"It is so much easier not to feel, not to let the world touch me."
-Sylvia Plath
•••
The air is filled with smoke, sour when Hovercraft Pc47 touches down in the rural Arizona deserts. All is quiet. When General Matthew Pauling steps out of the front doors, the ground is seething in black sludge.
There's a pungent odor in the air. The man reaches a hand up to lift his mask to his mouth, gesturing for the rest of his crew to follow him out of the vehicle. The group starts forward, trying to locate he wreckage of the military base that has been there since 2050.
They don't get that far.
"General Pauling?" One of the men asks, confusion in his voice, and Matthew turns to face him. He soon realizes that it's himself that the young soldier is staring at in fear, and when he reaches up to take the mask off so he can speak, he catches a tuft of hair falling from his scalp.
Frowning, Matthew runs a hand through his hair, only for it to come straight out in his fist. Looking around, all of his team is experiencing the same thing. Their hair is falling out, bit by bit.
"What the-" He starts to say, but can't get the words out. His voice is too weak. His arms suddenly feel heavy, slow and feeble. What is happening?
His bones feel like jelly. His muscles wax.
Matthew's brain is shutting down. He can feel it. He doesn't know why, or how, but as the rest of his crew hits the ground he begins to realize what the reason might be.
"Radiation." He whispers, before his knees buckle underneath him and he's sucked into darkness.
***
This time, when I wake up to screaming, it's real.
At first my brain doesn't really process the magnitude of the situation. All I hear is vocal agony, and Xavier isn't in the tent. Then the blood splatters up the outside of our shelter and I come to my senses.
I shoot to my feet, suddenly wide awake and bursting out through the opening of the tent. It's the middle of the night. A horribly sour, metallic smell hits my nose immediately, and everything is in absolute chaos.
Giant black shadows slash and growl around me, attacking pretty much everything. The only thing lighting camp is the smoldering fires from a few ours before. Looking down, I see one of the construction guys from earlier today, laying face down while a massive dark shape gnaws on his insides from a torn hole in his back. There is blood everywhere. Everywhere. Bile rises in my throat.
The monster stops chewing on the man's remains and looks up at me with burst red pupils. It's a dog. A horribly mutated, massive dog, but a dog. It's bloody lips pull back in a growl, and it lunges at me.
I barley have time to throw myself out of the way before a loud ZING rings in my ears, and the dog's head is severed from it's body. It's blackish green blood splatters my shirt, burning at my skin. A dagger sticks straight up in the ground, quivering. I whip my head to the side, and see Luke screaming at me, but I can't really make out the words.
"GET TO THE CIRCLE!" He yells, throwing another knife at three dogs coming at him at the same time. All of them hit the ground within milliseconds after their heads do. Luke is bloody, a long slash on the side of his face and torso, but he's fighting like nothing is wrong.
My vision is hazy. Everything is happening so fast, it's hard to keep up. My eyes search through the chaos to see what he's talking about, and find that some of the soldiers have formed a ring of protection around the survivors. Among them is Xavier and Jess. But where's Ash?
Zay is gesturing wildly at me to obey Luke's orders, to come to them, but my brain is saying no. Why should I have to sit out of the fight? We're clearly outnumbered.
Deep, contorted growling comes from behind me, inching closer. I snatch the nearest hard object off the ground, which happens to be a log from the still smoking fire, and swing it around to slam the end of it into the dogs face just as he's about to pounce. The dog squeals, before recovering and leaping on top of me.
I hit the ground hard. The beast's saliva is dripping on my cheek, and my arms shake as I try to hold it's viscous jaws off. It's hot breath fans my face. It claws at my shoulders, my neck and my chest, sending legions of pain flaming up across my skin. My own blood is thrown everywhere in the process. Mustering up every ounce of strength possible, I grab one of the logs again and shove it down the dog's throat, hard.
It backs off just enough for me to roll away. The thing chokes, sputtering and growling, giving Ivy just enough time to come from behind me, flipping like a ninja, and slam one of her samaria swords into its neck. Once again, it's decapitated.
"You can't kill them with logs, Alex. Not even bullets." She pants, grabbing my arm and shoving me in the direction of the protection circle. "Go. Before you get yourself slaughtered."
