#FWF – The Beginning Of The End

Hello and Happy Good Friday! I actually got to sleep in this morning and so if you start to see some sentences not making any sense, just bear with me. As soon as I saw today’s Free Write Friday prompt I thought I was going to jump for joy. I don’t know why but destruction prompts are somewhat fun and can be easy sometimes to write about too. Even if you don’t like these kinds of prompts, you can still change it up a bit. This image is copyrighted so you’re going to have to click here, if you want to see the image.  I hope you all enjoy!

It all sounded like a really bad storm. Like a tornado had whipped through our little city and tore it to pieces. The power was gone, the wind was gone, but the sun was still out as bright as it could be. When we started hearing screams, cries, and heavy knocks at different doors, we ran for our shelter house door and peaked a look at what was going on. My uncle had tried to see what all the fuss was about by actually going outside, we tried to get him to stay inside but he was too drunk already to stay inside. Once my dad and grandpa opens those doors, he stumbled up those narrow stairs and as soon as he was in the clear of the way of the doors, they closed him again. We all stood there in silence, wondering how everything was going to play out. At first it was quiet, you could hear little talk from the outside, but not very much. Next minute we started to hear every voice on our block stop talking within five minutes of themselves like a Gen. Sargeant had went and commanded them to shut up. Even Uncle Boris’ voice was gone. We knew that wouldn’t be an easy thing considering when he’s drunk, he’s the life of the party. Next thing we heard was a sworn of bees flying over us, high up in the air. We were all scared down in the shelter of what that noise could be, but we stayed quietly in our places until it stopped completely.

When the time was right and Uncle Boris never returned back, my dad and grandfather, grabbed their hunting gear and rifle guns and told us all to as far back into the shelter house as possible. Which means, they wanted us to use the tunnels. Our family has been here for centuries and according to legend, at the end of these tunnels sources say that there are others making their way to other states. We would be a long journey, but we’ve been told by stories that it was well worth it. When my dad gave these orders, my mom and Aunt Sally, gathered all of the kids including me, which I thought I could be a bigger help by staying with them, but they forbid it because they needed somebody old enough to protect everybody else. “Come on, Olivia! Let’s go!” Aunt Sally yelled as my mother and my brothers and cousins were already heading down the tunnels. I was such a daddy’s girl that I didn’t want to leave him and grandpa behind to fend for themselves but I didn’t want to disobey them either so I gave them both a hug and ran over to the tunnel door and climbed in. Lucky for me, I am such a tomboy that I could hear my cousins complaining about the dirt and roots getting into their hair and clothes. It didn’t mind me, but as soon as Aunt Sally was in, the doors from the outside world were gone and the lights entering the tunnels came on. One by one we crawled into the underground in search of our next hideout. We knew that they would follow us but we didn’t know how it would take them to explore what happened to our neighbors.

We entered our first rest stop, All of us were exhausted, we had been crawling on our knees for about two hours. In every storm, mama goes and put out bottled water in the hideaway pockets of the tunnels just in case. They get changed out every three months in case the water was to spill overtime or get bad from being around the dirt, bugs, and roots. We had less than amount of water for all of us, but we made do because we only needed a little bit before we reached our destination. After our nice little break, we tuckered onward and I hadn’t even taken a few steps before the ground started to shake violently. Dirt was falling over head and we were all praying that the tunnels didn’t collapse on us as we scooted over them. After it was over, we just stood in our places for five to ten seconds and moved on. A little bit of an hour later, we had each the other end of the tunnel into another old family home. Once we were inside the basement, we locked the tunnel door and went silently up the stairs. We all kept our guards up in case there were any strangers inside the house, but our grandfather keeps the house very clean and comfortable in case we’d have to use it like right now. All around the house were blankets, pillows, and clothes by the dozen like he was about to go on a big camping trip. Aunt Sally and my mother went into the kitchen and collected as much food and water as they could, I kept walking around the big slightly empty house, it didn’t have windows he had them dark to make it look like the house was abandoned and unusable. Every room in that house was dark except for the first room by the living room. He kept that room covered in blinds and drapes. I decided to look inside and saw the stuff everything on the floor, big books of maps and drawings of different things. Grandpa was a thinker and thought about everything, he was a news story junkie. As I was going through his stuff, I kept hearing noises from outside.

The noises weren’t normal, as it’s generally a quiet neighborhood but this was strange noises like crowds of people on both ends of the block directing people from that entire area to be inspected. I gently put my hands up against the blinds to help see out and everybody had red faces and tears streaming down their cheeks. My oldest cousin Jan came in and went to the other window next to me and got a glimpse of the chaos outside. “Liv, what’s going on out there?” Jan said as he just stared out and watched his friends and their families walking in a line to the top of the line. They watched Jan’s best friend Sean and his family get to the front of the line and they went up the men in gas masks and heavy skin gear, either this was a government cleanse or it was for something much worse. When Sean got examined by the “doctor” he looked scared and worried because the kid had asthma, when he man asked him to take a deep breath he had to take out his inhaler in case he’d go into an attack and when he reached for his pocket, the guards behind me got antsy and saw it as a threat and shot him in the back of the head. “NO!” Jan shouted out the window. I grabbed him and pulled him down and away from the windows. He was crying and wanting to scream for his friend. I covered his mouth and shushed him but the guards had heard him yell and I could hear gun click outside and we both stood up quickly and the windows and walls started to explode ad bullets came from different directions. Jan’s little sisters started screaming and my brothers grabbed them and directed them back into the basement for safety. Aunt Sally and my mother was just trying to get money out of the safe in back room so they didn’t hear us screaming and the guns firing at us. When they both came out of the kitchen, the bullets were still coming out of the front of the house and then all I saw was blood and their bodies collapsed onto the floor. I knew I had to get my family back into the tunnels.

Olivia didn’t want to tell her brothers and cousins that their mothers were dead, because they wouldn’t stay by her side and then get killed like them. She assigned everyone to a different gear that they needed to get through the next part of their journey, because this one would be longer than the first. She pulled Jan aside and he was still wiping away his tears with his skinny arm, she hugged him tightly and asked him if he would go behind the younger ones. Jan looked at her and nodded, not even asking about his mom or aunt. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and our dads and grandpa are already there at the compound.” Olivia said trying to brighten his spirits a little bit. After seeing Sean get shot and then our mothers, seeing how all three males come meet us at the compound would have to be a big miracle. When I heard the people talking upstairs I knew it was time to get the hell out of there. I switched roles with Jan and he led the younger ones in first and I climbed in and shut the door behind. It was completely dark for five seconds and then the lights switched on to help guide us into the long journey.

Two hours and three breaks later, we had reached our next spot. Another relative of ours that knew about the tunnels had his family in their underground house, which it didn’t matter what you called it, it was still a cave nevertheless. Dennis, another uncle of ours and a big number of our family members helped getting us out of the tunnel. Jan and the kids enjoyed seeing some familiar faces after such a long and hard journey. When I managed to get out of the tunnel Uncle Dennis looked at me with a worried look on his face. “Where’s your guys parents and grandpa?” he asked his oldest niece, but she took him aside and told him what had happen. He started to break down inside but forbid himself to show his emotions to his nieces and nephews. “The world has been taken over. There’s nothing much left except for the ones that were appointed by the government to inspect its people.” Uncle Dennis said to Olivia. “I don’t think it’s anything to do with the government.” Olivia said to me, as everybody around them started to surround them. “They were killing people in cold blood. I’m starting to think it’s World War II all over again.” Olivia said back to him. Which made everybody nervous inside the core of the cave.