"The world ended with a bright white flash. Everything fell silent, no engines, no singing birds and no muttering. Then, the screams erupted."
It has been years since the earth burned to ashes and humanity fled into the last place inhabitable: The S...
You will always carry round the guilt of having done something terrible.
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The darkness around me was impenetrable. Even though my eyes were closed, I could feel that something was going on. My mind awoke in very short bursts, making me feel like I was experiencing unknown or forgotten memories. The first time I nearly woke up, something was put over my mouth. A mask made out of plastic was pumping sweet pure oxygen into my chest. Regular beeping sounded from somewhere to my right and when I tried to open my eyes, it was hard, so hard that I only managed to open up a small slit. A white sterile room greeted me. Fortunately, it wasn't the same that dark woman had shown me. This was a hospital room, a heart monitor sat next to me on a small shelf. When I shifted around a little, I caught the glimpse of a sleeping Kenny sitting on a chair next to my bed. Then I blacked out again.
I awoke once again to the same room, nothing had changed. Or so I thought. Kenny had left and someone, maybe he or Mariana, had put a box of chocolate on the shelf. A small smirk stole its way up to my face when I saw it. But when I tried to move and grab it, the currents of sleep ripped me away again.
The last time I woke up was completely different. There was no hospital room, no heart monitor and no mask on my face. The floor beneath me was hard and uncomfortable, the cold of metal seeped through my clothes. My view was blocked by the iron interior of a fortified rail cart, but I still knew that something horrible was going on out there. I heard a blood-curling scream which got harshly interrupted after the cruel sound of flesh being torn and bones getting broken. A salve of gunfire unloaded right next to me, where, when I looked up, my mentor stood with a machine gun, firing at something I couldn't see. Vulture was there too, sitting in a small seat operating the engine. Kenny seemed to have hit something because a jarring cry echoed off the concrete walls gliding past us. And whatever had yelled in agony, it had definitely not been human.
"Clem? Hey sweetie, are you awake?" My mind awoke once again from the void. Instantly, the dry feeling of my tongue made me gag and cough. I curled up and spat out multiple times, getting rid of some of the horrible taste. A strong hand patted my back as I did. The edges of my eyes were crusted with stale tears and I had to force myself to open them entirely. The scene that got revealed to me was cozy, a small campfire set up next to the rusty rails in a surveillance tunnel. Trails of smoke curled up in the dim light and disappeared towards the concrete above our heads.
"Kenny, I think she's waking up," I heard a well-known voice call out next to me. When the blurriness before my my eyes disappeared, I could make out vulture's dark outline getting highlighted by the sizzling flames behind his back. The plastic visor of his helmet was opened, I saw it glistening above his head. But I didn't get the chance to see his face as the fire threw a big shadow onto it until the man realized that he wasn't covered up.
I saw him flinch as the fact hit him like an out-of-control train and his hands instantly grabbed the synthetic material and pulled it down. Once again, his identity was shrouded by the used dark mask. It was always a mystery to me, why he didn't want to show me his face, the person who was hiding beneath a thick coat of mystery, fear and protective gear. Was it sliced up so bad that he was ashamed of his appearance? Or was he simply afraid to be recognized as someone else, as someone who had done something horrible?
