Bad World: Chapter 1 The Beginning

BAD WORLD

By Adam Loughran

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Chapter 1

THE BEGINNING

Date: March 17th, 1992

I'm done, everything hurts, and I don't think I can go on for much longer. The growls are too much, the screaming, shouting, and loud bangs from the heaters are impaling my head with a stabbing pain. It hurts, it hurts a lot.

I got jumped a few days by some stragglers, they took everything, from my water to even my bandanna, everything. There wasn't much that I could do after that, other than sit there, let them beat me up, and take my stuff. I am bruised and hurt. You see in this world everybody takes everything from everyone, that's just the way things are around here.

While I was walking on the squidgy, wet dirt road, I was thinking. "What if everything went back to the way it

was.'' "What if I could see my family again my friends, my mum my dad and my little sister". Beth was her name, she was my best friend and yeah, we fought but who doesn't. I got put into a camp about a year ago, been here ever since the breakout. Our leader, Carol Williamson, is snobby, rude, and quite bitchy she hits us and tortures us if we do something wrong, like the time I had to go on a supply run with Li, we were supposed to bring back a certain amount of stuff, I didn’t, and she beat me. She broke one of my ribs and sent me to solitude, I was 13 back then, she really messed me up, that’s not all she did, she then locked me in a cage, left me in the woods for days, with no food, no water, no nothing. The things, the things in the woods, the monsters outside camp scream and growl like dogs.

Jacob, my best friend since grade-school who is amazing and I wouldn’t trade him for the world, risked his life for me to stay alive, he would bring me food and made sure I didn’t crumble or go insane in that cage. If Carol had found out he would’ve been executed in front of everyone including me.

He knew the consequences but did it anyway, that’s just the kind of person Jacob is. He came to my tent the other day with some soup and stood at the door. The sun, beaming through onto his reddish blondish hair. He came over and sat beside me and it was only then that I noticed how beautiful his blue and green eyes were, they just sparkled like stars in the night sky.

But now…I lay on the cold, hard, concrete floor with one hand on my pounding head and one on my bruised, beaten stomach.

Let’s start from the beginning....

Jacob and I needed to get out. Get out of the old, disgusting yellow classroom and the town, we are the only ones here, everyone left in a hurry, we did the smart thing, well I think it’s the smart thing, we sat under a table and stayed as quiet as we possibly could.

Screaming and gunshots echoed throughout the school hallways, Jacob looked at me and I looked at him, he looked terrified and hopeless

"Erin what if we don't make it out of here," he asked, with his trembling voice. We thought it was a shooting and I felt worried and scared but tried not to show it at that moment. I put my hand on his shoulder and stared into his eyes

"Don't think about that now, okay.” I said to reassure him, he slowly nodded his head yes.

Suddenly someone comes storming into the room, out of breath, panting, and probably tired, sounded like they were running for a while. I started to feel a shiver down my spine and sort of cry in fear but try not to make a sound, there was something banging at the door smudging blood on the window while the person was trying to barricade it with anything they got, tables, chairs, hell they even got the globe from teacher’s desk, anything they could lay a hand on. I was sure it was a girl from the breathing and stuff but really had no idea.

Jacob was my best friend, he had been for almost nine years we grew up together, went to school together and everything, we were terrified at that moment, we didn’t know what was going to happen.

The person who was barricading the door lifted the table we’re under and I was right it was a girl, she had beautiful, glowing blonde hair and magnetic blue eyes. She was wearing an army patterned jacket with a black shirt underneath and torn up skinny jeans, she frantically reaches for the back of her jeans and pulls out a pistol.

“Get up,” she said, we were so frozen with fear we couldn’t move. “GET UP!” Screaming at the top of her lungs, we sprung up from the floor. She was shaking too, she was scared.

Jacob and I were standing there, with a freaking gun pointed at us, I could see him eyeing the gun, his eyes were locked onto it like an animal locked onto its prey, he was going to grab it, I had to do something or he would get shot, but didn’t know what so I panicked and when she glanced away for a second I picked up a chair and hurried to the window, banging the chair off it

“ERIN!” shouted Jacob. The girl ran over and hit me on the head with the gun, all I could see was a little light from the window and then complete blackness

I woke up and I was in some sort of room lying down on a bed, it was white, grey and cold, there were guys there with some sort of white suit on them. Beside me was a metal table with medical supplies, my brain was pounding inside my head and the room had a sort of rumble like when you’re on the inside of a car. It didn’t help the pain at all.

I tried to talk but couldn’t my voice was gone and my mouth was dry, it hurt to even move my mouth. I could hear a slight talking in the background it was a man and a woman, but their muffled voices made it hard to hear, I made out a few words though.

