They say the end of the world started in a military lab.
Some poor bastard who'd agreed to take part in one of those experiments-for-cash programs, signing his body and blood away, all the in the name of science, just so he could afford to buy food...
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The city was burning.
Plumes of thick, black smoke rose between skyscrapers, like huge thunderclouds ready to burst, darkening the skyline and turning day into dusk. An orange glow peeked over the top of nearby buildings, the crackle of flames telling me that it wouldn't be long before I saw the fire itself and felt its heat on my skin.
After Seamus had gone, I'd tried to appease Alice, soothe her, promise her anything I could to keep her here while I tried to work out what the Hell we should do. Out there – outside the bubble of our sanctuary – the streets were closing in on us, threatening to tear down the walls I'd created, threatening to burst our haven and suck out the air until I couldn't breathe. I was already suffocating. My throat burned. My chest felt tight. I needed to think straight, but the panic was crushing me.
In the end, Alice's hunger was the catalyst. She was becoming jittery and agitated, unable to keep still, particularly her fingers which now constantly twitched and twisted into bony claws. When she started grinding her teeth, lips peeling back from her gums in an alarming snarl, I knew we had to go.
Gathering our stuff together, I flung my backpack onto my shoulders and grabbed Alice's hand, pulling her close. She was pale again, eyes red-rimmed as if she'd been crying non-stop for hours.
'Everything's going to be okay,' I said, as I kissed her knuckles and brushed the hair back from her face. 'We'll get you something to eat and then we'll do what Seamus said. We'll go to the shelter or maybe find somewhere else, I promise you.'
'I'm hungry,' she said again. She'd said it so many times now, a robotic, monotone repetition, that it killed me a little more each time I heard it. I'd told her about the danger. I'd told her about the attacks, but the hunger was devouring everything. Tearing, chewing, swallowing it all down like it was nothing. Like braving streets full of biters was nothing.
'I know.' I squeezed out a smile and pressed my lips to her cheek. 'I know, and we're going now. It'll be fine, but look, whatever we do, we've got to do it quick. It's not safe out there, Alice, do you understand? I have to keep you safe.'
If she heard me, or understood any of what I'd said, I had no idea, but her brow wrinkled with that small little frown she often did, which I loved and hated in equal measure; loved because her pout was the sweetest thing and hated, because I wanted her to be happy – I wanted to make her happy. I needed to.
'Come on, it's time.'
Clutching her hand tight, I led her along the back of the building and down the side where I'd last seen Seamus, following the narrow path to the end of the walkway. The closer we got, the tighter I held onto her, not knowing what Hell we were about to walk into, not knowing how different the world would look from the one I remembered just a couple of days before. A dystopian-style Dante's Inferno maybe, dimly-recalled from high school English classes. Wrath and violence and a half-chewed pencil as I stared at Alice. Gluttony and greed and lust and just Alice, Alice, Alice as she stood behind her desk, reading aloud to the class, the pages of her textbook lightly trembling in her hands. It seemed fitting now, when the city was burning, that she would still be at the epicentre of the storm, because she always had been. Before and after. Then and now.
