Same Love

1: Apocalypse

Sam watched the procession with disgust. He didn't believe in God. If there was really a God then he would've been saved by now. His mother knelt beside him, praying to the omniscient false being and his father did the same while he knelt, yet silently muttered curses instead of prayers. This was something he didn't miss. He had been in the city for a while and while there he had lost his thick accent and religiously not attended church for the duration of his stay. His parents were trying to teach him that his condition could be fixed, he could turn into a new person if he prayed hard enough. He loved who he was but they thought differently.

It was a stereotypical situation and yet he didn't mind it. He still loved his family but he was just more introverted now, especially around them. He strode out of the church after the service, his family in front of him talking and pulled himself into the pickup truck, watching the scenery fly by as they drove home.

When they arrived at the small white house he immediately swung himself out of the truck and rushed inside, closing the door to his cramped room. It was small, covered in vinyl and cd's and messy. He picked up a rucksack and began to pack things to take hunting with him as he always did. He stashed his notebook, a basic first aid kit, three big bottles of water that were heavy but helpful and then he went downstairs, closing his door as he ducked under the low frame. It had been a long time since he could go through his door at full height. He stashed some food into the bag too, taking mainly tinned food but making a sandwich too. It was routine for him to pack as though he was going on a month long expedition as he learned that it was safe to be careful and prepare for the worst. He had been gone for a week before and had run out of these supplies by the time he returned. He checked the bag again, his knives were in place and then he threw it casually over his shoulder, grabbed his hunting bow from in the back, swung his quiver onto his back and took off into the forest, yelling a quick goodbye to his father and hugging his mother. Little did he know that this was the last time he would see them.

For a few hours, he tracked a deer, all the way to a big lake where it stopped to drink. He didn't shoot it as he was too lazy to haul a deer back to his house and so settled for picking off a few squirrels and two healthy rabbits. It was growing darker and he lit a fire, roasting a squirrel and eating it before slinging his other kills over his shoulder.

A harsh growling became audible and he wondered what it was, he had never heard it before. He saw someone running in the distance, towards him and lowered his bow that he had subconsciously drawn. The person let out a bloodcurdling scream and he rushed to help only to see another person brutally digging into the now dead screamer. This was where the growling was coming from.

Please don't tell me this is what I think it is, Sam thought as he drew his bow again, whistling to gain the person's attention. Her eyes were lifeless and hungry and she lunged for him only to be shot in the abdomen. She kept coming. Sam quickly jumped back, more arrows burying themselves in her flesh but none stopping her in her pursuit. He took out his knife, driving it through her skull as she came too close to shoot. This stopped her. He retrieved his arrows, panic overtaking him. His parents. Were they okay? Was this just a fluke person or were there more cannibals around. He kept his guard up, cleaning his knife on his shirt as he sprinted back towards his house, screams and growls becoming louder as he approached. The town was utterly destroyed, the diseased walked around and attacked those not affected and he broke into his own house frantically. 

He fought off a few of them as he searched but there was no sign of his parents. Then he entered the kitchen. Standing, teeth bared and eyes glazed over his father was his mother, guts hanging from her jaws and hunger driving her. Sam let out a choked sound, catching her attention and he raised his bow as she stumbled for him. He turned his head away and let his arrow fly, landing right between her cold eyes.

He knelt, taking the tablecloth and putting it over the two bodies as he let instinct overcloud his sadness. He pushed back the feelings and gathered as much food as he could, all the tinned food and things that lasted long such as dried meat. He then checked his three water bottles, filling them to the brim and then he wrote a note and placed it on the table.

"I killed them, they're under the cloth. My parents were not themselves"

He then closed the door, going to his room and picking up as many knives as he could carry and some trusty duck tape, breathing in the normality of it, something he wouldn't see for a while, maybe not ever again. He closed the door and made his way outside, forming a plan in his head.

By this point, the cities would be overrun but there was a possibility of a safe place set up by the military or government but he wasn't sure. His father had always said that the government couldn't be trusted. His mother had berated the man for it but Sam believed him. He decided that he should set up camp somewhere and so scaled a tree after five or six hours of walking through the forest. Securing himself via a rope. that way, even if he rolled he wouldn't fall out of the tree. It was easy enough to undo in panic. He then munched on some squirell from earlier that he had cooked on the fire.

This was real and he was ready, no emotional ties, no setbacks.

Just surviving