Now that I think about it, this town had a lot of hidden jokes. Just the name is a reference to a dick and the association behind it can be abbreviated to F.U.C.K. so the innuendos are plenty so far. Outside the wall there was a crudely spray painted sign that read ‘welcome to dongle town’.

  We got out of the truck and found a pretty normal looking town for before the fall standards, which is pretty impressive. People were just minding their business and there were street vendors selling fruits or more. Frankly it was very nice. The sun was just rising now over the horizon.

  “If you’re going to stay for more than a day then you need to check in there.” Sofia Briggs pointed at a small shack with a counter separating the inside from the outside. Two guards were working in there, they seemed to have papers and other stuff like that. “This is an attempt at a normal society, and as such we have to know who is in it and who isn’t.” Said Briggs. She had to leave then to report to her superiors as did the rest of the three man squad. The outpost in it of itself was a small town like the one we had been at before only that they had set up walls that made an airtight perimeter, probably reinforced with traps and such. There were people walking everywhere, they seemed to be living a normal life. Almost none of them were carrying backpacks like us, it appeared like they didn’t need it. We approached what seemed to be the civil council thingy where we would be sorted and such.

  The little shack was close to the corrugated sheet steel wall. It was rudimentary at best.

  “Good morning, please state full name and if you display mutations, please state them too.” Said the guard indifferently at Mary. My brother went to the second one to speed the process up.

  “Mary Grace, I can make weapons out of myself” said Mary. She had a nice surname.

  The guard wrote something down. He then handed her a piece of white hard card with information on it. “As long as you are here, you must carry this ID with you at all times. I’m serious” said the guard. “If you want to earn your pay then we have a couple of uses for a berserker like you.”

  Mary moved out of the way and it was my turn.

  “Ayla Tomb, I have telekinesis.” I told him proudly, he didn’t seem to share my pride.

  “Telekinesis aye? Are you sure?” He asked me.

  “Yes, I can move things with my mind.”

  He called someone over the radio and turned around so I couldn’t hear him. They talked for what seemed like ages. The guard had seemed rather confused when i mentioned my mutation.

  He finally turned around again to deliver the news.

  “Please, come with me, now” I could tell in his eyes that resistance would have been futile. He exited through a door in the side of the shack and i gave Mary and my brother one last look before i went with the guard. My brother was about to come after me but I signalled it was ok.

  We walked through the town and I saw that it was just a normal place. Streets, shops, buildings... All the standard things you’d expect. And they were all used. There was also a public pool i saw where people were leisurely floating around relaxing. That was a feat of safety and development. To not only have the time, but the resources to indulge in such activities was a real display of wealth in this world. No diamonds were as valuable as time to play in the apocalypse.

  Overall, I couldn’t see a reason to worry.

  We continued walking until we reached a building that stood out like a sore thumb. It used to be the town hall, but now it had been decorated with spikes and torches to give it an eerie and barbaric look. The main entrance was guarded by tall torches. As we crossed the main entrance we encountered Sofia Briggs’s squad along with her exiting the building. When i entered, i saw the guard that was leading me talking to the receptionist. After a moment, he motioned for me to follow him through some doors. I could hear people talking with each other through the doors. When the guard opened them, the room went silent. About ten scantly clad men habited the room. The room was dimly lit and had a wooden throne on a raised part where someone with black and white face paint was seated. The guard then talked.

  “General plague, I bring you a new mutation.” The guard kneeled down.

  The man on the throne got up, he was wearing a bearskin cloak that had the hood be the bear’s mouth. “Is that so?” His voice boomed all throughout the room.

  “Yes sir, she claims to display telekinesis.” Said the guard.

  “Claims? And you didn’t even check?” He said.

  “N-no sir, sorry.”

  “No Matter. You there, you claim you have telekinesis?” The man asked me.

  “Yes I do. I can prove it.” I took out an apple I had in my pocket and levitated it, I brought it to him. He seemed impressed.

