The Youthful Flesh

by angelscoverupyourpin

Carmen is a survivor after the world was left ravaged by nuclear extinction. The land of Contania lives on through it's few people. Believing that they are the last people left on the planet, no one knows of the inhumane acts that occur beyond the nuclear radiation. Something is evolving within it, and it's up to Carmen to end it.

9. Chapter 9 - The Battle Begins

Hours and hours pass, with no end to those sounds of tearing flesh and curdled screams. Every so often, terrified people would come around, pleading for their loved ones to respond to them. One woman was doing this, when she heard her daughter banging on the shutters. No matter what she tried, her daughter was never getting through that, which was confirmed by the sound of her voice being replaced by blood.

The only leaders left now are trapped within a communications hub on the north side of the island, in sector four: only a scout leader from sector eight is left alive. They're trapped in a bunker, protected by ten inches of concrete and steel, slowly losing their air. Including us and them, only about 300 people were left out of a country of nearly 2 million. At least two generations of survivors wiped out. Somehow, a small ship of Grafted managed to kill nearly 2 million people...

*crunch*

'What was that?' whispered Plax, a miner in the upper levels. All around us we could hear the sounds of ice being cut. The lower levels of the mine were ice walls. They were slicing into us. One by one we began frantically looking for weapons or exits. Pickaxes were being thrust into the air, children pushed into walls, the weak left sprawled on the floor. That's when the sounds of peeling flesh and ripped throats echoed up the mine shaft.

'I've found a bomb!' came from an aging woman, in the far corner of the atrium complex. She hauled it into Timota's - the de facto leader of our group - hands, who frantically armed the device. Closer and closer, those voices emanated from the abyss. One by one, they collected and grew louder in a similar way to their vile skin.

Out of nowhere, a half-decayed hand flew into the atrium, flinging itself about like a ragdoll. Timota swiftly threw the bomb into the opening, and flung himself out of it's way. With terrifying proximity, it exploded, causing a huge chunk of the mine roof to collapse into the mine shaft, sealing in the Grafted.

In a sheer chance, the collapse had created a navigable enough path up and out of the mine, into the unknown. As Timota went first, reaching the precipice in a few seconds, he reported back to us.

'Oh my god... They're everywhere, there's thousands of them!'

As we all followed him up and out, we too saw the deadly sight of masses of semi-dead people. But one thing was wrong, they were all staring at us. From all over the island, coast to coast. Every single Grafted looked at us. We were a target.