.

We went. Where to? I don't think either of us knew.