This time I obey. Stumbling in the direction of the circle, one of the soldiers lowers his machine gun to let me in. I almost collapse against Xavier, who's got several chunks of flesh missing from his left shoulder. Jess is unharmed.
What Ivy said is true. The soldiers are opening fire at any dog that comes at the circle, but all it does is slow them down until one of the fighters can sever its head. There's at least a hundred of them. These things are like hell hounds. How are they so indestructible?
I spot Georgia and her son in the middle of the group, shielded by everyone. The little boy is clutching on to his pregnant mama for dear life.
"Where's Ash?" I pant, closing my eyes momentarily. Sweat is pouring down my face, or blood. Probably both.
Xavier doesn't say anything, just points. I follow the line of his finger, and see Ashton swinging at dogs with a bent metal pole. He seems to pointedly ignore the shouts from the others to get in the circle. Stubborn bastard.
"You ok?" Jess speaks up, and I realize she's actually talking to me. The question brings my attention back to my blood soaked shirt and torn up chest, and the wounds throb. I manage to swallow down my whimper.
"I'll be fine." Is all I say, gritting my teeth. My whole body is tense, rigid as a board. At any moment one of those things could break the circle. There's enough of them. At any moment, all of us could be seconds from death. "What happened?"
Jess shrugs. She's surprisingly calm. "I don't know. I woke up to this."
I look around me, trying to figure out where the dogs could have came from. There's charred remains of a city in the distance, but other than that everything is just warped trees and concrete. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. If we're going to survive, we'll have to kill them all.
I turn my eyes to the chaos outside of circle once more. Luke is standing in the middle of everything, knives in hand, shanking any dog that dares to come near him. He looks almost insane, absolutely covered in blood, shouting profanities at the enemy like they can understand him with a twisted red grin on his face. A prince of hell in the darkness.
Michael is close by, wielding a double ended spear with long blades and spinning it around like it's an umbrella. Two dogs come at him at the same time, and he beheads them with a two swift moves. Red splatters up the side of his face and neck, and he laughs like it's a game.
I spot Calum and Ivy about fifteen yards away from them. Calum is firing his machine gun at the beasts relentlessly, bullets showering the area, while Ivy has her back against his, her swords dripping crimson and green. Everybody else around them is fighting with no mercy, no thought. Just killing to avoid being killed.
One thing is obvious. This people aren't just soldiers. They are warriors.
I think this might be the first time Luke has looked genuinely happy since I first met him. In battle. With blood in his mouth.
The dog's ranks are beginning to thin. As their furry bodies drop so do their numbers, and there seems to be about only twenty left. Luke is a whirlwind of blades and fury, cutting a path through the rapid beasts like scissors through paper, until every single one of them are bleeding out on the ground.
There's a momentary silence, the air filled with heavy breathing, and then it's like a switch is flipped and almost everyone sinks to the ground in exhaustion.
"Soundoff now!" Luke yells, and every soldier begins to shout out numbers. I'm incredibly surprised to find that only one is skipped. Some guy named Jaden, who was torn to pieces in the battle.
Michael and the others do a head count of the survivors, and I rush off to find Ashton. He's laying on his back on the ground, sweat pouring down his face, but he seems unharmed. "Ashton, what the hell?"
"I'm not some fragile doll that needs protecting." He coughs, his tone serious. "I can fight for myself."
"That doesn't mean you risk yourself getting killed for the sake of your pride."
Ashton stands up, brushing off the flecks of sluggish blood from his destroyed pants. "Why do you even care? I saw you try to fight off that monster before you went to the circle. You were thinking the same thing."
"Actually." I laugh coldly. "I was thinking 'we're outnumbered, we should be fighting' but then the beast tried to tear my throat out and I realized I was being stupid."
Ashton gives me a wicked little smile. "Well aren't you the scholar." He says, before turning around and walking away.
I head back to the main group, finding that a makeshift first aid tent has already been set up and the survivors are being tended to first. We're down to six now, plus the little boy. Four of the five construction workers were killed. The other one is sitting off to the side, messing with his hands, a long scratch on the side of his face.
