ALEX

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Day 1

It feels like something is poking me. The noise of warning bells ringing all around me. This is it...

It's happening right now. I'm going to die. They've found me, and I'm going to die.

There's another part of me who thinks whoever's doing this has forgotten I'm my father's daughter. I grab whatever's poking me, with my good arm, picking it up, and throwing it onto the ground. The rings grow louder. I can't take this anymore.

They've came to steal, but I have nothing left.

"Get out!" I let out a loud yell, but it comes across more like a cry for help.

I sit up, open my eyes, as my vision is still blurry and look around, whatever was poking me is no where in sight. I rub my side as I think of this.

Sitting for a second, I let my eyes adjust to my surroundings.

They're very similar surroundings.

As my eyes are just about balanced, I feel more down than I did before. I would have preferred waking up in a science lab, or in a van full of smugglers, but no.

The living room is the safest place in a house. So why am I so petrified?

After I stop asking myself questions I already know the answers to, I encourage myself to get up.

It feels like I've been sleeping for days, but I know it's only been a couple of hours.

After the incident, I found myself crawling up to my mother. I called out to my sister, when that didn't work I called out to my father, and when that didn't work I screamed. I ran to the next door neighbor, Mrs. Watters. She's a doctor, or nurse. I'm not sure, but mom told me she's really good at whatever it is that she does.

The first thing she said when I knocked was get lost. That her husband was in the military and would be back any moment now. I told her my name was Alex Westingale and she happily open the door.

With all my babbling and crying, and snot running down my nose, I'm surprised she caught any word of what I was telling her, but she did. I choked when she told me she couldn't help me, which I already knew why that was. Mom and Mrs. Watters were close friends, but not even she could help. "Friends for life" taken literal I guess. She recommended I bring my mother to the runned down hospital, and they'd put her in a safe place. Which was basically a morgue shelf of bodies of people who couldn't run fast enough to save their lives.

I wasn't going to do that to my mother. I wasn't going to treat her like an antique to symbolize how scarce these times were. But I knew I needed to put my mother somewhere. Somewhere pleasant.

Mrs. Watters told me I was strong. She told me I had to be because the next leading days to the rest of my life would be hell. But she said it with what she guessed was a reassuring smile.

As bad as it sounds. I wanted to get rid of my mother before she decayed. I didn't want to see her like that. I didn't know how long it would be before she did but I knew it would be soon. Mrs. Watters started to comfort me but I stopped listening to her after she told me she couldn't help me.

She poured me a glass of tap water and began speaking to me. Then, I remembered where mom and dad took my sister and I on my sister's 7th birthday, when times were pleasant. A field, not too far from where we were. We barbequed and attempted to fish at the lake near the field. I knew the lake would be full of waste by now, but nobody knew about that field but us.