Two Page Shorts by Nick Venom (best large ebook reader TXT) 📕

They had to survive, survive till the end. Survive the beginning of the apocalypse.

***

Ellena was trapped in Chicago’s Midway Airport terminal when the outbreak occurred. The zombies popped up in downtown Chicago and spread throughout the city. The airports of Chicago were trampled on by the zombie hordes, Midway being one of them. 

Ellena---a twenty-two-year-old college graduate with long dark brown hair and tanned skin---was traveling by herself when the outbreak entered the airport. She was going to Florida to meet with her family. They had planned a vacation.

The zombies flooded the terminal quickly. Ellena picked herself up and sprinted towards an exit. Other survivors raced towards the door while others froze up on the spot. The survivors that froze were quickly eaten up by the zombies. The few survivors that managed to get up and escape were hunted down by the zombie horde. 

Ellena escaped the terminal and entered an unfamiliar room. She turned around and locked the door behind her. The flood of survivors was diminishing. The survivors noticed the locked door and diverted away to a different exit. Their fates were left for God to decide.

The survivors inside the unfamiliar room scanned the room and looked for an exit to the outside. The only exit they had in mind was through the way they entered. However, the zombies had that entrance heavily guarded.

Ellena peered out of a small window at the horde of zombies. They cramped against the door, tilting the handle. “What do we do?” An elderly lady asked.

“There has to be some type of exit here.” A mother spoke up. She cradled her children.

“There is, I’m an employee here.” A redheaded woman chimed in. She pointed towards a locked door. “Follow me and I’ll-” She was cut short off by an impatient man punching at the door handle, breaking the lock, and yanking it open. He charged forward, clearing the way for the others. All of the other survivors followed after him, leaving the employee, a male teenager, and Ellena. “Wait, we don’t know if that path is safe!” She shouted to deaf ears. They ignored her, charging forward for safety. They wanted to escape the terminal and return to their homes or find refuge in another person’s home.

“Is there another exit?” Ellena asked the employee.

“Not that I can think of,” The employee remarked. “That’s the only way out.”

“Then, shall we go?” She asked. The employee shook her head. 

“That way hasn’t been cleared. There could be zombies on the other side. I think we should stay here.”

“There’s nowhere else to go.” The teen chimed in.

“You are?” Ellena asked.

“Levi,” The teen said.

“I’m Ellena.”

The employee chimed in with her name. “I’m Ashley, an employee of Midway Airport.” She joked.

“Ex-employee of Midway,” The male teenager joked. He was a skinny and frail-looking teenager with black hair dripping to his shoulders; with a chubby face. He had tanned skin and blue eyes. He wore his school uniform of a royal-blue polo and sand-colored khakis. 

He had a silly grin on his face. He thought his joke was clever. However, it was not.

Ellena ignored him and followed the impatient man’s trail through the exit. Levi and Ashley followed her. 

They traveled through the exit, entering the outside. They breathed in the fresh air, expecting a new sense of relief and excitement, but were greeted with the growls of zombies. The impatient man and his followers escaped the airport and ran into the road, flagging down any cars. The cars swerved around the desperate survivors while others smashed headfirst into them. Chaos erupted, painting a vivid scene for Ellena. The world had changed. 

She was now in an apocalypse.

Hello All!

Being the last short-story written before the end of 2020 and the shift of the Two Page Shorts releases dates (I pushed back volume four and discarded the annual release schedule for Two Page Shorts due to a workload of remastering short stories for the first three volumes while including volume four’s large roster of shorts. I, instead, decided to reduce my workload by pushing Two Page Shorts back a year), this story has been heavily affected by the shifts. 

I’ve remastered this story and will be releasing it as semi-planned. However, I’m unsure where this series will go. Whether it be a Jayhawk Television (JTV) series or on a different platform aside from Two Page Shorts. Eventually, this series will get a second installment that expands on the characters, especially Ellena and the terminal characters. 

Survive Till The End will return soon, so be patient.

Until next time, I bid you all a good day.

Kira---a baby-faced male fifteen-year-old---exited his house. He left the front porch, now entering his front lawn. Why? I told them that I had it covered, so why? Couldn’t they have asked me if I wanted to go or not? They pitch my name into the hat and in three years, I’ll be forced to go? He thought to himself, angrily going over what his parents had told him. They wanted him to join the army while he wanted to live his own life and become an artist. However, as his guardians, they had full control over his life path and chose him to become a soldier.

He quickly left his front lawn, passing by the sidewalk and entering the road. He didn’t bother to look at both sides of the road as he was absorbed by his thoughts. He, also, didn’t care much about his clothing. He walked out of his house with his clothes from the previous night, a stained blue tee-shirt, baggy faded jeans, and white sneakers.

