"Aria!"
I whipped around to find my Abba's dark brown eyes locked with mine when he called out my name in the middle of the huge swarm of geeks.
"Aria!" He called again. Another geek fell to the ground from his blade piercing through his head.
"Aria! Take Johnathan and get out of here!"
"I'm not leaving you, Abba!" I called back while dropping another geek while racing towards my father.
Abba and I simultaneously backed up towards the entrance to Hezekaih's Tunnel while Johnathan and the other Israeli soldiers flanked our backs as they led our surviving people down into the tunnel.
"Don't argue with me, young lady." Abba chided me. "You need to leave."
After our remaining people managed to get down into the tunnel 130 feet below the ground surface, Abba turned to me. "You need to leave, sweetheart. There is no place here for you anymore."
Tears fell down my face while my father framed my face between his hands. "You are the future of our people, sweetheart. As of tonight, the Line of David rests on your shoulders."
Daryl's voice rang in my ears when a memory resurfaced from our childhood. 'Once ya start something, ya don't stop until yur finished.'
"'Once I start something, I don't stop until I'm finished.'" I echoed Daryl's words out loud. A smile pulled at my Abba's mouth when I iterated my long time friend's 'wisdom.'
"I should never have asked you to leave Daryl, sweetheart. I see the heartbreak in your eyes every time that Redneck's name is mentioned."
"That Redneck is the one who taught me how to stand up for myself against bullies at school." I informed Abba. "Daryl's anger can fuel an entire army."
"Yes. But the downside to Daryl's anger is, if he found out you were dead, Lord only knows how restrained that anger would be. I saw the hurt in his eyes the day you left to come fight at home."
"I'm of the Line of David, Abba. My duty is to my people."
"No, sweetheart." The finality in my Abba's tone booked no room for arguing. "That duty is mine. As of tonight, your duty is going back home to your Eema and the man your heart belongs to."
Abba pulled me into his arms for a hug that may be our last. "No matter what happens to me, sweetheart, the Line of David continues with you. You are no longer a princess anymore. You're our peoples' queen. Our people need their queen alive. The Line of David will continue in the U.S. But not here. The land of our fathers will once again be desolate.
"I can't leave you, Abba." My heart broke open. I understood the words my father refused to say: tonight is his last night. His life was going to end. Hezekiah's Tunnel was going to end up becoming a tomb when the remaining of our people turned into the geeks our soldiers were currently killing while flanking my father and I with their backs. And afterwards, the only ones inhabiting the land or our fathers will be the geeks who only survive on the living.
Sooner or later, the geeks will die out from having no food when the whole land ends up becoming one huge tomb littered with rotting corpses and the creamish-white skeletons of those who had died during the huge plague.
Was that what the outbreak was? A plague? Maybe famine? No. Not famine. Famine may be having a part to play in this nightmare, but it certainly wasn't the main cause of it. It most certainly wasn't a rough patch that would go away after a few weeks like the flu outbreak, or cancer.
Abba pulled back enough to look me in the eye. "There is no place you can go that I won't be with you, sweetheart." He placed a rough, calloused hand over my heart. "I will always be in here. You just have to find me." He wiped away my tears. "No go. Go back to the states. And tell your Eema she will always be the love of my life."
A smile pulled at my father's mouth. "And tell Daryl I give him my blessing to court you and someday, marry you. A father knows when the right man is good enough for his little girl." Abba pulled off his wedding band and placed it in the palm of my hand. "Daryl has been the right man for you all along. How you break the news to him is your decision. I can't ask for a better man than Daryl Dixon, to be the one to hold my daughter's heart."
Johnathan grabbed my hand, but I quickly clasped my Abba's before I was pulled out of arms reach. While I studied my father's face so I could commit every single detail of his features to memory, his dark brown eyes shifted to the corner. I didn't need to look at Johnathan to know he was the one my father was looking at currently.
"Johnathan, I'm counting on you. Keep Aria safe."
"With my life, your majesty." Johnathan gave my hand one big squeeze to assure me everything would be okay.
"All hail the queen." My father sang with sorrow.
"'All hail the queen!" The rest of the Israeli soldiers and the remaining citizens sang with sorrow.
"I love you, Abba." I cried.
"I love you too, Aria." My father cried. "I will love you and your Eema for the rest of my life. And when the Lord finally calls me home, I will love you both from there, too, while waiting for you both to join me. Join Us. Until then, sweetheart, you have a job to do." Raising the back of my hand to his lips, Abba pressed a gentle kiss to its back. "I am proud of you, sweetheart."
"We can't hold them back much longer!" The Israeli soldiers yelled while dropping the geeks with death blows to the heads. Abba and I looked around and indeed, the geeks were closing in on us from all corners.
Abba's sad brown eyes was the last to burn into my minds eye while my hold on his hand was broke before he was hidden from my line of sight by geeks.
Even the airport was in complete chaos when Johnathan and I ran through the massive herd of geeks, using our weapons to drop the hungry dead beings to make a path while the massive herd closed in to try and trap Johnathan in a corner with no way out.
Spoiler alert: the only way out Johnathan and I were taking was to the skies to go back to the U.S.
"Long live the Queen!" The Israeli military chorused while Johnathan and I ran through the parking lot to the front doors of the airport.
"'Long live the Queen!'" My people chorused as Johnathan and I burst through the airport doors.
I whipped around when the doors slammed shut! But the horror my eyes beheld was one I would have nightmares to come! The geeks closed in on my people, pushing them back into the corner that was the airport windows pressed against their backs! And an ultimate bloodbath broke out!
The remaining Israelites killed as much geeks as they could, but the herd was too much, and my people fell prey to the geeks closing in on them. Tears fell down my face as I clapped a hand over my mouth! Locking eyes with the Israeli Military Officer, I caught sight of glistening tears in his deep brown eyes while he encouragingly nodded for me to run.
"Run, my queen." He sobbed. "Run."
Closing my eyes against the horrific scene taking place before my eyes, I turned around just as the Israeli Military Officer turned and made his last stand against the geeks.
Piercing screams of my beloved people rose to the blood red sky as Johnathan threw the plane into gear and we took to the skies! The once beautiful Israel blue skies tainted with the dark red crimson of the blood that matched the blood of my people on the ground. My once beloved homeland now turning desolate! Again!