Survivor (ON HOLD)

Chapter One: Killed by a Kiss

A cold wind shoved passed me. It blew my small body backward several inches before it left with a snarl and a laugh. I snuggled into my jacket, zipping it up all the way to my chin. I shoved my numb hands in my pockets and rubbed them across my lucky dagger.

I pushed away thoughts of sobbing children and screaming men and women and kicked a rock down what used to be a road, now flooded and broken.

I began to run and kick it, pretending I was playing a game from long ago that my great-grandmother taught me that her great-grandfather taught her, soccer (or football), with my family. I kicked it into a pile of garbage that crumbled and silently cheered for myself. "They shoot, they score!" I laughed as I tried to live in my memories. I stopped and opened my eyes to give my sister a high-five, then realized that I was alone. I yanked my hood over my head in shame and shoved my hands angrily back into my pockets.

I blinked back tears and stared at the cement, cracked with roots growing from it, reaching for freedom. "Hell at its finest," I grumbled as I looked up at the decaying city. Once towering buildings now bent forward into each other, forming a deadly arch. Parts of buildings' walls were ripped or eroded away, leaving bare, rotten wood or metal cages. Water flooded through houses, hospitals, churches, malls, and other buildings, as well as the streets. Glass windows had been shattered, doors were busted, and floors and roofs were torn off. Everything was caked with mold and mildew. The cement and pavement were broken to bits, with blood scattered among it. Abandoned cars lay flipped and turned in the middle of the road, with nature growing through the windows and doors. Street lamps lay broken at my feet and garbage and bodies of wild animals and humans cover most of the city. I gazed upon a hill of trash, wondering if anyone was caught in it.

I shook my head and continued to stumble on.

After hours of silence, I heard a woman scream, pure agony. I knew that there was nothing I could do as the strangely familiar sound of a dying person rang through the night. "HELP! PLEASE! ANYB--" her plead for help ended with an ear-splitting screech. I made sure that my hood was over my head and ran as fast as my pitiful legs could carry me.

I was close. Too close. I could hear them laughing as they rummaged through her pockets and bags. When they were done, they'd surely try to find another to kill and/or rob, and wouldn't hesitate on killing someone as small as myself.

I gripped my hood tightly in my hands, feeling the cold wind bite like bugs. The wind ripped through my hair, yanking off my hood nevertheless like old, wrinkly hands grabbing for life as they fell into eternal darkness. My hair blew wildly behind me, my skin growing bumps. My feet echoed in the night, my heart was thumping relentlessly in my ears along with the sound of the blowing wind.

I bit my tongue to stop my urge to scream, running faster and faster and faster until I tripped and fell, letting a sticky, red liquid run into my eyes. I looked behind me, hearing their footsteps. You idiot! I scolded as I tried to yank my shoe from the crack in the ground. I hadn't thought to stop to hear their footsteps to see if they were even following me, and they probably wouldn't have if I had hidden instead on ran. The amount of jumping you have to do and the volume at which your footsteps ring through silence is very high. They probably heard me and decided I was trying to hide something valuable.

Well, I was. My life.

I finally flung my shoe from the small opening in the ground and tumbled backward. I got up and sprinted faster through the city, forgetting all about the puddle of blood I had left there.

"Hey! This way!" a voice called. I saw their shadows grow on the walls, provided by the moon's faint glow. I looked around in panic, almost letting myself scream. I had run through a building and came to a dead end, blocked by an overturned office building and stacked lampposts and trash. I hurriedly ran to a nearby... what used to be a tree and scurried all the way up to one of its last remaining healthy branches. The other branches had barely any leaves, but I was covered by the broken branches caught in the others and all the trash that somehow got up there. I grabbed the tree's trunk, letting it cut into my scarred hands. I backed into the darkness and peered down.