The crescent moon loomed above our heads dramatically, appearing greater every second as both of us just stood there down below, standing on an abyss of grim. Our bodies were paused. Our faces looked blank. We just watched the remnants of the burned boy slowly dissipating into ash as wind swept it away little by little.

“Ti!” Chase’s voice released me from the ever-encaging dream. Suddenly, I was brought back to the real world.

I looked all around me and dozens or hundreds of predators came filling in, dragging their legs slowly toward the center of attention. Their steady shouts blasted the area with riot. They all came running from the south. Their faces hungry and determined, and their stride impassive. The adrenaline alarmed as blood poured to every system of my body.

We fled immediately and ran for our motel, but predators swarmed it also. We ran around, deflecting predators to reach the car. Two swearing predators blinked in front of us, charging us with random speed when we tried to reach for the vehicle behind them.

I readied the shotgun which was still in my hand, but the two were too close. I shoved Chase back, sending him falling to the floor and at the same time crashing the hilt of the shotgun to the first predator’s nose. It crashed back, so I steadied my feet and cocked the heavy gun with much struggle. The second one was just about to jump to eat my ear as I thudded the dangerous end of the shotgun to its belly and pulled the trigger. The entire stomach was flushed, flooding the area with intestines and blood.

“Ti, let’s go!”

“Alright, alright.”

We didn’t look back while we strode for the car. I recklessly pinched the handle and burst inside, helping myself with the panicking situation. I put the key and started the car, and the easy rumble calmed a bit of my tense nerves.

Our backpacks were thankfully still inside the car, but our oppressing condition didn’t help at all. I panicked, so I almost bumped the motel in front of us when I suddenly gassed forward.

When I reversed the car, more than five predators bumped in. I quickly gassed away without caring about the direction. We smoked away without wasting a second.

I took as many turns as possible, but it seemed that our car was just a carnival in a dead city. Predators from every corner chased us, making it so hard to evade them.

But thank the God when our situation improved, and we managed to outrun the crazed people and entered a calmer side of the town. The place looked suddenly deserted after all that happened behind us.

Chase pointed a driveway, so I agreed to his suggestion about sheltering in a silent place. 

“’Meadow View Elementary’.”

I drove deeper into the area and noticed that it was very quiet until you could hear the grasshoppers gagging in the emptiness of the air.

I parked way behind the main building of the school and when that happened, it was already dark.

“This place will do.”

I noticed a small warehouse, or a big shed, when we entered the area, so I led Chase there as the school looked pretty unsafe. The brown warehouse was filled with… nothing, completely nothing. It was just a big open space. 

It was a cold night.

Deeper into the evening I collected some planks from the smaller shed west of the school. We lit a fire which Chase tried as less as possible to look towards it. He must be traumatized by what he just experienced. Anyone would.

I too was impacted. I stared the fire for warmth and comfort and heat. Instead, the fire turned into the burning kid again. I saw him so clearly like when I actually did. He screamed for help, but I took my time with saving him. I made a mistake by not saving him sooner. A life I could save, instead, I made the wrong decision again.

I promised myself to not hesitate ever again, but promises are vague if you live in a world like this.

The night was windy, but at least rain didn’t fall down. I was eating the bag of chips while leaning on the warehouse’s wall. Chase was expectedly super quiet the entire time.

“Look.” I tried to flawlessly start a conversation. I was never the type of person who dodged reality and talked about something else instead, because that wouldn’t work. “I know you’re blaming me for not saving him quicker. I’m also… shocked and everything inside me is nothing but regret.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I think it is.”

“No it’s not. You tried to save him. You risked your life to intercept those people and saved the boy. It’s just that… I don’t understand why he killed the boy. I know he stole something from them, probably something important. I don’t understand their reason for torturing that boy and killing him brutally like that. They dragged him with a car!”

But he did blame me a bit. I could hear it in his voice.

“Sometimes, people are just bad, especially when there are no rules. That’s the harsh reality of it.” My voice shook when an oozing memory came to life.

I remembered my father. He got no reason for being a douche, other than he was a douche. I don’t understand some people a lot of the times.

Chase didn’t reply. He nodded and proceeded to lay his body on the ground, sighing, thinking.

And I let him be consumed by silence. Suddenly, he asked a question that I couldn’t answer. “What kind of world are we living in, Ti?”   

My answer was just a sigh.

Sleeping on cemented floor wasn’t the best choice, but it would do for one night. As morning rose, my back felt limp like a bag of powder flaunching around after being blazed by lightning. Cold wind spruced in violently, banging the warehouse’s roof until I felt like it would just fly away any second.

Chase’s eyes were opened, meaning he was awake… or he didn’t sleep. Both of them looked redder than blood so I guess it was the latter.

“Can’t sleep?”

He nodded. He looked so tired and I pitied him so much. I pitied him to be in his age and to experience all of this madness. He was so innocent… so joyful and so young. I think the world always has a way of staining the purest thing ever. 

