Corrupted: The Pain We Feel (Book 1)

Chapter 1: In a World Like This

I walk into the kitchen downstairs and get a glass of water since I couldn't go back to sleep after my nightmare, or technically memory I guess.

I'm drinking my glass of water when I hear a familiar voice from behind me, "Another nightmare?" I turn around to see my best friend.

"Hey Zoey. What are you doing up?" I ask, not wanting to bother her.

"I couldn't sleep, now talk!" she demands.

Zoey knows that I often have nightmares of when my parents were killed, they had been Corrupted. That's what we call people who have been turned from the virus, corrupted. What it does is it wipes all of their memories. All of the memories I made with my parents, gone...forever, and there's nothing I could do about it. It rips away all morals they ever had, tears away the very definition of mercy, kindness, generosity, everything that keeps the average citizen humane. It shreds and destroys everything that makes a person humane, until there's nothing left but an empty shell of a person who knows no mercy, no kindness, no generosity, no morals..nothing but a cruel inhumane monster that destroys every light that it sees, every good thing it the world, it steals that light and tears it to shreds. Nothing but a hostile, mindless monster with no recognition of the amazing, beautiful person the once were.

"I dreamt about the night my parents were killed again." I replied with a forlorn look on my face.

Zoey gives me a hug, knowing that there's not much else she can do other than just try to comfort me. Zoey's like a sister to me, she's been there for me through so much and I couldn't ask for a better friend..for a better sister. "If you ever need to talk, just, tell me ok...and if I'm sleeping just wake me up!" she exclaims, to which I simply laugh. "Who needs sleep anyway?!" she jokes as we both laugh and talk until we get tired and go back to sleep.

...*~*...

"Hey Tristen!" I greet my best friend as I walk towards my target with a 45 millimeter pistol.

"Hey Ella, did you see what I posted last night?" he laughs.

"The one where the guy says 'oh boy cheese!' and screeches when the trap snaps on him?" I laugh with him.

Tristen and I laugh and talk about the variety of memes that he has seen, honestly he's basically the Meme King!

We're both practicing shooting with our pistols when we hear a voice from beside me, "Did you guys here what happened?" our friend Evelyn asks with a hurt tone.

"No what happened?" Zoey replied for all of us, knowing that what we are about to here will be anything but good news. It never is, in a world like this when someone says 'Did you hear what happened' just automatically assume someone was killed by a Corrupted.

"A wave of Corrupted attacked at the lobby and we lost 10 people." she said sadly, we weren't a big group to begin with and losing that many people didn't help in any way. I knew it wasn't going to be good news but I didn't expect it to be that bad!

"What?! What's gonna happen next time a wave of corrupted comes?! The adults won't be able to fight them all off!" I exclaimed, putting my pistol to my side and turning to her. In a world like this, you have to stick together because you will always need someone to cover you. The #1 rule here is: Never go out alone. Cause anyone who goes outside by themselves, doesn't ever come back. Why? I'll let you figure that out.

"I don't know, we may end up having to help fight for a while." she says as she continues to shoot at her target.

"We wouldn't have to lose anyone else if we just go out there and find a cure instead of hiding in here." I sigh, turning back to my target and continue to shoot at it.

"We'll be fine, we can just yeet them all away like we always do!" Tristen says, lightening the mood like he always manages to do when things get bad as we all laugh. One thing Tristen is good at, is getting people to laugh, even in a world like this.

"Alright, time to switch to your shotguns!" we hear Mr. B yell and we all put our pistols away and get out out shotguns as the full body targets move closer.