Fated Hybrids

My eyes stung with the light of the morning sun. I turned over on my stomach cursing the sunrise, at that moment I didn't care how beautiful it must've been. The sunrises weren't as pretty as they once were. The world had changed into something worse than any biblical text could have predicted. The end came as brutal as humanity could have imagined. Correction, worse than. In 2014, a team of scientists conducted an experiment. They wanted to see if cross breeding human DNA with Animal DNA could be possible. As if playing God wasn't enough, they used a mutated bacteria that was not from our planet to give this cross-bred abomination special abilities. For twenty-seven months, two weeks, and three days, their lab-born miracle child grew in an artificial womb and was monitored until it hatched. I'm not clear on the details of what's true and what isn't. I only know what my mother told me. Whatever the scientists created in their lab awakened and destroyed them. It had the ability to asexually reproduce and it didn't take long for it to choose the human race as its food supply. Humans now make up a pitiful thirty seven percent of the earth's population. What took place was a mass g******e of epic proportions. They called the creatures responsible for our destruction, Xerclanz. My room was the same as it had been since I was a young teenager. A queen sized bed with navy blue bedding, and one lone pillow that had seen its last fluffy days long ago. I had a small, wicker night stand by my bed, but there was only a small alarm clock on it. I can't remember the last time I actually used the alarm. The wallpaper was buried underneath movie posters from the early nineties, along with some magazine collages I’d made. I had two dressers but I only kept my clothes in one of them. My little sister's clothes occupied the second one. There was a small closet in my room but it was full of weapons and other nifty little survival goodies. No, I don't have papers for any of them. There was no longer any authority to uphold the law, and therefore there were no laws. The whole system fell apart when those things started multiplying. I felt nothing but the bitter cold while I lay in bed. I moved my legs but I no longer felt my comforter. At some point during the night I must've felt too hot and kicked it off. I sighed when I heard the pitter patter of footsteps coming closer and closer to my bedroom door. I turned my head towards the door and ended up looking through a curtain of my jet black, curly hair. I loved my hair, but because it fell down to my waist it was a pain to take care of sometimes. My little sister Emery came into my room almost falling onto the floor as she opened the door. She was five years old but she acted far beyond her years sometimes. I'm twenty-four years old and we're my mother's only children. Our father was killed by a Xerclan while my mother was pregnant with Emery. I was nineteen at the time. My parents and I were walking home with groceries when a Xerlcan came from out of nowhere. It went after my mother, seeing as how she was in a fragile condition. My father attacked the Xerclan with a hunting knife. He only stabbed it once before it tore his arm off. While it fed on my father, I helped my mother get away. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. Hearing my father screaming…Knowing he was being eaten alive while I ran away...I cried so hard and so long. I kept telling myself I had no choice, I had to save my mother and sister. It was one of us or all of us. My mother told me every night it wasn't my fault and that there was nothing either of us could've done. I never believed that. I always felt like I could have done something so that he could have lived. "Azarah! Mama's really sick again!" She was so out of breath I thought she would faint at any moment. Her room was only down the hall from mine, but our mom's room was downstairs just off the living room. I quickly sat up in my bed almost making myself dizzy. I smoothed my hair back with my left hand out of my face before I got out of bed. "Calm down Em, I'm coming." My voice still sounded groggy and sleep ridden but it would wear off. I guess I was moving too slow for her because she ran up to me, grabbed my hand and yanked my arm. I heard a popping sound in my elbow. I frowned at her as I got up from the bed. "Come on! Right now Zara!" She yelled at me. I was wondering if she thought I was half asleep and not hearing her clearly because she hurried me downstairs continuing to yell at me. I was wearing a dark purple tank top and black fruit of a looms, no chance to put on a pair of shorts. My mother fell ill about four years ago with a virus known as Aiers's syndrome. This was another gift that the Xerclanz brought upon the earth. We thought it was just the flu at first. The symptoms in the beginning stages were identical to the flu. The fever, nausea, vomiting, body aches, and fatigue were the common signs. Then, it completely destroys your body slowly and painfully from the inside out. Your vital organs start to weaken and in worse cases, shut down causing death. Your bones are sucked dry of calcium over a period of time to the point where walking is too painful. Next, Jaundice due to liver damage of course, green rashes that feel like fire ants were having a party underneath your skin, and lastly you bleed from every orifice of your body in the last stages before you die. There is no cure, no vaccine. However if you are lucky enough to know the right people, and find those people without being eaten alive first, there is a medicine that can delay the symptoms of the virus and help your body fight it off. Taking the medicine long enough will take away nearly all of the symptoms, but you would have to take it indefinitely. My mother, Mohani, was now too weak to get out of bed let alone lift a pillow. I was now in charge of taking care of her and Emery. The only reason she's still alive now is because I've managed to get her a month's worth of medicine. Emery finally took her death-grip from my hand when we reached my mother's room. She went into the room and stood beside her bed. My mother had been vomiting again. A small plastic bucket that used to be used at the beach was now her sick pale. Emery helped the best she could when I was out trying to get food and find things for the house. She honestly took care of things more than I did most of the time. I noticed a yellow face towel on the foot of my mother's bed. I knew Emery had run in to hold the bucket for her and clean her mouth. I felt like a horrible daughter. There I was, upstairs comatose while my five year old sister took care of our mom, for shame. I walked into the room slowly, trying to put on a real smile for her even though I felt dead inside. My mom was sitting up against the headboard of her bed with three pillows behind her back, her head was turned towards me. Even as sick as she was she managed to smile. I always thought my mother had one of the most beautiful smiles I'd ever seen. My mother was mixed; Thai and African American. She was brown skinned, a little lighter than milk chocolate with jet black, curly hair and surprising light brown eyes. She had a round face with small pouty lips like Betty Boop. Her hair was down to her waist but when she got sick it had lost its volume and thinned out a lot. My father always said I looked like her twin, that all I got from him was his big round eyes. When I got to her bedside, I bent down a little and kissed the top of her head. "Morning. Are you all right?" It was a very stupid question for obvious reasons, but she did just puke. "...Yes sweetheart, I'm fine. How are my girls?" Her voice sounded a little raspy, like she had just finished a four hour lecture. "We're good, mom. We just want you to get better. Do you think you could eat something light? Like chicken broth and crackers?" She looked away from me for a second, seeming to think about it. "Hm, maybe just a little. Have you two eaten yet?" Before I could respond, precious little Emery butted in. "Zara's been sleeping all morning mama, so I fed myself." She looked over at me and stuck her tiny pink tongue out at me. I rolled my eyes at her and directed my attention back to my mother. I wasn't going to stoop to her level, not right now. My mother looked at me with a solemn face, a face I knew all too well. She was worried. "Zara have you been out all night looking for medicine again? I told you it's too dangerous...You're stressing yourself out." She said with a tiny break in her voice. I sighed heavily. "Who else is going to get your medicine? You only have one dose left after today. I'm going out again to see if I can get some. You're too sick to lay in bed worried about us all day. I'll make you some chicken broth before I go out." I knew she was going to try and fuss at me like she always did, but I wasn't going to give her the chance. I kissed her on the top of the head again. "I love you, just rest all right? Trust me, I can take care of myself." It was her turn to roll her eyes. "The last time you said that I was working sixty hour weeks to pay for the damage you did to someone's brand new car, and your two month hospital stay." I turned away and made my way out of the room because this was an argument I wasn't going to win.