War Technicalities [UNDER REVISION]

Chapter 2: Kidnapped [R]

San Francisco was in ruins. Stores, homes, and streets were overgrown with plant life; parks have become forests and gardens have overtaken their own beds. It has been eight years since the sound of shattering glass and enraged screams began to drown out the bustling city's honks and chatter. Now, San Francisco sat in deafening silence. There were no dogs to bark incessantly, or birds to taunt cats with their chirps. Life seemed to avoid the city as if it was a stain on the landscape. Vines have turned the sidewalks green and hidden the damage from the earthquake. It was eye-opening how quickly nature filled the hole which humans left. When seen from the skies, skulls and bones polka-dotted the ground in revolting grey smudges. Some skeletons laid on the sidewalk, where the person gave their last bloody sneeze, and some were split between the inside and outside of shopping carts. Some bones were inside of wrecked cars and still sitting behind the driver's seat. It was normal to find more than one skeleton in a car; the Simian Flu had spread so fast and had done so mercilessly. There were small bones, strong bones, tall bones, and brittle bones.

Windows were a thing of the past – homes and stores have long-since been broken into and looted. In place of the cakes, dresses, and books which once colored the windows, the walls and pillars were decorated in graffiti. If the paintings were once impressive, it is impossible to tell now.

"Ape-ocolypse Now!" Was sprayed on many walls, labelling the apocalypse with a cute little nickname. Nothing like the end of the world to bring the dad jokes out of everyone. Ape heads were drawn un-artistically onto the bodies of monsters, and scientists were painted to dance like monkeys. Now withered and faded, there was one symbol that was painted all over the city: a sloppy circle with four uneven lines to form a diamond in its centre. They were painted with unskilled hands, but after eight years, the symbols survived – they survived better than the humans did. Even before death swept the city, there were only four people who truly understood what the symbol meant.

Haley Hunsiker was one of them, and it meant home.

At the edge of the city, an empty apartment building seemed surprisingly untouched. Two windows were broken, but looters must have quickly moved on when they found the rooms unfurnished and dark. The interior of the building matched the abandoned city outside. There were walls that were left unfinished, with only wood studs in their place. The restrooms were ready to be piped, but they were left with three pointless holes in the floor. Only the roof, which laid flat on top of three stories, looked complete and alive. 

The concrete was cracked and mossy from age, but it looked swept and unvandalised. There was no reason to loot a roof – there won't be food, furniture, technology, money, or clothes – so it was safe, and so, Haley made it her home six years ago. Four brooms stood, pinched upright with broken cinder blocks, and they held up a thick yellow blanket. The blanket roofed a broken outdoor wicker, and its plastic leg was replaced by a stepping stool. The chair was indiscernible beneath a pile of duvets and pillows, which spilled onto the floor and was bundled to form a makeshift mattress. The fabric was torn, covered in patches of dirt, and tearing at the seams, but it was warm. And it was snuggly wrapped around Haley's legs as she draped herself across the wicker.

Haley has grown in a lot of ways in the past eight years, but also hasn't in others. Haley used to be a sickly child – she practically lived in the hospital, and she didn't have the energy to walk when she didn't – but other than one case of the sniffles, she hasn't been sick in years. The dark shadows beneath her eyes have faded, along with their childish wonder. Her gaze has become heavy, and its colour has aged into a rusty dark brown. Currently clutched around a book, her fingers were long and stocky, and the skin was chipped from many splinters and cuts. Her feet, too, have become scarred and rubbery from over-use. They were wide and their soles were dark, and her toes have grown strangely far apart from years of balancing on branches. Or, perhaps, her family has always had toes that were far apart; she never really paid attention.