Finders Keepers

Prologue

*Scarlet*
I was 13 when the world fell apart.

At first we all ignored it, the growing tension between countries, the spreading plague and the bombings.

To us, the ones who hadn't yet been directly affected, it was all just stories on the news. Something that would blow over with time.

Chicago being blown up? Oh well. Poor them. New York falling to disease? That sucks. We'd all childishly thought it would never reach us.

Then there were the ones that saw it coming, the ones we dismissed as crazy. We ignored them as they held up signs on the street. Each sign saying something different yet eerily similar. Always talking about the end of the world, the apocalypse. Scary things, things we didn't want to hear. Things we refused to hear.

So there we went, still off in our blissful little worlds. Our biggest worries the test coming up in math we didn't study for, or what we were gonna wear to that party Friday night.

Then suddenly, it hit us. It was real. The disease reached our borders, spreading like wildfire.

People started dissapearing, less and less of us showing up for school and work. Society, life as we knew it, was collapsing, and still we refused to believe it.

We still thought it would end, that it would get better. That humanity would prevail.

Maybe it was movies that fuelled our denial, that kept many of us from panicking just yet. In what movie doesn't humanity win? We always eliminate the threat. We always survive.

But as it quickly got worse, and the government issued a countrywide quarantine, reality struck us, hard.

What if we don't survive? What if this really is the apocalypse?

So, naturally, we panicked. Families locked themselves in their houses, avoiding outdoors at all costs or leaving the city. Others took to the streets, robbing stores that were mostly abandoned anyways. Suicide and homicide rates skyrocketed. Gunshots rang out on the streets at all hours, leaving you trying not to think of what they might mean.

We got paranoid, we couldn't trust anyone. A person walking down the street? They must be infected. Someone banging at your door for help? Don't let them in, they could kill you.

And then, the bombs hit.

It was a last ditch effort by the government to stop what could never be stopped. We knew it was coming, we weren't the first to go. In fact, some of us welcomed it. No more hiding, no more fear, it would all be over. Some of us didn't want that though, those were the ones that ran. The ones that still had the desire to live, to fight. That still had people protect. They still had reasons to get up in the morning. To survive this nightmare.

Back then, I'd had reasons too.

The bombs hit late, late enough that most of us were already sleeping. I wasn't, I never slept much then.

The city was already half dead by the time they hit us anyways. Suicide, the plague and murder leaving bodies covering the streets, and the constant smell of rot and decay in the air.

Not many survived the bombs, and I still don't know whether the survivors or the dead were the lucky ones. At first I thought the survivors, but now? After living in this godforsaken world for almost 6 years? I'm not so sure.

The ones who died in the bombings didn't have to see the survivors turn on each other. The cults rise up. The refugee centres fall. The once great cities reduced to ash and rubble. The mayhem. The utter chaos. The danger.

Of course, it had been quiet for the first few days after the bombs.

Except for the occasional scream or gunshot or groan of shifting rubble, it was as if we were the only ones left. And I was beginning to believe we were.

The streets were quiet, deathly quiet, whenever I went outside, which wasn't often. I didn't want to look at the remains of the city I grew up in. I didn't want to see it and wonder what had happened to everyone. Why it was so quiet.

Then, after weeks of silence, something happened.....
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Hey anyone who might stumble upon this story. Sorry if it's crap but it is my first book I've ever started writing that wasn't a school project so you can't expect greatness. Thanks for reading!

Chapter dedicated to my awesome bestie horselover245