1 Running wild

"Run! "someone shouted, "run quick!" the instant the word rang through the valley, chaos soon followed like the rushing waves of the tide. Everyone was running, running and running and running for their lives and so I ran alongside them. How long had it been? The screams and shouts echoed in the valley as their desperate voices were heard loud and clear. With every scream fuelled us with energy desperate to keep ahead, the wind crashing into our faces like a storm. The screams were terrifying, their pleas for their loved ones and friends were heard yet ignored. Everyone was one for themselves.

Next to me was a tiny girl. Her breath was ragged and was visible on the cold winter day, wheezing and panting. Her face was pale through all the dirt and grim that masked her face permanently. Her face bold and stiff, uncertain if the emotion shown was pure determination to survive or something else. Through her clothes, her ribs poked out and showed the extremely disturbing view of her skin stretched across her skeleton. Her hair was cut short and uneven, damp from the previous showers the storm brought us . The screams were becoming undoubtedly quieter until what could be heard was the sickening crunch of the bones the beast shattered. Everyone was tired and many had water streaming down their faces, not sure whether from the rain or because of the pain of abandoning their family and friends to selfishly survive in the damned world. Those who did not cry were already used to it, throwing away all they had to start again and for it to be thrown away again. The image of this depicted the greatest lesson know to man- humanity's greatest weakness: hope.

Fire burnt the sky black and was smothered by the mist and haze but could not be compared to the strong emotions that smothered us, towering over us like the walls that surrounded the prisoners of war. The sun could not be seen, not even a glimmer of light to give us hope. Even when I closed my eyes and tried to think of what life was before the chaos, nothing could be brought to mind. Even the air was rotted and like poison to our lungs. When I opened my eyes and looked around again, everything disappeared from sight. The girl I ran alongside. The people who sat and wallowed in their tears. When I closed my eyes and reopened it again, the unmistakable image was shown to me. The sky blood red and piles of bodies everywhere, and standing on the mountain of shredded corpses, tattered clothes and the destruction of mankind's finest inventions was me, the lifeless body of the girl that ran beside me at my feet. At my mercy. The ominous red light that shone so bright across the horizon glared at me with hateful eyes, the blood red colour of death and what was the remains of humanity. That was when I realised. The thing that I had been running from was me.