three years prior.
My clothes are covered in blood. It's been that way for a month and a half now. Mine, my father's, my brother's. Dead-Alives' too. The bunker is safe, clean. It feels like a weird fever dream. I throw myself on the transmitter, hands trembling like crazy. I try desperately to reach Salt Lake City, and StarLab, where my Mother works.
"Mom ?" I'm hyperventilating. "Mom ?"
A faint buzzing sound answers me.
"Mom. Please." I do my best to grab the microphone properly.
After long, endless white noise, and right when I was about to give up, some different inaudible sounds respond. I gasp and look back at the transmitter with widened eyes.
"Mom ? Mom ?"
"Ivy ?" a muffled voice answers. Even with all the buzzing, the distorted voice, I recognize her.
"Oh my god..." I try not to sob on the spot. "Mom ! I'm here, I'm here."
"Ivy, I can't hear you well okay ?" she speaks. "I'm going to say something, and you have to listen very carefully."
I nod my head frenetically, even though she can't see me.
"Don't come for me. Stay in the bunker with your father and James. You don't leave the bunker, you hear me ? Ever. Okay ? Don't trust anyone." she insists carefully.
"Mom." I want to tell her that it's just me. That dad is dead, and James is dead too. I want to beg her to come get me, I want to tell her I'm afraid, and broken, and the things I've seen and done these last two months haunt me still.
Mom, I'm scared. Mom, I'm alone. Mom, there's a giant hole in my chest that I can't seem to sow. Mom, I'm a killer now.
It all spins in my mind, but the words aren't coming out.
"Ivy." she calls my name to make sure I'm still listening. "You have to shoot them in the heart. Remember all the times you read my cardiology notes ? My files and patients ? It's time to use all this now. You have to aim for the heart, it's what makes them sick. It's the source of the disease, Ivy. The heart."
The connexion is beginning to fade slowly, and I can't hear her very well.
"Ivy— ...the— stay...— bunker..." that is the last thing I hear from her, before loud growling and screaming takes over. That's it, I think. My mother is dead, too.
And I crumble to the floor.