Warped

Chapter 1

My name is Zalfine Hydon, and this is my story.

It just...happened. Before, everything was happy. I was watching television with my mom, Dira, in our apartment just like any other day. My dad, Torendo, was at work at Nucleus Energy co. next to the nuclear power plant. Mom got on our new holoPad(made affordable by our energy bill discounts) checking out the news on the mysterious sattelite that was floatting closer and closer to America. "Who would do that...,"she muttered. Then suddenly, the power went out. Everywhere. Mom and I froze in confusion and terror. Even the wireless holoPad had turned off...Then, Mom scooped me up and ran. Neither of us screamed, though most of the other people did. When Mom got to the door, we watched in terror as, after only a few people got out, the power plant exploded and Dad's work building collapsed, Twin Towers style. That was when Mom screamed. Her scream sounded vaguely like the name "Torrendo." Then she stopped and her eyes opened wide with psycotic hope. "He worked on a lower level!!" She yelled hopefully, then repeated into the faces of scared and confused strangers hysterically. "That was weird," I thought. How did I know what psycotic meant?

That night, we waited. Mom just sat down on the curb, plopped me down next to her, and we waited. I felt blank. Empty. I couldn't feel myself. "This isn't happening," I thought to myself over and over,"It's only a bad dream." Neither Mom or me talked. Mom would smile hopefully when someone passed with Dad's hairdo, body structure, or face. "Structure." I repeated to myself slowly. I'd never heard that word before. How did I know what it meant?

We didn't eat that night. I don't know if Mom slept, but I passed out against her shoulder almost immediately after the moon rose. Immediately...another word I knew but didn't know. I dreamt about Shakespear and Romeo and Juliet, all of whom I'd never heard of. When I woke up, I cried. You don't dream in dreams. Then Mom cried, too. Everyone was inside somewhere. Dad wasn't coming out. I cried harder and so did Mom. After Mom was cried out and I was almost asleep again, we left. Mom just picked me up and walked. She stopped at the grocery store and took some food. No one was there. After we grabbed all the food and clothes we could carry, Mom threw her wallet down on one of the check-out isles and we left. We walked all day and into the night, then set up the tent and laid out the sleeping bags we had taken, slept, and repeated. We did this for several more days, never talking. One day we met the pregnant Yenellda Toma, her husband Bex, and their son, Kindle. Kindle was my age (10), but we both just kind of stared at the ground akwardly while Yenellda and Mom hit it off. Due to our shared Chrstianity they quickly and agreeably decided that we might not meet other people for a while and would have strength in numbers. "Where's your dad?" Asked Kindle curiously, breaking our silence. "He die--," "Disappeared," interjected Mom quickly, "When the power went out." She added, glaring at me with slightly crazed finality. "Oh," I replied, emberassed "okay." We've been with the Tomas ever since.

For a while, life was easy. Well, as easy as it could get. More and more people started lifestyles like ours. We traded things others needed more for things we needed more. We didn't ever join up with any more people, but it didn't last long. Soon we had to resort to looting grocery stores because there were so few people we came across. Living people any way. At least three quarters of the people we saw, Kindle and I didn't get to see, due to the..."condition" the bodies were in. At night I would hear Yenellda and my mom wonder why the body we had run across that day had had such deep bite wounds, why it had fur or scales, or why it had a tail or extra...something. Bex wuld usualy cut in with the same answer. Radiation. This oddly. Made sense to me. I somehow knew without learning that the radiaton was from all the failed nuclar power plants. While there had been people to trade with, we had learned that many other (and most likely all other) nuclear power plants across America had failed. We had only run across a few animals, all of which had been effected by radiation.

We had finally gotten the hang of things again when Bex started having nightmares. He would toss and turn and then wake up and say "We have to move." For a while we did, but one day Yenellda tried to reason with him because we were on some particularly soft grass. "Why?" She asked "It's...hard to explain," replied Bex softly,"I just feel like something will go wrong...I'm not exactly sure what though..." he trailed off, furrowing his eyebrows and seeming frustrated with himself."Honey, come on...do you expect to be able to tell the future? We're all just a little stressed about each other's safety. I'm sure it's nothing." "Maybe your right..." replied Bex, obviously hoping so. Then we all went to sleep for about an hour before we heard it. The most...revolting...terrible...otherwise indescribable screech. Then another. And another. Pretty soon there must have been fifteen creatures screeching in unison outside our tent. "No!" Screamed Bex, suddenly awaking from his nightmare to enter everyone else's "Bex," said Yenellda firmly "what should we do?"

"Run!" replied Bex.

And so we ran.