Poetry: Twelve O'Clock

Twelve o'clock chimes,
the hour I lost you.
I want to hold you again,
but time has stolen
all that we were.

Commentary: Infection Creative Process Thanks

Well, Infection has finally finished and the long, grueling process of on-the-spot storytelling has come out quite well, I believe. All in all, it was an entertaining experience for me and I sincerely hope it was for all my readers as well. As not to be selfish and saying it was all because of me, I would like to give a small thanks to the people who have supported this (and myself):

• Miss T__. For all her support through the process and sharing my life <3. 
• Miss Destructo of Destructo Deviations For her support of my writing and her years of amazing friendship.
• Monicawesome of the youtube sensation The Basically Awesome Show for her friendship and time spent being a muse for my writings =)
• and especially my readers. Without you, I wouldn't have a way of spreading my work to the public. Because of you, I have seen a jump in traffic and I tip my hat to you.

As always, feel free to share my work (with due credit) with your friends and if there is anything you would like to see, let me know and I will do my best to provide! Again, I give the biggest thanks to you all! Enjoy the writings and best to you on your literary travels!

B

Writing: Moment in Time - Infection (Conclusion)

She had done it, finally, after weeks of tests. Smiling at the party going on around her, she had to amend her thoughts. They had done it, all of them. The infection has ceased spreading and had gone into remission. There had been cases of early stage treatments actually curing the patient. The only unfortunate part was that those with a full blown infection couldn't be saved and that thought still pained her deeply. The thousands of people who were infected would be hunted down and killed, bodies burned, buried in a mass grave, and forgotten; nameless and unremembered. She watched her team pop champagne corks and laugh, envying them and the relief that poured from each and every near hysterical laugh. All of them were afraid, still. They were afraid that the vaccine wouldn't hold. Sooner or later the infection would come back, but right now, they had to hold onto whatever hope they could find. No country in the world was untouched by the infection. Everyone in the room had lost some loved one to the worst outbreak in human history. Each one of them worked for the whole time with unshed tears that were finally flowing.

Europe had been decimated, but the vaccine was holding, reports had told them. Asia was still burning from military air strikes. Africa was dark, no news coming out and no one brave enough to go in to find out why. Too many people still held to the Outbreak movie mentality and thought that the virus originated from there. She had found out early that the virus came from the west coast of the United States, but no exact point could be found. Central and South America were relatively unharmed as borders were closed early with a shoot-to-kill order issued. Canada sadly, had become a land of the dead. So many souls had been placed on her shoulders each day the virus raged across the world unchecked. Each day more died, but now that would stop. In fact, it had already begun to stop. Generals mingled with the scientists and their families at the party, but with all these thoughts moving through her head, she could only mumble her thanks for their comments and shake hands that were thrust at her. The world had lost too much and so had she. Husband, father to her only daughter. Daughter. She was the one who gave the soldiers the kill order for her only daughter and the man that she loved. She rationalized that they were dead already, or at the very least, wouldn't want to live in that state. She watched them fall and land in pools of their own blood, almost like he was cradling her. Her heart broke as she felt the desire to climb into that embrace and fall into sweet death with those she loved, but her duty is what she clung to.

She worked tirelessly for weeks, enduring failure after failure while watching the infection spread like wildfire. She watched the military do what they do best, kill. She watched videos found by soldiers made by a group of survivors in a school in horror, feeling the fear that each person showed. She heard the reports of those that were resistant to the infection, but hadn't seen any of them. Every failure cost thousands of lives. Every day, hundreds of thousands. It's over, she thought. No more need to die. She could almost convince herself that this was true, but every time she thought that, she saw the faces of her husband and daughter, eyes staring blankly to the sky as they died in each others arms. She walked away from the party and back to her office, glancing at the paperwork with her thoughts tossing around in her mind. She never heard the radio saying that the vaccine was failing. She never heard the president call for nuclear strikes. She never heard the base alarm go off, nor the doors breaking in from the outside. She only saw the faces of the happiest time of her life, with her family out camping. As hands closed around her neck, her eyes closed and a smile came to her lips. Mommy's coming, my loves.

Writing: Moment in Time - Infection (Desperation)

He cradled his weapon, his friend, close to his body as he watched the others. His clothes torn and tattered, hanging from his body since the day he killed everyone he loved in this world. Now he sat in a college building, barricaded inside to escape the infected, with other refugee's. They hadn't gotten far from where he joined up with them before the infection spread beyond their speed. New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleavland, all had fallen as they made their way from Maine. They would have gone north, but the word was from the scattered radio signals they picked up that Canada had reached critical infection and nowhere was safe. He stared at them in turn and each of them stared at him, then to each other. No one was operating at full mental abilities anymore. Suspicion and fear was written clearly on every blood and mud smeared face.

