Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26113663-20150201151731

After some more fixing and retouching, I think this is ready to go. If you ever find any anomaly, don't hesitate to comment.

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The explosion was the stronger than anything recorded in mankind's history, stronger than the volcanic explosion that buried Pompeii in 79 AD.

As I walked through the cold streets of Naples, in search of a home, I felt chills all over my body. It flowed like a river through my veins, which were slowly turning malignantly black.

The city was locked down, and didn't allow anyone to get in or get out. If anyone ever did, they would be shot down, dead. Because I had the thing called “common sense”, I didn't dare to walk near the boundaries, or even show myself to any military personnel, in fear of they're going to shoot me with their rifles and tanks. I could die in any way, but not with heavy artillery, as I fear most of them.

Everything was covered in thick carpets of ashes, and made the streets look like an ashen desert, almost lifeless and vague. No signs of life could be sensed, evidence proving this was the sudden forceful evacuation of Naples' citizen after Mount Vesuvius exploded, and scattered wrath all over the city. I could barely detect life, but they were just dying stray animals. I wandered around the city furthermore, just to see decaying dead bodies of humans; they were unfortunate enough not to be saved.

I couldn't believe I'm walking through those ash-covered streets, and it gave me the most terrifying feeling and the saddest emotion I ever experienced. I just couldn't explain, why did it explode?

I thought to myself, “These things must not happened, but it did. I wish I can escape this kind of torture.”

After several hours of walking around the silent city, I finally found a shelter I could stay in. It was just a hardly-cleaned apartment; at least I had a place to stay, and to die also. As I entered the dusty apartment, there were dirty clothes garbled on the floor. The wild stench of the begrime t-shirts and pants smell made its way to my nose, it smelled something that was rotting or decaying bad. I ignored that odor and proceeded to clean the whole damn mess.

After some minutes throwing the begrime clothes, and piling and burning bags of trash, I decided to store my clothes in the cabinet, and some miscellaneous items somewhere. I felt my stomach's low grumble in hunger, so I went to the kitchen and opened every cabinet to search for food, none of them had anything. My only hope of survival was the fridge; horror-stricken when I found it cleanly emptied.

I was getting hopeless? Where could I find food and supplies.

There was only one choice, to go outside and head to the nearest grocery store.

I grabbed my leather jacket, picked up my 9mm and put it under my jacket, grabbed my nearly-dying flashlight, and headed outside the apartment. The feels outside didn't change, it was still the same like several hours ago. My foot made depressions on the ash as I walk further, until I found the place where my survival relies. Great joy whelmed me up, and went outside, and hunted for food, like a predator searching for its prey.

Dark and mute, that's the only descriptive words I could depict that place. I looked around the area to see if there's a light switch, and there was, hanging loose under the 12th counter. I switched it on, and surprised by the variety of supplies I could find there.

Everything was still there, like it was untouched for months. All that I need was in there, complete and fresh, so I swiftly clutched the cart, unleashed my inner-vulture, and scavenged everything I could scavenge. My cart was full of canned goods, packed chips, warm drinks, and some other daily necessities; maybe it's worth thousands already. Fortunately, I didn't need to pay, since everyone was gone, and I'm the only one living in that city.

I was wrong about that.

The store's lights flickered close-open, close-open, until it just shut down, and dimmed the entire place. Suddenly, I saw a peculiar figure in my left eye, which I couldn't describe clearly. I fear that I'm not alone, that I'm not the only surviving human there; or was it even human? I looked back, hoping to see that unknown being, so I could clearly see its details

I regretted ever doing that. I should just run away and left that place.

A woman, a cashier apparent with her clothes, stood there, staring at me with her pure black eyes, as if like darkness itself was gazing directly at my eyes. Staring at her eyes made me feel weak and helpless, until my eyelids became heavy, which speedily brought me sleepiness, until I finally fainted and fell at the solid frigid floor.

I woke up in the sight of the shining sun, as I was blinded by the sunlight. It was already morning, so I barely stood up by myself, fetched the grocery cart, and walked back home. I just couldn't forget what I saw last night. Was it real? Or I was just hallucinating? Still, I couldn't explain those things; their existence would remain a mystery.

The streets didn't seem to change a lot. There were still large layers of ash everywhere, but there was this thing that made me uncomfortable of my surroundings.

A trail, imprinted by, what it seems, a man's foot. I guaranteed that it was not mine, I hadn't ever walk to that path, the path that leads to Mount Vesuvius. It scared the damned thing out of me, and made me run away with my heavy cart, in dread of seeing something heinously ridiculous.

I was in the front door of my apartment, I noticed that it was slightly ajar; ajar by what? Or, maybe, ajar by who? I couldn't control my paranoia. Am I crazy? I hope not.

Nothing was altered or moved even slightly, everything was in their proper place. I went near my bed and sat down, recalling the anomalies I found yesterday night and today morning. All of the sudden, my stomach stiffen hard, and I felt like vomiting. I dashed to the bathroom, and vomited out a dark-violet gooey substance in the sink; what the heck was that thing? I looked up and stared at the mirror, just to see my pupils getting bigger and bigger. Am I sick? If so, what was this disease? I had many unanswerable question that time, and until now.

