Pandoras journey begins

 Pandora stepped out into darkness, no stars lit the sky, no moon cast a sallow glow down upon the sleeping flowers; it was as though they, too had all fallen from the sky when the plane had, she searched for a few seconds, scouring the sky for any remnant of twinkling light before the feel of Boos damp nose against her palm drew her back,“I know” she said quietly conscious that someone might be listening for her, for life that they might extinguish. She drew in a deep, slow breath and began walking. The journey she made was one she had made many times; over the patio, out the side gate that always squeaked and stuck slightly and down the pathway out on the street. She had though that the street lights might still be on, casting dancing shadows across the alpha but as she drew closer the darkness grew deeper; the streets were dead. What felt like only a few hours ago the road had been alive with horror, the fallen plane burned and belched out thick black smoke and people swarmed some in terror and some in aid of those who needed help but now no one remained; only the dead.     Pandora could see the white of abandoned bandages, the bright red of the fire engines that remained and the harsh pale of the skin of the dead men and women who had been left in panic. The plane no longer burned but still cast of waves of thick heat, Pandora stared up at the blackened windows, a deep shiver ran down her spine as she though she saw someone move with in the plane; she turned choosing to ignore her imagination and began to walk up the street. She had never seen the world so dark, bathed in noir and shadow but she felt like abaddon had risen up while she had been sleeping and settled upon the earth, smothering it; choking it.

A snippet of something on going

  We trust people everyday with our lives, with keeping us safe, and with being decent upstanding people. We trust that bus drivers and taxi drivers will get us to our destination alive, we believe that the tablets pharmacists give us are the correct dosage. we put our lives into other people's hands everyday but this was the first time that Pandora had done it with someone who didn’t have a badge or any type of authority in any sort of field. She followed him intently until he dipped into a cornucopia of trees and bushes that seemed to have been made into some sort of den, camouflaged to look like nothing more than a pile of fallen foresty foliage. she ducked in after Boo and was quickly enveloped by the darkness with-in. Panic filled her heart; it was so dark that she couldn't even pick out the white of Boos coat, her breathing began to quicken as her heart beat raced,

“please can you..” before she could finish light chased the darkness away, light in the form of a small fire contained in an old iron pan. Instantly as her panic began to subside it returned at the thought of someone seeing them, seeing the light,

As though he read her mind “it’s okay no one can see, I made sure” he said pulling a make shift door across the exposed entrance of their hideaway. She smiled weakly feeling the lightheadedness of her near panic attack,

“you want to know what happened, sit” he took at seat on one side of the fire, Boo sat next to him nuzzling his hand, he seemed to brighten at this simple act of kindness on the dogs part, like the simplicity and the familiarity of it made him feel a normalcy return to his life,

“what happened?” Pandora asked as she sat opposite him, sighing at the feel of the heat bathing her cooling skin.

“okay i'll tell you the story, though I don't know how you missed it, you must have slept through the whole thing; no one was expecting it when it happened but...

it  started the same everywhere, with a disaster, a multi-car pile-up, a building shattering, trains colliding, planes falling from the sky, people, naturally panicked and those in authority  told them it would be okay, their friends and those they loved, they looked to for comfort they told them it would all be fine and then those people, the ones they loved, their friends, neighbours, dog walkers, shop keepers, the people they passed by on the street every morning on the way to work, their children’s teachers, their council members, police, every type of person from soldiers to crossing guards they all turned on the ones they loved, the society they were a part of, the world they live in; they changed. Suddenly war became unavoidable, billions of people stood up and took over, and they bombarded the world with pain and terror and anger...

That was how it all happened so quickly” a tear rolled down over his cheek as though he were remembering the people he lost, the people who turned on him “it had been going on forever or so that what he said...

These people had been secretly forming, coming together for years and now they had started a full blown war, a war that the ‘others’ those who were not a part of ‘the surge’, believed they were not going to win. They stood and the world fell to their knees...

It all started with one man, just like the Second World War but in comparison to this man Hitler looked like nothing more than a saint having a bad day” he smirked than at his cleaver comparison but Pandora only felt sickened by it.

“Nobody had ever seen him in the flesh only ever on the screens when he was preaching to the world, nobody it was believed until I had taken refuge in an empty home, only it wasn't empty…

The child he had met there in the comfort of someone elses home had told his story, a story of being in Paris with his mother when the up-Surge began; they were being evacuated because then it was not known that there was no safe place. He had lost his mother’s hand in the crowd and it was then that he saw him, he took the boy’s hand; his skin was cold to touch, clammy and pale and his eyes were black and mesmerising, the child described eyes as looking like the duck pond on his park that he used to go too, they had no end and they shimmered like when the sun ‘danced’ on the water. He said the man’s voice moved like music, like when the radio sang, all he said was that he would take care of him now but then before the boy knew he was back in his mother’s arms.

As Pandora sat and listened to the words she zoned out and though of the facts that she now knew; she knew that there were approximately 7 billion people on the earth, growing every day, and now she also knew that the one day, one sunny and beautiful day the majority of those people had stood and decided to turn on the others. Pandora shivered she was not convinced that good was going to prevail.

