Eclipse by Smiley sn (epub e reader .txt) 📕

Chapter 2

The city still buzzles with life, even with half the population absent. The sun rail overhead the lighted up streets. Buildings in better condition compared to the outskirts of the city. Street vendors selling overpriced goods they probably stole or made themselves. The scent of trash, polluted water mixed with the food smells. Even then, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face to be in the city again. I was not meant to be a country person.

 Cars buzzled past too fast and bikers cycled by probably wanting to save money on the expensive gas rather than help the environment. With probably couldn’t be helped much anyway.

We humans have ruined our Earth past beyond repair. Black clouds circle the earth. Like it would rain any day, but the few times per month where it does rain, it is acid. The seasons were off. It would snow for no reason one day and then be a sweltering a hundred degrees the next. Nighttime either came too early or too late. It was as if our Earth was out of orbit.

The few trees and plants that did survive the harsh condition, were sickly or in the greenhouses with artificial lights. Animals were in farms being abused or out in the harsh wild. Having a pet was almost unheard of. It’s sick.

My parents always talked about when the earth was cleaner. Water that they could actually swim in. Consistent seasons, brighter days, and rain once or twice a week. Nice and clean rain.

Must be nice.

Most people walked like we did. Sea was watching everything in excitement and her tail like a helicopter smacking my leg on occasion. She looked at a hot dog cart hungrily. When the vendor was distracted with another customer, I swiped one off the tray and stowed it inside my jacket. It burned me slightly, but I ignored it.

We headed down the city, bumping past people to where most of the shops were. Most were abandoned and already empty of the food and clothes so I ignored them. It grew more secluded and the buildings more spaced apart.

I ripped of chunks of the hot dog to feed myself and Sea. It didn’t make me full in the least, but at least quieted my grumbling stomach. Once we could get to the storage unit we could eat something more substantial and probably stay the night.

Sea whined for more after it was finished, looking at me hopefully. “Sorry, girl. Gotta wait.” She didn’t look happy about it, but didn’t whine for more. We headed to one of the small neighborhoods in the more ghetto and poorer part of the city. The road became more cracked and a faded gray. The houses a little browner and pathetic from lack of maintenance. The few people out in the cold wind were huddles near a fire in the trashcan or part of the gangs of kids doing who knows what.

I stopped suddenly in front of a small house much like the rest of its neighbors. Same sunken in porch, same faded roof with peeling paint and rotten wood in the roof. It looked much worse than when I had expected it to. I hadn’t visited it in a few months, not after the incident. The only way I could tell it was my house was the metal numbers right above the door. 5329.

5329 Dante Street. Home sweet home.

Sea trotted around me, nose down as she sniffed everything. Seeming comfortable, which is curious because she has never been here before. I walk ahead to the originally white door almost beige with dirt.

I took out the key that was under the small pebble with an indentation in the middle, like a donut. Went to the door and unlocked it. I didn’t open it.

I couldn’t.

What if they’re dead bodies were still there? What if they weren’t? Am I ready for this?

I knew this was the real reason I didn’t want to come to the city. Not because I was cautious or wanted to be safe but because I didn’t want to come to my home and see it empty and just so…so…lonely.

I was drawn out of my thoughts by Sea clawing at the door and it opens with a creak. She looks up at me and then trots inside, her claws hitting tile floor. With the small opening the door made I could see it was dark and cold. No smells of my mom cooking food or the comforting sounds of my Dad fiddling with his tools.

 Nothing. But silence

I felt a big sense of nostalgia and sadness, making me want to break down and cry. But, I held it back. I needed to be strong for Sea and also for me. For us. With that, I went inside. My footsteps seemed to echo as I tried to find a light. I flipped the switch but the lights didn’t even flicker. Electricity ran out, of course. I flicked on my flashlight, shining it across the room breathing a sigh of relief when I didn’t see anything. No bodies, no smell of death, not even a blood stain on the rug. I frowned.

Wait, there is nothing. Someone was here.

