(Opening) Chapter 1: Hiding

Outside the small open window, the continuous chorus of the mocking bird overhead in the forest canopy stretched into the late hours of the darkness. Annoying, yet an almost welcome distraction from my loud and anxious mind.

Ashley's deep sigh from her bed on the opposite wall broke the stillness of the old cabin.

"Why does that stupid ass bird never shut the hell up..?" she grumbled, as she rolled out of bed and made her way across the creaking boards to the small brick fire place.

"He's lonely." I offererd up, silently. She shook her head in annoyance before tossing another log into the smoldering hearth.

"How do you figure?" she asked, clearly not out of interest, but to find a distraction from her own thoughts that had kept her from drifting off as well.

"Male mocking birds cry out at all hours like this for one of two reasons" I gave into sleeplessness and joined her by the fire with my blanked curled tightly around me.

"He either hasn't found a mate yet, or he lost his. So, I believe he's lonely."

Ashley stared into the flames. I can tell the events of today were weighing on her as heavily as they were on me; if not more.

"Not to worry though, he will die soon anyways. Either exhaustion will take him, or I will.". I passed her a weak grin hoping to lighten the mood. Clearly to no avail.

She was silent a long moment before she stood up and stared into the dark outside the window.

"We can't keep this up. I can't keep this up. It's been over 11 months Layla, and it's just been getting worse."

"Dad told us to stay put, so we stay put. You read his last letter. If we leave the mountain, they will find us, and they will take us, Ash."

I kept still in front of the crackling warmth of the fire as she paced the small room behind me.

"So, what then, we just stay hidden up here in this shithole until we die. No doubt from unnatural causes. Dad...if he's dead...or when he dies, what then? Have you thought of that? WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO TH-"

"I DON'T KNOW ASHLEY!"

I grit my teeth until my head ached. Deep, shaky breaths the only vice keeping me from taking out my fear and frustration on my sister. I wish she could extend me the same courtesy.

She was right though. We have been up here too long. Dad told us at first 'Just a few weeks'. Then it was 'A month or so'. Now closing in on a year hidden in the Smokey Mountains, there was no end in sight.

It has been almost 3 years sinse they began dosing the worlds population with the 'Life saving' vaccine meant to ward off the pandemic that plagued us all. Little did they know, there were repercussions to fast tracking science.

In this case, those repercussions came in the form of side effects ranging from extraordinarily weakend immune systems, all the way down to aggressive forms of cancer. The laundry list of side effects varied from patient to patient; but the one absolute to all was sterilization.

With the population on a steep decline from the variations of side effects, the world was in a panic. Unable to sustain the human population, all efforts were focused on finding a "cure for the cure".

Our Father works for one of the leading scientific research organizations in the country, Lifeline Bureau of America. LBA for short. The Bureau began rounding up the less than 6% of the population that had been lucky enough to have dodged the vaccine. Dad says they were put into "camps" to keep them secluded from the rest of the world. LBA announced their beliefs that the unvaccinated were a danger to the already fragile vaccinated. People everywhere began turning in their neighbors, best friends, and loved ones to the LBA to be taken away to their facilities to be quarantined. Fear, they used everyone's fear as a solution. Sick bastards.

Seeing as both Ashley and myself opted out of taking the vaccine (more so out of our pure hatred for needles) we were on the list of those who were hunted. We were fortunate our conspiracy theorist of a dad got a heads up and had my sister and I, quite literally, head for the hills.

Every month he came on the third day to make a supply drop in the cache at the base of the mountain. We would make the 7 hour trek in the night as to not be seen from the winding backroad. Except this time when we arrived, the cache was empty.