Killing Softly ✞ (gxg)

1 | plucked

Sheer blonde hair, as light as the rays of sun casting down and illuminating each of its strands, cascaded down towards the earth, its tips brushing the golden wildflowers and green blades of grass.

Nimble fingertips, as pale as the streaks of white found in some of the wildflowers' petals, stroked the green, jagged leaves that stuck out from the stems of the flowers like tiny arms. The fingertips brushed across the stems of every flower standing amongst the tall grass that swayed softly in the wind, waiting to find the stem of a worthy bundle of petals.

The fingertips finally did, pausing on the stem of a particularly tall and healthy wildflower, its petals fresh and as bright as the glowing sun feeding it from above. The fingertips gently took hold of the stem and pulled it upwards, plucking the flower from the soil.

The flower was raised up and pressed softly against a small nose, grazing against a pair of pink lips that turned upwards at the sweet, natural scent.

Strands of hair flew to the side and tangled with the petals at the picking up of the cooler breeze. The tall trees encircling the small clearing of the meadow that the girl had found in the middle of the forest swayed in the wind, goosebumps rising on the girl's bare arms. Evening was coming, the sun dangerously close to setting in the sky.

She knew it wasn't safe to be in the woods alone, even if she carried her silver dagger with her. If she was to stumble upon danger, or if danger was to stumble upon her, it was no use how fast she could pull the knife from its leather sheath and execute a stabbing motion. They were always going to be faster.

She stood up from her crouched position and adjusted her oversized, forest green t-shirt that she had worn purposefully to blend in with the woods, pulling up her mother's handed down jeans that were growing too loose on her thinning hips. Twirling the wildflower between her fingers, she made her way through the overgrown meadow littered with sunshine-golden flowers, savoring the look of the beautiful space one last time before disappearing back into the thick woods so she could make her way back to camp.

On her way back to camp, she remembered the city. With every straw or leaf that her tattered shoes crunched upon, she imagined she was instead stepping on a cemented sidewalk and holding her father's hand as they walked to the supermarket on the corner. With every tree she grazed past, she imagined it was a random person walking past her on a busy street. She remembered cars and telephones, televisions and malls. She remembered the hustle and bustle of the city she always saw when looking out the window as her mother would drive her to school. Sure, the forest was nice, but it could feel so solitary and quiet. She missed the liveliness and normality of the city.

But all of that had changed. Eight years before, when she was merely a 10-year-old little girl, the "normal" world collapsed at the hands of atrocious, cold-blooded beasts. It was a widespread massacre, an apocalypse the world had never even envisioned. After millennia of vampires living in secret and killing in silence, they had gathered a large enough army and rose from the murky shadows, ravaging every large city in the world and taking the life of every human they came across. The death toll soared by millions each day.

It didn't take them long. After one year, there was no hope. They were faster, stronger, and smarter than any human could even imagine being. The surviving humans were forced to pack up and find obscure areas to live in small communities, such as dense forests or caves or mountain ranges.

The vampiric invasion had pushed time back about five centuries. There were no more cars or telephones or televisions, no more supermarkets or online shopping. There was only living on the land, surviving day-by-day, and hoping to never be found by any of those undead creatures.