I was getting sicker as time gone past. My head aches distressingly, at least once every two hours; it was like something was attempting to bang my head off. I felt nauseous every single minute, and I couldn't handle those anymore. Once and for all, my hands snapped up some medicines and put it inside my mouth. As I swallow the pills, I felt my neck hurt. What the hell was happening to me?

Seeking for some entertainment, I popped the television and watched the news. It's something that I couldn't explain with common language; I couldn't identify if it was helpful, worrying, or both. It was news about Mount Vesuvius' explosion, and its effects to vulnerable people around.

“I know that this may sound scientifically impossible, but the volcano's ashes can induce an unknown type of disease, which the scientists and chemists are still studying to. But there already hypotheses released publicly. As stated by this hypothesis paper I'm holding, it says, 'When someone is exposed to the volcanic ashes or to any carriers of the disease, one may feel dizzy and nauseous every minute and every hour. Direct or indirect exposure to someone who had this disease can also harm you. As long as this disease progress to destroy your circulatory system, and nervous system, you can see you eyes' pupils dilating until it take up your entire eyes, making it purely black.' As stated by the professionals, this phenomena has never happened since human's discovery, and this is the first one to set a new history.”

I jarred quick out of my seat, and thought about the things that happened.

I asked myself, “I've been exposed to the ashes for almost two weeks now, and I'm not sure about that woman looking at me with her black eyes.

Of fuck! Jesus Christ, I'm infected! No! That's no truth. I don't have any infection or problems with my body.”

Plugging the television out was my only way of avoiding realization of truth, and I did it in just few seconds. I didn't want to be hopeless, or leave myself to die; though I want to die, but it's not the right time. I wanted to discover some more truth, and to see if there's possibility of survival.

I packed up my things and left the apartment, I'm homeless for the fourth time. Hesitant to head to places I didn't know well, I still went through the streets of neighboring towns, for my own sake of survival. There, more creepy shit was happening, like when I saw shadows, man's shadows everywhere. There were countless anomalous things I saw there.

It was a foggy evening, while traveling the town's main cemetery. I admit, it was god-awfully creepy walking across people's tombstones. Therefore, I saw some weird figure, which I could describe a man, standing in the fog still and unmoving. I didn't dare to walk near it; no one knows what it could do to me, whether it was kind or malicious intents.

Walking outside the cemetery was the most relieving experience I ever had. I thought it was the first and the last, but there's another one coming to get my inner chicken show up.

I walked pass a video arcade, looking inside, I felt very suspicious, a peculiar feeling I couldn't explain. There were pinball machines, arcade stalls, games, and other entertainment stuffs everywhere. In need of an important thing, specifically a flashlight or at least batteries, I went inside. Everything was opened alive, like everyone was playing and then suddenly left.

My suspicious instincts never failed. On the spur of the moment, there were a bare-footed twin sisters, both of them playing an arcade game, wearing a washed-out sky blue dress paired with yellow belts. Furthermore, they sensed my presence, consequently turned away their faces from the screen to look at me. They slowly broke their eyes open, revealing their horrifying pure black eyes, pupils heavily dilated, the same appearance as the TV reporter said; they were infected by the plague. They were directly staring at my soul, and I couldn't keep up with my guts. As swift as I could, I ran away from that two hellish creatures, without looking back. Even I didn't fetch the batteries or flashlight, at least I knew I'm safe.

I ran away, and sought for a car to ride. Fortunately, I found this old worn-out farm truck. I started the engine up and rode around the town, in hope to see a house that I could stay in.

The city, it's comparable to hell.

Nothing was more disturbing than seeing men, women, elders, and children looking at you with their eyes, with their eyes' pupils expanded to the maximum limits, erasing all the white parts of the eye. It was so hard to ignore them, so I sped up my truck, and made it run to its fastest speed. Unfortunately, the engine suddenly broke down in middle of black-eyed crowd. Why now? I slammed the goddamned dog-tired truck and went out.

I darted quickly, and tried to escape the infectious people. I ran for hours and hours, until my fate decided; I was cornered by them.

I had nowhere to go. I thought I'll just sit in that place and wait for my terrible fate, which I didn't know actually. There were hundreds of them. I couldn't handle this kind of feelings. I thought, “I'll just die here.”

Everything suddenly changed as fast as lightning, like nothing happened. They were already near me, but they ceased themselves from moving forward, but insisted on moving backwards instead.

I'm so confused. What happened to them? And why didn't they continue to swarm me?

As soon as they vanished out of my sight, I stood up and ran anywhere I could go, hoping to find some answers to address my questions.

I found the answers in a shattered glass window. I stared at the broke glass pane, and stared at my ominous reflection. My eyes were sheer darkness, pupils were heavily dilated like the most. My head hurt a lot, like it was being continuously hit by a baseball bat. My vision distorted, then went very dark. However, I could barely seeing what's in front of me. I saw myself, my skin's color turned absolutely pale, and white.

So, this was the answer.

So, this was my terrible fate.

I'm now... one of them.

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