A snippet of something I'm working on

     The rain had begun the night before I had noticed it when I let Boo out for her last toilet trip before we went to bed, it was around midnight and the rain began to fall in a light mist, the type that soaks you through to your skin before you’ve even realised and by the time we had returned inside the light mist had evolved into larger more erratic drops and by the time we had curled up in bed the fat heavy drops were hammering against the window panes as though trying to break in. I slept fitfully that night waking constantly to the darkness and the sound of the rhythmic tapping of the rain against the window, the light filling the room gradually began to dilute until finally the day broke though there was no sun to replace the rain which stayed firmly in place and seemed heavier than I had ever seen it before. I poked my toe out from beneath the covers quickly pulling it back as it touched the cool floorboards of my bedroom floor, Boo grumbled as I move and snuggled back in bed she had refused to move and so we both drifted back into alight dreamless sleep.

     When we finally awoke and climbed from the warm hug of the bed the rain still hammered against the ground outside, tiny river ran down the window panes and formed pools on the ledge, the gutters gushed and a lake of a pool of water had formed on the road outside. The council had been trying to fix the problem for years, it was where the small, often undetected hill levelled off and without fail the rain always collected there and when a car, van or Lorry rushed through it, the dormant water rose in a great fan of droplets threatening to soak any person who walked too close. As I dressed I watched the water rear up in a tidal wave as a Hovis Lorry rushed through it at what was obviously a speed higher than 30mph, it rose and cast a warning shadow down over the family of four walking along the road. If the water had not been collecting all night and if the pool had not been spanning nearly the width of the road then at the distance that they were from the road edge ordinarily the family consisting of mum, dad and two young daughters would have been at a safe proximity from the water however mother nature was working against them and a second after the warning had come the cold and grubby water rained down upon their heads. The water proofs they had zipped themselves into did little to protect them for the sudden influx of water nor did their brightly coloured wellington boots protect their warm and dry feet as the water seeped in from above, one of the little girls began to wail and protest, her mother scooped her up and dabbed water from her face though it was hard to tell what was salty tears, what was grubby puddle water and what was fresh rain water; the other child laughed and giggled, kicking the new small puddle that had collected on the pavement. I watched them round the corner before turning away and continuing on my path to fully waking up.          

     After I washed we both made our way down stairs, Boo watched while I fried and flipped bacon in the old beat up frying pan I had inherited from my mother, the mouth watering aroma filled the room, Boos mouth watered as I spread bread, my mouth watered as I laid three sliced of perfect bacon and by perfect I mean crispy edge preventing any fat and soft meat in the centre, perfect. I sliced Boos sandwich into quarters slid them into her dish and place it onto the cool tiled floor. As I sliced mine and placed it onto a plate I watched Boo as she nuzzled the pieces of bread apart, butter stuck to the end of her pale pink nose and she eagerly licked it off before continuing on her mission to part the pieces of bread and once she had done so she quickly but delicately lifted the bacon from the bread and ate it she then proceeded to do the same to the remaining three quarters of sandwich, she then ate the buttery bread before nuzzling around her empty dish for left over crumbs and moving over to where I sat and gazing first longingly at me and then at my bacon sandwich. The staring went on for every minute I took to eat the food, until finally I gave in and passed her the drying crust from my bread,

“That’s all you’re getting” I muttered with a mouthful of food and a smile, she rolled onto the floor with a whine and rubbed at her face, “now that’s not going to work, you just had your own” I added sparing her no sympathy as she tried to look her cutest. I stood and checked the time as I walked over to the sink and slipped our bowls into the warm soapy water. It was just about to turn 10 o’clock, the rain had fall back into a light mist though the clouds still remained black and brooding, “shall we go for a run?” I asked Boo, she glanced up out of the window as if contemplating the rain and whether or not she might feel like getting wet and then she jumped up, ran to the set of draws where her numerous collars and leads were kept, including an embellished black one and a blue one with her name imprinted on it. She snuffled at the handle until I joined her and slid the draw open, “okay which one will it be today?” I asked looking at her endless eyes, “the blue one” I pulled the collar out and slipped it around her neck after the usual fight with her nibbling at it and I clipped on the lead and pulled on my trainers, “ready?” I asked, she responded with a gleeful bark.

     Outside, though the rain fell in a light haze and felt cool on the skin the air around it was warm and muggy and once we had started running the cool rain was welcome on our hot and sweat drenched skin. We ran for nearly an hour, 30 minutes either way and by the time we got home the rain had returned to its former state of heavy fat droplets, we were soaked to the bone from the mixture of sweat and rain water. It was then that it happened, the thing that changed it all.

     We had just crossed the road, the rain pelted down, water ran in rivers down the sides of the road, a car rushed through the ever growing puddle, Boo pulled ahead despite her tired state and shook the rain from her coat; suddenly everything stopped. I don’t mean that the people stopped moving, the cars stood still or the droplets of water stopped immobilised, suspended and floating in mid-air. What I mean is the air stood still, nothing in it moved or made a sound, it fell dead still and deafly silent and the rain stopped in a half second as though it had never been falling, like an umbrella had be put up over England. Both Boo and I froze in place waiting, her hackles stood on end, we both knew something was coming and then it became apparent; the noise hit us first in a sharp screeching blast, then the giants shadow cast over, so large that it could had cast shade over the moon; the force of the beast as it flew over our heads knocked both me and Boo from our feet, the cars screeched to a halt though the sound could not be heard over the noise of the great flying monster; It was a plane.