The wind rippled through Ashur's shaggy hair as Thicket zipped through the lavender field they found themselves in. The sun above was now fully absent in its place the stars twinkled through the breaks in the clouds in the sky above. The moon was now in view shining slivered light on their cool faces. Thicket's fur was now dried with the blood from the beast he fought in the forest. He breathed heavily as he ran, his warm breath filling the cold night air before breaking across his face in large white bursts.
There was nothing more than the empty field in front of them, the large beckoning forest to the east, and the deep valley below them for miles. Amanda looked down into the menacing valley realizing now where they were. She recognized the plant life and the surrounding area. She recognized the dirt path that lead her to the farm she woke up at, but most of all below them she recognized the gleaming almost glowing lake. The same lake she had last seen what she assumed remained of her family.
The more she watched the more she noticed, the world was a different place at night, the grass below them seemed to grip onto Thicket's hooves as they ran through. The vines on the trees seemed to move and grow before their very eyes, and most interestingly the small creatures like crickets and grasshoppers were larger than any they had ever seen before. They were the size of small rabbits and completely see-through revealing their internal organs glowing beneath their translucent skin.
Amanda watched in awe as their organs worked and functioned properly. She never noticed how beautiful the night was before the blast but now she knew, nights were as beautiful and fascinating as they were terrifying. The fields filled with the sounds of chirping and croaking as the oversized bugs dug and climbed their way back to the surface.
"I've been thinking," Boulder said, pulling himself from deep thought.
"About?" Amanda asked, turning her attention from the crickets crossing their path.
"After the encounter with the...beast in the woods, we should look for better weapons when we get back to the city," He replied, holding up his pitchfork.
"That isn't a bad idea. These will probably only get us so far," She said, gripping her weapon firmly. Ashur didn't acknowledge the conversation behind him, he stayed staring ahead toward Westbrooke. His eyes fixated on the distant tops of buildings. He could almost tell what each building was. He could see the bank where his parents got their loan to open the restaurant. He could also see the huge hotel they had put in a few years back for tourists who couldn't afford to stay in the city.
The idea of how close they were frightened him as much as it excited him. He didn't know what to expect, he didn't know what they would find but he had hoped they would get the answers they wanted. A muffled voice behind him spoke softly before pausing briefly. It spoke again, this time a little more aggressively. Then he felt a hand rest on his shoulder gently and the voice became clear.
"Ashur?" Amanda asked, placing her hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah?" He asked, snapping out of his trance.
"Everything okay?" She asked, perturbed.
"Yeah, sorry just...in my head, that's all," He said, shrugging and smiling softly.
"Okay, well, Boulder and I think it'd be a good idea to get better weapons once we reach the city. Especially after the woods," She said.
"That's smart, maybe we can find some guns in town," He replied, optimistically.
"We were thinking the same thing," She said, smiling and patting him on the back. She leaned back away from him as she continued to watch the critters and creatures as their faint glows pulsated slowly. As the empty fields filled with the reawakening sounds she thought were gone, she wondered if the world would ever be normal again. She held on to hope that things weren't all bad but she knew they'd never be the same. She could only hope they'd get better.
Scott walked through his now vacant neighborhood, cars were dead in the middle of the road leaving dark skid marks burned into the tarmac as they swerved and slammed into trees, fences, and houses. Vines slowly consumed the houses while husks covered the street. His eyes wandered seeing people who were struck by the unforgiving blast. His neighbor Ms.Tubbs was one of the poor victims. An eighty-something-year-old woman, still wearing her yellow kimono and her pink slippers with her hand shoved halfway into her mailbox. She didn't stand a chance he thought.
On the other side, he saw his other neighbor Mr. Wessel a poor schmuck who was laid off from the nuclear plant before this all happened. He was swinging from the tree in his front yard, with a yellow piece of paper taped to his chest. In large black letters, God forgive us was written in shaky handwriting across the yellow page. Next door was his house, a nice-sized white house with a big blue door that sat slightly ajar. He hesitated for a moment, standing at the base of the three stairs leading up to the large blue door wondering if it was worth going inside.
He knew the answer to his question before he asked it, his father was behind the door he stopped himself from opening. That mean son of a bitch finally got what was coming to him. He stared on filled with anger and hate seeing how home-like his house looked on the outside, knowing what happened on the inside. Tears swelled in his eyes, not from sadness but from frustration. Why was he so hesitant? He wanted to see his dad. He wanted to know he got everything he deserved.
Even though he hated his dad, part of him wanted him to be alive. Not because he loved or missed him, but simply because he wanted to kill the bastard himself. Through the tears and the gritting of his teeth, Scott reached his hand out and pushed the door. It creaked open slowly revealing his living room, complete with two leather sectionals, a large recliner, and a small glass coffee table. He glanced around looking at the false memories on the wall. Pictures at the beach and on cruises, with fake smiles plastered on his family's faces. Live, Laugh, Love signs hung above the stairs, and a large portrait of Jesus hung snugly above the mantle. Bullshit he told himself, rolling his eyes as he did each time he walked through the front door of that house.
