Four unmarked survivors. One totalitarian government. A fight to keep their humanity intact.
100 years into the future, the E-91 virus has thrust the world into chaos.
For Rachel Wilson, survival hasn't come easy. For the last fifteen years, she's...
Rachel woke up feeling exhausted the next morning, thinking that it might not have been the best idea to stay up all night discussing fake marks with the Hernandez brothers.
Now that her stomach grumbled with hunger, she also regretted skipping out on dinner even though it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
There was no way she would've been able to eat after everything she'd seen yesterday but now she was starving.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she allowed herself a small peak towards Jed's cot. It was still difficult to wake up and see the place where he had once slept empty but slowly she was beginning to accept that he was gone.
Besides, today brought with it its own set of responsibilities. She was on cook duty which might as well have been purgatory in and of itself but at least there was the leftover deer meat to look forward to.
As she dressed, she saw in the dim light of the lanterns that Ruth was nowhere in sight and with no desire to see her, she laced up her boots faster. She threw aside the make-shift door to their cave-a checkered blanket, staked into wooden posts by two bent nails- and made her way down to the dining hall, passing all the small little caves that housed her fellow compounders.
The mountain walls were perpetually wet, always held the scent of damp moss between each crack and crevice. Some pathways were gray, others brown, others interrupted by tufts of vegetation, others still smooth and polished, as if someone had taken a grinder to them.
She went first to the place where the underground river ran and filled her canteen until it overflowed. She tilted her head back and let the cool, refreshing water slide down her throat and lost herself for a moment in the rush of the river.
It was her one minute of peace before she had to begin her day's work, which she could already tell was going to be exhausting.
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Women lined the rocks here beside their piles of clothing, their hands scrubbing away in the river while their children kicked pebbles under the soft glow of lanterns and candles.
Across the river and on the other side, she spotted Hector with two little girls by the stream. He helped one, the smallest of the two, wash her face. The oldest carried a brown bucket, which she filled with water.
She leaned a little too far over where the river frothed with motion and its rush was but a roar that echoed throughout the cavern.
Hector threw out an arm across the young girl's stomach. She turned and smiled to which he responded by tapping her under the chin.
As he stood, he spotted Rachel and waved.
With a small smile, she waved back, before tearing herself away from the river and preparing herself for the day ahead.
When she reached the dining hall, two other women were already there hard at work.
The compound had always scraped by with what little food the gatherers could scrounge up but this morning, the air was lighter, the mood less heavy as there was finally enough food to go around for everyone.