“Is he bitten?” A woman walked towards me, shined a light in my eyes whilst another one checked my arms, legs, and stomach for some bite. A man, he had brown hair and a long brown beard was at a computer looking at a file, I could see a face in a profile picture “I think it’s me” I thought.

“Male, aged thirteen, brown hair, brown eyes, 5ft 6in, DOB August eighth, 1978,” said the man. That was me that, that was my description, my vision became clearer over time and I could make out the picture on the screen. It was most definitely me.

I tried to talk again but no sound was coming out. I tried and I kept trying, repeatedly until, finally, a sound came out.

It was just a sound though, no words. It sounded scratchy and my throat felt like it was being burned by a thousand matches all at once.

“What’s happening?” I finally blurted out in a low raspy tone, my voice was cracking and straining, I thought to myself maybe they didn’t hear me or they’re just ignoring me. I said it again, one scurried over. “He’s awake.”

All of them then hurried over to me, but one stood out she said her name was Addilyn, she told me to call her Addy, she held my hand, it was warm and soft just like her voice. She had piercing eyes with brown and blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She wore a white lab coat with jeans.

“Where’s Jacob?” I quietly asked, she looked at the people around her, she was confused. “Who, who is Jacob sweetie?” she replied softly. “Describe him to me as best you can.” I felt sad and angry but also, I wanted Jacob, where was he?

“Um, he’s got reddish blondish hair, green and blue eyes. He’s wearing a green sweater and black pants, he’s around the same height as me and just a few months older.” I described him as best I could my memory was still a little bit fuzzy. I asked what happened again, but they completely ignored me, but I don’t know why.

“What happened?” I reprimanded, I let out a crackling loud cough, “What happened” there was the raspy voice again. I heard someone say we arrived or something and then Addy but a gas mask on me.

“What’s this for?” I asked, with a trembling, cracking voice. Addy looked at me like she’s done this before and said, “You’ll see soon enough.” A voice is heard over the radio, I can’t make out what it’s saying though. the metal doors flung open,

the bright, glowing white lights from three guns were blinding my eyes. “CLEAR” shouted a man and we all started to run out of the thing we were in. I fell down some steps, but a few guys caught me before I hit the ground, they roughly threw me to my feet hurting my arms and legs. We were in the woods somewhere, the guards I guess you could call them were guiding me through a very secluded area with a tiny dirt road, it was that small I had no idea how the thing we were in fit on it, but it did.

The gas mask I had on was bouncing up and down, side to side and hurting my head making the pain worse, the stones on the ground were sharp, rigid, and hurting my feet. I looked down and seen that all I had on was a hospital gown, nothing more nothing less, I thought to myself the least they could do was give me shoes.

White bright lights high up in the sky blinded my eyes making it hard to see, the cold air pressed against my skin, but it was too late to make a run for it now, we were already at the enormous gates, I looked up and spotted a big C done with navy paint. I looked around for Addy, she was nowhere to be seen, the guards kept shouting clear before the people walked through.

I was struggling to breathe but had to keep going, there were people, a lot of people, most of them were my age. We just then stood there in the cold with guards circling us like we were a pack of animals.

“PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH THE GATES” blasted an old megaphone. It made me jump, I think it made everyone jump. “YOUR TEMPERATURE AND HEART RATE WILL BE TAKEN.” I walked up to a girl who was standing there looking around her holding her pocket. I tapped her in the back and asked, “excuse me?”

She turned around and looked at me up and down then

at my neck, “Jeez kid what happened to you?” She replied in a strong Australian accent. What I thought, then I felt my neck at it hurt like hell, it burned and stopped my breathing when I touched it. “You better get that checked out,” she said

“NEXT!” Belted a guard. The line slowly moved up, we were divided into two, one line looked older than the other. I was wishing it was me that was next, I was like ice and felt I was about to freeze. They scanned the girl with a metal detector or something and it went off, a loud siren filled the air, squealing like a whaling banshee. Guards fixed their guns on the girl who’s face went whiter than snow, a pale, pasty white. I heard someone say give me the gun, but she denied ever having one, even though you could see it through her pants, they kept insisting and she kept denying. Eventually, she gave up, pulled out the gun, waved it around, and within seconds, BANG, BANG, BANG she got blown back by the guards, gone without even hesitation, everyone screamed and tried to run but they wouldn’t let us leave. She lay on the dirt road, lifeless and cold. Thick, dark, red blood poured from her body like syrup coming out of a bottle, it was everywhere on the ground on the girl on the rocks even some splattered-on people, they puked, a lot.

The guards, with no respect, picked her up and dragged her away, I could see the bullet wounds in her body, they were big, deep, and pouring blood. I tried looking away, I really did but my eyes were drawn to it. I had the sudden urge to puke but tried to keep it in, it was hard though because some of the others around me were puking.

By Adam Loughran

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