Ruins and Overgrowth

Prologue

Who was the idiot who posted a picture of me on Facebook?

Why is my hair standing up?

What was my password in Wattpad again?

How come my crush is two-dimensional?

Where is my school bus?

...such thoughts will never enter my mind again. There's only one question I'll ever ask myself now.

When will it end?

As I walked through a road filled with broken cars and bodies, my legs felt heavy. How long have I been walking? How long before I end up like everyone else on the road? 

The scorching afternoon sun was killing me slowly as I fell to my knees. I couldn't get up anymore. The only thing I could see was that old Korean BBQ place that I never visited. As my legs ached more and more, I finally lost my strength.

My body fell onto the hot asphalt, I turned myself around to look up at the sky. Not an easy thing to do because of the bright sun. Ah, was I going to die here like this? On the road along with everyone else who's dead on the ground? I sighed. How did this day even turn out like this?! 

Oh.

I remember now.

April 28, 2241.

My morning in the post-apocalyptic world started with the shouts of my mother. 

Sitting up on my bed, I felt petrified as I heard the horrified sounds coming from outside the door. My hands shaking, I grabbed one of the PVC pipes that we used to block the sliding windows from opening and held it with two hands as I stood up from the bed.

The first thing that registered into my mind as I left my room was the smell of gasoline. The next thing after that was the sight of my mother being stabbed repeatedly by my father.

"Papa? Mama?" I asked as I felt my fingers loose their grip on the pipe I held. "What are you doing...?"

My father looked at me with a wide grin on his face. "Well, you see... we're all going to be happy." He held out a lighter as he continued stabbing my mother. "Your mother didn't agree with me when I told her that we were leaving so---"

"Live on." 

That's what I always remember my mom saying. My father on the other hand, always believed that we were doomed, and that there was no point in living. I'm guessing the two of them had a fight during the night and my dad probably wanted to settle it now.

Well, unluckily for him, I was on my mom's side.

"STOP IT!" I shouted as I ran towards him and swung my pipe. My dad had a surprised look on his face as the pipe hit the back of his head, right above his nape. As he crumpled onto the floor limply, I looked at the scene around me. Gasoline. Lighter. Dead mom. Unconscious father. 

If my dad ever wakes up, he would light the house on fire and burn it down completely. To prevent that, I'd either have to take the lighter away from him or kill him. Yet the lighter was underneath him, being sandwiched by him and my mother's body. 

Without a thinking twice, I ran out the house. 

If I try to gather stuff, my dad would probably wake up at any time and trap me in the burning house. If I try to get it from him, he would probably kill me too. Killing him was out of the question, since he was still my father.

I didn't look back at the house even after hearing the crackling of flames. I ran away from it until I reached the runway and got tired. 

Ah yes, that was just this morning. Which means it took me around four hours to walk from my house to where I am now. Sigh, traffic is a hindrance, even if they're not even moving. What am I going to do now? Wait for the sun to fry me alive? My legs felt like they were made of stone; I couldn't even move an inch. 

"Never give in to the world and live!"

Another of my mom's quotes entered into my mind. I sighed and gave into the fact she was right, yet ironically dead. Nothing would become of me if I gave up looking like roadkill. 

I stood up from the pavement even though my legs were burning internally and walked on towards what looked like a small red grocery, probably an EasyMart. I used the PVC pipe as a third leg while walking as my knees felt weak.

"I'll live. I'll definitely live!" I shouted to nobody in particular and limped towards the EasyMart. Hopefully, it wasn't already ransacked completely.

When I arrived at the grocery, I saw all that I could want. Junk Food, bottled water, bathing products and cup noodles! Hell, there were moldy bread. Gross.

I sat down leaning on the wall while opening a bottle of water. I couldn't feel my legs anymore, I guess they finally got exhausted to the point of numbness. 

I sighed as I drank from the bottle. I didn't notice how parched I was until now. As I finished the last drop of water, I dropped the bottle and felt my consciousness fade.

...

...

...

"You alive?"

My eyes opened when I heard a voice. Looking around, I noticed I was no longer inside a convenience store, but rather some living room of sorts. I was lying down on a black couch that was more or less filled with air. Not comfortable, yet it was the first couch that I've sat on in two years.

"Huy pansinin mo ako." ["Hey, notice me."]

I looked to my side at the source of the Tagalog voice. A brown-haired girl looked down at me, her green eyes looking at me intently.

"Sino ka? Nasaan ako?" ["Who are you? Where am I?"] I asked the girl. The girl looked around the room we were in. "Hmm, welcome to Tarlac Montessori School." She said with smile.

Tarlac Montessori School? That was the school I attended before everything went crazy, but I don't remember this room at all. And I'm sure I don't remember who this girl was. The girl looked at me with a smile and said something that I was surprised to hear.

"And contrary to what you might be thinking, I'm a guy."