12th January 2014 (17:05)

First Ones Out Hurt the Most

The men and women gathered closely to the fire. Their bodies shrouded most of the light and the crumbling walls around them did the rest. The wind howled and the rain, the first to fall since the Red Dawn spattered gently on the makeshift roof that they had constructed out old car doors and plastic sheeting. 

They shivered despite the warmth of the fire, fear was nestled deep inside their souls and although there hadn't been sighting of one of the creatures anywhere near them since the city had fallen, they knew there were no guarantees. 

"Mine was my mother. Two days after the Red Dawn. I came over to hers, it was the first time I'd ,a aged to get out of my own apartment. The roof had collapsed in and she was there, trapped under it. She was 96 years old. She never should have died like that." The lady held back her tears and a man, her partner perhaps, gripped her shoulder. 

"None of them did." The man, the unofficial leader of the surviving pack raised his canteen to the open ceiling, up to the fractured sky. "To the First Ones. May their memory live on longer than the creatures do." 

The were mutters from the group, a few chuckles from those who had seen too much death to care anymore. "Any luck with the radio Mark?" 

"None. Same message as every other fucking day." Mark kicked the radio away from him, it skidded across the debris to land upside down on the sheeting. "Stay in your homes. Over and over and over. None of us even have a fucking home anymore. Bullshit."

"Well..." Mark gave a dirty look at the source of the voice. A girl no more than sixteen stared back at him, her timid eyes tinged with despair. "My brother, he works out in the country. Maybe they're not under attack there? The creatures they're only in the cities for now. Maybe he's..." 

"What?! Alive?" Mark spat back. He stood up and started walking away from the group. "Everyone's dead or like us. I don't know what's worse." He kicked the radio again as he left, cracking the casing before he slipped out of the ruined back wall.