1 Chapter 1: The One That Came and Went.

My feet are the same size as mother's. There's maybe a few millimetres I have that she didn't, but whenever I wear her boots, I feel good. I feel brave and strong, I feel things I wouldn't normally if I were barefoot.

We were the perfect family. A beautiful mother, healthy and average to good-looking kids, enough money to survive on our own and an amazing education, from both our mother and the school. We had our family shop, where Kimberley would go out and distribute flyers in the streets, where Tristan and Anne carried the crates containing food into the storage room (Tristan would drive because he had gotten his licence and Anne would tag along because she was tough enough to carry things twice her weight), where Josephine would help mother and bark orders around and where I would clean and stock the goods. It wasn't an amazing lifestyle, but it was all I needed and ever wanted.

I wasn't skilled like any of my siblings had been, Kimberley being pretty, ink-black hair and amazing blue eyes, Tristan and Anne were strong and stubborn, but always able to have a laugh and Josephine was like our second mother, sweet and caring, over-protective at times with a tone of voice that could boom far. But, I was fast and I was smart. I still am.

But I wasn't smart enough to intercept the C26 virus. The first one that came and ate up my family. Five graves dug behind the store because of those viruses.

I shake the dirt off the carrots I had planted last week. They're not bright orange like carrots would've been two years ago but a mix or very pale orange and pink. For some reason, carrots now only take up to a maximum of two weeks to fully grow. They're edible, but all taste has long been gone. I stuff them in the crate that is the closest to the window. Only people who know of this place now come.

Only the ones who haven't died yet.

From up the hill, I can see the remains of what was once a colourful city, not too modern, but not too old. A place I would call home. Now? Broken down buildings. Smashed windows. Contaminated people lying in the streets waiting for death to grab them. And, every month, military swooping in to either distribute a bunch of chemicals they hope to make you swallow or demand goods. They abandoned a long time ago to find a cure. Only the most resistant survived.

The rustic bell over the door rings and I snap my head up to see someone standing in the doorway. The smell of Kravmol blood, a putrid, rotting egg-like stench arrives into my nostrils and I immediately grip my baseball bat, prepared to attack another one of those cannibals.

They aren't like zombies in a book. They're worst. They still react and think like humans, but in a matter of seconds, they can turn into human-eating killing machines. They plan, live in groups and eat up humans like me when they're hungry.

Not one of my customers hunts for Kravmols. So unless word got out, and that's a big deal because this place runs on secrecy, I'm dealing with another one of those horrendous creatures. "We're closed," I start, wondering why the person isn't moving.

I can make out the features of his face, and he's barely older than me, twenty-five at the maximum. I slowly approach the man.

If this is a setup and Kravmols are outside lurking, then please tell me someone will find my body before the military invades it.

"Do you sell gum?"

I choke on my saliva. All this stupid stressing for a packet of gum? "We're closed," I repeat, still holding my bat. I know he isn't one of them, but there are still psychos in this world, post-apocalyptic or not.

"Do you have a place I can shower then? This blood's getting sticky and I'm not willing to stay in this shit for another day."

I arch an eyebrow, curious. "You're one of them aren't you?" He turns his head and gives me a bright smile. "You're part of those Krav hunters?" I'm not even sure why it's a question anymore. It seems so logical, the blood, the sharp knife...

The sharp knife? My eyes open wide. The knife's not his! "Where'd you get that?" I ask sharply, my knuckles tightening on the handle of the bat.

He pushes his (what I think) is brown hair, but it's full of dried blood so I'm not sure, out of his eyes. I won't lie; this man has sharp features, leaning towards the handsome more than strict. "What?"

I scoff and point at the knife. "That. The knife. It's mine. Where'd you get it?"

He shrugs. "A window was open so-"

"You went inside my house?! Get out!" I screech, suddenly remembering that I had left the window open. What an arrogant bastard!

"Here." He tosses it and I watch it fall at my feet in disbelief. Did he seriously believe I was going to catch a knife that was flying in the air?

I pick it up, annoyed that he had to throw it on the ground. "Get out. We're closed," I bark, but just as I finish my sentence, the voluminous alarm rings in the middle of the town. The noise is loud enough to screw with my head and I totally freak out. They're going to smell him and come to me.

"What's that?" he asks, entering the shop, taking one of the carrots I just put in the crate.

