False Faces

Rowan:
It had just been a little over 8 months since the first attack hit...8 months since my grandmother died...since everything changed. I can almost remember those first horrible days after what I call the end of the world. It happened on a late evening in March, slightly chilly, when Gram and I were sitting on the porch.

The following hours become kind of fuzzy in my memory, but I remember there being no service on my phone, and the house phone lines were dead; there was no one to call for help. Then there was screaming, neighbors running, people keeling over dead right in the street. The rest of my memory fails me; I cannot see past gathering supplies from inside the house and then.... ...just running...leaving everything behind. ...flashes of light.... the glow of burning fires.....

For a few weeks the military had set up refugee camps, but eventually they disappeared and everyone was left to fend for themselves. All the while, humankind continued to delve deeper into the darkness of the unknown...

It was as if someone bigger than us, maybe God, decided to press a button and kill half the population in a matter of days. I didn't know, and to this day still don't, if anything was after me or if I have to watch my back... The only thing I know is that I must find Launa.

Launa:
There are never any tell tale signs, people just begin up and dying right in front of you, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. So far, only those with weak immune systems and health problems went down, which left too many young kids unattended and forced to survive.

I missed my whole life... how did I even end up becoming the leader of a ragtag group of scared, hungry kids?

I call this place the 'bunker' ... There was a good many kids that all contributed to running the place, all hard-working, and even though I couldn't develop a personal relationship with each of them, I knew them all by name and they trusted me to keep them safe and alive.