He made his way up the cracked stairs. The vines entangled the banister slats snapping the wooden spokes. He stepped carefully creaking up each step slowly before approaching Eden's door. He pushed it open and found the room empty just as they had left it before school. The only difference was someone had come in and ripped the posters, paintings, and pictures from the wall. Scattered across the floor were shredded pieces of paper and torn notebooks. The bed was unmade, the tv was broken, and the dark yellow curtains draping over the window were yanked out of the wall leaving two deep holes at the corners of the window sill.
"What the fuck?" He asked, no longer internalizing his thoughts. His eyes scanned the tattered room briefly as he slowly backed out and closed the door behind him. He made his way further down the long hallway toward his room. His eyes studied the photos lining the wall of the hallway as he slowly walked down. Pictures of his mom were the only ones left hanging and untouched. The photos of him, Eden, or his dad were shattered and smashed on the carpeted floor. The glass crunched beneath his shoes as he approached the white door fitted with a do not enter sign. He gripped the golden knob in his hand and pushed open his door. The walls were broken with hundreds of holes punched and kicked into them. His clothes were ripped from the closet and scattered across the floor and an open bottle of whiskey lay on the carpet drenching everything around it. He was angry, why would his dad do this? What was the point? Most importantly where was he now?
He reached down and grabbed the half-empty bottle of whisky and gripped it by the neck down below his waist. He made his way back out of his room and to the end of the hallway, where his dad's room was. The door was cracked, which was an unusual occurrence. He kicked the base of the door lightly and it opened slowly before slamming into the rubber tip of the spring stopper. The room was dark and cold. The bed was tattered and unkept and the furniture was lined with half empty bottles of booze. In the center of the room was his father's husk, kneeling in front of the entertainment center leaking its fluids on the carpet around him. His expression was that of guilt and sadness. He gripped a bottle of booze in one hand and an empty bottle of pills in the other.
Scott looked in disbelief, scanning the expression on his father's face intently before his anxiety turned to rage.
"After everything, how I was a pussy how I was weak how I didn't deserve to live, and you go and try and end it yourself?" He shouted, kicking the pill bottle from his dad's husked hand. The arm bearing the bottle turned to ash and rested on the ground as the plastic orange bottle bounced across the room.
"You deserved, to suffer. I hope it hurt like hell!" He shouted dumping what remained of the whiskey in his bottle over the husk's head. He looked around the room tearing it apart. Ripping drawers from the dresser finding bottle after bottle of booze, and throwing them to the floor near his dad, shattering them and spilling the alcohol everywhere. Then in the top drawer of his dad's nightstand, he found a small pink and black book of matches from Serenity the strip club downtown.
"So this is where you'd disappear to every Thursday?" He asked, chuckling softly.
"God you were a fucking loser weren't you," He finished before grabbing the unbroken bottles he threw. He opened them, throwing their caps across the bed, and splashed them all over the room, before making his way into the hallway and drenching the pictures and paintings and the walls. He made his way downstairs spilling alcohol on the wood as he made his way down. He splashed it on the sofas, chairs, tables, and doors before going outside.
In his hand, he held the last bottle and stared up at his dad's bedroom window, which sat beautifully on the front of the house and was cracked halfway. He unscrewed the red cap of the plastic vodka bottle and took a swig cringing as the spicy liquid slowly slid down the back of his throat.
"Here's to you pops," He said, removing the fabric he used to wrap his injured hand. He stuffed the blood-soaked rag into the neck of the bottle tightly before striking one match from the dirty book, it sparked quickly, filling his nostrils with sulfur before he used it to light the entire booklet. One by one with a loud hiss the booklet was lit on fire turning the pink cardboard to an ashy black before it crumpled away. He held the now burning booklet to the fabric poking out of the vodka bottle and set it ablaze before cocking back his arm and hucking it as hard as he could into his father's room it flew through the opened window and landed on the large bed inside.
As it hit, the bottle shattered and sent burning liquid all over sparking the alcohol he had poured all over the house. Then he tossed the book into the front door where he had spilled the last of the alcohol and watched as the flame followed his trail to the stairs where the two flames met in the middle. As quickly as he threw the booklet the house was set ablaze. Smoke rose as the constricting vines around it fell limp to the ground before shriveling up and retreating into the dirt. He stood and watched as the house crackled and popped. The smell of burning embers filled his the air as the smoke burned his unblinking eyes. As much as he tried he couldn't seem to turn away as he watched the home he grew up in burn to the ground. Before long all that remained were red-hot embers in a large pile where his home once was.
"Fuck you, dad," He said, turning his back and walking away, and heading back into town.