•••
The overly large ties screeched as I speed around the street corner, leading me to yet another identical path that isn't the lash green forest we need to be heading to. Light grey smoke piles around us and fills the emptiness that follows the car. There's no sign of life, apart from a few people pulling back curtains from their apartment windows. The metallic odour wafting from the back is so strong I can almost taste it on the buds of my tongue as I rip the steering wheel to the left, making yet another burn out on the bitumen for those to come with curious eyes.
In the tiny, rectangular mirror above me, Eliana slouches against the firm seats, her legs laying limb against on top of them, as droplets of sweat bead down her ghostly features, her once bright emerald eyes that now dull in comparison, are glazed over as her head lops to the side. My jumper is no longer the light grey it had always been, but now a dark, ghastly crimson that drips from one of the sleeves.
I don't know why that person said not to go to the hospital, and that they wouldn't be able to help. That's where everyone else said they were going, it's where I took Nan-nan, and it's a place people would automatically go in a time of crisis.
I breath in.
Greg's cabin will have the equipment we will need. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. We just need to get out of the city.
The streets have begun to blur together, never ending, never changing. It's like a maze, and I'm but a lost child seeking the light at the end of the tunnel. At least an hour has passed since the attack, and I don't know what is to come, but I can't lose her. What happens after one of those things bites you? Do you become one? Does it poison you? Or does nothing happen?
I let my eyes wander back to the mirror as something crawls at the flesh beneath my skin.
It doesn't seem like nothing. Something is happening to her, and I don't know what I'm going to do to stop it.
"Nas..."
"Yeah, I'm here." I reassure her.
My hand grips the leather wheel, my knuckles turning white with the action as I round another corner. Trees towering over the large buildings greet my widening eyes at the end of the street, the deep green and dusty, dirt path so close it almost hurts to see.
"We're nearly there, Eliana. I promise."
I don't know how close we are once we enter the forest, all that I'm certain of is that I have to follow the dirt path and turn down the third diverating dirt road. And that this vehicle can reach up to one-hundred and fifty kilometros per hour and my foot isn't going to release from the pedal until we are there.
Her breath weakly slips past her pale lips.
"Get it out."
The engine revs as we make it down the last stretch of the street.
"Get it out."
Her voice is grunted out.
"Get it out."
My eyes dart to mirror again, my foot lifting slightly from the pedal as I do.
"What?" My brows knit together in confusion.
Her breaths are heavier now as her trembling hand reaches up for her shoulder, her fingers grasping at the jumper thats wrapped around it.
"Nas, get it out of me, it hurts," her words are firm as she pleads with me from the back, the car now rolling to a stop.
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Vines of Hunger | ONC 2024
Science FictionDeath was once something I feared, an illusion that brought darkness with it, but now I plead for its mercy in this time that survivors have come to call, The New Order. ••• It was only a cough to began with, something so simple, it had happened a t...
