Surviving the Apocalypse in a Game-like World

My name is Ezekial Andrews and I'm already 21 years old this year. I live with my father and my sisters in rural America in a two-story semi-detached house. It was a nice little house having three bedrooms, two of which were side by side with an interconnected door. The first floor was composed of a kitchen, bathroom and a living room. A simple house that looks lifeless having next to no decorations at all, besides the small vegetable garden and shrubbery towards the left-hand side of the house. The inside of the house was painted plain white with some artificial flowers in a vase in the centre of the kitchen table.

I walked solemnly down the simple stairway, memories from the past playing back in my mind. I walked by the front door, locking and bolting it as I passed for extra security. When I turned around I saw my reflection in the mirror.

My rounded face and fierce eyebrows looked exactly like my father's I also inherited his medium build from him, not too skinny but not too bulky either. My hairstyle was done in a way to annoy my father, since he always says that a clean and approachable demeaner would give off a good vibe and would make it easier for people to welcome you. My current style was vastly overgrown in top, being dyed white~silver, whilst the sides were short and had a star pattern cut into it. I was filled with a sense of achievement when I remembered earlier when I walked in with the new hair style and got a scoff from my father who was sitting at the kitchen table reading the morning paper whilst silently cursing me from behind it. I almost thought he would voice his reaction but he decided against it, leaving me slightly disappointed.

I took an energy drink from the fridge, while cracking it open I left through the back door. After locking the door with my keys I took a heavy duty padlock from a nearby plant pot and locked it to the door.

This could be considered as something to be frowned upon but there was a unique reason for this. I consider myself as someone with a bad temper, someone who was rude and to be honest, a complete and utter asshole, but my dad was on a whole other level.

I never used to be like this, when I was young I had all the respect in the world for my parents, we were a happy family of five. I was a well behaved child and loved to play with the neighbouring children.

But that was years ago, before my mother left with one of my adoptive sister, before my father became crippled by depression, before he turned to gambling. My father became a compulsive gambler, riddled with debts, which caused the split of the family as it is now.

He was once a role model for me, as a child I would always follow him wherever he went inside the house. I watched him build a tree house for me and my sisters in our back yard. He was a respected engineer, not just in the building of tall skyscrapers but all sorts of things like aerospace engineering, even working for the military from time to time. He used to ramble on about his dreams as he told me stories of his life, about when he was a child and he scrapped his toys for parts disassembling and reassembling them as he pleased, coming up with new and improved designs for his toys. Inventing and building was his hobby ever since.

When I was sixteen my father was invited on a business trip by some colleagues to which he accepted. My mother disliked the idea greatly and argued with him about it but he still ended up going anyway. My mother was right to try to stop him from going, as those people turned out to be addictive gamblers. When my dad returned home sometime in the early hours of the morning he was shouting drunken slurs like "He cheated me out of my money!" and "He was just lucky, that's all!" as my mother tried to convince him to stop, causing loud arguments to erupt almost every night. At that time, my sisters would come into my room and sleep with me whilst I covered their ears so they could sleep properly, they were thirteen and fifteen at the time.

My mother was still holding on to a glimmer of hope that forced her to put up with the constant disappointment from her husband. She held on to blind faith thinking that my father would wake up one day and finally stop his compulsive gambling. That glimmer of hope faded from existence when one day strange people in black suits knocked at our door.

We were in the middle of lunch when they knocked, my mother frowned and got up to answer the door. I tried to listen to what they were saying but my mother told me to take my sisters upstairs and stay there. I took my sister upstairs but then waited at the top of the stairway as my mother invited them in and served them lemonade and biscuits. I took glances at the two men following a bald old man, they stood behind the old geezer as he sat down and leisurely sipped his lemonade.

The man spoke to my mother about something which made her frown, I tried to listen in on what they were saying but my feet made a noise on the floor and I ran before my mother could turn her head, in fear of getting caught I pulled my sisters into our parents room and we hid inside the closet.

A few minutes later there was a large bang as shouting erupted from downstairs, the commotion was so loud and sudden that it scared my sisters and made them jump. I became worried for my mother when the sound finally stopped, and that made me hurriedly run down the stairs leaving the two sisters huddled together in the now open closet. The people had already left the house, so I ran towards the front window to catch a glimpse of them getting into a black car and drive away. My mother was sitting dazed in the kitchen while my father was punching a wall in the living room screaming at it profusely, the kitchen table was overturned and the refreshments which my mother served were scattered across the kitchen floor.

After that fiasco the night became unusually quiet after being used to his parents ranting in at each other every night,there was no words spoken until morning came.

The next day my mother left with my sister Amelia while leaving me and Marriane waving goodbye from the upstairs window. After a week of crying and pestering our father he finally cracked and told us why mother had left, he said that she was tired of him and couldn't put up with it anymore and so he agreed that she could leave but could only take one child with her, meaning Marriane and I would never see our mother or sister again.

And that is why I hate the world and every one in it, other than my sisters who keep me sane.

**********

Kerklunk!

I noisely locked the gate with chains and a padlock before turning and walking towards the plaza located next to the highstreet. Halfway there I suddenly felt an intense heat on the back of my head, as I turned to look at the sky I was shocked as to what I saw.

I gigantic meteor had suddenly materialised out of nowhere, it's steaming molten surface inching ever-closer to the planet. I stood rooted to the spot, dumbfounded as to what to do when suddenly a splitting headache made it's way into my skull, forcing me to kneel on the ground all the while clutching my skull in my hands. Before I passed out I managed to glance at a nearby street sign it said 'World load in progress...'