  “I need the room to myself, now!” He shouted. Everyone scrambled and abandoned the room. Now it was only us alone.

  “Why is it such a big deal that I have this power? I mean, my brother has electrokinesis and nobody makes such a fuzz about it.” I asked him.

  “For you to understand, I need to start from the very beginning.

  About four months ago I was tasked with making a pathogen for a very powerful man, the god of destruction. So there i was in my lab, racking my head for ideas for the new black plague or an equivalent, but to no avail. Until one night I had a dream. It was there that it was revealed to me the disease, the infection. I made it and it worked, but it wasn’t right. The original strand I made had the ability to be controlled under super specific radio frequencies, and that wasn’t intentional. So I thought to myself : how does one achieve such a hard feat by chance? Because making that is super hard, trust me. So it couldn’t have been chance, it had to have been intentional. So I then thought about the possibility that maybe that wasn’t my dream, maybe someone had given me that dream. So I modified the strand to make it mine own, without the radio thingy. But then the virus got released and it wasn’t me who did it. Then my theory was confirmed, there was someone pulling strings. After the fall, I was able to cross realms and I found myself in this shithole. After that, I met some survivors and we founded the First Union of Cody’s Kin.” He was speaking the craziest shit imaginable.

  “Are you fucking with me?” I asked him, I was getting annoyed at whatever he was telling me.

  “No, no I’m not, you’re too ugly for me. As I was saying, I developed different mutations and strands of the infection that would grant people powers, and we have it catalogued. Type one are titans, they have enhanced strength and resilience. Then there is type one and a half, the berserkers, these people can make weapons out of themselves, this was a deviation of the titan strand, that’s why its catalogued as one point five. Type two are elementals, these people are cryokinetic, pyrokinetic or electrokinetic. Type three are psykers, people with the ability to enter minds and manipulate them to their will. And finally, type four, the gifted. These people are smart, their brain is a hundred times more developed than normal. All of these came from my own hand, that’s why you are so special. Your mutation is new.”

  “Cut the crap, I’m not taking it. So you are the author of the infection and bloody Jesus Christ reincarnate? And what are you going to tell me next, that the earth is flat? That there are lizard men?” I was about to leave because of obvious reasons. I really didn’t want to listen to a nutter. He was off his rockers.

  “Now that i think about it it does sound kinda crazy. But its not. You see, the infection isn’t a disease.” He continued with his rant.

  “Oh really? Then what would you consider the thing that caused the fall of fucking civilization to be? A miracle? A gift?” I said.

  “Precisely so. The infection is the genetic toolbox that allows us to change any aspect of any living thing. Its possibilities are endless, it allows us to control lightning, levitate objects, enter the minds of others... It just takes a bit of knowledge and finesse to make a strand for each. Now to the important part, remember how I said it was someone else that released the infection? Well my organisation is in charge of finding that son of a bitch and figuring out how he did it. We are the sons of the plague, named after me, Plague.”

  “I was there when the infection started and I haven’t been able to remember anything important, or rather there wasn’t anything important. Some guy just started convulsing and that’s it.” It was true that me and my brother had been in that café on the very moment that our lives turned to shit. It never crossed my mind to question where the infection had really come from, I had just assumed that it was like any other disease that just appeared, but given all that it has made then it stands to reason that it had a deeper origin. As illiterate as I was, biology had always interested me and I had a lot of knowledge on the subject. But that made me wonder about it all. Perhaps this lunatic was right, mayhaps he was telling the truth. But if he were telling the truth then that would mean there was a god of destruction and some other realms where he crossed over or something like that, which is cool to imagine but rather small chance of being true.

  “You witnessed the first zed?” He asked me.

