Lauren Brown

The Girl with the Blue Backpack

As she walked along the dissembled remains of a broken road in shades of bright green moss that filled the cracks of broken cement, she felt alone. There were abandoned cars and that were parallel, vertically and horizontally parked on the remains of a broken road. Most of the remains of what use to be a useable car were only the steel frames that had become rusted and disintegrated by the apocalypse. As she looked to her left and looked to her right there were veriest buildings, some that run all the way up to the sky. The windows of the buildings had been shattered and pieces of glass were scattered along the ground. Shops that were once functional had be run down by empty shelves and signs that were hanging by a thread. The city was empty except for the near distance growls of the undead lurking within the shades and around ever corner. As a survivor of this unpleasant world she always had a dagger firmly placed within her boot and her hand hovering over it every time she heard the scratching noises that gave you goose bumps and radiated through each cell of your body. Each time she saw the disfigured face of a once lively human being she felt more and more alone. Her father died in a car accident when she was six years old. Her mother was a gentle woman that had a firm belief in righteousness and morals. She was a strong woman, a confident woman, a brave woman that took risks and she tried to maintain these qualities every day. But she died only three months ago by a savage attack when they were cornered and overwhelmed by a heard of the undead as they were gathering supplies, she sacrificed herself so that she could live. That burden weighed heavily on her shoulders everyday, the regret that maybe she could have done something else and the burden of being alone without her mother. She didn’t have any brothers or sisters, only her blue backpack that carried her supplies. She looked to the sky and hoped that her mother was watching over her somewhere in the mist of clouds that shimmered and moved each time the sun tried to peer through. The sky was a warm orange mixed with shades of red. Since the apocalypse happened the sky has always resembled the same colours, they have never changed. Maybe it was sign that the world has ended. There was still smoke rising from buildings, coming from chimney tops and from abandoned buildings that were charcoal and filled with ash and soot.