You Can't Breathe

Chapter 1

My sense of smell came to me before my sense of touch, after that came my sense of taste, then my sense of hearing, then finally my sight. It was a slow awakening and once I did all I could hear was ringing. My ears buzzed and my vision was red, like someone was shining a light in my face. I was laying on something cold, like a table. My eyes were slowly opening and I saw the same cracked and creme colored ceiling I woke up to every morning since I was a baby. 

I subconsciously counted the cracks. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. No....there's an extra one. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Why are there six? There were always five. I slowly sat up, realizing I wasn't in a bed, or even on a cold table. I was on the floor. The wooden floor I would constantly pretend was lava. I slowly sat up, every thing in my back popping as I did so. I looked around, seeing ashes filling the room, on my skin and clothes. I looked down, not knowing what I was wearing but I liked it. It was just a simple, thin, brown long sleeve and black jeans. 

I stood up, my feet bare and cold. I took a step, then another, walking down the hall of my childhood home. Something wasn't right though. The tables were flipped, framed pictures had fallen off the walls and were broken or burnt. The hall had splotches of black, like fire had began burning the wall and the entire house was a mess. Slowly, small memories came flooding back to me. Mom and Dad. The car. The fire. Tears sprung in my eyes remembering it all. My brothers hugging me and crying at the funeral home. The look in my little sister, Emily's, eyes when she died that night. After Mom and Dad died, Emily got sick again and this time she never got better. Jacob and Marcus cried for the next year over it. They were so depressed over it.

I kept walking down the hall and looking into the closest room. Inside was the familiar lay out of the bathroom. The baby blue colored walls now dulled and almost without color. The tub was nasty with hard water stains and lime scale. It smelled nasty, the entire room, and pooling in the tub was blood. It reeked but somehow, it didn't bother me. I looked around and into the mirror. I forgot what I looked like. I forgot the once ivory skin tone, now bleak and white. My once hip length chocolate brown hair now light and filled with black and white ashes. The button nose, curvy hips and emerald green eyes I possessed from my mother. 

I turned and walked down the hall again, peeking into another room. The baby blue room my two brother's shared. The house wasn't big enough for much, the boys shared and room and so did Emily and myself. Emily and Marcus were twins, both the age of twelve, while Jacob and myself were twins, both of us the age of seventeen. I look away after seeing that the entire room was destroyed. Walls scratched and peeling, ceiling falling down and exposing the sky, the bed and desk thrown the the floor and in nothing buy splinters and ripped sheets. I walked down the hall, looking for my brother but I couldn't seem to find them. 

"Marcus? Jacob?" I called, my voice cracked and almost gone. 

I wanted an answer like my name, or a simple 'yes' would suffice but no. What I heard was the most inhumane sound I have ever heard in my life. It was the sound of hissing and gurgling; both at the same time. Fear rushed through my body and I turned, looking down the hall, the way of which I just came. Standing there, the beady eyes looking at me, was a beast I could only conjure with my deepest fears and nightmares. 

Bent over backward the beast had eyes of pure white, its stomach separated and serrated teeth making it look like a mouth. Its arms and legs seemed broken and mutilated with nails where the joints were supposed to be. Fingers claw like, and it had at least two rows of teeth in its mouth. Multiple appendages connecting to its torso  and the fingers on those sharp and claw like as well, but even looking at this gruesome and deformed being, that wasn't what hurt me the most. What made fear tear through my spine was the face itself. Even upside down and mutilated the untrimmed black hair and same thin face proved that the thing I was looking at was my youngest brother. Marcus. Tears sprung in my eyes and I took a step back. He didn't seem to notice the movement. 

Was he blind? 

I took another step and stepped on a loose floor board. It squeaked so loudly that Marcus' head snapped into my direction. In a second I was paralyzed with fear. The inhuman gurgling hiss came from his throat and he began running at me like something from a nightmare. Each appendage seemed to have minds of their own, grabbing at the walls, things thrown to the floor, even reaching toward me. I scream erupted from my dry throat and I turned, running for the window that was conveniently located at the end of the hall. I stepped on glass, having the pain shoot through my legs but I couldn't care less. I needed to get away. 

The window came closer with every step but it was just too far. Freedom slipped through my fingers and I felt a sharp pain tear my ankle. I fell, my stomach and almost flat chest hitting the dirty and burned floor. I looked back seeing the thing I once called a brother on the ceiling, his eyes on me and teeth dripping blood and saliva. He lifted me and I was able to see that one of his appendages had stabbed me in the ankle. Blood dripped down my leg and I cried out for help, but no one could. I was alone out here. Lifting me higher and higher, my face was level with his. I saw the two rows of dagger like teeth, his jaw unhooking to open even wider than it already was. 

"Help! Please, someone! Anyone!" I screamed and turned my head away. 

His breath was disgusting and I didn't know what to do, but as if my prayers were answered a huge boom seemed to echo and shake the house. I was dropped and hit the floor hard, knocking my head against it. Dizzy and disoriented I got up and ran again. I heard Marcus' gurgling hiss and I didn't need to know he was following me. I ran and jumped, my thin and frail body smashing into the window and shattering it. My arms flailed and I waited for impact but It didn't come. Instead a bone crushing pressure, and skin burning pain ripped into my arm and burned my veins. I looked seeing the double rows of teeth piercing my skin and drawing blood. I cried out, grabbing his face and pulling, tearing my arm from his jaw. 

I dropped and rolled, trying not to hurt myself. I needed to run and that's what I did. I ran. My ankle bled, as did my arm.  I whimpered and cried in pain, not knowing where to go but that was before I actually took time to see where I was. I looked up and around and nothing could describe the fear and worry that filled my body at this exact moment. Homes were destroyed. Most of the grass was nasty and yellow. Dead down to the roots. The entire area seemed to lose it's color. Even the sky seemed like it was no longer a vibrant blue. 

A roar erupted behind me. Not like the gurgling hiss of Marcus, but a roar. Louder than anything I've ever heard in my life . I didn't dare look back, afraid of finding out what the hell it was. I. Just. Ran. Running harder than I every have in my life my lungs burned, desperate for air. My legs hurt, demanding rest. Nothing could equate to the pain I felt, and from there on it just got worse. I looked down, dizzy, and before I could react I tripped over something and dived head first into a manhole. I hit my head on something and after that the ink like blackness began dotting my sight. I saw things. They stood on two legs and wore heavy coats and gas masks. Where they...human? I wouldn't know, after that everything was gone and I saw nothing but blackness.