  “Yeah, I remember it plain as day. Me and my brother were in a café having our breakfast, which I remember clearly what we both had. I had a long cup of coffee with two shots of milk and about five grains of sugar to keep the flavour of the beans nice and strong, I also had a croissant to eat. My brother went with an espresso without milk and quite a lot of sugar. The place was mostly Pink. There was fake leather on the benches that gave us a sort of secluded space in between the benches. Suddenly, we heard some gasping and groaning. Then the person seated on the table in front of ours collapsed off of his seat and he began shaking with every breath. People then clumped around him to help him. Me and my brother really didn’t care, we just wrapped it up and left through the door as soon as the man jumped on someone and attacked them. That was when we saw it and darted out of there. We also noticed how the military just didn’t help at all once the first horde had formed. They just turned around and left. I felt at that moment like I didn’t care or couldn’t care about anyone but me. I felt incapable of sympathy. But then some people with a tank appeared on a street and began the stand off. They were the only ones and sadly they were overrun.” I told him. When I mentioned the part where the military left I saw his face show a bit of guilt, but it was probably the lack of light playing tricks on my head and distorting his features.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “You could hold the clue to our cause. We have been trying to find the man responsible, but we still don’t know who he is. Maybe you’ve seen his face and you don’t know it.” He thought for a moment. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Ayla”

  “Well Ayla, would you like to take revenge on the one responsible of fucking your life up?” He asked me seriously.

  “Well yeah, but from what you’ve said you’re the one who caused it, hmmph?” I tried phrasing it so that he would hopefully realise how much of a nutthead he was.

  “Nah, not really. Anyways, I need to do some stuff now. I’ll call for you later and I’ll have Markus root around in your head to figure out if you ever saw the face of the man responsible for releasing the infection. See you!” He then proceeded to lead me out the door, he was crazy.

  But mentally ill leaders have been intrinsic in human history.

  Now in the street again, I had to get me my ID for real this time, because with all the commotion I hadn’t been able to get it. So I made my way down the street by myself this time. I didn’t see either Mary or Donn, I knew my brother was probably around the pub and Mary could be anywhere and everywhere. They would start worrying after an hour I guessed.

  The little shed only had one guard now, the other one was probably out procrastinating and extending his walk back to his post as much as possible.

  The guard there seemed tired and the process went quite fast so I had my Id.

  “Your friends were given a provisional apartment, I’ll give you directions.” She said. I couldn’t really tell her gender before because she lacked tits and the clothing they wore was kinda misleading, it made them all look like men. But gender guessing wasn’t the only thing I sucked at.

  She gave me precise directions to where my brother and Mary where at. I left her and headed down the town. The overall layout was similar to the last one. Two perpendicular avenues with square blocks of flats and other buildings. This town seemed to be more economic. Both in the cheap sense like plane tickets and in the money making sense. Almost all of the buildings seemed to have been made as offices or similar. No doubt these people had probably been very busy with remodelling and such to make everything habitable.

  The apartment they had given us was located in a four building residential block with a park in the middle of the four towers. It seemed like housing wouldn’t be an issue for a long while just with that block.

  There was a section of perimeter wall located between the corners of the park of the east side. The block was located northeast from where we had arrived from the south. So basically in the top right corner of the town if you’re trying to imagine a map. To our west was the community pool and the main avenue laid south of us. The town hall I had been to earlier was at the intersection of the two main avenues, sort of where the main square would have been in an ancient roman city. There was a supermarket further south of us and that was all I had seen so far.

  We were in the north building in the fifth floor. So I entered said building and proceeded to climb up five flights of stairs until I reached my destination.

  There were four apartments per floor arranged in a square around the elevator shaft and the stairs. Light came in through the top and gave it a homey feel.

  Our apartment was to the left of the one straight in front of the lift and it was labelled 504. There wasn’t a lock on it, rather there was a padlock held on by two L shaped pieces of metal bolted to the doorframe and door. I guess management or whoever was in charge of checking and restoring the buildings couldn’t find the original keys of the door lock so they had to improvise. The padlock in this case was only on the door and not the doorframe so I supposed my brother and Mary were inside. The door opened when I pushed it and I noticed how the door bolt was blown to pieces out of its place.