He leaned up and looked out the barred window, watching infected run across the quad, moving in packs, reminding him of things he had seen on the Discovery Channel. Hunters. Gatherers. They regressed to primal, animalistic creatures. He brushed it aside, they wore clothes, had jobs, families. These were people, not animals. He squeezed his gun tighter to his body as he thought about the brutal way he killed his own mother. He can't even remember if she was infected or not. She wouldn't stop screaming, clawing. She had to have been infected, there was no doubt. She didn't say anything to him to stop him. . . or did she? No, she didn't. He was comforted by this knowledge. This knowledge would save him one day. A movement from the room brought his gun up and aimed at a child approaching to look out the window. He relaxed and beckoned her to the window. None of them have spoken in days, but used hand gestures to communicate. The infected had superb hearing, sounds attracted them in droves. He watched the child walk slowly to the window and watch the packs run through the lawn and looked out himself. A smear of blood was fresh in front of a building across the yard, someone who tried to get to safety but couldn't make it. He shook. It could have been him. It might have been him. What if he was dead, he thought. What if someone in here was infected and that would be him. He would be dead already since every exit was blocked in a way that it took more than one person to remove the items blocking it. He looked to the child to move her away from the window, and himself, but he froze, ice filling his veins.

The child was coated in blood, eyes red, and breathing hoarsely. He couldn't distinguish the infection from tears, all he was was her blood red eyes. He recoiled, desperately crawling away, taking aim with tremors running through his body and watched as the child fell to the ground, two rounds piercing her brain and blowing out the back of her head. Cries of alarm echoed through the building as people came rushing towards him. Jibbering in fear he sprayed shots through the room, never feeling the weapon recoil, just watching the infected die before they were able to kill him. He would survive, he thought with fevered thoughts. Women, children, men, teens, each fell. He thought that he should feel bad, because they were once people, but pushed that aside, knowing that he would die if they reached him. Rend his flesh and feast, or worse, turn him into one of them. Standing up, he screamed defiance and made his way through the building, sparing no mercy. His brain seethed with his fear and insanity. He searched for a way out of the building, but realized that he was too late in killing them, they alerted the infected from outside. They tore at every door and window. There was no way out. He sighed and felt a calmness come over him. He walked past the bodies around him and back to the window, glancing at the blue eyed girl laying face up in a pool of her own blood. I saved you, he softly said, now I save myself. With a smile on his face and glassy, insane eyes, he put the hot barrel under his chin and squeezed the trigger.

Poetry: The Girl I Adore

You are the girl I adore,
even though I am far from shore.
Moving the oceans to see
your holy ground once more.

Goodbye, my lovely girl,
I am sailing to another for more.
You gave me your body and heart,
but now I return to the girl I adore.

She lives in a land far away,
To Aldenland, I have no idea what's in store.
Leaving the land far behind,
I sail to the girl I adore.

I hope to see her face there,
the girl I adore.
I will beach my ship and
leave her nevermore.

Writing: Moment in Time - Infection (Resistance)

The game was on now, he thought. The city was overrun with what he could best guess to be zombies, but not quite. Before the emergency broadcast cut out, they told everyone who was not infected should lock themselves indoors and wait for rescue squads to extract them. He had seen enough movies to know that never works. All the years of people laughing at his plans for a "zombocalype" were now justified. He glanced at the table before him and did a mental checklist of everything he would need to survive on the move. Flashlight, check. Dried rations, check. Water purification tablets, check. Firearms, check. Knives, check. First aid kit, check. He went down the list over and over, adding and subtracting items, until he was satisfied. He wrote a note and recorded a video for whoever comes to his apartment and headed for the door.

Slowly making his way out of the building, he saw that the city was in a total state of anarchy. The military hadn't gotten around to taking action inside, but they blocked off the city so no one could get in or out. He looked around to make sure that no infected were in sight and went to his bike and unchained it. His hands shook while removing the chain, adrenaline giving him the jitters, he thought, but he also knew that it was fear. He could say he was prepared all he wanted over the years, but now that it was finally happening. . . He took the bike path into the woods behind the dorm buildings and kept his ears and eyes open for any sounds. He remembered taking his girlfriend to these woods on their third date, but that felt like ages ago now. As always for the past week, thoughts of her start tears flowing down his cheeks. He can say that he loved her, but it wasn't love that put a bullet through her head, it was fear. He was afraid to turn into one of them and that fear drove him right now.

The farther he delved into the woods, the more memories cropped up. He remembered going to get tested after the incident with his girlfriend and being told that he had an immunity, a natural resistance to the infection. They took so much blood that it left him weak for days, but apparently they weren't able to come up with anything in time to save people. Now the infection was spreading beyond control. Two major cities in the United States have fallen, along with three cities overseas. The military was doing the only thing they knew how to do, they were destroying the cities and everything inside of them, but the infection continued. A sound snapped him back to the present, a crack of limbs from his right. He stopped his bike and ran behind a tree, readying his rifle with sweat soaked hands.

He heard voices, but couldn't make out words and wasn't sure if the infected had the ability to talk or not. When he saw a group of soldiers making their way to the clearing a few feet ahead of him, his heart soared. He would make it out, join in the struggle to contain this. He owed her that much. He ran for the clearing and yelled for the soldiers. They spun around and saw him moving towards them, but at that moment his joy turned to fear as three bullets passed through his body. The shock dropped him to the grass and with bewildered eyes he was the grass sprayed red with gems of crimson. A soldier walked towards him, weapon ready, and he tried to tell him he was immune, he had a resistance to the infection, but all that came out was a gush of frothy blood. Another shot rang out and the grass sparkled even more. The soldiers returned to base, one confirmed infected killed trying to make it to the safe zone.

