MAY - ALONE
May felt terribly alone, as she stood broken hearted on the doorstep of the house where she had grown up.
Although she had been concerned about the possibility of her parents having the virus when Billy had first told her about it hadn't occurred to her that they would be dead.
She started to weep as she opened the door and cautiously stepped inside to what had once been her home. Everything was just the same as when she had left it, it was as if nothing had changed and she half expected her parents and Lisa to appear at any moment, to find out that her neighbour, Mr Dawson had been playing a cruel joke upon her and that her parents and Mark weren't really dead, that they hadn't succumbed to the virus that everybody on the streets was talking about.
Part of her began to wish that she hadn't run away in the first place, that she'd left them a note telling them goodbye or that she'd come back sooner. She just hadn't realised that things would change so drastically, in what was, after all, just a few short weeks. She regretted not letting them know that she was ok, because although she hated them a lot of the time they were still her parents and deep down inside she hadn't stopped loving them completely.
Another part of her was relieved that she hadn't been around when her parents had gotten sick because Billy had told her that the virus did terrible things to people before it killed them and that it made it's victims look like something out of a horror movie all grey and covered in blisters. The thought of seeing her parents looking like that made her feel nauseous.
Overcome, she slumped down onto the living room sofa. On the coffee table in front of her there was a vase full of dead flowers, they were all brown and wilted. She sprung to her feet and retreated hastily as the room seemed not warm and inviting as she remembered it but filled with death and decay.
She made her way upstairs and with out thinking she opened the door to her bedroom. She stood in the doorway momentarily shocked at what she saw and wondered how she could have forgotten that her parents had made her give up her room to Lisa, Mark and the baby? It had been one of the main reasons that she had runaway in the first place; it just wasn't fair that she had to swap rooms with Lisa. When she had tired to explain how she felt to her parents they had immediately dismissed her opinions saying that it would be far more suitable if she moved into the smaller of the two children's bedrooms as Lisa would need more space for herself and her new family.
It wasn't fair Lisa always got everything she wanted just because she was older and got better grades than her. It made her angry to think about it even now.
Things had got even worse once the baby was born. She had thought when Lisa got pregnant at just sixteen that her parents wouldn't think her or her boyfriend Mark were so perfect now that they had screwed up and that Lisa would have to leave school and possibly move out then she would have had their parents all to herself.
She had known it was wrong to have told her parents that Lisa was pregnant before she had the chance to tell them herself but she had really believed that Lisa's 'mistake' would finally open her parents eyes enough so that they could she that it was she, May who was the perfect daughter and that they would love her more than they did her sister.
She remembered how furious she had been when her parents offered to help Lisa and Mark take care of the baby whilst they were both still in high school.
The day Lisa brought her baby home was the worst day of her entire life. All of their extended family and friends came round but all they were interested in was spending hours cooing over Lisa's baby and telling her how brave and clever she had been. It was the first time she had ever really felt alone and unloved in a room full of the people who were supposed to care about her.
Everyone was so caught up in Lisa's life that they hardly seemed to notice her and didn't even care when she starting skipping school and staying out all night. It was like she didn't exist anymore and it felt as if she was invisible. It confirmed her belief that her parents didn't really love her and that they didn't even care if she was around anymore.
So May had run away. She had hoped that today she could have finally proved to her family that she didn't need them. That although she was just fourteen years old she had found herself a new home first of all in a disused barn on the outskirts of town, this was where she had met her one true friend a fellow orphan and runaway of a similar age called Billy. She and Billy were currently living in an abandoned warehouse in the next town. She managed to find enough food to eat and clothes to wear and as far as she was concerned that was something her parents should be extremely proud of. It was supposed to have been a triumphant homecoming but she was bitterly upset that her parents couldn't see what a survivor she had become.
As she stood in the doorway staring at the baby's toys and what was left of Lisa's clothes strewn over the floor she wondered if she would ever see her sister or niece again and for a brief moment she was concerned about what had happened to Lisa and the baby now that she was on her own without Mark or their parents to care of her?
May took one final glance around her before making her way out of the house. There was nothing left there for her now.