I Have to Find Them - Ren's POV

Year 0 – Month Three – Nine Months Pre-Apocalypse

Ren's POV

I blinked at the maroon and navy football top hanging in a glass frame on the wall; the sounds of my parent's screaming match had escalated into throwing coffee mugs and dinner plates at each other. Next to the top was my university degree for an MA in Communications, and my brain cracked as the memories crawled through my mind. I threw my controller at the degree; the glass smashed, cracked and fell to the floor like rain, and I jumped from my leather gaming chair and unclipped my sour apple green Elite Ethos compound bow from the wall with a crooked smile.

"Kill them. Find Nexus and Daria. Only safe place," I reassured myself. The images of my parents selling me to Ferona for her fucked up sex city pinched my body in uncomfortable places, "Kill them."

I pulled open the little walk-in closet and gritted my teeth as the screaming continued to rise. The black leather archery pouch slipped forward, and I took it by the strap and slung it over my shoulders. The strap tightened against me, and I smirked.

Survival of the fastest.

I pulled out a large hiking rucksack and filled it with my clothes, savings, and weird ancestral cuff links to pawn for extra money.

I opened my bedroom door and slinked into the next room with a crooked smile. I grabbed the black fabric box filled with jewellery, chucked it in my bag, and moved to my dad's wardrobe with a smirk. I grabbed the thick winter coat, rolled it up to shove in the top of my bag, and turned to the wall with their matching couple bows. I rolled my eyes and put them in their bags. Huffing as I tried to sneak down the stairs to place the bags at the front door.

They were screaming at relatively the same volume and pushing the circular kitchen table around the floor with aggravating squeaks. Why give birth to me if you hate each other? Call me the prodigal son for fifteen years, and then the minute I started making money for them on social media, the cash fucking cow. I paid off their debts and then suffered for a year before the apocalypse working my ass off for the next goal to buy them an extension on the house.

I have to lie about my finances and tell them I earn a little less to survive since I have to buy my food, clothes, and gadgets. They fight in a kitchen I can't sit in, smashing glasses and plates I can't use.

Fucking ridiculous.

I took my bow from my back and slipped an arrow from my pouch as I rounded the corner to the hallway off to the side. I crept to the slightly open door and peered to look through. I remember doing this once as a child, similar to how I am creeping now, but it is all the same.

All except me.

My parents came into view, and I couldn't help but sigh. He had grabbed her jet-black hair, so similar to mine and bashed her into the middle of the table. A pang of guilt ran through me, but a memory forced its way to the forefront as I remembered the first time they betrayed me, and I restarted without knowing how they did it. In the third round, I followed my mom into the base captain's room, and she sold me out the second he asked about her usefulness.

I knew they were sick, but to use my orientation against me is crazy!

I don't even know how they knew I was bi, but they got double for it, which was a decent way to break my spirit before the real spirit breaking. I had been starving for months since I couldn't buy too much and lost the upper body muscle I had built, pulling my bow once a week at my friend's targets in her backyard. I need to warn her and maybe take her with me. I sighed, looked back into the crack, pushed the door open a few inches, and pointed at my dad's heart from the side.

Where I am lean, likely from my mom, my dad is built like a nightclub bouncer and knows how to use his fists. It's clear as he braces himself behind her, holds her face to the table, and punches into her back.

How didn't they ever kill each other going for the kidneys like a low-member gangster?

I pulled the bow back and rose, but my mom grabbed the top of the chair and flung it behind her to bash him in the head. She rolled from the table and fell to the floor with a blood-red face and panting in anger. She scrambled across the floor and yanked the chair from his curled-up body, bashing his head with the chair until she lost her adrenaline.

I smirked and crouched back down.

I never enjoyed the show before. This is new. How is this so different? She chucked the chair with the last of her strength and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife she owned, her eyes shining with a mad scarlet. I snickered lowly as she crawled over to him and stabbed him in the leg, twisting the hilt as my eyes widened at the craziness in her eyes.

What the fuck?

I rose in surprise and aimed at her heart. I have seen some looks in their eyes, but this is too much. The chair makes sense; the knife does not, but then again, I naturally never spent time around them and haven't watched their fights since I was ten years old, so had they developed this much because I am not around for them to bark at like a bunch of Chihuahuas?

And I thought I couldn't feel any more hurt from them. My dad roared for help as she twisted the knife, and his rolling eyes found me aiming from the door. I saw the hope in his eyes before I moved my aim from her and focused on the eye that was watching me. I smiled and winked, the sound of the arrow whizzing through my ear and into its intended target. I pulled the arrow from my pouch at the speed of sound and aimed back at her.

The sounds of his screams had risen to a high octave, which she had not heard, and she continued to stab at different sections of his legs. This is wonderful. Obviously, the police will come looking, but look at this madness. I released my hand and shot her in the heart; her wide, surprised eyes snapped to me, and she grabbed hold of it with a scream as loud as his.

Can't anyone die quietly and with dignity?

I crept away from the modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and grabbed the keys from on top of the radiator cover.

I tapped the steering wheel with a whistle and pulled onto the motorway leading to the county's other end. After the zombies started turning and creeping around, everyone was for themselves, and we had our bows and were treated incredibly well. Six months of walking, stealing cars to stop walking and running into most towns to scavage meant that when we got to the city, it had been turned into a pleasure safe zone where you could take any drugs, play at the nightclubs and use the rich houses to party in since the gangs had created a ceasefire to survive.

Fucking degenerates.

They watched us in that institute while they made us participate in many of the patients' tests. That is how I met them, and my boss was a supplier of people to their boss—ironic, if you ask me. The tests conducted ranged from endurance to strength. But those two had some tests that would make the Geneva Convention gasp, and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone.

I didn't want to, but it didn't matter what I wanted.

They were less nervous than me about it, though, and I enjoyed and waited through customers for their test day. I shook my head and looked around the several choices for roads I had to go down, and it was difficult to remember the little pieces of information I got about them. Nexus is hidden somewhere, so I need to find Daria. They died in that awful place, and this town is a cesspool that will swallow them up, too.

I stared at the giant hotel ahead of me and breathed to blow it back out again—infiltrating the sore spot family. I looked in the rearview mirror and laughed at my short black hair and masculine features.

I'll need to grab a couple of things. I won't be getting past that mom with those beady-eyed looks, that's for sure. I'm better off getting in through the brother. Seeing this place crumble from the horde swarming through the facility was satisfying. To know it was so close yet far and right under their noses. I shook my head and stopped in the small high street to check out the beauty shops. I saw rows of wigs and hair extensions and stepped up to them with a finger to my lips as I thought about what colour and styles I should buy.