Catastrophic Life

I didn’t mean to run away! Oh dear… I hope I won’t get into too much trouble. I just got so scared of the mist cloud as it was rapidly flooding into the city that I panicked. My mind went absent and my limbs wouldn’t let me anywhere else than the park. The housing mother was so angry. She kept shouting over and over again to come back, but I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to turn back to the comfort of my bedroom and sturdy walls. I went to the closest and safest place I knew.

Here I am now, sitting underneath the plastic sink as I listen to the sirens of so many emergency vehicles sound off. I never that Ms. Roberts would send so many after me, she must really be worried and upset. Surely I am going to get into so much trouble and she will make me clean the girls bathroom for weeks again! Then make me sit in the box of shame where all of the other kids can laugh at me. They’ll call me names like ‘Scaredy cat’ and ‘Mute freak.’ I don’t like it when they call me names. It makes me feel sad and alone, it reminds me that none of them would ever be my friend. No friends means that none of the foster parents wants to take you home.

I burrow my head into my arms after my knees up to chest. My thumb gently washes over the soft black fabric of my leggings as the end of my green dress bunches up around up around my waist. Long, brown curly hair draped across the rest of me as if they were curtains shielding me from the outside world. Shielding me from all the screaming that was around me.

There are so many people shouting to run from the mist, to hide away. Guns began to fire off as I guess the police are trying to fend off the mist. People screaming in pain, sounds of groans and grunts and car alarms going off, glass shattering and the never ending sirens siren that would sound before a tornado.

So curious as to what was going on, yet far too afraid to even move a single finger as sounds of something big is crawling on top of the very house I was in. Everything went dark as the mist begins to pass over my very spot. Some of it even starts to pour in through the cracks of the shutters and underneath the door. It smells so foul as if something filled it drawing eggs and dead rats from the subway systems. Even the awful smell of copper is mixed in with it.

I don’t like one bit of it. I can feel myself start to shake as fear of monsters begin to leak into my mind. I can’t take it any longer as I will myself to at least opened my eyes and glanced around. Seeing everything subtly darken around me with a large spider-like shadow coming and going over the top of the playhouse. They were about the size of a dog! Each as big as the last one that crawled over the roof, some would jump on and others would jump off. Every single one shakes the plastic house to the point I think it is going to topple over.

So desperately I want to scream for help. I once heard so many do before, but now it was so silent except for all the different sirens till they all too silenced. Every sound quickly drowning out as I sit here, gawking at the sight before me. My throat all locked up from the years of never using it. After so many years of refusing to speak to the mean people, it is gone when I need it the most.

Gunshots rang out once more and the creatures hiss, scattering off the playhouse. A soft roaring sound quickly grew louder and with it this sudden bright light. Men are starting to shout once more, but this time they are saying something much different.

“Don’t let them get away!”

“Check for survivors!”

“We have orders to kill them all, not a single experiment lives!”

Their voices are slightly muffled by something, it seems. Yet, I felt as though it was all over. The monsters are gone and here I am, crawling out from under the tan plastic sink of a tall man shows through the frame as a bright orange and red dance behind him, or was it in front of him. I softly knock on it, hoping he could hear me so that he could move out of the way.

He is standing so close, but I soon begin to doubt that he could hear me until he turns around and looks down at the door curiously. He raised his fist into the air before kneeling down in front of the pink door and slightly leans to the side so that he was out of the way. His hand reaches for the door as he raises another metal thing in his other hand, whatever it was was attached to his back.

I knock once more in a more curious tone. Tap tap tap, tap and rakes my knuckles slightly, tap tap rake and tap, then a lone tap ( … .- ..-. . , Safe?). The man only chuckles to himself before lowering the metal thing and opens the door. His face covered in a long snouted gas mask and he had a flamethrower in his other hand. He was all dressed up in a camouflage military uniform.

“I am guessing you are Elinor. We found your foster house mother earlier, she told us that this might be where you were.”

I smile up at the man and quickly nod my head. Rushing out of the playhouse and hug the man, closing my eyes so that I wouldn’t see the dying monsters. I knew they would haunt me for the rest of my days. The man only held me close and picked me up into his arms. He called out to another man for a blanket, which he drapes over my head.

“Alright little miss, let’s get you home.”