Raise heaven in hell

If your life suddenly turns into a disaster and your family is dead, you’re homeless and always on the run and in danger, one of the things that actually make you happy is Walmart. I don’t think that in the 4 years that I’ve spent running away from Reapers and trying to survive seeing Walmart didn’t make me happy. Even if it’s abandoned and most of the food has spoiled already, there’s still water and canned food and clothes and shelter. Oh the glory of Walmart! I get my shotgun ready and enter it.
I forgot already what a working Walmart looks like. Those things have been out of commission for 3 years at least. But an abandoned Walmart is dark and dusty. Some of the shelves are knocked over and it smells like spoiled food. The first couple of months after all the stores, airports, restaurants, and schools closed, Walmart and other stores were filled with flies, buzzing around spoiled food and you could actually see healthy people in them. Now even the flies are gone and I don’t even remember the last time I’ve spoken to a human being. The walls are covered with fliers that mostly say the same thing. Deadly disease, save yourself, know the symptoms, blah blah blah. Most of the humanity couldn’t save themselves though. Since glitch erupted 4 years ago, more than 70% of the world population died. The rest is either insane or on the run like me. All of that because of one stupid mistake. Because one stupid microbiologist thought that it would be fun to create a deathly virus and then forget to wash his hands, my family is dead and my best friend had gone insane.
Nobody even knew about the glitch when it erupted. You start showing symptoms more than 2 weeks after you’ve been infected. Then you start feeling a bit sick, like you have a cold. It only goes downhill from there; you get high fever, you can’t eat or drink without throwing up, you cough blood, which gets darker and darker until it’s almost black, you hallucinate and then you fall into deep sleep, which most of the people don’t survive. But those who do are called Reapers. They get their episodes of insanity or glitching where they kill everyone they see. That’s why the glitch is also called Reaper’s disease. That’s who I’ve been running from for 4 years. As soon as my mom got it my dad said I need to go and being the idiot that I am, I went. I never came back.
I kick one of the shelves and cans of cat food fall down. Whatever, nobody even needs this shit. I go to the canned food section, hopefully they have something good. I need to refill my backpack completely so this should be fun. One thing that I never know where to get is bullets. When this whole glitch thing started, surprisingly a lot of people (including my dad) went to buy weapons, not food and water. I’m thankful to him for that because I wouldn’t be alive without my shotgun and my knives, but it still says a lot about human nature.
The can food section has loads of Campbell tomato soup and loads of pineapple. It’s okay, I can live with that. I throw a dozen of each in my backpack. I see the pickles haven’t expired yet so I throw that in too. Next on my list is peanut butter and jelly. I don’t have any bread to eat it with but it’s still good. Chips also don’t expire for a really long time but the salt can make you thirsty and I’m trying to save my water as much as I can. I’m trying to hunt and pick fruit where I can find it, but it’s gonna be winter soon so that will be really hard. Next stop: Clothes. Luckily that’s also one of the things that no one touches so I have plenty of choices. This means I’ll take everything that’s dark and not eaten by moths. After I’m done with getting new clothes, I pick up some ropes to build traps. I take two flashlights and then head to my final stop: water. It’s one of the things that are the hardest to get. The glitch can transmit through water and other liquids so I only drink bottled water or rainwater. If I can’t find any of that, I boil my water. It’s shit to drink but at least I don’t get sick.
“What are you doing here?” I quickly turn around and see a woman, not much older than I am standing in front of me. Her clothes are torn and bloody, her hair messy and she has dark circles around her eyes. You can only tell humans and Reapers apart for sure by their blood but there’s a certain look that Reapers have so I know she’s one of them. I aim my shotgun at her. “Don’t you dare get any closer!” I say, my voice steady. “Shoot me.” She whispers. I lower my shotgun for a second. I’ve never heard any of the reapers say that. “What?” I ask confused. I’ll slap myself for that later. Rule number one: Never show any weakness towards anybody. “Shoot me. I can’t stand this anymore. I can’t stand killing people.” She’s yelling now, tears dripping down her face. “I…” What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve shot god knows how many Reapers already, why can’t I shoot her? “Please. Please just do it!” My hands are shaking as I raise my shotgun. I aim at her head, my finger resting on the trigger. Just do it, Frank. She wants you to do it. I close my eyes and pull the trigger. I hear a whisper and then a gunshot. Thank you. She said thank you. I open my eyes and see her motionless body on the floor, dark blood streaming from her head and staining her brown hair. I can’t look at this. I grab my backpack and run, not caring if I make any noise, I just want to get away from here. I need to get away from here.
I collapse on some suburban alley, catching my breath. What the hell just happened? Why did I even hesitate to shoot her? She’s a Reaper. She could kill me any second. For a few minutes I just breathe heavily and try to calm myself down and I realize why I couldn’t shoot her. I’ve never shot a calm Reaper. The ones that approach and try to kill me are either glitching or insane from glitching. She seemed… normal. Almost like an actual human being. She spoke like a human being. It felt like I was shooting a human. All those Reapers that I’ve shot before weren’t human. They tried to kill me so I killed them. She didn’t do anything to me. I don’t realize tears are running down my face until I see drops on my jeans where they’ve fallen down. Shit. I forgot to take the water. Fuck that, I’d rather die of thirst than go back in there and look at her body.
It’s getting kind of dark so I force myself to get up and find a shelter. That’s rule number two: Find a shelter overnight. You never know when Reapers glitch but when they don’t they’re usually hidden somewhere. When they do, they get pretty stupid and don’t check any shelters. They’re completely blinded by their insanity and the only way they can find you is if you’re bleeding. Those fuckers can smell blood and they go completely crazy if they smell it.
I look around the ally. It looks like a nicer version of the one I grew up in except that all of the houses are abandoned. Their windows are closed with planks, the grass on their front lawn has overgrown the paths and the roof tiles have fallen off. I catch a glimpse of light with the corner of my eye. I turn to the house and notice it’s looking better than the rest of the houses. The windows are still planked shut but there’s light escaping from them. A light too strong for candles or flashlights. But that’s impossible. Electricity’s been out for… I don’t even know how long. How can there be a working lightbulb in this house? I step closer to it. There could be Reapers in it, but there’s a small chance since they’re too stupid to even figure out how to turn on a candle what along make a lightbulb work in a world without electricity. Either I’m hallucinating or there’s an actual human in there. I get my shotgun ready just in case and open the door. It creaks loudly and I stop. I hear a gun clicking and look up to see a black haired man pointing his gun at me. “Drop your weapon.” He says in a voice that makes the hair on my back stand up. “Prove that you are not a Reaper and I will not shoot.” I sigh and take a knife out of my pocket. I poke my fingertip with it, getting out a drop of blood. “Red blood. I’m human. And judging by the fact that you’re not trying to kill me yet, I’d say you’re too.” He nods. “I don’t remember the last time I’ve spoken to a human being.” I say. My hands are shaking as I lower my shotgun and he does the same. “I do.” He says and I hear sadness in his voice. “My name is Frank.” I step closer, my hand stretched out towards him. It may have been more than a year since the last time I’ve had any human interaction but I still haven’t forgotten my manners. He smiles lightly. “I’m Gerard.” He says and shakes my hand.

Notes

First chapter yay! I hope you like it :) Also my friend came up with the title for this fic before that it was just titled the apocalypse thingy so yes big thanks to her :)
Nina xx