Forged in Sorrow ✓

W.E.V.

When news reports finally admitted the world was ending, they never really prepared anyone for anything.

Some of the anchors made jokes about all of the movies that we'd have to watch, in order to have maximum knowledge to deal with the situation. I thought it was crap, but my little sister managed to drink it all up. She'd wake up each morning, turn on the news, watch for a little while, and then she'd switch to Netflix to rewatch some of the recently added movies like World War Z and Mad Max.

When my mom admitted, just as the news reports had done, that the world was ending, my sister and I had already known for a month.

Every morning, she'd go to work to try and develop a cure and I'd carry around the sickening weight of the truth while I made myself a cup of coffee. I had gotten used to the bitter taste after all of the sugar prices had gone up. We had a store of sugar that only I knew of, but I was saving it for a special occasion. My hands shook whenever I prayed to God, begging him to let my sister turn six, to let my mom turn thirty-nine. I had enough sugar for one last cup of coffee and two large birthday cakes.

I didn't need to turn fifteen, anyway. Cake wasn't even my thing.

"Lily?" I had called out on one of those last evenings. I had taken Mom's extra car and driven my sister out to the beach to watch the sunset from a safe distance,  out of the way of all the dead birds and washed up the bones of those rich people and their fancy crews. No officer was out to ticket me since everything had fallen into a disarray of chaos. Taking someone to jail had no point when you were going to die in a months' time, just as giving someone a ticket made no sense when they wouldn't live long enough to pay it off.

At least, that was the general consensus among the police when my best friend was beaten almost to death two months after the news.

'There's no point, girl. Shut up about it.'

Minor thefts were easy to get away with and court dates were mostly forgotten.

My father, while he still lived, got away with the theft of a box of books. Sure, the police caught him and he sat in a holding cell for a day, but they let him out.

'Go spend time with your family,' is what they might have said. 'It's the end of the world soon. Don't forget that.'

But they didn't let him out because of the good that filled their hearts, it was because my father carried the virus around with him. He had gross, orange blisters, all over his face. He couldn't hug me or my sister for our fear of catching it. He constantly coughed all over everything. The virus caused paranoia and insomnia. During late nights, I'd huddle with my sister as we listened to Dad stumble downstairs as he walked around aimlessly with nothing to do. Each cough sounded as if his lungs were being ejected from his body and we couldn't do anything to help. Even with the makings of a cure being broadcasted, he walked around telling everyone that it'd never work. Everyone consisted of my sister, my mom, and me.

After he died -- I found him on the floor one night, after about an hour of silence -- Mom burned all of our stuff and we moved to a small apartment. Lily spent hours just looking at his dead body. I had to tear her away from him, convince her that he was only sleeping. We were shoved into a moving van and we left.

Children aren't completely clueless; she knew that he was dead. She dug him a hole in the flowerpot at our new apartment, she tossed in some marigolds, she said a quick prayer then took a nap after one of those full-body coughing fits. Lily refused to talk about it after that.

After he died I didn't mourn. I picked up my broken pieces and started again. There had always been rumors of a cure, lurking in radio boxes that I only ever heard when buying some snacks for my little sister. It was those rumors that I hung onto, that I went to sleep thinking about.