Dear Annabelle

#7

#7

Saturday 19th October 2013

Dear Anna,

I lied. I’m not dealing with all this shit well at all. People are dropping like flies. Even our neighbours, this posh, up-themselves family, had someone taken away. I watched it happen from the window.

          These white vans pulled up with a squeal outside their house and what looked like a SWAT team from the movies piled out, clad in those fucking yellow suits from the TV. They knocked the door down and swarmed in, coming out a few minutes later with a screaming Carol.

Carol was the stereotypical, middleclass housewife that judged you for having even a hair out of place, so to see her in such a state was a fucking shock, I’ll tell you that. She kicked and punched at the people dragging her out, her family shouting after her, restrained by some of the suits. They shoved Carol into the back of the van, got back in themselves and were gone.

Just like that.

It scared the shit out of me. How am I supposed to pretend like none of this is happening if the Government is just taking people from their homes right next door to me? It’s fucking insane.

Exercise is a good distraction, sure, but it doesn’t keep the thoughts at bay. Those fucking thoughts that have me lying awake night after night, terrified to shut my eyes for even a minute for fear of what I might see in my dreams.

Everyone I know could be dead. There, I said it. All my friends from school, my teachers, my family. They could just as easily be carted off in the back of a van and I wouldn’t even know!

I hate this. I hate this not knowing anything. They don’t even tell you where you go if you get taken. All that the Government say on the TV is that they’re being taken to a ‘secure facility’ in an ‘undisclosed location’ for ‘safety purposes’. Fuck that! We have a right to know where our family and friends are being held!  

          I miss how simple things used to be. I really do. If I could just somehow go back in time, back before any of this disease shit... I don’t even know what I’d do. Just live, I guess. Savour every blissful moment of ignorance.

          I just want this all to end. The Government say they’re working on a cure and that it’ll be ready soon. I don’t know if I believe them though. I think they’re just trying to prevent a mass panic by giving people hope.

          Do you know what I think, Anna? I think hope is a danger we can’t afford. Not these days. We need to be prepared for the storm I can see looming on the horizon, not clinging to some false sense of hope that could get us killed.

          I hope I’m wrong. But somehow, I don’t think I am.

          Talk soon.

          Adira x