Small miracles

Chapter 1 : Origins

As far as Chloé could remember, she'd always hated walls and ceilings. Windows she preferred, but bull's eyes were her favorite of all. They made her feel like she was in a submarine, looking through a porthole.

Unfortunately, the B6 bunker didn't have any windows. It contained only concrete walls, vent pipes, armored doors and scared adults. But Chloé understood pretty early on that she had to make the most out of it. Being the only kid there, she had only herself to play with. She'd imagine herself as an admiral at sea, battling a giant squid or a knight trying to save New York City from the infected.

Of course, there were her mum's pictures and stories that'd helped imagine what the world outside was like. She was too young to remember much of it. Her mother told the best tales of these great artists, roaming the USA, collecting pictures of people in the countryside, capturing moments of their life. That's where she remembers seeing windows for the first time. One of her favorite pictures from her mum's book of photography was Dorothea Lange's mysterious black and white portrait of a lady looking through the circular glass opening of a carriage.

Chloé was not very tall for her age. She had ashen blond hair and little freckles covered her face.

She couldn't wait for the day it will finally be time to get out of the B6 and see the world outside from her own eyes. Although she knew very well that it would all be very different from those pictures by the time they got out.

Her mother, Marianne, had left France for the United States when Chloé was five. Like many before her, she was looking for a brighter future. But being an immigrant with no education, she'd found herself having a hard time finding a job. She ended up working as a cleaning lady at the French Embassy, which was enough to pay the bills. But what Marianne really dreamed of was becoming an artist. She loved photography above all else. When she immigrated to the States, she brought all her precious treasures with her : a dozen of books and pictures from various artists she'd been collecting for years. Marianne used to take Chloé with her to work sometimes, when she didn't have any other solutions. She would give her one of her books of photographs to look at to pass the time.

When it all went down and the epidemic started, they were both at the embassy. Seeing her with a young child, the ambassador decided to take them along as they were going to an underground shelter. They didn't plan on staying there for long. It was mostly men, politicians, as it always was back then in the early 20th century. They might have taken more, if they had known what would happen next.

They ended up staying underground for almost 5 long years. That is how Chloé grew up in lock down. But Marianne always made her feel like it was all a big game. As if they were the heroes of their own story. They spoke French together, so it was a bit like they had a secret language for just the two of them that no one else could understand.

Some day, the men finally decided that no one was coming to the rescue. Food was getting scares. It was time to get out. Chloé was both very excited and a little scared. The last door opened to the surface, and a huge beam of light blinded her eyes for a few minutes. It took several days for her to get completely acquainted with this newly found brightness.

At first, it was believed that everyone had died and that they were the only ones left. That's when they came upon their first horde of infected. Five years back, a fungus named Cordyceps contaminated most of the world population. The disease didn't know any cure and quickly hijacked its host's brain, creating horrific mutations. There was nothing left of humanity in those creatures. They now crept alone in dark abandoned places, frozen in time, or moved in large groups forming hordes.

Ironically, not many of the men survived their first encounter. After all, they were old men, politicians. Tired and unexercised from being locked away from the world for a long time. One bite or even just a scratch was enough to contract the disease. The infected didn't give them any chance. But being younger, Marianne and Chloé were faster and more agile. They managed to escape somehow.

Then it was only the two of them. Roaming the land in the image of those artists Marianne liked to talk about, or in the manner of those hordes of mutants.

One night, they broke into an apartment that must have one day belonged to an old lady. The decoration was tacky and saturated. Paintings of dogs dressed in clothes hanged on the wall. As they were preparing to make camp for the night, they found a couple of vintage cameras from the 70s in a cupboard and some film. Marianne opened one of the devices and showed Chloé how it worked. How the image is reflected inside the camera on a mirror and then printed upside down on the film. Chloé's light blue eyes opened wide and her freckles nose wrinkled in a smile. It was like magic.

The next day, they started taking pictures. Marianne taught her how to adjust the camera settings. That's how they began to document what they were seeing on their path. Keeping traces of what was left of the world : the wild animals in the midst of broken cities, nature reclaiming its right to stores and building, and the sun still rinsing, unbothered every morning.

At first, they stayed cautious of other people. Maintaining a distance. Trying not to cross path with anyone, or anything... It stayed that way for a long time. They would wander from block to block, then from city to city. Never staying too long in the same area, in fear of being found.