"Hey, let me get that." Ivy appears behind me, grabbing my shoulder to turn me around and put an alcohol drenched rag on my chest. It's too dark to see her expression. I grit my teeth, trying to keep the various profanities from slipping out at the intense sting. My light colored tank top is now a deep crimson.
She doesn't say anything at first, just cleans up the blood and tries to fix up the cuts as best she can. She's got quite a few injuries of her own, her arm has a nasty gash above her below and there's claw marks on her side, but she doesn't seem to notice.
"You could have got yourself killed, Alex." She sighs. "You know that, right?"
I almost roll my eyes. "Yeah, I know. But I didn't. That's all that matters, right?"
"You were being careless."
"Well excuse me if I wanted to at least try and defend myself instead of running away like a pussy."
To my surprise, a small smile appears on her face and she chuckles a little. "You remind me so much of myself when I was younger."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Ivy grins, and puts down the alcohol rag. "Ok, your chest should heal pretty quickly. Just be more careful, ok?"
I nod, feeling a little bit confused as she turns to tend to other survivors. Why does she seem to care so much? I literally met her less than two days ago.
Shaking off the thought, I head off to look for Zay. I find him laying down on a scratchy blanket while Calum stitches up the wounds in his shoulder. His face is as red as a tomato, his eyes clenching up in pain. Jess is sitting next to him, holding his hand.
"Three more Xavier, three more." Calum mutters, shoving a thick looking needle through Zay's skin and dragging the thread through. He flinches so hard Jess does too.
I frown, my eyebrows furrowing. The wounds look different. I don't know how, but they do. They seem darker somehow. The veins spidering out from the center of them are a deep brown, and prominent. Calum doesn't seem to take notice to this.
"Calum." I say. "Is that normal."
He sighs, jerking the needle through another hole in Zay's skin. Blood runs down his arm like water. "I don't know. But the wounds look clean, and we can't afford to keep them open. It's too easy for infection in these conditions."
"Jesus fuck, can you just get it done?" Zay snarls, his knuckles white against Jess's dark skin. My heart aches for him. He's obviously in a lot of pain.
Calum obliges, finishing the stitches and pouring half a jug of water on the wounds before wrapping up the area in thin cotton from a little red box. He sighs, and wipes sweat off his forehead. "Don't get up."
"No fucking problem."
Calum seems to contemplate something, before he reaches down and pinches the area between Xavier's upper arm and elbow. Zay starts to swear, but then falls silent, immediately passing out.
Jess sputters at him. "W-What did you-"
"He's asleep. He'll thank me later." He says, before going off to join Michael.
The crazy haired boy is leaning over the crumbled corpse of a dog, running his fingers over the blood and examining it in his hands. I hear whispers about radiation, mutations and a dog shelter. My stomach turns.
Almost everybody has retired back to their tents at this point. There's a group of about five or six soldiers standing guard on the edge of camp, but the rest are either in the care of first aid (mostly administered by Ashton and Ivy) or passed out in exhaustion.
I start to think about going to ask Michael and Calum what the hell is happening and what is going on, but I can piece together enough to satisfy my curiosity for now. At least until morning. I'm almost positive they won't answer me anyway.
I'm not tired at all. The still flowing adrenaline renders me alert and awake. I need to be alone. I need to think.
Nobody tries to stop me when I stray away from the campsite, heading towards a ransacked little building a few hundred yards off. I have nothing to light my way but a single smoldering piece of wood, and I almost fall at least three times. By the time I reach the destroyed shack my chest is on fire, and I throw the log down on the shitty dirt-ridden floor and sink to the ground.
I rest my back against the wall, holding my legs to my chest and setting my chin on my knees. I watch quietly as the orange flecks of heat from the log catch onto some shards of wood on the floor, turning into a full blown fire. I'm too weak to get up and attempt to shape it. I just sit, watching the flames and letting the thoughts swim around in my head.
Those dogs were viscous and powerful. There were at least a hundred of them, and they killed six of us. Six people. Six people lost their lives right in front of me, and the blood on this tank top might not all be mine. Where did they even come from? How are there so many?
It's the middle of the night, but we should be in Norfolk within the next twenty four hours. God knows what else is out there. My family. I have to find them.
