Reluctant Heroes

|One|

I opened my eyes to be greeted by my clouded room. The walls were painted light blue, but the paint had long since started peeling off mostly by my doing. The room was old and dusty, no matter how many times I dusted it and attempted to clean it, not to mention the whole house is nearly like this, the house creaks and groans so much one of these days I believe a bad storm will hit and just blow it down.

Wouldn't be to bad either.

See, the year is 2078, and the world has fallen into terrible scenarios. Crimes usually happen 24/7, there aren't enough people who want to be cops, so now there are hardly enough. Of course, in our town it's worse. It's like a dystopian here. People ditch school a lot, hardly anyone wants to go anymore, and could you blame them? It's way to hard to get a job anymore, I'm one of the people who dropped out, I couldn't take it anymore. The stress was way to much to deal with, especially when more than half of us would just end up on the streets anyways.

I stared up at the fading grey ceiling, it was an unusually silent morning. Normally there was always noise...Cars, music, yelling, tons of noise. But this time there was nothing.

Nothing.

I stood up and walked to my window, I shrieked at the sight. People everywhere, dead. Their crippled and lifeless bodies littered the street, cars still in drive there with drivers dead. No blood, no evidence. Nothing!

A knock sounded at my door, I was only in my black shorts and my old purple T-Shirt, my hair thrown up into a messy ponytail. I silently walked down the stairs and stood in front of the door, the knocking hadn't stopped, I reached out for the knob but hesitated wondering if I could let whoever it was in.

"Ana! It's Krista! OPEN UP!" My best friend Krista cried, pounding on the door with both her fists, clearly frantic, "PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD TOO!" She cried, I could hear her strangled sobs as her banging got louder and louder, it drummed in my ears.

'Open the door. Why can't I move? Why can't I open the door...It's only Krista.'  I thought to myself, I stared with wide eyes at my hand, only inches from the door knob, I was literally shaking from head to toe, I felt like running away...But from what?

"PLEASE! OPEN UP! HE'S COMING! HU-RRY! PLEASE ANA!" She shrieked, sounding desperate.

'He's coming? Who's he?' I thought, I dropped to the ground, faking my death as Krista shrieked on the other side of the door. Everything fell silent. Her pounding stopped. I heard the lock to my door click open, and heavy boots walk inside, whoever it was stopped right in front of me. All I could hear was his heavy breathing before he turned around and left. I jumped up and ran up the steps, grabbing my old bookbag and stuffing two changes of clothes into it after changing into a black sweater, some old blue jeans, and sneakers. I ran back downstairs and threw five water bottles into the backpack along with several granola bars, and a sandwich. I slid it onto my back and ran to the door swinging it open and suddenly it all rushed back over me. Krista was laying there, dead.

And it's my fault.

'If I would have let her in...No, then we both would have been gonners.' I thought, my sad look replaced with a determined one. I looked down at my best friend's crippled and lifeless body.

"Don't worry Krista. I'll figure this out. I promise you didn't die in vain!" I whispered, trying to stop myself from crying but to no avail. My tears slipped down my face and dropped to the pavement below me. As soon as the first one hit the floor I jumped over Krista's dead body and ran straight into the woods. Running into town would have been stupid, seeing as he's there looking for others. But are there more?

I heard voices and gasped, flinging myself behind a tree and falling against it, hugging my knees to my chest as I listened in on their conversation.