The Beginning of the End by Lorana Hoopes (readict txt) 📕

outdoors and that everyone remain at least six feet from each other. Only Katie remained constant. A few times a week, the two would meet up and jog around the neighborhood.

Lily didn’t enjoy running as much as she enjoyed hitting the bag at the gym, but it was still closed with no end in sight, so running had taken its place. In fact, that’s what she needed to do today. Get out and run off her anger and clear her head.

She fired off a quick text to Katie asking if she wanted to join and then changed into workout wear while she waited for a reply. Her phone beeped as she pulled her hair into a ponytail.

Still working, but swing by when you’re done and I can do a quick walk.

Lily sighed as she texted back a reply. Maybe it was a good thing though. Her pace was always a little slower when Katie ran with her, and today she needed to run out her frustrations. She grabbed her earbuds and headed downstairs to tell her mother where she was going.

Like normal, her mother was on the phone, so Lily scrawled a quick note and held it up for her mother to read. After a quick glance, her mother flashed a thumbs up sign, and Lily headed for the front door, turning on her music as she went.

The run started well, and Lily enjoyed the rhythm of her feet pounding on the pavement along with the beat in her ear, but as she passed the park a half mile from her house, a chill ran down her spine. The park had been roped off with yellow caution tape for as long as Lily had been out of school, so she wasn’t sure why it was affecting her now. Once, someone had torn down the tape and Lily had hoped that meant the restrictions were easing, but the tape was back the next day. Maybe that was it. Maybe this lifeless park was a symbol for life as she knew it from now on.

Shaking her head to try and dispel the gloom that suddenly surrounded her, Lily turned her music up louder and decided she was ready to see Katie.

“Whoa, are you okay?” Katie asked when she opened the door.

“I don’t know,” Lily said. It was weird, but she still couldn’t shake the depressed feeling that had cloaked her at the park. It was like it had marked her somehow and was following her wherever she went. “I ran by the park, and it just felt weird. The empty swings and the structures all taped off. I know it’s been that way for weeks, so I don’t know why it bothered me today, but it did.”

Katie nodded and led the way to her room. “I understand. That park being empty of kids really shook me up after the disappearances, but now it feels almost sinister or something. I don’t even know why the park is closed. Haven’t they been saying that the virus couldn’t be spread outside and that it didn’t live long on surfaces?”

Lily chuffed as she sat on Katie’s bed and folded one leg beneath her. No matter what channel one watched, the rules and regulations behind what the virus did and how they should combat it changed daily, but those two points had remained relatively constant. “Yeah, they did say that, but it seems that doesn’t matter anymore. They also said masks wouldn’t help and now the governor is mandating them. I don’t know. Everything just feels off.”

Katie sat against the headboard and pulled her knees to her chest. “You know what? You’re right. It does feel off. They also said the shutdowns were only to flatten the curve, but we haven’t had a week with more than five positive cases, so exactly what curve are we flattening?”

“Exactly,” Lily said, sitting a little straighter. She wasn’t prone to conspiracies, but there had been questions circling her mind for a while now. Ones that the media and government didn’t seem to be able to or want to answer. “So, our hospitals aren’t overcrowded and haven’t been at any point. Do you think this is a power grab by the government?”

Lily hadn’t known much about the governor until recently, but what she knew now did nothing to improve his image in her eyes. From everything she’d seen, he seemed to care more about climate change than anything else and routinely spent thousands of dollars trying to save a snail but openly supported the killing of babies in abortion. Still, she couldn’t understand why he would want to decimate the state on purpose. Thousands were now out of work, and the unemployment numbers and payouts just kept rising.

Katie was silent for a moment, her lips mashed together. “Do you remember when we read 1984 and how we didn’t understand at first why the government felt the need to rewrite history and things like that?”

Lily nodded. She hadn’t made the connection before, but suddenly life felt a lot like 1984.

Katie continued, “I don’t understand the government’s purpose for keeping us locked down yet, but I feel like we are living in those times.”

“I don’t know if we’ve gone that far. Yet. But I am tired of all this shut down.”

“I think we might be.” Katie’s voice was soft, almost hesitant. “Did you hear the governor state that people should just do drive-thru church services? I don’t think he’s ever been to a church service. Can you imagine a pastor giving a sermon like a hundred times?”

Lily’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “There are still churches? I thought they died out with the disappearances.”

“A lot did,” Katie said, “but I started looking for answers after the disappearances because none of them made sense. Aliens, terrorist attacks, none of it. I mean, maybe if only people in America had been affected, but that wasn’t the case. Anyway, while I was looking, I came across this website called TruthSeekers. Evidently, others were searching for answers too,