A New Virus

Ch: 8 (old)

I missed the branch and landed on the ground. Why now? I asked myself. Why do I mess up now? I jumped up again, this time grabbing hold of the branch and started to pull myself up. I felt a jerk from one of my legs as if something jumped up and grabbed me then let go. I felt it again but this time, the grip didn't let go of me. I looked down and saw that the swift was holding onto my ankle, slowly pulling itself up. Could Swifts do that? I asked myself because I haven't seen a swift or any zombie jump up to attack someone. Swift's can jump over small obstacles while running but the jump from the ground to the tree isn't a small jump. A swift would haft to have enough momentum to accomplish that yet it somehow managed to do it on the second try with no momentum whatsoever.

I let out a scream as I try to kick the zombie to make it lose it's a grip on my leg. The zombie wouldn't budge, so I tried to swing my self from the tree. I managed to swing the zombie off of me but not before I felt it's nailed bite into my skin. I quickly climbed the rest of the way into the tree. I didn't stop climbing until there was nowhere else for me to climb to.

I turned to look back at the scene at hand. Sarah managed to kill the normal zombie, and Laura was still working on the other swift. Sarah then went to help Laura deal with the other swift. While the swift that I knocked down from the tree is trying to climb up the tree. I watched at his bright red eyes stared straight into mine. It looked creepy, I wanted to stare away but they captivated my attention. I managed to break away from its stare only after I felt the pain from my injuries. I looked down at my leg, my knee was scraped which was probably why the zombie came straight for me, and there was now a deep, long, scratch on my ankle from where the zombie had scratched me with its nails. "Help!" I yelled as a branch started to snap from below me. I looked down at the zombie once more to find that it was still on the ground but it had part of a broken branch in its arms. The zombie then started to shake at the tree and the branch I was one started to crack and snap until the branch came to lose of the tree and I started to fall down to the ground. I screamed just before I fell to the ground.

I ended up landing on my back, which knocked the air completely out of me. I felt no desire to get back up and try to run or fend off the swift, after all, I did just fall I don't know how high out of a tree. I watched as the swift stood in front of me, drooling, it's saliva fell down from its mouth and into the cuts on my legs. I probably have a bunch of cuts on my legs from that fall, I only know that it fell onto a cut because of the slight pain that followed. I watched as a blade came through the swift's neck before the swift suddenly fell to the ground. I tried to sit up but when pain ran through my body, I didn't try anymore to sit up, I just laid down and closed my eyes.

"No, no, no!" I heard someone yell, I was too tired to make out the voice. I just let myself drift off.

~Sarah's POV~

I watched as I cut the swift's head off, the head rolled onto the ground, far away from the body that fell off to the side, away from Anya. Yet, there was blood splatter, as there always is. The swift's blood splattered onto Anya, who now that I realized it, has small cuts all over her arms and legs.

"No, this can't be happening," I told myself. "No, no, no!" I yelled into the sky, which thundered as if to answer me. The rain washed away the tears that were starting to fill in my eyes. "No," I whispered.

"She'll be fine," Laura tells me. I watched as she takes one of her daggers and places it in my hand. "You can help her."

"No, I can't," I told her.

"You have the Heartfire virus." She tells me. "Just give it to her."

"I can't, for two different reasons," I told her. "1) my stronghold never figgered out how to transmit the virus and 2) she can't have the virus."

"As in her parents don't want her to have it?" She asks me. "Because now it's whether she lives or dies if she gets or doesn't get it."

"No, I mean. She physically can't." I told Laura. "Her system wipes it out as soon as she gets it."

"Does her system wipe out the zombie virus?" Laura asks me. "Because if it does."

"I don't know," I told Laura.

"When was the last time you tried to give her the Heartfire virus?" Laura asked me.

I told Laura about what happened when Anya was 6, about how a zombie got into the stronghold. About Anya having a twin, Emma, and how Emma got infected with the zombie virus and turned into a zombie. About how her parents knew that she was turned into a zombie but didn't mind it as they thought that both children had inherited the Heartfire virus from them.

"But they didn't. Didn't they?" Laura asked.

"Sadly, no," I told her. "After that, every child that had parents with the Heartfire virus were checked to see if they also had it.-"

"What happened here?" I heard a voice frantically ask. I turned around to see Isabella running over to us from the direction of the palisade wall. As she came up beside us, she knees down to look over Anya. She then looks around and her eyes stop at the swift that I had killed. "Let's get her inside."

"About that." I started but stopped once she picked up Anya. I resumed once she looked at me, daring me not to say what she probably thinks has happened.

Once inside the palisade, I followed as Isabella took Anya to the medical building.