Writing: Moment In Time - Infection (Quarantine)

He knew this was wrong, even as he gave his first Yes, Sir! to the command. As he walked toward the city border, he knew it was wrong even more. Each face beyond the fence shone a glow of horror and it tore at his soul. He checked his rifle, gear, and from beneath veiled eyes, the faces of his fellow soldiers. Each face was an echo of his own. No one wanted to be doing what they were told to do now. He approached his deployment point and waited. . . waited for the time when his morals took a backseat to his duty.

Caged animals, that's what they looked like to him. He couldn't place it as such as he was walking up, but he saw the unbridled form of human emotion taking place before him. If what was on the other side of the fence escaped nothing could stop it. It would go from city to city, country to country, devouring the entire race before a person could bat an eye. He wanted to believe this, but he knew that it might not be true. It could be stopped. It could be contained. A cure could be found. The lives already lost could be the only ones needed to be sacrificed. The images from inside the quarantine zone showed otherwise. He never knew, before going to the briefing two days ago that a person could be reduced to what he was seeing. He wasn't sure what he was seeing was real or some film directors imagination. He cradled his gun closer, safety off, and tried to block the sounds of the poor souls beyond the chain link fence from his mind.

There were shouts coming from all around him, both sides of the fence. There is a breach. There is a command to kill all suspected of infection. Negative, no breach. Someone escaped. Someone outside is infected. He couldn't tell what was the truth any more. He looked around for his commander, silently pleading, asking what he should do. He couldn't shoot his own countrymen. He couldn't shoot a mother cradling her baby. He saw the commander on the radio, yelling emphatically, demanding to know what the orders where. A hand gesture activated his training and before he even realized, his rifle was pointed towards the crowd. The roar of jet engines sounded above him. He glanced around at other soldiers and saw the weapons shaking in their hands. This is wrong. He kept telling himself he had to do it, but this was wrong. Who wasn't affected? We should be saving those that could be saved, he thought. His eyes glanced to the commander, watching in slow motion as his arm fell. His eyes moved slowly to the crowd before him, staring into the soul of a little girl, nose bleeding and eyes burning red. With hot tears streaking down his sweat chilled skin, he pulled the trigger as fire ignited the city before him, begging God to forgive him for what he is doing.

Writing: Moment in Time - Infection (Isolation)

He wasn't sure how long he had been in here, seeing as how there was no clocks and no windows. His cough had gotten worse since he arrived, dragged from his house with his wife and daughter, thrown in a room by people in hazmat suits, and locked away to rot. The white walls were stained red with the blood from his fists from pounding on them for hours demanding his family, but never receiving an answer. He was tired, feverish, and wished that it was all some bad dream. Every so often, so sporaticaly that he thought it was his mind playing tricks, he would hear the sound of screaming nearby. The screams kept him awake when he tried to sleep on the drop down cot that was provided for him. He paced the room more times than he could count, searching for a way out, but every corner was sealed, even the door was set in a way that nothing could pry it open from the inside. He was beyond scared, to the point where he was calm, but the calmness was shattered by the pounding headaches that came closer and closer together.

In his mind, weeks had gone by, but he could never be sure. His cough had turned to hacking, spraying small clots of blood over the white padded floor. The screams became near constant, but he believed them now to be only in his head. No one could scream for that long. Hell, he thought, he hadn't talked for a long time, long ago given up on trying to reach whoever put him in this hole to die. He thought back, straining to remember what happened that would make someone destroy him and his family. The headache was intolerable, dashing thoughts against jagged rocks. He slammed his fists down in anger, wishing he could just pull one thought together. He sat in the corner, holding his nose from the bloody mess that was pouring from it, more than likely from the headaches he thought. He listened to his head pound, the screams, the silence between them. The screams. Closer, he thought. Was he alone in this hole? Did they have more people down here, torturing them? Killing them? Blasted headache, he yelled, and instantly grabbed his throat as if something tore inside from not using it for so long. He coughed again, more serious, gasping for air as he watched blood flow from his mouth and pool on the padding. The screams were closer, he could hear that, but he could no longer feel the blood coming from his mouth despite the growing size of the puddle near him.

He tried to stand, get near the door and use what was left of his voice to call for help, but his legs gave out under him with a sickening sound of bone ripping from muscle. He fell face first and braced for the pain which never came. Looking back he saw his shinbone sticking out from his skin, the blood on it dark and thick. Amazement went through his mind as he felt tears rolling down his cheek. Brushing them away and lowering his blood smeared hands to the floor, he dragged his limp body towards the door, leaving a trail of crimson from the corner. He wanted his wife, his daughter. He wanted to be out of this room and find them. His head ached, as if his brain was trying to be released from his skull. He wanted them as he reached the door, pounding on it with impotent rage. What he wanted them for now, he knew he would never forgive himself.