Apocalypse (Original)

Chapter One

A.J.'s P.O.V.

After a long day at school, my friends and I are finally able to sit down at our local park. The hot sun blazes down on my body causing sweat to fall down my forehead. With our backpacks discarded to the side, we begin talking amongst ourselves. After an hour of random chatting, we get onto the topic of school and apparently it's a touchy subject for some.

"Why the fuck are we in school again?! It's just stupid stuff that won't help us in our adult lives!" Julia complains, passion flooding her voice

A bad feeling rises in my stomach and I carefully scan my surroundings, but I try doing it discreetly so I won't scare my friends if it's nothing. A few minutes of looking around turns up nothing and at the sound of my name, I force myself to tune back into the conversation.

"Huh?" I ask, chewing my lip at the feeling I had.

"I asked if you were alright?" Sierra restated, her concern evident in her eyes.

"Can we leave? I have a bad feeling right now." I speak as calmly as I can, standing up to grab my bag.

The group exchanges glances but ultimately agree and follow my movements to grab their stuff.

We begin walking to something known as CP (cement playground) with teenagers in our area. It's an old abandoned quarry surrounded by thick foliage with cement structures covered in graffiti, hence the name Cement Playground. Nobody goes near the quarry, we just hang out by the structures about a mile and a half away from the actual quarry.

Houses along the way look a bit askew but school just let out for the day and we're not far from summer vacation so I write it off pretty quickly.

We're about halfway there when a noise startles me and I quickly look to some large hedges that line someone's yard where the sound came from.

"Hey! Why'd we stop?" Johnny inquires to me and I look back.

Apparently, we all stopped and Carter was looking in the same place I just was.

"You guys didn't hear that?" Carter asks, I hear an unmistakable waiver in his voice

"No...?" Johnny responds, I see his eyebrows raise.

Carter shakes his head as if trying to clear a thought and I just shrug.

"N-nothing...nevermind..." Carter whispers and starts walking forward.

Everyone else looks at me for an explanation, I shrug once again and we start walking in the direction of CP.

"Hey...uhh guys?" Sierra manages to choke out, we've only moved like fifty or so feet from where we last stopped.

Jules chimes in quickly, "The...hell?"

I follow the girls' gaze, taking note of the panic in their eyes. A car sits in the driveway of a large gray house, the driver and passenger door is wide open. Grocery bags lay in the driveway too, cans and packages of food from the store spilt out of the bag. I look further down the street, other houses have front doors and windows wide open. It's hot out, but this is strange that everyone has done the same thing.

"Something is going on..." I mumble barely audibly, I turn to look at my friends.

"I say we go to my house instead of CP, it's the closest house of ours near here and we need to figure out what the fuck is going on." Sierra speaks confidently, but we're all best friends and I know Sierra like the back of my hand. She's more anxious then she lets on, I think internally we all are.

Johnny, Dustin, Jules, Carter, and I exchange looks quickly.

"Sure, why not? If you have a tv or radio, we can try to figure out what's up!" Carter says, him and Sierra look at one another.

Sierra nods and I see a slight blush rise on her cheeks, she quickly walks ahead.

The boys and Jules follow Sierra quickly, but I look back to the initial house we saw and where we stopped because of that noise.

"You okay? What are you doing?" Jules' voice rings out from behind me and I spin around to look at her.

"I just want to see what that noise is..." I say, slightly irritated that I'm not alone like I thought I would.

I slowly walk back to those hedges and I stand there thinking, Jules follows me with no hesitation.

Jules whisper-yells as I walk, "AJ, we need to keep up with the others and figure out what's happening. I don't want you- errr...us- to get hurt!"

I just roll my eyes and turn to look at her once I've stopped at the greenery.

I open my mouth to speak but another voice from behind me cuts me off, "Yeah AJ, y'all don't wanna get hurt do you?"

That...voice and the mocking tone....I blush slightly but I quickly compose myself by taking a deep breath to face her...

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Thank you guys for taking the time to read our book! AJ and I worked super hard on this for you guys! We hope you love it! :D

~Sara