A Future To Die For || Nano 13

26

It's kind of funny, how fast tragedy can strike and how your life can go from relatively okay to horrible.

I had so much to say, but I never got to say them. Now, she’s gone, and there is nothing I can do to avoid that fact.

It has affected everyone, Kylie’s death. They don’t say it, but I know they blame me. How couldn’t they? I was there when she died. We were hand in hand, walking down the middle of the alley, too blinded by our conversation, playful and pointless, to understand that we were being stupid.

“I miss this,” she had whispered, her vocals caressed by a gentle carefree laugh.

I swung our arms between the space between us and tightened my grip on her hand. She squeezed back. “Missed what?”

She had seemed to ponder over the answer. “Exemption,” she said it like the word itself was a treat, gliding the tip of her tongue over the top of her teeth like you would suck the last strip of icing off of your fork. "The feeling of exemption."

“Exemption,” I imitiated, ”From what exactly?”

“Reality,” there was no pause behind her words. There was no need for her to think. “Back in the day, I never had to face reality. I was a rich girl living in a perfect world. Who has to face reality when they can buy their way through it?" It was a rehorical question, but I felt the need to answer. Not that she gave me the time to.

"All we do now, is think and face reality. We don't take breaks."

"We can't take breaks," I exclaimed, emphasizing the word 'can't'. "If we took a break, we'll die."

She chortled, "We just did, Drew. We took a break from everything. Got away, had some fun even after a shit ton of stuff just happened."

"The reality that, someday, this will ancient history.”

"Who's ancient history?" I frowned, "Yours? Mine?" Kylie shook her head, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Everybody's. Someday, this will all be over. This situation will just be another traumatic example of what not to do. Like everything else traumatic the past." 

"If anyone survives," I shot back, suddenly angered. She didn't reply, just hung her head and kept walking. 

That was the end of our conversation. She whispered something about having to go, even though I knew she didn't I let her go anyway. She went one way, and I went the other. I had barely walked five minutes when I heard the scream.

I didn't need an explanation on who it was or where exactly it was coming from. I spun around and bolted.

I never found her. There was no evidence that anything happened to her, not that I needed any. The truth was right in front of my face.

When I returned to our shelter, everyone else was there. They were on me in seconds, demanding to know what took me so long and if I was okay. The topic of Kylie came after they finished stressing over my existence. I brushed over the facts qs fast as I could,  refusing to look them in the eye.

Two days later, Blake said he ran into a man. Before he had a chance to blow his head off with his pistol,  he had raised his left hand, open palmed, to flash a piece sign, I inked to his skin with a ball point pen.

He had taken Blake to a secluded corner,  and told him everything he knew. First about the damage of the courtyard. It's a battleground of blood and bodies, no longed pleasant. I can only imagine. 

He said that the hunters had planned an attack. They had fully abandoned their home behind the wall of vehicles ans now roamed. They have stopped caring about feasting and seemed to hoard the bodies in the camp, leaving the ones too mangled to do anything with.

It alk assumptions. Rumors more then one or two people caught wind of. The hunters roamed everywhere now. If we had to be quiet before, we have to be silent at worst now.

Blake decided that we only leave the shelter at night now. There are more animal noises at night, mostly insect and owls. It was enough to help cover our tracks.

Blake also decided how we were going to start rationing our food, based on who does the most work that day.

Work a ton, eat a ton. Don't work at all, you don't eat at all.

I'll let you know, I'm not exactly fat these days.

I let Blake make a majority of the decisions too. I've given up, they all know that. In a way, everyone else has given up too. Our living situation isn't getting better, that much is obvious.

We have heard talk of this big cure, created in Los Angeles. The problem is, LA is LA. LA is not Canada or anywhere near. The cure could never have felt so far away.

Maybe, Kylie was right. Maybe there is a cure. If Kylie’s right, then I must be right too. It won't heal everyone and it won't fix everything. My life will still be in shambles. The cure won't reach this area any time soon and if it does, I won't be the first person on their list to save. Deep down, I believe that Kylie knew that. She was just too positive of a person to admit her fate.

"You need to get out of here," a voice whispered from the doorway. My eyes fell hastily to my feet.

"It's not safe," I replied, my voice course from lack of use.

Cole sighed, "You'll be fine," he paused and then left, leaving me to decide what to do on my own. He'd popped in a couple times, the only person who seemed to want to help me get better.

For once, I decided to take his offer. My legs were cramping from lack of movement. I stood up slowly, using the wall to stabilize myself before walking into the main room. 

"Finally leaving?" Blake sneered after he caught sight of me. I didn't respond, just walking straight for the door, which they still had baracadded off. I moved the sofa out of the way and I felt something cold press against my side. 

I froze and a voice breathed, "You'd be dead by now," Nate pressed the knife handle into my hand. Then he slunk away, nothing but a quiet, "Bye, Drew." ringing in my ears as I pushed my way through the doorway into the night air. 

I slunk around through the shadows, instincts surfacing once again. I didn't head anywhere specific, and I didn't run into anything. The hunters where nowhere to be seen.

In a way, I was itching to kill something. It won't make a difference in the long run, but it might just make me feel better.

So I went hunting, much like the hunters themself. It's a game of cat and mouse only,  for once, I was the cat.

It took me a goos five minutes to detect a hunter. They were crouched down in the middle of a street, their back facing me and a body stretched in the ground before them.

It's time to avenge for Kylie's death. I sprung forward and the hunter detected my footsteps, attention shifting away from the body and towards me  they grabbed their weapon from beside them but they were to slow. I tackled the hunter as they screamed, high pitched and girly. My vision clouded over in anger, the scream sounded a lot like the one I heard before Kylie disapeared.

I drilled my knife through their back and the body fell limp. I sat on my haunches, breathing heavy from both anger and exhaustion.

I detected movement in front of me and I looked down at the body. The person, a small little boy, was shaking in fright, tears drenching his face.

Why was he crying, I just saved him from a hunter. I reached forward in hopes of being reassuring.

"Monster," he whimpered. I froze as he tried scrambling away from me. He kept whispering that word over and over.

"Monster, Monster, Monster," I backed away from the body. The tattered old clothes, not stained with dark blood. The cardboard box she was laying on.

I didn't kill a hunter.

I killed a person.

I gave one last look at the littlw boy, still whispering incoherent words as he looked longingly to who was probably his mother.

So I ran.