"You hunt the Kravs don't you?" I ask, approaching the window to close the blinds, the alarm still blaring throughout the hills and the echoing in the abandoned buildings. He nods, and I scowl at his bloody face. I think what's worse is that I know it isn't his and that just his presence in my bloody shop can get me killed. "Then leave. Leave! Go! Get the fuck out!"

I rush to him and try to push him out, but he doesn't budge. The alarm screams louder and louder and all I end up doing is getting sticky half-dried blood on my hands. "Fine. Stay and guard the door and window."

He nods, before quickly adding something that makes me stay still on the spot. "Why's the alarm ringing?" I groan, slamming the door with my food and closing the black blinds on that one.

"You're not from here are you?"

He shakes his head. "I come from around Nixador's Valley."

I let out a sharp laugh. The only people who haven't heard of Nixador are the dead ones. Nixador didn't exist two years, it's a region, an area, a huge plot of land surrounded by large walls and has a maximum defence. The rich ones live there, protected from the Kravmols. They've never heard the alarm before. And the valleys in Nixador are just as protected. He's part of those rich snobs who sit up in their villas, watching us, poor people who've lost everything, rummage for food and try to hold onto the last remains of our lives.

"Of course you do."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he says, and I shrug.

"You're a rich kid, who hunts Kravmols to try to prove something to your parents. You've never lived in the real world. You may be tough, you may be strong-willed, but you've got no idea what it's like out here. You've got no idea what it feels like to lose everybody you've ever cared about," I spit, and before he can answer, I disappear into the storage room.

I kick it shut and lay my back on the door, trying to control my heavy breathing. This is wrong. I shouldn't have someone like him in here. All it does is bring up the past, the worse parts of my damaged life.

Once the alarm goes off, I'll give him a pack of gum, something that Kimberley had kept, who're probably old and very hard. He'll be happy. Look at him coming in wanting a pack of gum. As if I can produce gum. As if I can get him what he's so used to in Nixador Valley.

I open the second door in the storage room and rush into the hallway. I need to close the windows. I open my door first, having flashbacks of what used to be a colourful room, with bright wallpaper and nice bedsheets. A large window, lighting up the room, adding air and sunshine. But all I can see now is a mattress, on the floor because the bed broke, a rotting floorboard, the paint is peeling off the walls, and I can no longer feel sunshine on my skin when I wake up, nor the cheery arguments from when my siblings were alive.

I make my ways to the window, avoiding floorboard number four, row five because it creaks, and I fear I'll fall. I close it and shut tightly my bedroom door behind me. The alarm finally stops, but I know it's not over just yet. This only means the Kravs are coming in.

It became a law that everyone had to respect. Everyone expects the other cities like Nixador and Nixador Valley. You ring a bell, an alarm that attracts those ghouls and they come and eat up anyone on the streets and try to barge their way into unprotected areas like my shop. It's ridiculous because the military could've tried killing them all as they did with half of my infected town, but no. As a matter of fact, we're basically offered as a meal to those inhumane creatures.

I walk to what used to be Anne's and Tristan's room. I transformed it into an indoor garden because I couldn't stand not using this room. I had to throw out everything. Now I have tasteless carrots, potatoes which are slightly spicy, and for some reason, after the virus, tomatoes have begun becoming white and purple with shades of red. I have much more fruits and vegetables outside, but I couldn't stand knowing this room was left there for dead like memories stored in a box.

I close the window in there and turn on the self-warming lamps. Next room is Josephine's. I couldn't see all of those metal and rock posters anymore, so her room got transformed into a place where I produce my electricity. With the help of an engineer who died a few weeks later, we set up a thing that generates enough electricity to help me survive. And it takes up all the room. Last room, mum's room.

The only one left untouched. I know I don't need to enter it. I never open the window. In fact, I've never been in her room. It was her dying wish. For all five us to not lay a foot in her room until Kimberley turned eighteen. I'm not sure it still counts if Kimberley is dead. She died a year ago.

She was the last one still standing with me. The last one there. Kimberley. The horrible things I did to her. The pain in her eyes. The pain in mine. It was a bloodbath. But she didn't want to live, and I was tougher than proven. Although the scars will always be there, up until I bury them with me in my grave. I will never get rid of them as I did with blood and bleach.