After her parents died in an accident, 10-year-old
Author:unloginuser Time:2025/01/15 Read: 3698After her parents died in an accident, 10-year-old Athena Williams moves to the small town of Cape May, New Jersey to live with her uncle, Elijah, who is a lighthouse keeper. On her first day of school, it has been tough for her to fit in. She was a straight A student and her teacher, Mrs. Miller, knew that Athena can do whatever she set her mind to, and so did the town librarian, Ms. Thomas. Everyone loved her, even her best friend from her old home, Cassie.
Life has never been better, until one day, six years later, at the Testing Bureau of Declining Nosology, or TBDN, in Los Angeles, California, a scientist named Dr. Petraeus, while testing on mosquitoes to cure all diseases, accidentally creates an unstoppable, incurable virus that turns people into zombies called the Apocalyptics. He manages to escape, however, while everyone else is either dead or zombified, except for Athena and Elijah, who also escape. That day, the plague called Second Black Death was born.
After days and days of running and hiding, Athena and Elijah come across a sanctuary of survivors called the Haven of the Remnants. The survivors are called the Remnants. There, Athena meets Cleo, a little girl who lost her family, Dr. Petraeus, and Caesar, leader of the Remnants. When supplies start to run dangerously low, a decision has to be made: run and die or fight back. And there will be no turning back…
The salt-laced wind whipped Athena’s hair across her face, the scent of brine and decay a bitter perfume in the ravaged air. Six years. Six years since the idyllic life in Cape May, six years since the world had ended. Six years since the Second Black Death had claimed almost everything. Now, the Haven of the Remnants, a crumbling farmhouse clinging precariously to a windswept hillside, was their only refuge.
She remembered the day, crystal clear – the sterile hum of the TBDN lab, the frantic shouts, Dr. Petraeus’s crazed eyes, and then… the screams. The insatiable hunger in the eyes of the transformed. The world had become a charnel house, a tapestry woven with the threads of death and despair.
Elijah, his lighthouse keeper’s strength now etched with worry lines, huddled by the flickering fire, his gaze fixed on the dwindling pile of canned goods. Cleo, a wisp of a girl with eyes too old for her years, clung to his leg, her small body trembling. Caesar, the Haven’s leader, a grizzled man with a haunted past, surveyed the scene with grim determination.
“We have three days,” Caesar announced, his voice rough as gravel. “Three days of food, maybe four. Then… nothing.”
The silence that followed was heavier than any Apocalyptic horde. Athena, the bright, studious girl who once dreamt of becoming a doctor, felt the weight of the world crushing her. She’d faced down terrifying odds countless times – escaping the swarming hordes, scaling crumbling walls, scavenging for food in the ruins of cities – but this was different. This was a battle against starvation, against the crushing weight of hopelessness.
That night, Athena dreamt of the lighthouse, its beam a lonely sentinel against the encroaching darkness. She dreamt of Cassie, her old friend, lost to the plague, her laughter echoing in the void.
The next day, Caesar presented their grim options: scatter and hope to find a mythical safe haven – a suicide mission – or launch a desperate, bloody counterattack on the nearest, relatively small Apocalyptic nest, for a chance at acquiring more supplies.
Athena, remembering the sharp mind that had earned her straight As, the unwavering resolve that had helped her survive so long, stepped forward. “We fight,” she declared, her voice surprisingly steady. She’d lost so much, but the remnants of her old self – the one who loved puzzles, the one who saw solutions where others saw only chaos – were still flickering.
Their raid on the Apocalyptic nest was a brutal dance with death. Elijah’s strength, honed by years at sea, was a bulwark against the relentless horde. Caesar’s tactical knowledge, born of bitter experience, kept them alive. Cleo, surprisingly, found a grim efficiency in scavenging amidst the carnage. But the fight was relentless; every swing of a rusty pipe, every desperate stab of a makeshift spear was a gamble with death.
They returned to the Haven, battered but not broken, with a meager bounty. But it wasn’t just food they’d brought back; they’d brought back a renewed sense of hope, a flicker of defiance against the encroaching darkness. The fight had begun, and this time, Athena Williams, the girl who once dreamt of curing diseases, was fighting to survive the apocalypse. And she would not yield. The horror was far from over; it had just begun its most terrifying chapter.
