A Collection of Ruins

Chapter 5 - The Tunnels of Rats (Tess)

I flinched back; I had never seen my mother when she had the Virus; she had always been kept in the Morbidus Hospital in the Central Met as she slowly lost her human instincts, until – finally – her mind went too. I had never before allowed myself to imagine how she would look.

“No, no, no, no, no,” She said, trying to sound soothing, yet her voice gurgled in the base of her throat as if she were speaking through blood. “Come here, Thesalia. Come to mamma.”

I shook my head violently and pushed myself backwards on the kitchen counter until my back was against the wall. I looked around frantically as she came closer, her arms outstretched, reminding myself of the statement the Met had released following the Virus; This Virus can be spread from person to person in three ways – scratches, cuts and bites. You must protect yourself against these attacks. And they will attack.. It was then that an intense fear settled in my stomach. I looked around again and came to the same conclusion. There’s no escape. There’s no escape. There’s no escape.

Just as my mother would’ve reached me, a loud bang echoed through the house, and I found myself being sprayed with a warm, sticky liquid. I looked up in surprise, my ears ringing. The gunshot was still echoing around the house as my mother’s dead body fell to the floor in a heap. Behind her stood a sixteen-year-old Matt brandishing a shot gun. The weapon looked awkward in his shaking hands, as if he felt uncomfortable wielding it, and it was evident in his wide blue eyes that he wouldn’t use it unless it was absolutely necessary.

I blinked, looking down at myself; I was sixteen again, though the plaster was still stretched across my grazed knee. Still, I flinched. The warm, sticky liquid I had been sprayed with in conjunction with the gunshot was my now dead mother’s blood. I looked back up to Matt in shock.

“Come on,” he said, stepping over the corpse and into the kitchen, lifting me carefully off the work bench, “we need to go. Now.”

“Go?” I grabbed my wrist out of his grip. “Go where?”

He shook his head in dismay. “We need to get you to safety.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Says the psycho ex-boyfriend wielding a shotgun.”

His shoulders slumped at my words. “I just saved your life, Thesalia. What more can you ask for?”

“It’s Tess.” I snapped. In my head, all I could think was all the other things I could have asked him for, but never got the chance.

* * *

My mind was awake, but my eyes refused to open. I could feel myself lying on a hard surface, and I could feel the cold radiating from a wall not far from me. I could hear water dripping somewhere close, the sound echoing, bouncing off the walls for what seemed like miles.

I could feel someone standing over me.

I wanted to wrap my jacket tighter around me and snuggle into myself. I wished that these people would have at least given me a blanket of some sort. Or that they had a fire that I could warm myself beside. But all these things stayed in my mind; the person standing over me had to believe that I was still unconscious. I wasn’t ready to face these people yet, not after that dream. I had promised myself I would forget about Matt. For two months it worked. Then that one dream sold me out, and I couldn’t get him out of my head. I didn’t understand why I suddenly remembered him, then—

“Thesalia?”

Upon the sound of the boy’s voice I abandoned all efforts at trying to look like I was still unconscious and swore under my breath. This just made him worried. He hurried over to the hard bed I was lying on and sat beside me. It took all my free will not to cuddle up next to him and steal his body heat.