Outside

The world outside was unknown to her but she could see a glimpse of it outside his window. From this level high above ground she could see the ruins of many buildings taken over by plant life. She had never left the shelter of her walled farm the gate had been barred with piles of furniture before she could toddle and was now very hard to locate behind foliage and trees that were planted from the waste to provide food around the grounds so the occupants never had to face the horrors beyond those gates her father and what media she got her hands on, had told her of. Her father being half blind and half deaf but otherwise a healthy 25 year old at her birth wasn’t sent to war. Mother was sent to fight 6 months after she was born and her father received news she was dead 3 months later that was when the closest families all came together on our farm grand parents and daughters to young to be conscripted with father his 9 month old girl and a 10 month old boy a cousin her parents had been raising since her aunt was sent to fight a losing battle against a foe no-one here really understood and everyone feared.

Our gazer Nio her cousin Ruby and the 9 other girls aged between 1 and 15, 3 grand fathers over 70 years old, 5 grandmothers aged between 40 and 70 years and her father. Built up the Boundary fence to be a wall as tall as the second story made of stone metal and wood furniture and salvage from the area. Working at night and living in fear of the beasts reaching our land .The media had shown never giving any real description of the battles just that they decimated our forces and committed atrocities like raping people alive and dead after a fight lighting homes alight with family inside every town they passed through as they overtook the country which of course was discovered and reported as people ran away from moving forces and a few home recordings on phones and cctv at peoples homes the enemy was demonic bipedal beasts of various types. There was what looked like bulls crossed with apes huge men covered in marble fur of two types long ape like and short cow like with thick cow like skin underneath by the look of it with bulging arms twice as long as there back legs that drag on the ground. Big heads with pointed ears on the top, elongated noses and mouths big nostrils sharp teeth and horns that could gut you easily. Some kind of Lizards crossed with humans scaled upright animals arms and legs like people have but the shape curved claws one the finger tips and toes with big pointed jaws that had protruding teeth and protruding eyes that rolled around 360 degrees. There where bird people with the hunters beak craws and eyes wings on there backs feathered arms and legs of the great ape style and scaled clawed hands with 5 fingers they all wore crude boots or sandals with shorts and no tops some of the lizard and bull where obviously female. Saura and cow instead of saurus and bull there may be a mix of hens and cocks but that’s harder to tell. Someone mixed genetic engineering and magic spells to create a army but I don’t think they survived to tell the tale as the footage displays no control and little planning a person smart enough to do that would have made for a campaign to take over a country or land mass I doubt those apes things could swim well or far and none seem smart in the footage they just slam through a place causing chaos and damage but they cooperate with each other and rejoin as a group to leave every time they decimate a area never leaving anyone behind to hold a place. She had studied those videos before the computer died they still have light and power for cooking and heating having solar power and battery system, they have good water poppy and grandpa had rigged a water filtering, grey and black water systems one used to be engineer the other a plumber but they had passed on and now it was failing father could never see or hear to learn enough of the skills too fix anything. Now 15 years later, Those original 15 woman and 5 men had now dwindled to 10 people. Of the 9 adults only her father John and grandma Rosy who was the youngest of the grand parents still lived. The others having left this life because of age, related health issue or accidents and only 8 of the 11 children still lived. one of the toddler aged girls passed of a virus in the first year and one of the teens had had a accident with a axe that resulted in her demise a terrible experience for everyone. Emotionally traumatising for the other 2 girls she had been working with at the time. They struggle to go anywhere near the wood pile. So after granny Sarah died less then 2 years after that no one could chop for years the younger girls and the elder adults alive at the time couldn’t hold the axe, John couldn’t see the wood and Rosy who was just never that strong of a woman and her eye had started failing with age aswell. Fires had to be maintained with what sticks could be broken by hand or foot and logs dragged slowly sometimes over weeks to the wall.

In the quiet moments looking out the window Nio had thought about all of this and wondered if there’s had survived in similar ways shouldn’t they go looking to find any survivors and possibly food they hadn’t been able to connect to media for years due to equipment failure but before that there were whispers like ours of havens on the web if you could reach them the locations varied through europe she had read of slaves the creatures had taken who might be able to spy on us for them using our online communications the overseas troops who where decimated as fast as ours before they closed continents pretending we didn’t exist people online said and all our sites suddenly stoped connecting with those other continents one of the last things she had read was a article publish repeated it was viral saying our new leaders and owners command us to do as they say, leave them alone and some settled into Paris and Venice others warriors where slowly taking over Asia. we’ve been here 15 years and lost Communication 10 years ago surly things have changed somehow. Nio didn’t think they could survive much longer alone the farm just wasn’t set up to go sustain them long term and they had no opportunities. the older girls well women now, looked at her father for a while but he couldn’t see there flirtations or think of any of them as anything other then children to be protected interestingly thats the same way the girls thought of Ruby. Today They had talked of leaving, with the oldest of them Lisa and Vi arguing for safety here and Nio to leave. Despite her young age she had become a sort of leader due to intelligence and ingenuity. Her arguments were making the others think hard where Lisa sounded fearful all about staying of safe in known. All John and Rosy added to the discussion was that they would be useless out there so were staying no matter what they decide. After hours of talk and no decision they split to do chores. Ruby, Faith, Hira and Nio went to weed the garden and kept talking. “You know we will never reach a consensus. The fear of possibly being worse out there will stop them from thinking of the possibility of it being better of finding other people who can help us of seeing new things for all we know the creatures died out or maybe can be talked to and negotiated with they can’t control all of Europe and Asia as they were headed towards trying to do. There must be communities of people we could find or join.” Nio said “ what are you proposing ?” Said Hire suspiciously “I”m going with or without the rest of them” Nio replied “i’m going too” Said ruby “I agree with you. We don’t know what’s out there and I want to find out instead of sitting scared need to protect our sisters, find more food sources and if we could find more people that would be wonderful now wouldn’t it.” He continued. “you can be serious?” demanded Hira “I can see you are well the two of you will need help so I“m coming too.” Faith looked at the other three and sighed “i’m in too” “Good we will leave tonight after everyone goes to bed” said Nio

And so the adventure begins!