One day, they stumbled upon a mother and her two daughters travelling south. They were exhausted and hungry. In truth, they didn't seem like much of a threat. And it was good to finally meet someone new. They share what was left of their supplies. As they were talking around the wood fire, the mother, mentioned that the Boston Quarantine Zone was still up. FEDRA (The Federal Disaster Response Agency) had seized control of what was left of the authorities and now ruled in their place. She also talked about a network of resistance going about, trying to take them down. They believed it was still possible to get a cure. Marianne rose her head. A cure ? Could that be ? Maybe it was out of desperation or the lack of a better alternative, but the next day, Marianne decided they were going to start their journey towards Boston.

The path to get there was slow and arduous. It took them months to get as far as Columbia. Winter slowed them down even more. Nonetheless, the cold seemed to have a similar effect on the infected. They were getting more scares, but so was food and proper shelter. At some point, Marianne came to terms with the fact that they had to wait it out. Wait for the weather to get better. During one of her food swoop, Marianne found a photography studio on the university campus. She surprised Chloé with it as a Christmas present. It was the perfect place and opportunity for Marianne to take a deserved break and teach her daughter the process of developing her own pictures. She showed her how the film is treated to produce a negative image of itself. Which will later be exposed again on paper and imprinted in its positive form. Making this way a whole new image, called a print. Marianne would never forget the face of the young girl as she saw her first image being revealed. She was fascinated. She came there every day and applied herself so much in her newly found passion.

Chloé's photographs depicted a still and lonely world, suspended in time, where nature had retrieved its course. And at the same time, it contained the endless possibilities that only the eyes of a child are able to see.

Leaving Columbia when spring came revealed harder than expected. Getting back on the move, they were trying to stay as far away as possible from cities. But Chloé was learning and growing fast. She was quick and stealthy. She could go through a place crawling with infected without getting noticed. Not only that, but she'd also found this book on how to survive in the wild. She learned from it how to make fire from scratches and trail wild animals, which made their life a bit easier. But she'd also developed a true artistic vision. Taking pictures of what she liked, training her eye a bit more every day.

On Chloé's 11th birthday, they had reached the outskirts of New York. They didn't risk getting any closer to what was once the biggest city in the United States. At night, they could hear a sort of rumbling noise, almost like a low roar from the far distance.

Chloé had quickly gotten used to this life outside. It felt like she was living the adventure she longed for underground. At night, the stars were watching her as she was drifting off into her dreams. During the day, the wonderful colors of summer set the sky ablaze, illuminating nature in all her beauty, marrying traces of a past she was trying to make sense of. Marianne used to call those little moments of pure perfection, when an image succeeds in capturing an idea so perfectly that it transpired onto the image in a poetic and powerful manner : "Little Miracles". Chloé liked that phrase and promised herself to keep it in her heart, always.

They were getting closer by the day to their ultimate destination. The mood was light and joyful as they reached the last 50 miles that separated them from Boston. They settled camp in Douglas State Forest. Around the fire, they talked about all the things they might find there. As Chloé was falling asleep, she imagined a place full of new friends, animals and a studio of her own.

Chloé didn't have the time to understand what was going on as her head was violently hit by the other end of a hunting rifle. Warm blood dripped from her forehead as the surrounding yelling intensified. A scarred man grabbed her and tight her arms up behind her back. She saw her mother, gagged, struggling to shout something at her before she lost consciousness.

In the morning, Chloé woke up to the sounds of the forest. For a second, she thought that it was all a bad dream, until a searing pain pierced her forehead. She was cold and alone. Not without difficulty, she managed to break free from the rope and stand up. Her voice resonated in an echo as she called out around her, but there was no answer. She thought to herself as she began to weep that they probably left her for dead. She didn't know what to do and was hurt pretty badly.

She gathered what was left of their stuff, but she couldn't find much. She picked up the photography book she'd been keeping since the B6 from a puddle of mud and began to walk. Her feet carried her out to the edge of the forest. Exhausted and hungry, she sat down for a while and didn't notice, she fell asleep against a tree.

All she can remember from what followed, were muffled sounds and blurry images. Her head was swinging around in the void as she was carried by a man wearing a FEDRA armband.