Surviving The Apocalypse *serious editing*

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I'm sure that if you ask anyone (that is if you can find anyone) that they would be able to tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing on April 30 at 12 o'clock. I'm sure that until the day I die I will remember that while the world was falling apart I was in my bed fast asleep.

It makes me laugh when I think about it, how naive we all were about what was to come. Maybe that's why it happened, to keep us on our toes so we would never get too comfortable. Or maybe it was just a freak accident, something went wrong in a lab somewhere and everything went out. Or maybe it happened on purpose in an attempt control us and teach us a lesson. The thing is that it doesn't really matter. It happened and we can either mope around asking "why" or we could do something and get through the whole disaste

It took me a while to get over the initial stage of blaming the world, but eventually I just had to say to myself to get over it and move on because this was my life now. Might as well live it.

When I awoke on that Saturday, I remember looking around my room disoriented. The sun had already moved past the stage of bathing my room in light and was now shining brightly on the world outside my window. It must have been past noon.

That's weird, I thought. Mom would have come and woken me up by now.

I looked over to my alarm clock but the time wasn't showing. I grabbed my phone to check the time on that but it wasn't turning on. Mustn't have charged all the way when the power went out. I let out a little huff of breath and got out of bed.

"Mom! Anne! Are you here?" I called my mom and sister. No reply.

I headed down the stairs and into the kitchen. On the counter there was a sticky note. It read:

Took Anne to her soccer practice. Be home by noon.

They weren't home yet. Did they go out for ice cream afterwards or something? No, they would have noticed that the power was out and come home. Maybe its just our house. A circuit could have been fried and shut down our whole system. I grabbed a flashlight and headed down stairs where we keep our circuit board. I turned on the flashlight as I defended the stairs. But the light didn't come on. I clicked it on and off a few more times. I even tried hitting it against the palm of my hand in a desperate attempt to get it to turn on. Nothing worked.

My breath began to come in shallow gulps and my palms grew sweaty. I had changed the batteries in this flashlight last week. They were fresh batteries and we hadn't used the flashlight since I put the new batteries in. Something was wrong, very wrong.

I started freaking out and ran outside, forgetting that I was still in my pajamas. At first everything looked the same. Same old suburban street with cars parked along the side of the road, but one of the cars had crashed. The front hood was dented by the telephone pole that it had hit. The door was open so whoever was driving must have been okay enough to walk away.

I needed to find mom and Anne. I wanted to grab my bike and go out looking for them right this instant, but I didn't know where they were but they knew that I would be home. If they come back and Im not here they will be worried. I'll give a few hours and then go out looking for them.

I went back inside and sat on our living room couch. I put my head in my hands and started to think. Anne's soccer practice was a few miles away. If mechanical things weren't working then they would have to walk home and that would be an hour and a half at least. Dad was away on business in California. I feel sick. How long will it take for everything to be up and running again? What if he's stranded in California for months?

I can't sit still. I start pacing the length of the living room. Pacing just makes me more anxious but theres nothing else for me to do so I continue circling my house. After what I am estimating to be three hours I decided that it was time to go out looking. Mom and Anne still hadn't come back yet and it would be dark in a few hours. It was now or I would have to wait all night and head out in the morning.

Without even changing I grabbed my bike and started out. Instantly I saw the damage, cars had crashed into each other or telephone poles or fire hydrants. people were out, most seemed confused, some were smart enough to be scared. I didn't really feel anything. Sure I was confused about what was going on but I hadn't let myself dwell on what had actually happened, my only focus was on where my family was.

I never got to the fields, about a mile away from my house I saw my mom's car. It was at an intersection... upside down. There was a crowd around the crash, they weren't doing anything! I instantly got mad, why were they just standing there and staring! But when I approached I could see why. Blood stained the concrete, it was oozing out of the interior of my mom's car.

I ditched my bike and ran to the car. I fell to my knees and looked into the cab of the car. Mom and Anne were still buckled into their seats. There was so much blood everywhere. Broken glass and mangled metal dared me to cut myself. I reached in, yanking on my mom's seatbelt, trying desperately to pull it free. I didn't have a good enough hold on it and it wouldn't budge. I lashed out to the restraints, becoming more and more frustrated. A strangled scream came out of me that was quickly followed by tears.

I had to get them out of this! I had to do something. After another minute I gave up and crawled out from beneath the car. My arms and clothes were covered in my family's blood. I wanted to throw up. The coppery smell was too much. The glass and metal shards had cut my arms and now my blood was mixing with that of my Mom's and sister's.

I was faintly aware of what was going on, people patting me on the back saying there was nothing they could do and that it was a shame. No one really cared, they were more worried about what happened to the electricity than the fact that my mom and sister would never have to worry about the electricity again. Maybe in different circumstances I would have been angry but I wasn't, how could I? It wasn't their family that was killed. I just knelt there in a pool of mom and Anne's blood crying until my eyes were dry and starred to hurt from so many tears.

Only when a man came and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders did I realize it was dark. When I say dark I mean dark! There were no lights at all, the only thing that reminded me I wasn't sleeping or closing my eyes was the sky. Every star in the sky was illuminated. I could see all the constellations and the tiniest, farthest stars. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and for a brief second I forgot about my loss and just marveled at the beauty of the sky.

I had to go. I stumbled to my feet, my legs had fallen asleep a while ago and didn't want to work right then. I picked up my bike and slowly made my way home. I couldn't stay here all night even though it was spring I was still in Massachusetts and it got cold at night.

I looked back at my mother and sister still trapped underneath that car. They would stay there until someone came to drag their corpses out and properly bury them. The thought made me sick.