Fighting The Disease

The Day It Happened

I look at the candles, then at everyone surrounding me. The candles fill the whole room in a soft glow. It was beautiful. And everyone is smiling. They are all here for me. It is my birthday, after all. And as I make a wish, it hdick its me. I'm sixteen now. It doesn't seem like a big deal. I mean, great. I'm one year older. But I try to look happy, for them. It's hard when there's this feeling in your stomach, though. I feel like I''m going to throw up. I just put on a show, however. It's just like every year. Nothing is different.

Every year it's the same routine. I put on a nice dress, open the door for guests, throw on a fake smile the second someone glances at me, say a few words about how I am so very grateful that everyone is here for me, have some dinner, and open the presents. From there I just thank everyone and they leave this mansion of a house and drive away in cars that cost much more than I would spend on if I had my way- which I don't.

Don't mind me, I'm just a rich girl from a rich family. I've got no problems at all, right? So how is it that I have bruises everywhere? How come everytime I look into my father's eyes I see hate and disgust? My brother is different, however. Smart. My father adores him, but my brother hates him. He got to move away for university. The abuse started after he left. My big brother was suddenly not there to protect me from this monster. His chair at the dinner table was, and still is, empty.

I don't know wether to hate him, or love him. Part of me thinks he is a traitor. He left me. The other part of me says that I would do the same if I were him. So my dad is avoiding looking at me and that empty chair, while I am waiting for him to come back. I am the dissapointment of the family. They want me to be able to solve the worlds most complex math questions, but they don't want me to learn how I would defend myself if I were to be ambushed. But no matter what they do, no matter what they say, they can never take the fight from me. The feeling flows through my viens.

I say thank you to everyone once I open the presents, the cake forgotten to me. I've lost my appetite by looking at so many fake faces. They disgust me. They leave, and I hurry to my room. I lock my door behind me. Unfortunatly, my television is blaring. I glance over to it, and immediatly regret what I see. There is blood and fire everywhere. Scientists said they were going to control the virus- they were going to tame it as if it was a wild beast. But as I read the bottom of the screen, I know they failed.

"VIRUS X HAS SPREAD" runs across the bottom of the page. And I stare at the histarical people. They are running franticaly, and the camera is shaky because the camera man is running, just like them. I freeze. I can't even feel myself breathing. It's like my arms aren't there. My legs are unmoveable. I just stare at the screen in horror. The lights catch my attention. There's so many lights there. Shining as if people aren't being infected. As if people's lives are not at stake. Suddenly, the camera falls. My blood turns to ice and my eyes widen but I still cannot move. The camera becomes cracked, but I can still see something. Though I instantly wish that I couldn't.

One of the infected has jumped onto a man. He instantly falls, and the infected individual proceeds to bite into his face. I can see the flesh peel off of the mans face. But worse than that, I can hear his horrid screeches of agony. He is shouting and I am staring and my eyes are lost in a sea of red. And then the camera is gone. The screen black, and nothing coming from out of it. But the mans screams are echoing in my head, and suddenly finding the will to move, I run to the garbage can, and throw up. And then I run to my bed, grab a pillow, and start screaming as loud as I can into it.

My throat feels like two pieces of sand paper rubbing against themselves, and my eyes hurt from being shut so tightly. But even though my eyes are closed and the television screen is black, I can see the man. His fingers are curled into fists that make his knuckles look as if they are about to snap, and his eyes are open as his left cheek is yanked off of his face by a wild creatures teeth. I picture all the details in my head. All the gruesome images that I knew would haunt me until the end of my existance. And then I hear my mother pounding on the door, shouting my name.

"ALEXIS, LET ME IN. ALEXIS, PLEASE!"

I somehow get up, and move to the door, my feet dragging against the floor. I open the door, and my mother instantly wraps her arms around me. My father is evil. My mother, however, is the most couragous woman I know. An arranged marriage forced her to live under the same roof as the devil. I scream into her shoulder, and soon enough, my shouts become muffled into sobs. All of a sudden, the screech of metal fills my eardrums. The emergency doors. Every window, everydoor, every single opening in this house, is now covered. But the doors cannot protect me from what I just witnessed.

I wake up in a panic as I recal what happened. The day that changed my life. The day that changed everything. The whole world erupted into utter chaos. I feel my chest beating wildly, and I am gasping for breath. I try shutting my eyes, but then I remember how much I hate sleeping. I never sleep through the night. Never have since the madness began. That was two months ago. And when I think back to that day, the first words that greet me are,

"Happy birthday."