  The flat in it of itself was big. Just from the front door you could see a big kitchen to your left and a short hallway that had the door to the living room to the right and a couple of rooms to the left before making a right turn down the hallway. The walls were painted white and were not too worn down. Maybe a fresh coat was due but none of us had the time nor the intentions of doing it.

  The living room was where I found both my brother and Mary waiting. My brother was relaxing on an armchair and Mary was nervously pacing around the room before she saw me. She sighed, relieved that I was fine and she approached me.

  “You had us worried there Ayla. We thought they had taken you away or something.” She said. My brother also made the effort of getting up to help.

  “Yeah, apparently my telekinesis is something weird, even for their standards. But I’m fine. Have you guys settled in? How many rooms are there?” I asked.

  “There is one master bedroom and two smaller rooms, but one of the rooms had a humidity problem and now the mattress is completely ruined. So someone is going to have to share.” Said Donn.

  Well that’s a shame.

  “We were thinking of giving them out by chance, if that’s fine by you. We would see who is first to draw aces.” Said Mary.

  It would probably be best that I shared the master bedroom with my brother but if they wanted to leave it up to chance then so be it.

  “Sounds good. But maybe me and my brother should share the master bedroom” I said.

  My brother for some reason was quite eager to express his opinion.

  “Hell naw, I’m not sharing shit with you unless I have to. Now Mary, get the cards shuffled.” He said, the prick.

  Mary did as she was told and got a pack of playing cards shuffled. She was surprisingly good with the cards as she shuffled them easily and effectively. Her skill was rather unexpected.

  The game was as followed, we would be all dealt a card each and we will all reveal our card. If no one gets an ace, then whoever got the highest value card started drawing one card at a time. Then it was the turn on the one to their right and so on.

  We were sitting in a circle. I was dealt a king. Nobody got an ace first go so I went first.

  I got a five of hearts. Then Mary got a three of clubs. And my motherfucking brother pulls out the ace of spades.

  “Wooooo!! Yeah! Guess who’s sleeping alone, this guy!” He pointed at himself. That meant me and Mary had to sleep in the same bed. What a real treat, I’m sure that won’t go all out weird immediately and possibly cause irreparable damage between us two, because that would be an inconvenience. I looked helplessly at her and to my surprise, she seemed rather pleased that it ended up that way. She had a small but present smile. She could sometimes be remarkably pretty. I thought to myself that I ought to ask her out officially, but that would probably end up badly.

  Anyways now that we had given out rooms it was time to unpack our backpacks and arrange and fix the house. I decided I would start by sweeping the floor first and my brother would then mop. We left Mary free of duties because we wanted to be nice and such.

  The flat wasn’t too bad. After I had sweeped the entire thing I found it had an Lshape going right from the main entrance. The kitchen was also quite roomy and comfortable. Mary and my brother were right, one of the rooms had a leak and it had made mould grow on the ceiling and the water had been dripping down straight onto the bed, which also made mould grow. From the appearance of the house and specially the rooms, I figured that a happy couple had inhabited the flat along with their teenage son and small daughter, I also found out that the husband had a suspicion that his wife was cheating on him and also he was getting worked up by his son being a prick. My detective skills are marvellous, I know. The diary I found also helped in putting the story together but it was mostly my acute observational skills.

  The room that had the leak was the son’s and it was decorated in dark blue and had a couple of posters from his favourite soccer team hung up. It was apparent that he must have been very into soccer. such originality was hard to come by, only about eighty or ninety percent of boys were bloody soccer geeks, truly a unique thing to be into amirite.

