Lost

September 4th, 2020

I don't remember much from that night. Maybe because I was so young, or maybe because my brain wants to repress the memory. The night that every thing changed. The night the world may as well have ended. I was eight, and it was a Friday. I remember the day of the week only because my dad would let me stay up and watch movies and eat ice cream on Fridays. Mom would always get mad when she would come home from the hospital and we would be passed out on the couch instead of tucked away in bed.

We were setting up the movie when the phone rang. "I'll get it!" I yelled excitedly. Hardly anyone ever called the house phone anymore and I always jumped at the chance to answer it.

"Hello?" I asked happily. There was shuffling on the other side. "Hello?" I asked again. There was more crackling on the other end, then finally someone spoke. "Adalyn? Honey? I need you to give the phone to Daddy right now." My mothers panicked voice filled my ears. I knew that voice and not to question it. My mother never called me Adalyn unless it was urgent or I was in trouble, because she knew I hated it. I quickly made my way to the living room where my dad was still setting up the movie.

From there on is a blur. I remember my dad becoming panicked. He rushed around the house and kept saying that we had to leave. We had to go get mom, something wasn't right. The next thing I know we're in the car. I remember our neighbors leaving in the same panicked state as us. The roads were packed, I had never seen so much traffic in my life. Dad kept asking if I was okay, and I was.

~

I didn't really notice a change until after we got my mom. We had been driving for a few hours already. I still had no idea what was going on. All I could get from my parents' conversation was, "government shut down," and "like a plague." I had no idea what any of that meant at the time.

We stopped at a gas station, I think we were somewhere in what used to be North Carolina. There weren't many cars so my parents thought it would be safe. That was our first encounter with a Crawler. That's what we call the people who caught the plague. I never cared to learn the actual name of the plague, it's not like it matters. All I know is that once you get it, there's no going back. You get covered in boils and you lose all sense. You lose your humanity.

I stayed in the car with my mom, and my dad went to go get some things from inside. He had only been gone a few minutes when I noticed movement from outside the car. I could tell my mom noticed it too, because she seemed to freeze in place.

" Addy," she said softly, " I need you to get down slowly, don't make a sound." I nervously did as she said. Not being able to see what was going on made me anxious. I remember I started to cry when I heard gun shots, and my mom's voice trying to calm me from the front seat. After a few minutes the car door opened widely, revealing my father who seemed petrified. He started the car and drove quickly from the parking lot back onto the main road.

"When did you get a gun?" My mother asked.

~

July 22nd, 2024

I hated being small. It was a sign of weakness and I despised feeling weak. I was twelve now, and half the size of all the girls my age. We had been play wrestling, something us younger kids did a lot to pass the time. There wasn't much to do in the Sector if you didn't have a job or weren't in training. I could usually hold my own, but they had ganged up on me. Teasing that the leader's daughter was too tiny to keep up. It wasn't a fair fight, but I was still humiliated.

I stomped down the lightly lit dirt path back to our house. After the blackout and the Sector was built, we had a found a way to get enough electricity to light and heat our houses, but we didn’t always have running water. The Sector used to be a pretty large city, but we cut ourselves off from the other side with a huge cement wall. The wall was partly to keep Crawlers out, and partly to keep other Sectors from breaking in and stealing our supplies.

I'm not sure how my dad had become the leader of our Sector. When we had found others that weren't infected we seemed to stick together. There was safety in numbers. When the population grew, and the Sector began to form into a functioning society, people looked to someone to protect them. Maybe it's his charm or his kindness, or he just has a natural ability to lead, but the people chose him. He was good at it too. He had built a functioning city from the rubble of an old one, and we were striving.

He created a militia to protect us. Everyone goes through training when they turn 17. We had a clinic, which was run by my mother. When we ran low on supplies my father and his best men went out on what we call "sweeps." They would leave the confines of our Sector and journey to the other side of the broken city and hope they found what we needed.

I was almost back to the house when I heard shouting coming from the fountain, which was at the center of the neighborhoods. I had to pass the fountain on the way home so I quickly made my way over. I saw my father and a few of his friends, who had left to go on a sweep yesterday. They seemed to be carrying someone, a boy, it looked like. They were carrying him in the direction of our house shouting for my mother to come quick. "He must be hurt." I thought to myself.

I ran after them, nothing exciting ever happened here anymore. The boy didn’t seem familiar either. He must have been an outsider. I can’t remember the last time my father allowed an outsider into the Sector.

When I entered the house my mother had the boy laid out on the kitchen table. She was working over him, cleaning his wounds, preparing him for stitches. "Addy!" my mother called, "I'm gonna need you to grab his hand. I don't have any anesthetic left, this is gonna hurt." I quickly made my way over to the boy and grabbed his hand. While my mother finished preparing his wounds, I finally got a good look at him. He seemed about my age, he couldn’t have been more than a year older. He had blond hair, and a strong face. His eyes were screwed shut in pain, and I wondered what color his eyes were.

"Ready?" My mother asked. I nodded my head at her, and tightened my hold on the boys hand. He kept his eyes closed, but squeezed back. My mother began to stitch, and the boy clamped his free hand over his mouth to quiet his screams. I didn’t dare look and see what his injuries were, blood always made me faint. The boy's hand tightened around mine, so tight that I could barley feel it anymore.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes, my mother finished stitching. The boy's face seemed to relax greatly, but he still hadn’t opened his eyes. He laid there for a few minutes, and my mother went to search for some pain medication. I watched him curiously, trying to figure out how he had gotten into such trouble.

I must have zoned out for a few minutes, because by the time my mother came back, the boys eyes had opened and his icy blue eyes were staring right at me. We continued to stare each other down as my mother gave him the medicine. After a while his eyes began to get heavy, and I too felt myself getting tired. "You did good, Addy. Why don't you go get some sleep?" My mother spoke softly. I nodded my head, not going to argue, I was exhausted.

As I stood up to leave, the boy's hand shot out and grabbed my own. He squeezed once, and his mouth moved slowly. The words came out so softly I almost didn't hear them. "Thank you." He mumbled, his eyes still closed. I squeezed his hand back once in response, before retreating back to my room for the night.