My chest stings.
I look up. There's virtually no roof on this place anymore, and the sky is clear through the jagged holes in the wood. The fog is starting to seize, and I can see the moon now. It's light barely illuminates the area through the clouds, but it's still there. One of the only constant things on this planet. Day and night pass, life changes, people die and people are born, but the moon never falters. It always sits in the sky, watching over the earth. The sun is the exact same way.
I'm so lost in my thoughts I don't even hear the footsteps approaching the shell of a building until they hit the entryway. Somehow, I already know who it is.
"You shouldn't be out here. It's dangerous." Luke says, his tall form obscuring the view of the campsite behind him. His eyes shine in the darkness. He's still bloody, but his face is wiped off and his hands are clean. The ring of knives is still on his belt. I have no idea how he got them all back after the fight.
I turn my eyes back to the sky. "I don't care."
"Seriously, Alexandra, it's not safe."
"Leave me alone, Luke." I let out a long breath.
I don't know why or how he's even here. I could have sworn nobody was following me.
He seems to debate something, before he just sighs and sits down across from me, putting his back against the opposite wall. His eyes stay on the fire.
I turn my gaze to his face. "What do you want?"
Luke shrugs, he's silent for a moment, and when he answers his voice is level and soft. "Honestly, I have no idea."
I start to tell him to leave again, but stop myself. I'm really not sure I want him to.
I rest my chin on my knees again. "How'd you find me?"
"You literally have a fire going." Luke finally meets my eyes, and a shiver runs down my spine. "You're lucky it was me and not Calum, he would have blown your brains out if he thought you were some kind of spy."
Something about the way he says it is off. "You're lying."
"I am not."
"You saw me leave, didn't you?"
Silence. His voice is almost amused when he speaks. "Nothing gets past you, does it?"
"No." I mutter, looking back at the fire again. "I also know you saved my life earlier. So thanks."
"You would have got yourself killed if I didn't."
"That's kind of what I just said."
"Still."
"Would you just take the thank you and leave it? You know, for somebody so confident in themselves, you sure don't like it when others are nice to you."
Luke shrugs. "I guess I'm just used to the praise."
There's a short silence. I take this opportunity to give the boy across from me a good once over. He really is one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen in my life. With that black hair and those blue eyes, he looks more like an underwear model than a soldier. But I guess appearances aren't everything.
"Seriously, though. You need to be more careful. Fighting that beast was reckless and stupid."
I roll my eyes. "I'm not made of glass."
"You aren't trained to fight something like that."
"Well I'm still here, aren't I?" A thought occurs to me, and I almost laugh. "Why do you care, anyway? My life has no significance in yours. I could drop dead right here and nothing would change. I don't know why it makes such a difference."
Luke sighs, and leans his head back to look up at the night sky. He doesn't say anything for several long moments, before he speaks so quietly I have to strain my ears to hear him. "I don't know. I don't know why I care. But I do. You need to be more careful."
"And how exactly do you suggest I do that?"
More silence. Then, to my total shock, he pulls a knife from the ring around his belt and holds it out to me, hilt first. "Here." He whispers. "If I can't talk you out of it, you'll need something to defend yourself."
I wrap my fingers around the cool metal and take it from him, tentatively. The blade feels balanced and heavy in my hand. "You're serious."
"As cancer."
"Why?"
"Like I said, I don't know." Luke sighs, staring into the fire. He's practically mirroring my position at this point, his arms resting around his knees. "All I know is I don't want you dying anytime soon, and if one of my blades can prevent it, I want you to have it."
I stare down at the weapon in my hands. It's smooth, steel, with the engraved design of a lion on the hilt. It's obviously been used hundreds of times, but whoever made it made it to last, because when I run my finger over the edge of the blade it's razor sharp.
"Thank you." I whisper. My voice is hoarse.
I don't expect him to answer, due to the whole 'i'm made of stone' ordeal he puts off, so when he does respond a smile almost sneaks across my lips. Almost. "Anytime, Alexandra."
...
idek anymore lmao updates are erratic now just expect one every seven/eight days or so
anywho hope you enjoy this chapter
xoxo
stay rad
~Camryn