  The room of the small girl was pink, it had dolls of various sizes and the story they told was a sad one. The diary of the daughter was on the desk, its words left a bittersweet taste on me. The girl wrote about how happy she was and how her life couldn’t be better. And to think she was dead now, probably slain by one of her family members. I made my best effort at imagining how a small child would react in such a situation. To see your mother or your father viciously attacking someone and then have them act violently to your calls, the confusion you feel. After your mind is scrambled from conflicting thoughts of whether that is your mother any more or not you realise that no matter who she is, she is advancing towards you with blood in her mouth and not a trace of humanity in her eyes. If she decided to end it quickly then the last thing you’d see would be your blood on her clothes as she pounces on you. If you are unlucky enough to fight back or survive the first attack, then you would crawl backwards, making the best effort to get away from the person who raised you. The betrayal a small child would feel, the confusion, the fear... All that would be your last feelings before you died, along with the image of your mother eating your face.

  Poor thing. It brought a tear to my eye.

  Why were we destined to suffer like this? Why did it all have to happen? Life threw us a real hard blow that day. Or maybe it wasn’t Life, maybe it really was someone who had released the infection. If it were, then I would gladly make them suffer like no one has ever suffered before. Death would come as a sweet gift to them.

  But I digress, there is no way it was someone. Not even the nutter that was Plague with his rambling could have done it.

  Moving on. The main bedroom was rather plain and white. A king sized bed in the middle with wardrobes to either side, so I took the left one and Mary took the right one. After we were done sorting everything out, we had to figure out something to cure our boredom.

  “I heard that there is a nightclub in town, might be fun.” Said my brother. It sounded fun even though we were not old enough to go in one. However, age would probably not be an issue as there was no police anymore, no written laws and no set rules. The only law these people lived by was common sense, which worked for better or worse depending on who it concerned. However they all seemed happy and organised. I guess the guards did do something after all.

  It was also a pleasant surprise to find running water coming from the tap, but it didn’t taste drinkable. However bad it tasted, it was clean enough to shower with. That would be the first proper shower I would have in over three months, and yes, the fall was only two months ago. Rivers and lakes did serve me well and neither my brother nor Mary had complained... much.

  I went in first, the water came out warm and the last inhabitants had been nice enough to leave shampoo behind. Safe to say I was in heaven. Now fresh and clean, I decided to wear my fancy clothes for the night ahead, which were a shirt and pants that were not covered in mud and dirt. Mary was next up in the shower and she came out looking pleased with herself.

  “I’ve missed it so much.” She said. She had her towel wrapped around her and her hair was still wet. Her chestnut hair turned a darker shade when wet. I was in the master bedroom sitting on my corner of the bed. I didn’t want to stare while she got dressed but there was a mirror in the room placed just right so I got the full show without having to look directly. Truth be told she didn’t seem to care about being seen, at one point she noticed the mirror and didn’t say anything. I noticed she had a heart shaped scar on her back, a story for later I guessed. All in all, she was attractive, nice skin and good features. Perhaps she thought the same of me, I could only hope. She noticed I was watching and blushed, her white skin went a bright pink around her cheeks. She put on a black dress, it seemed to hold some deeper meaning to her by the way she held it and hugged it. Perhaps it had been her mother’s or something.

  “Ayla, thank you for helping me get here. I never would have made it without you two, I owe you so much and I cant repay you.” She was nervously fidgeting with her fingers and looking at the floor. She got up and walked over to me.

  “You don’t need to repay us, its fine.” I reassured her.

  “But I want to, please let me make it up to you.” She was determined. I grabbed her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “You don’t have to, just seeing you happy is enough for me. Trust me, I don’t want you to be stressed about making it up to us.”

  “Thank you Ayla.” She said. My brother at that point was done with his shower and left the bathroom steaming. His exit seemed to break the tension between Mary and me, a chance she used to change topic of conversation.

  “So have you guys decided you are going to stay after all?” She asked.

  It was a good question. This place was very pleasant and safe, it was the only chance at a normal life at that point. Id have to discuss it with Donn but I think he would come to the same conclusion as me: this place was amazing and we would stay.