The National Disaster
Chapter 1
Seven trucks rushed quickly through the barren and humid land; these trucks weren't what you would call normal trucks that you would see in the motorway or in a normal parking space, these trucks were tinted with a dull shade of grey, mud had covered its wheels completely and it was as if the trucks themselves had been around five or so years old.
As the wheels drove faster and faster, it eventually stopped to a sudden halt in a small village near the jungle.
Screeches and pleading were heard, people were sprawled out on the floor clutching desperately onto their hearts. The unfortunate people who were in this state were crawling desperately towards the seven trucks, their pleading for help echoed in the humid land. Every single person from the village were covered in spots and rashes that were increasing in an incredible rate, red liquid slowly leaking out of the corners of the eyes, the sudden uncontrolled lack of breathing, skin loss and the most horrific, body parts breaking apart and falling off.
In each of the seven trucks, 5 men appeared from the inside and jumped out. The men were dressed from head to toe, not a single bit of their skin or body part was left out in the open, their hands with thick gloves, their body in a protective suit, large heavy boots that were tightly attached to the suit and their heads were protected in a gas mask that covered the hair. A few of them were holding large heavy and tightly sealed-on suitcases.
"Alright, everyone head out. Meet back here in twenty minutes." one of the men ordered, making his way through but being grabbed by the foot from a man, the man was so skinny that his bones could be seen, "What the-" with full force, he viciously threw the skinny man to the ground.
Groups were divided from these men, some of them were outside, guarding the trucks, many had taken the liberty of barging through the poorly built houses and huts, injecting the villagers with a syringe that had some sort of blue-ish substance or taking samples of the villager's blood. The others, stood out of the houses while they performed this.
A door burst open as a man with a suitcase started to march into the room, finding three young children in their beds, crying and pleading as their mother lay on the floor dead. The man did not make an effort to quieten down the children but instead, took a sample of the deceased mother. In the process of taking his sample, one of the children, a girl, lunged forward and held him tightly, "H-Help me! Ple-ple-" the little girl was cut off as another man came in and pushed her away on the floor and leaving her there to cry in pain, for she too was affected from the outbreak.
From a far distance, just outside the village, a figure of around the height of a 12 year old child stood stock still, hiding and watching the happenings from behind thick bushes and reeds. The child was shaking slightly as she could see her father being thrown to the ground by a man with a gas suit. Her mouth went open to speak out a small 'no' but instead, she wasn't able to find her voice so she shut it and turned away from the village's view. She swallowed and started to run into the jungle, she then stopped and pushed away a branches, revealing a ten large steps. She proceeded to run up the steps, breathing heavily. "Kasem!" she called out, panting for air.
A man with dark black hair that looked gelled up, tanned skin and was wearing black jeans, glasses and a white long sleeved chinese collar shirt turned around, blinking at the little girl, "What's the matter?" he said. The little girl was now crying, and this made the man, who was known to be 'Kasem', know that it was not the right time to mess around.
Kasem wasn't the only one who was there on the high steps of the jungle, there was another young child, sitting on the edge of the step platform, eyeing the girl and Kasem. He was a small boy around the age of eight or nine years old and judging from the way he wasn't talking through all this, he was a quite young boy.
The girl clasped her hand on her knee caps and panted heavily, "T-Th...the village...-" she was abruptly cut off from a loud screeching noise from the village. As if someone was in serious pain. Kasem and the little girl's eyes widened as they heard the screech. The boy who sitting on the edge quickly got up and looked around, a bit startled from the noise.
Without any warning, Kasem grabbed the two children's hand and led him down the steps of the staircase, pushing away the branches and watching the village for a slight second, "...Oh no...f-follow me, don't make a sound and we'll be alright." he said, "...I promise you." Kasem added, continuing on and running further east of the jungle. The three stopped when they were out of the jungle. In front of them was a sandy, yet a rather muddy and dry road, next to them was a truck.
"W-where are you taking us?!" the little girl stuttered, looking around frantically, tears were still dripping slightly from the corners of her eyes. It wasn't a surprise that she was crying, her father would have most probably not have survived long, especially since those men had decided to ignore him and throw him to the ground. She had no mother and now, she probably didn't have a father.
"Wherever it's safe!" Kasem replied, "Get in the truck, quick!" he said, helping the small boy up the truck and putting on his seat belt. Kasem blinked and turned around when the girl made no effort to get into the truck, he frowned and wiped the tears away from the girl, "It's okay...everything will be okay...but we need to make sure that you'll be okay too." he quietly told her. The girl nodded slowly and got into the truck, Kasem shortly following behind. He put his seat belt on and started to drive as fast as he could, he didn't like driving fast and it seemed that the children didn't like it either because it made them feel dizzy- but he had no choice. He needed to drive fast because he knew something was wrong and staying in the Village Jungle was not a good idea because there could have been the slightest possibility that they would have found them.
