•••
Darkness swarmed me, like a field of disturbed locusts consuming my every sense with the never ending hum of their constant clicking, as I wander through the many winding streets casted by the dark gloom of shadows.
Mindlessly, I stride forward as my thoughts are consumed with the rapid plans that spin their reluctant webs within the chaos that is my fragile brain. The worn down soles of my sneaks make a pitter patter echo against the cold cement, the over towering city now takes on an eerie silence, or more so then what had haunted these tight avenues just a few hours prior. Only the rawr of flash cars and their squealing tires skidding across the road can be heard from a short distance away from where I plod forward.
I don't know what I'm going to do. Leave this city? This place that I've built my entire existence around, that Eliana's structured her enter existence around. How would I possibly be able to do that? I'd have to leave my job and then somehow find a new one else where, which brings up another issue of how I would possibly be able to get me and Eliana out of this place, I've never lived in my own apartment or anything alike before, only the small, broken down apartment that Nan moved into a few years ago.
My legs burn as I push forward, knowing that Eliana is only a few streets from me. Once I get then I can figure out what we will do and plan forward in what is best.
Whether to stay or flee.
A vibrate buzzes in my back pocket for the millionth time today, more than I have ever gotten any other time in my life. Typically, the only thing flooding my cracked phone screen is the subscriptions I sighed up blissfully unaware of the folders filled with daft unoriginal concepts they decide to send out to each of their subscribers. And this time is no different as I stare at the youtube link suggesting me a video on the differences of language. but then I notice it, just below the red icon is a white square with a bright red triangle in the corner and a explanation point stuffed into it. Only a few words to be read by what I would image to be many.
WARNING - Stay inside and do not attempt to leave the city.
Sent an hour ago.
My face contorts into one of disbelief. That's all they are going to say? With everything that is going on, all that I alone have seen today, and that is the only thing they have to say to the masses of thai city? I'd checked the news sites to see if they had updated anything after what I'd heard in the taxi, but nothing was found. It had seemed like hourly updates just for them to go radio silent on people desperately needing answers.
But a thought twisted its way through my mind, leaving a hollowing dread sinking to the pit of my stomach.
The government has never been silent before, even for the most scandalous things, and definitely not for an outbreak. So why now do they choose silence?
Striding down the pavement, I notice a familiar floral shop filled with numaras contrasting colours, blending together. Typically the strong scent of delicate petals waft through the open glass door, but all that overconsumes my nostrils is the stench of urine and gasoline dripping from peoples notably distraught cars in need of a check up, as I pass by the store front. Only two more blocks, then I'm home with Eliana.
Colours burst out like firecrackers near the end of the street. Orange reds and yellows blend together like water paint being poured onto a blank canvas as shadowing bodies flock around the silhouette of the sedan that's parked in the middle of an intersection. One figure belts out a howl that echoes throughout the empty streets.
What are they doing? Out in the open like this surely the police would be contacted by now, or shorty?
With slow steps, I trudge forward as I further watch them run around the burning vehicle, like they are mere children innocently playing a game of ring around the rosey. They bellows consume everything around them, as though they are the only ones beneath the spot light. Not something typically to be felt in a cold, bustling city like this.
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Vines of Hunger | ONC 2024
Science FictionDeath was once something I feared, an illusion that brought darkness with it, but now I plead for its mercy in this time that survivors have come to call, The New Order. ••• It was only a cough to began with, something so simple, it had happened a t...
