Danni's Pre-tribe
Danni had lived with her father in the flat by his work for as long as she could remember. She'd been told they'd moved there when her mother left, but she didn't remember her mother at all, and it wasn't something she had much interest in. Her mother had abandoned her and her father when she was three years old, apparently because he was too consumed with his work, but Danni couldn't believe that. True, his work was hugely important, and it occupied a lot of his time, but every spare minute he had was spent with her. Whether it was trips across the world in the summer, or just evenings spent making a mess in the kitchen, her father adored her, more than making up for the lack of a mother figure in her life.
Danni knew she was fortunate, the flat they lived in was luxurious to say the least, they were often on exotic holidays, and she attended an exclusive girl's school. She knew her father was a brilliant man, the top scientist for Pandorax, one of the leading medical research companies in the world. He attended meetings with Presidents and Prime Ministers, some of which she accompanied him on. She'd had her picture taken for magazines with him, and had got to meet several of the most important people in the world.
There were drawbacks to all this though. There would be periods of several months when work wasn't going right, or nearing the completion of a project, when Danni would come home to an empty house, with a message on the answering phone explaining her father's absence. Evenings would be spent sat alone on the sofa, flicking through the tv, and going to bed far later than was sensible to see if he was coming home at all.
It was during one of these periods that a particularly boring maths class was interrupted by her father's chauffeur. This was not a usual event, but it was approaching her birthday, and she knew her father was aware of how much she was missing him. She imagined he had arranged a surprise day out, maybe even to celebrate the end of this anti-ageing project he had been working on. She knew he had made some breakthroughs recently, so maybe things could get back to normal.
The journey back to her father's work was relatively short, he was at the offices today rather than at Hope Island. Danni spent the whole time wondering what he had planned, and didn't even notice when two security guards followed her up to his office.
She did notice things were wrong when she entered his office though. Although her father had been going grey for the last few years, he had still had a relatively full head of dark hair. The man who stared at her through haggard eyes had a completely silver head of hair. He was hunched over his desk, dried blood caked down the side of his face, shaking ever so slightly. His skin looked stretched and sagged slightly from his features. She could still recognise her father in there somewhere, but he was hidden in a body that could not be his.
"Danni…" The voice that croaked her name was hoarse, cracking painfully, and devoid of any hope.
That was when she felt it, the cold bite of metal boring into her skin. She flinched away from it, only to be grabbed by a strong pair of arms holding her in place. The kiss of metal against her temple touched her again, and she felt tears slip down her face as a dark pair of eyes focused on hers, ordering, "Don't move."
"Daddy, what's happening? What's wrong with you, your skin, your hair? Why are they doing this to me?" The voice of a little girl, on the verge of becoming hysterical, emerged from her mouth, accompanied by a fresh flood of tears.
The man who's eyes terrified her came right in close, so close she could feel his bitter breath playing across her face. She could taste the hatred in his voice as he spoke. "Your Daddy's killed the entire world, starting with himself. And nothing will happen to you, as long as he does exactly what we tell him."
As he drew back from her, he picked a knife up from the table. "So, what is it to be, dearest Daddy? How much does your little girl mean to you? You can't save the world, so will you save her?"
Danni's eyes flickered to her father, waiting for him to deny what was being said, but he kept his face from her, the truth written all over him. Panic began to set in for Danni, how could she possibly believe her father would kill anyone, and yet he wasn't denying it.
"You win, let her go, it doesn't matter now anyway." Her father's voice was broken, he had lost all hope. He took a piece of folded up paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it over. Looking at his daughter, he whispered, "You'll be fine sweetheart. I'll always love you, remember that."
The paper was taken from his hand, and a flurry of activity took place around him, people coming and going, but Danni saw none of that, all she saw was the tears pouring down her father's face, leaving red streaks where they had fallen. Before she knew it, they were alone, him still sat at his desk, her still stood in the place where she had been held at gunpoint, both frozen in the moment.
Finally, Danni broke through, tearfully asking, "What's wrong with you Daddy? What did they mean, that you've killed everyone."
Staring at his daughter for a moment, he sighed. "I've killed everyone Danni, every adult in this country is going to die because of me." He kept his eyes on her, waiting for her reaction, this was the moment he had been dreading the most. He was so wracked with pain that death held no fear for him, but he was terrified she was going to hate him.
But no reaction came, she just stared at him, demanding an explanation, saying nothing. So he continued, "The anti-ageing process, we thought we'd reached a breakthrough, we thought we'd cracked it. And the others were so close, we'd invested so much in this, and all the tests came back positive… We didn't think there would be any danger, and we were too close to lose it all to another team. So we released it, thinking we could take credit when it started to take effect. Only it didn't quite have the effect we wanted, fourteen people have died so far. We got it wrong Danni."
"So why don't you tell people, they can get to safety, they don't have to die," Danni's voice was barely a whisper.
"I wanted to, that's why they brought you here. But it's too late Danni, we released it into the water system two weeks ago, everybody is infected, nobody will survive, every adult in this country will die." He got up from his chair with a great deal of difficulty, coughing as he did. "But you'll be fine Danni, it only affects adults, you'll live." He took her in his arms, whispering into her hair as he did, "You can undo the damage I've done."
The following morning, the sun breaking through the window, Danni stirred to the first day of the rest of her life. Her father's lifeless body was next to her, but she was completely out of tears. Instead, she whispered to him, "I promise Daddy, I will make everything better."
Without looking back, she walked out of the room, out of the now deserted corridors of the Pandorax offices, and out into the world where normalcy was still in operation. Silently to herself, she affirmed what she had promised her father, she would make everything right again.