“I think you should sleep for a few hours. We can continue the drive afterwards. We’re heading to Louisville soon so I suppose you want to be energized. It’s not going to be easy.”

“I− I’ll try.”

He dropped down and I took my jacket off to get him another layer. The warehouse’s door was practically non-existence to stop the wind from rushing in.

I was drenched down to my shirt. The cold bit to my skin like never before, so the best plan was probably to collect some more planks and start a fire like last night. Hopefully, the smoke wasn’t very thick and turned out to be a beacon for everyone to come here.

I circled the area of the school which was surprisingly pretty big, and made my way towards the shed from yesterday. It was almost on the other side of the school from the warehouse’s perspective.

Before I got hold of the shed’s door knob, the whirling sound of a parade of helicopters rang high above me. I counted six helicopters heading the same way east, probably carrying supplies or soldiers. I knew that the government hadn’t completely fallen. These choppers could mean something, but it was just simple headache thinking about it in the time being.

After making the fire, I just crumpled right beside it, freezing. Chase was snoring behind me. His sleep must be very profound.

Four hours later he woke up refreshed and recharged. He still felt like shit about the experience we had to undergo yesterday, but we must move on.

The drive was quiet and we did our best scanning each area we passed. The road was a dangerous place to be, especially when these punks were always roaming around looking trouble. As far as I knew, these punks were gang members settling in together to survive together, but they were pretty fucked up themselves. Also, I learned that I needed to be more careful to them than to the actual predators.

Talking about predators, not much were around until we reached the city of Louisville, which was completely chaotic and fucked up. I saw smokes and fire everywhere, dead bodies and rummaged things piled up against every single corner. The government messed this place worse than they did to Nashville.

I had to take so many detours in order to go to the other side of the city. More than dozens of streets were just blockaded by awful amount of piles of cars and other shits that got in our way.

“So, we have to cross one of these bridges to get to the other side of Louisville, the nearest being Sherman Minton Bridge,” Chase said while reading the map. 

I tried not to approach downtown, but reality slapped us on the asses.

The bridge had been blown up.

“Well… that’s just unfortunate. Another bridge?” I tried to sound as positive as possible. My gut was shrinking though. Hopefully not all the bridges were destroyed. The government was such a dick for blowing up bridges anyway.

“There’s George Roger Clark Memorial Bridge. The only problem is that it’s like downtown.”

“Do we have any other choice?”

“I mean, that’s the least crazy, I guess. We can go west and took a round to smaller towns to get across, but I doubt the situations in these places are any better.”

“Alright. We’re heading for the bridge then.”

The drive was super intense. My heart throbbed again, meaning that danger was close. I quite saw one or two predators, but for such a big city, the emptiness was exhilarating.

I turned the car towards W Main St. and headed closer to the bridge. There were so many banners saying ‘Evacuation Center’. I only scoffed at them and took no more notice.

“Evacuation my ass.”

When I turned to the street which aligned the city with the bridge, my pupils just widened seeing the amount of predators in front of us. 

Literally thousands of them swarming the street like ants, crowding the place until it seemed like an Asian market. The amount of them was just insane to count.

And our Civic was loud too.

And all thousands of their heads suddenly faced our direction. All of them saw the car, revving, moving. They took one second to pause until they realized that we could be their lunch.

“T− Ti! Move!”

I shifted immediately to reverse. The car burst backwards, bringing us back to the main street. Those predators started moving their asses toward us, some even being so ridiculously speedy.

“Shit, brace!”

Believe it or not, I managed to drift the car until it swerved to the other street where I was heading. Some of the predators ran as I never seen before, most of them kids. I started getting sweaty, but Chase counted on me. I had to get us out of here.

I moved the car and seek a way to the bridge. At least it was visible that the bridge was pretty much intact, but I hoped it wasn’t overrun by the dead.

I stirred the car right, bringing us to N 3rd St. The evade was all over when turns out the street was also blocked by stacks of cars tumbling over each other.

We were trapped in that street. In front of us was the many cars blocking our way, and behind us, two thousand predators ready to kill.

Chase screamed and cried at the same time. He had a panic attack, but I didn’t. I tried to find a place where we could flee, though I needed to do it fast. We got only one minute or less before a swarm-full amount of atrocities rained over us.

We were right below a skybridge, and right outside the building which connected the skybridge I saw someone waving and shouting to us to come with them.

“Chase, let’s go!”

“Where are we going?”

“Just follow me!”

I grabbed Chase by the wrist and ran with him, sliming through cars and buses to the place where the person stood. The girl was tall and she was African-American, and she was holding a wrench with one hand, while the other jagged the door to let us in.

The three of us hustled inside half a minute before predators reached our position. 

The girl pushed a giant files cabinet. “Help me.”

We pushed together until it blocked the door.

And then there was only silence and darkness. 

Predators hissed and hurled outside the door, but inside, everything felt so noiseless and dead. I felt trapped on a raft surrounded by a sea full of sharks. I couldn’t go out.

I was trapped.

There was no way out.

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Art : artstation from Pinterest