A/N: This is a oneshot surrounding a small portion of a young girl's life and how she is affected by the coming Apocalypse. I hope to create several oneshots from various perspectives from all over from hunters, to their children, to normal people, etc. Just a little something I wrote when I couldn't sleep all night.
Enjoy. Read and Review PLEASE. thanks.
Only the Lonely
My father and brothers never allowed me along with them. It was too dangerous, they would say. It wasn't something a girl should be a part of. So, I grew up, discovering the most efficient stain removers for blood. I grew up, spending most nights alone, my eldest's brothers first shotgun and books my only friends. I matured, at first believing that this was how all children, how all girls, lived, and then coming to realize that my family, me, we were, different, freaks. At least, that is what the other kids called us. David, the middle of my three brothers, enjoyed fights, a little too much. He was also showing off to some girl and rubbing some guy the wrong way by doing so. They'd wrestle and my big brother would beat him something fierce, of course. But then he wouldn't stop there. A few times he pulled out one of his homemade knives or other weapons he liked to imagine up and create. My twin, my other half and best friend, didn't take to talking to others outside of our family too much. He was real nervous like a lot from everything he'd seen in his short life and didn't trust a soul besides us. People gave him funny looks for it and even teased him sometimes. It used to tear me up inside something fierce until finally one day I gave a kid such a right hook it knocked him clear off his feet. David complimented me in his usual vulgar way and my oldest brother, Nathan, gave me a hidden and brief pat on the back as to not be noticed by our father. He, on the other hand, was not proud or happy. He sat me down and gave me an entire speech on how girls don't fight and made me promise never to do so again. I promised, crossing my toes because, to an eight year old, that breaks any rules of an oath.
My father and brothers never allowed me along with them. It was too dangerous, they would say. It wasn't something a girl should be a part of. So, when they went out last week together, the shotgun and books in reality became my only friends and I would never need to wash blood out of my family's clothing again.
The time on the old clock seemed to move at a snail's pace as it just barely hung on the old wall of our small and weathered home. I had put down "Binsfeld's Classification of Demons" an hour earlier and had simply stared intently at the hands moving painstakingly sluggish in their clockwise motion.
5:00AM.
My gaze then shifted, as it had every few seconds for the past hour, to the telephone merely inches away from my awaiting hand.
"Come on, you guys. Where are you?"
My father's repetitive words rang through my head.
"Wake up at exactly 5 o'clock AM. If we're not here by then in the morning, get to your Uncle Randy's as fast as you can. Don't come looking for us, ever."
Reluctant to obey but realizing it was all there was left to do, I grabbed my already packed bag, flung it over my shoulder and was out the door before it was even zipped. Uncle Randy didn't live too far away but I bolted from the door into a steady run.
It wasn't long before I was panting and slamming my fist against his screen door.
No answer.
I pounded again, this time longer and harder. I shouted his name again and again, but with no reply.
Knowing he would beat the tar out of me if he ever found out, I picked the lock to his front door as I had witnessed Jason, my eldest brother, do so many times. I hurried inside only to be greeted with stacks of disorganized papers and books. It reminded of me of my father's den. Maps lay spread open, dotted and circled. I skimmed the titles of several of the nearby newspaper clippings.
So it was true.
I was a girl and barely allowed to touch a pocketknife in my father's presence, but I still had my women's intuition and sense for gossip. As a female, we have an innate ability to discern truth from gossip with a mere flicker of our ears, if we are willing to pay attention. This includes weeding out actual facts from rumors, fear-driven stories, and panic. I had had my suspicions and had heard my fair share of rumblings but didn't dare to speak up, but I finally saw it for myself.
The signs, the omens, everything was right in front of me in black and white.
The Apocalypse was coming.
It was then that that eight year old's trickery of crossed toes and promise avoidance was put into use. I didn't need anyone to tell me what had happened the remaining members of my family. Besides the cold hard facts, I could feel it in my gut. They were gone. Everyone was gone. Except me.
Now, as I kneel in the morning dew-stained grass, I am ready. The grey slab of cement in front of me commands me to stand and to do what must be done. Just as a son picks up his father's sword after the father has fallen in battle, so shall I.
I do not fear death nor pain, for I have tasted it far too many times. I am no longer a daughter or a sister. Those titles which defined me as "girl" have now passed away.
I am simply a hunter, a warrior.
