An instinct to survive

Prologue

(Read the stories discription to get a better idea of the setting😊)

"I remember my childhood quite clearly.

Every morning at age four, my mother would tie my long brown hair into two symmetrical plaits with baby blue bows at the ends.
She would dress me in blue and lavender coloured floral dresses with nice tidy shoes.

She did this until I was old enough to decide what I wanted to wear, which was about five.

At age seven, I expanded my options more and wore more shorts and dirty T-shirts still sticking to my mother's lavenda and baby blue colour code.

At age eleven, people started to prepare for 'The End Of The World' though my family never believed such nonsense, we still prepared like everyone else.

Like my farther always said. 'better to be safe, than sorry.'

It was when I was thirteen that first news of the plague was released which sent a wave of panic over the whole country.

I remember the look on my mother and fathers face, a look I had never seen before, and a look I could never forget."

**********

"Kiara, come on!" My dad's voice ordered cutting my train of  thought.

I nodded and hopped into the dusty red pickup truck.

"Mum! Lilly! Hurry up!" I called out the window of the passenger seat.

Dad slammed the door shut stoping time for a split second.

"They're not coming with us." his voice was flat and commanding, as if he had rehearsed it a million times before.

Fear, worry, confusion, anxiety, anger, sweaty armpits?

A surge of mixed emotions corsed through my veins causing me to hold onto the door for balance.

I started to feel dizzy, my vision went blurry and blotches of colour appeared in my sight.

I started to hyperventilate, swirling thoughts of the worst possible outcome of this clouded my mind.

I was having a panic attack.

I started mumbling under my breath to dad but he started the engine and I couldn't stop him.

I wanted to scream at him to stop the car so I could say goodbye, but it was to late. The many crates of fresh water toppled to the back of the car as we backed out of the driveway and drove South down towards our familys cabbin in the mountains.

I steadied my breathing and my vision came back.

Tears. I remember the warmth they gave me as they trickled down my cheeks and formed pools on my lap.

"Its gonna be alright K, it always is, isn't it?" He rubbed my shoulder not taking his eyes off the road.

**********

"They called it a plague, but I reckon it was just global warming and all the chemicals from factories that really made the earth die.

The seasons stopped and it was an endless summer, though it did rain a lot it was hot rain, nearly acid.

People started to change as well in the rain, they would become more agressive and physically larger as well as the animals.

People would become very sick and eventually die, depending on the person and how long they were exposed to the rain.

They gained external changes as well, besides the largness they also grew wart-like bumps in there arms and backs, they would also drool and grunt as if they were zombies.

But it wasn't only the rain that caused this and not only animals and humans that could be affected plants started to die as well.

Sometimes people would just wake up in the night infected and there was nothing you could do.

They were the infected, and they reminded me of the movie 'World War Z'.

The night's are more dangours because that's when they come out the most."

**********

"The Mountains, that's where my father took me.

They are colder here but the temperature is still warm compared to what it would of been like five years ago.

We didn't see anyone else up here beside each other.

A couple of years past and we ran out of food so father said he would go down and come back, maybe a days treck.

I made him promise he would comeback.

He didn't keep his promise.

and here I am today, still waiting on his return.

Pathetic isn't it? I've stayed here for three years and he still hasn't comeback.

My brain tells me he died, maybe from the rain, maybe from the animals or maybe from other survivours.

But my heart tells me he's still out there, struggling but surviving on instinct, hanging on to what little life he has left, crawling his way back to the little girl he left in the mountains, alone..."