Chapter Two

The Change

When I had blacked out it was a little awkward, and I knew exactly what had happened. My mind was going a mile-a-minute, but I could do absolutely nothing about it. I was knocked out, but then again maybe I wasn't. Everything was black and but I was able to think and hear words. It reminded me about the cavemen and how they would have thought. They wouldn't see the words in their mind, but they could think about words being spoken. Eventually the pain flowed back into me, it was horrible but nothing compared to how I would feel once the poison released from the bombs took effect on me. Eventually the searing pain was everywhere so I knew I wasn't dead, and I hated myself for it. For being alive when Jess wasn't when all those people could have died but not me. I was put here to suffer and they got out. They got out the easy way I thought. But it wasn't like that; no they were dead, I was alive and I they weren't. Soon I would have my vengeance. But I wouldn't have it for a few years with all those people, I couldn't resist my thirst and I would have to hide too.

Eventually I felt the rain pouring down, it seemed thick. And that was because it was red with poison and the blood spilled on that horrible day. I resisted the urge in my body to stay put, and I stood up. I looked around to see the devastation that had occurred all over and around me. There weren't any bodies; I was the only animate object for yards. But about a hundred yards away I saw a crew of men working their way through towards me. I guess when I stood up I looked like a monster emerging from a pile of ashes which is a good analogy of what was to come. There was nothing just ashes everywhere only and just ashes.

Eventually the crew worked their way towards me and watched me with a certain level of awe and fear of me. I guess they did see me as a threat, but one came up and I could see through his slightly transparent visor of his hazmat suit that reminded me of Master Chief in Halo. He asked me,

"Are you all right?" I answered, "Yes I'm fine," when I wasn't. He then said, "Get this kid back to the bus!" They then grabbed my arms and began to pull me towards a yellow school bus rigged to transport victims affected by the poison.

On the bus I found a seat and sat down with two other guys I asked them, "This is a lot of people, where did you start at?" "We started picking up people at L.A. you're the first we've gotten for miles," the guy on the outside stated dryly. I wondered why these people had been acting like it was the end, I mean of course many, many people had died, but we were alive and that was what mattered. I didn't understand this until a kid a little younger than me fell off of his seat in front of me and violently started puking everywhere. One of the men wearing the hazmat suits came up and started dragging him towards the back of the bus, the kid making the place smell even worse. Without stopping the bus he opened up the back door and threw him out the back where I heard a sickening crack as he landed awkwardly on his leg. I knew now why everyone was acting so badly. It was because even though we were on the bus that was supposed to save us we had no hope we were already dead we just got some chance for those who might not have been affected by the poison by the biological warheads in the bombs. At this point I gave up while sitting there. Because I was already dead and there wasn't any hope, and now everyone else was distant from me it was just me and a sickening felling telling me that I had about just as good a chance at being the next as everyone else on that bus.

A few hours later we had found no one, and out of the thirty people that had started off on the bus it was about five other people and I waiting. We all had the same idea in our heads playing over, and over. Our minds were saying, "I'm next and I'm dead," but only my mind was right. I felt it build up from the bottom of my stomach, and my body heaved a few times while I tried to keep it in but it was futile and the man in the silver suit was on his way already. So I let go and heaved what was in me all over the place. But I wasn't over; I kept on going and going. Eventually he had dragged me to the back where he kicked open the door jumped on the other side and tried to kick me out. But I wasn't giving in without a fight. With the last reserves of my strength I stood up and delivered a blow to his head with my fist. I kept on jabbing with my left arm until he was dazed and let down his guard. I then gave him a menacing blow to the head with a right hook knocking him out. When he was down I moved on to take down the driver and guard, but I never made it my body gave out with my consciousness threatening to go over the cliff I've been hanging onto with my finger tips. The guard came over and dragged me back to the open door at the back. He pushed me off without thinking twice about it my head hit the ground and my fingers slipped off that cliff and I blacked out again.

But it didn't stay that way for long soon I felt a searing pain that started at my head. This was worse than anything I could have ever even imagined. It slowly spread throughout my body until it felt like my toes were burning off. I fought around and shook my body to get this burning sensation clear of me, but it wouldn't go. I was all alone in a fire storm targeting me only. I was like this for what seemed like forever until I could actually feel my toes again. Slowly the pain ebbed away from me as I also regained my consciousness. I began to look around me in the wasteland. I looked to the East and I could make out these bumps in the distance. I then realized what it was; it was a mountain, the Rocky Mountains. Then I thought, I didn't think we'd traveled that far. At that moment I knew something was really wrong and I wasn't myself. I looked down and saw myself my muscles were bigger much bigger, and my skin seemed paler even paler for one living in forks Washington were there was no rain. And then I felt it there was a thirst in the back of my throat. I started to think about food but that didn't seem too appetizing so I let my sense find what they craved. But what I saw wasn't food it was a human. I didn't know what I had become but I knew I wasn't human anymore at that moment I let go and over to my instincts my new instincts, as I started sprinting faster than I ever had. I was sprinting faster than the eye could see towards food, humans.