As he crossed the road, a semi-truck barreled towards him at high speeds. The driver noticed Kira in the middle of the road and grabbed hold of the steering wheel, pointing it towards the side of the road. The semi-truck turned sharply, flipping onto its side and sliding towards him. 

At this point, Kira heard the sounds of the semi-truck flipping. He furrowed his brows, dismissing his thoughts for a moment, and turned to look at the source of the sounds. He watched as the trailer of the semi barreled into him, killing him on impact - leaving a large pool of blood and his body in an unnatural position. His hands were inverted while his legs crept close to his neck. His ocean-blue hair dropped over his head, which stared at his body, separated from the entire affair. It laid a few feet from the body, on the edge of the blood puddle. 

Almost instantly, Kira’s soul left his body and drifted towards Heaven, leaving his mortal body behind. Kira looked down from above and watched as people flocked to the scene, calling out for police. He watched in shock as he realized that the body soaked in blood was his. The only thing that could escape his mouth was, “What happened?”

“You died.” remarked a godly being. Kira looked around, noticing that the two of them were standing on top of a mountain’s peak. 

“Where am I? Is this Heaven?” Kira asked the being. The being turned around, appearing to him as a redheaded female with charcoal skin and emerald eyes that shined brightly. She towered over Kira---being seven feet in height---and was toned. She lowered her glasses as she inspected Kira.

“You’re in a division of Heaven… kinda. I welcome to you the Everest Mountain, a district of Heaven. My name is Visa.”

“Everest Mountain…? Wait, why am I here?”

“You died, duh.” She remarked, turning away from him. “You weren’t paying attention to the road, so you paid the price.”

“Wait… what… w-what do I do?” Kira asked.

“I dunno,” Visa remarked. “Do what you want.”

“Do what I… wouldn’t this be the time that you send me to another world or something like that?” He asked, tilting his head while raising his eyebrows. Visa turned around him and looked at him with stunned eyebrows. She shrugged her shoulders and opened a black portal behind him.

“I’ll grant you three random skills, so… bye.” She said, motioning for a small gnome-like creature, named a Laxin, to shove Kira into the portal. Kira yelled as he reached out to hold onto something, but couldn’t find anything to grab. He disappeared from the plane of time, leaving Visa and her minion behind. Visa faced her minion and shook her head. “He won’t die. I gave him strong skills.” She argued. “If he does, then he wasn’t for this world. Apparently, he wasn’t for his last one either. He’ll do fine.”

***

Kira woke up in a thick and overgrown forest, surrounded by trees as far as the eye could see. He sat up and looked around his surroundings, noticing the same sight on every side of him. He glanced at his clothes---wearing the same clothes as he did before his death. “Where am I?” He asked out loud. He stood up and walked around, finding the same sights everywhere he went. 

He ventured through the forest in a straight line, coming across a small pond in a small clearing. He sat next to the water and cupped his hands. He brought his cupped heads into the water, collecting a small amount, before bringing it to his mouth. He slurped the water entirely before putting his hands back into the water, bringing his mouth more water. 

While peacefully drinking, a roar disrupted him. He raised his head to look for the direction of the road. I need to leave before the monster that roared finds me, he thought. Unfortunately, his thought was ignored as the head of a dragon peeked over the tops of the trees. He stood frozen as the dragon scanned its surroundings, quickly detecting Kira. It let out a roar as it began moving towards Kira, collapsing the trees in its way.

Kira, his body no longer frozen stiff by fear, jumped up and sprinted in the opposite direction. The dragon, however, was quicker than him. “That dumb goddess gave me skills? She never told me what they were or how to use them!” He shouted angrily to himself. He ran away from the dragon, but it would soon overtake him. “Help! Begin! Menu! Start!” He yelled, attempting to open a game-like panel to no avail. “Goddess! Tell me what to do!” He shouted.

Visa looked at Kira from her district of Heaven, shaking her head as she watched him flee from the dragon. She turned to her side, waving her hands randomly around to open up a portal. She motioned for the Laxin to hand her a piece of paper and a pencil. Once she got it, she began scribbling on the paper before throwing it into the portal. 

Meanwhile, as Kira fled from the dragon, a portal formed in front of him, managing to stay in front of him. The paper flew from the portal and hit Kira in his face. He tore it off his face and read the paper’s contents. “Say Visa to open your menu, dummy.” He read out loud. Ignoring the last word, Kira rushed to open his menu. “Visa!” He shouted, activating his menu and bringing a game-like screen to his attention. The screen told him what skills he held - Immortality, Gate, and Freeze Strike. Under every skill was a description. Immortality was self-explanatory. His appearance became