I walk over to the picture of my family and take it off the wall. I type in the password in the Key pad and open the safe. I step into the small bunker it was open to. There were boxes filled with clothes, canned foods, toilet paper, even weapons and a bunk bed fitted in the corner of the room. My parents had made this shortly after I had turned four. They probably knew what was going to happen. They taught me to be self-sufficient. Teaching me to hunt, teaching me to fight, setting up secret rooms, making sure I had a person they could trust, saving money away. I didn’t understand before why they taught me that stuff. Wouldn’t they be there to help me. But they knew. They always knew.

They knew they would die and leave me all alone.

They even taught me to not rely on my abilities. I could not touch them or anybody else. I subconcoiusly rubbed on my leather gloves. My power could hurt people and I didn’t want to do that. I don’t want to.

But what drew my attention was not the boxes of food, strangely enough I had lost my appetite, but the note on top of it with two words in capital letters.

I KNOW

I mumbled curses under my breadth. I knew who it was and I was hoping to avoid him while I was staying in the city. But knowing him, he would box my ears for not coming to visit and telling him my parents were dead. I just didn’t want to deal with his pitying remarks and trying to comfort me. I knew he cared, he was like a second father to me.

And he could be gone to.

Sudden sadness and Ice cold fear gripped at that thought. I could be alone, truly alone in this world. With no one to turn to, being cursed to just exist, fighting for my life an still not caring whether I live or die. No, I wouldn’t go back to that. No way.

It wasn’t until Sea was licking my face and whining at me, that I noticed that I had sunk to the floor. My hands in my auburn hair and drawing my knees up to my chest. Tears creating hot trails down my cheeks and my breathing labored. It was too much and I didn’t have enough in me to hold back. I just hugged Sea to my chest with trembling hands and cried in her hair for what seemed like hours until I calmed down my sobs and my shivers diminished to a few sniffles. I just lay there for a while.

Everything hurt. My chest hurt from breathing too hard and fast. My limbs felt like rubber. My eyes felt red from my crying and irritated. I just wanted to go to bed and wake up never.

But Sea was hungry and I couldn’t abandon her just because I couldn’t keep it together. I tried to lift my head up, but extreme nausea consumed me from that small action. I breathed hard against it and tried to move again. I pushed her away from me sligthtly and used the wall to support me as I tried to stand on my feet, but my knees knocked against eachother causing my legs to buckle. I tried again and this time my legs still wobbled but I could still walk. I grabbed a can of baked beans and popped the tab, pouring it all in my small metal bowl.

 I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Most of the time lately I wasn’t.  

Sea slurped up the beans quickly and I decided to make my leave. Even though I felt horrible, I didn’t want to be in my old home any moment longer. The feeling of abandonment made me feeling even worse.

God, I need a drink.

But first, I needed to visit an old friend. 

As soon as I went outside, a big gust of wind almost tore the door of the hinges, but I managed to close the door shut. I made my down the street going in the direction of his house, but it was a losing battle.

I felt like I was drunk.

My head swayed from time to time like my body was having too much trouble keeping it erect. My  feet dragged on the ground making me almost stumble at the smallest pebble. I hugged my arms around my body, trying to stay warm against the merciless cold wind. My vision flickered and I struggled to keep them open, but it was hard with the cold wind making my eyes water. My body started to tremble under the strain of moving.

Everyone was gone, even the people huddled around the fire. It was like a ghost town, just needed the tumbleweed. I guess I was the only idiot to come out of their home in this weather.

Geez, I’m smart.

I tried to turn back, but my body betrayed me and I fell my vision turning black.

Chapter 3

It is cold. And very very dark.

I hug my arms to my chest shivering in my thin nightclothes. My bare feet scrunched up near my body trying not to freeze. No matter how long I stood there, the darkness didn’t let up. It was so dark it seemed to swallow up me. Only my shivering was the only movement that proved I had limbs. It was silent. Graveyards have nothing on this.

I almost smiled at my joke, but a whimper came out