"Abort the sector. I repeat, abort the sector." said a voice from the built in microphone in the gas masks of the men.
"Alright, we're done here. Everybody, move out, now!" he ordered, getting into one of the trucks once again before they moved away from the village.
For the distance, high above the grey cloudy sky, was a large plane that started heading towards the village. The unfortunate people of the citizens stopped their pleading for only a few moments to look up and watch as the plane made its way towards them. The plane stayed up in the sky above the village for a fraction of a second before something went flying down with a parachute attached to it.
It was a bomb.
The bomb only took five mere seconds for it to completely destroy the lives of many families. So large that just when it landed on the ground, it triggered and exploded, fire burst open, the fire shot upwards and heat was released. Because it was so powerful it caused the ground to shake for a second while the sound of the explosion spread in every corner as if it was propelled into someone's ear and caused a huge fire outburst. Anybody within reach of the bomb would have died instantly.
Pleading had died and it had died, a horrible death.
Kasem stopped the truck and looked back at the village that was now ashes, fire and dust. He felt a pain in his stomach as he eyed the smoke coming out of the trees in the distance. Before he knew it, his eyes started to water as if about to cry. However, Kasem shook his head and blinked the tears away.
"...W-Was...that an explosion...?" the little girl whispered, staring at Kasem, her hand shaking slightly as she could smell the scent of smoke drifting in the direction of the village.
"...Yes...yes it was." Kasem replied quietly before pressing his foot on the gas again, "It's not safe here. We need to leave."
The whole incident was not some sort of terrorist attack, it was fully planned and with a good reason, of course, it was only a good reason for those who were in charge of the said actions; the bombing, the outbreak, the sample taking. All of it was carefully planned. The only thing that was not planned, was for there to be any survivors. And it was certainly not acceptable for there to be any survivors.
Everything that had happened was being monitored but everything was mostly monitored in the Village- it was only a coincidence that they found out that they had been able to monitor the East sections as well, which was not a good thing because Kasem had headed into that direction, further east of the village.
"Sir look! There's a truck heading East!" called one of the monitoring officers, pointing to his screen. There on the screen was a satellite image of the truck that Kasem and the two children were currently in.
The other monitoring officer gnashed his teeth in irritation and bashed his hands on his desk, "Send them a few explosions and make sure they die. We don't need any survivors spilling out our plans." he growled.
"Yes sir!"
The little boy that had been there the whole entire time, in the truck that Kasem had told him to go, sat in the seat hugging his knees. He had said absolutely nothing about what was going on but the most noise that he made was when his eyes caught hold of a helicopter speeding towards them. He shot his hand up and pointed at the helicopter.
Kasem and the girl blinked, looking at the helicopter with wide eyes, "They've spotted us..." Kasem gulped, his grasp on the steering wheel becoming more tighter, sweat was dripping from his face as he gritted his teeth.
The helicopter hovered quite a far distant away from them but it soon started to forward out small missiles at Kasem. Kasem immediately swayed his steering wheel and put his foot on the pedal at the fastest speed he could, only just dodging the missiles.
He continued to speed his way through, trying to avoid the missiles that were coming from behind the truck. He tried his best not to make the two young children with him panic but the missiles were fast, and he needed to be faster.
The twelve year old girl was now covering her ears and her knees were pressed against her chest, "Stop!" she was shouting, trying to block the sounds of the missiles exploding. The other child was hugging his knees tightly and covering his face in his knees, not saying anything. What was happening would have been completely traumatizing for a young child.
The helicopter had started to slow down, it was losing all of its missiles and soon it was useless. Kasem had outrun the all the explosions and attacks and was now speeding across the place at full pace, he was determined to survive this and if he didn't survive he doubted that neither of the children would do so either.
Hours had gone pass and soon, the sound of crickets and a mixture of total silence filled the atmosphere as Kasem continued to drive through the road. The twelve year old girl had drifted to sleep, hugging tightly onto her knees, she was swaying slightly to the left almost as if she was resting on the other child's lap. The boy, hadn't fallen asleep yet, he was staring through the window and into the sky, most likely looking at the stars and the moon.
Kasem had noticed the little boy staring up at the moon, he didn't speak until a few minutes but when he did, he opened his mouth, "...The stars-" he blinked, glancing at the corner of his eyes and noticed that the little boy had fallen fast asleep. Kasem smiled gently and focused on the road, "...Goodnight." he said softly. Despite the bad things that happened, he was still able to fit in the word 'good' in there.