The next morning, I woke up beside my sister. She sat on the bed, waiting for me to rise. Her eyes were wet after probably realizing what I'd done to myself.

"What happened last night, Ti?"

I realized she was staring at my knuckles, as swollen and fucked up as it might seem.

"Ashley..."

"You called dad didn't you?"

"I−"

"What were you thinking? He'll destroy our lives, Ti! He will bring you down with him."

She said the exact same thing as he did the night before.

"Ashley, I can't live like this anymore. The world, it's too crappy for us to live in. I have to see an exit to that, so I did. I end it all, just like that."

"Do you really think stopping dad from stealing our money would be an end to our pain? No! We will face the consequences of that."

"Ashley, Sis. You are a fifteen year old girl that needn't have to think 'bout all those craps. I'm your bigger sister, and I did promise you to protect ourselves from every possible danger. I will not just let that guy slaves us every week. Not again."

"That guy is our father."

"Sorry, Ash, but we don't have a father. We don't have a mother too. They are not in our lives anymore, okay? We're orphans now, but I'm old enough to take care of my sister, so for the hundredth time, don't worry."

She witnessed the burden in my eyes and nodded. She then picked my arm and observed it like a professional medical nurse.

"You need to see a doctor."

I sighed. "I'm fine, Ash. I promise."

"What did you do to make this happen?"

I didn't answer.

"You can't keep hurting yourself like this."

"I know."

Then, there came a knock to the door. I expected it to be Michelle or her bodyguards so I unlocked and opened the door without secondary thoughts. But you can tell how surprised I was to see my old man standing behind the door with those eyes of the devil. He showed no expression. He stood there, not saying a thing, and later he clutched his fists like a boxer.

"How did you get in here?"

Suddenly, his hands flew to me, grabbing my neck and pushing me to the nearest wall where my body bumped and my throat choked. Ashley watched the occurrence and screamed. My father's grasp didn't loosen but hardened. He pressed his hands deeper and deeper until I couldn't breathe.

"You are small!" He said. "You are nothing in this world, and you are nothing to me!"

His teeth gritted, his muscles clenched, his veins hardened.

My vision blurred upon me. My whole body felt weak and numb, and I couldn't feel my feet anymore. I was about to die, but the last thing I would see is my killer. My father.

I didn't die, though. Two men with black suits caught his shoulders and pulled him back as hard as they could. A sudden rush of air entered my body after his grip was lost, and I fell to the floor, kneeling before it all when my father struggled from the two men.

Ashley ran to me from the door with Michelle. She immediately hugged me and asked if I was alright, but of course I wasn't. Michelle also panicked when she saw me on the ground with choke marks on my chest and my red face.

I breathed hard for air, gasping oxygen without stopping. Michelle returned from the kitchen to give me a glass of water, but to drink it was a very difficult task. Every gulp felt like I was drinking needles.

I tried to speak when they asked me, I tried to yelp when I remembered that my father tried to kill me, I tried to scream when I was overwhelmed by all their questions. None of them succeeded. My voice was just some weird squeaking for almost two weeks.

And it healed in the fourth.

And in the fifth, a car picked me up and drove me and my sister to the courthouse.

And in the eighth, my Instagram was filled with prayers and concerned thoughts from fans. They were sweet, I must admit, but I had no idea on how to respond to them.

And in the tenth, an announcement shocked the entire country when the first case of the Somalian TAVID-20 disease was confirmed in Phoenix, Arizona. Two hours later, three positive cases were also reported in Los Angeles, and just five minutes later, four were confirmed in Maine.

Now here is the messed up stuff. When I was still overwhelmed by all of the trials of my father's, a disease was spreading all over the world. The first country to ever be harmed by this unknown disease was Somalia, and later Australia.

Governments and officials from all over the world hid the real numbers of the current infected for such a long time. They were making sure no panic was spread and that they could analyze the mysterious virus.

A video in YouTube got viral, showing a massive riot breakout in Melbourne. In the video, people were all bloody and hissing and then biting officers. They all jumped here and there, running and chasing like crazies. Their looks reminded me of the movie Train to Busan or World War Z.

The title of the 90 million viewed video was 'Zombie Breakout in Melbourne?'

Some other cheesier ones also made it to the front page of newspapers like 'Human Predators' Awakenings.'

Since then, people from the internet started calling these infected with the term 'predator' which was cheesy but definitely mysterious and scary (as news media loved them to be). They avoided using the term 'zombie' as it sounds fantastical.

And the comment section of that video received some crazy reviews. People stated that those are CGI. Some said maybe the city was rioting and that the video was blurry. Some other comments thought that The Walking Dead series had come to real life and that all of us were fucked.

The last comments did predict correctly.

Thank God the US didn't patronize the WHO (World Health Organization) and released official numbers of the infected. It turned out to be not useful apparently, as a hundred people were infected in the first five hours. In a week, the confirmed cases reached eighty-thousand.

Finally, President Truman announced a lockdown for every city in every state of the US. Every airport would be closed and every street must be deserted or the authorities must not be blamed if they put civilians down.

Nashville, my city, was still unaffected by the disease. But that doesn't mean you can go out and do whatever you want. The streets remained deserted though no confirmed case appeared just yet.

The next day, things got tenser quicker. My dad, whose trial was postponed due to all the madness in the world, became the first infected in the whole city as he tried to run away to the airport as an illegal passenger in a supply plane (as those things were the only ones who could use the airports). Apparently one of the crew members of the supply team was already infected, and he later bit three people inside the plane; two friends of the guy and my father who was hiding behind some crates. Later, they infected more people, and then those people infected some more, and the numbers multiplied quicker than ever.

But I didn't know this just yet. In fact, I didn't know anything at all until three days later, when the mayor confirmed three hundred positive cases in Nashville alone.

The names were read. My father was among them.

"Ti−"

My sister crumpled beside me, scared. This confusing, mysterious disease was so great, many scientists and doctors couldn't even find classification. The social media got crazy. YouTube and Tiktok videos aired everywhere around the world, creating mass panic and memes.

The more fucked up thing that happened was that I had no sorrow inside me when I heard his name. I became a bit relieved to be completely honest. Aside from him being an abusive maniac, he still was my parent. But when he died, I felt no remorse. What the hell kinda kid was I?

Two days later, the government banned the internet and closed up every server in the country. They also prohibited everything which included going outside.

News became our only source for these things, and even with that, the government strictly filtered what news went to us. Basically we knew almost nothing but not to go outside.

Saturday came fast, which was a week after the first infected was announced in the city. The government kept promising free supplies consisted of food and clothes, and even those were limited.

Phone calls buzzed every now and then, usually from the record company, meeting provisions, and Michelle, but none from my mother and his Australian jerky boyfriend. Those who called me only asked me to stay home and said that I would not be forgotten.

But I was forgotten. How could I not? I was an extremely popular pop singer, that's true, but it was the start of a fucking apocalypse. Of course they would only care about themselves.

Then, that news came, stating that every country in the world had been infected. Those which were very isolated like Greenland, Fiji, and even Nauru didn't escape death. The WHO lost count of the deaths and the infected.

The whole world turned into a warzone in less than two weeks. Internet was disabled, electricity didn't work anymore in Africa and Indonesia, and the streets were as empty as you might have already guessed.

Thousands of years which the humans thrived, it ended with a sweeping bang in mere seconds.

It was the end of the normal life.

It was the start of a quarantine.

The start of an apocalypse.

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Art : Saatchi Art from Pinterest