The Beginning of An Apocalypse
Seventeen

Seven-year-old Gabriel Everett sat outside of his house’s yard watching the water go around in the small pond that they had. It wasn’t all that glamorous, but there was a fish in there that he found beautiful in every way.

It liked to swim around in a circle and didn’t have to rest at all. He would sit there for hours watching that big orange and white fish swim round and round in his small pond. But lately, it hadn’t been swimming round and round for hours.

It stopped almost halfway through each time.

Gabriel stuck his fingers in the water and tried to touch the fish. The fish never let him touch it before, it always swam away from him when he tried. He could have picked up the fish easily even if it ran away from him, but that wasn’t what he wanted.

He stuck his fingers into the water and went running his fingers down its back. He touched the fish and the fish didn’t run away. He only touched it half a second longer before he brought his hand back up and out of the water.

He didn’t feel good about this at all.

“Are you sick, fish?” Gabriel asked. He didn’t name the fish, he never thought about it. The fish probably already had a name and giving it a human name, he didn’t think would be the best idea. He was fine calling him fish. He was ninety-eight percent sure that the fish was a he.

“I wish you could talk to me,” Gabriel said. “Then I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you all day” Gabriel laughed when he saw the fish make bubbles appear above the water. “But at least you listen. Even if you don’t know what I’m saying. I think that’s a plus side.”

“Are you talking to your fish again dork?” A girl asked from behind him.

Gabriel turned around and saw the eight-year-old red-haired girl standing there. “What do you want this time Li?”

She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. Every time she came over here it was like she was a leech or something. “Just coming over to tell you that my dad is coming over today for dinner. Your mom invited us.”

Gabriel didn’t take another second to look at her. He turned back to look at his fish who hit his side against the rock when he tried to swim. “That’s gonna be great,” Gabriel said with as little enthusiasm as possible.

“Do you ever think of the positives?” She asked. She walked over and sat down beside Gabriel and watched the fish that Gabriel seemed to hold dear to him.

“If I looked at how all our old family gatherings ended, there is a chance between ninety percent that it will end in us wanting to leave and our parents drunk. A ten percent chance it will go with only a little drinking and us only wanting to leave half the time,” Gabriel replied.

Li scratched at her jaw and held back her yawn. She turned to look back at Gabriel as if she was paying attention to most of what Gabriel was saying. “I forgot your favorite thing to do was science and numbers. Aren’t you a normal kid?”

He took a deep breath and pushed away her words and put his own good words into his mind. “Normal kids can be smart,” Gabriel said, and meant it. “All the smart kids are billionaires in the future.”

“There are a thousand smart kids. There are how many brilliant billionares?” I asked. “Oh, wait!” She said, “don’t ask me, you’ll give me an answer probably.”

He didn’t try to hold his smile “I would,” Gabriel he replied.

The both of them stopped their talking and both watched the fish go round and round slower and slower each time. Until the fifth time when it stopped not even halfway and fell against a rock.

“I think your fish is dying,” She said out of random.

Gabriel stared at the fish with wide eyes. His lips parted only a little bit and he felt something hurt inside him. He thought about the fish dying. The fish was the only fish in this pond. He imagined himself coming to check on him one day and the fish wasn’t moving at all this time.

Gabriel forced himself up from his laying position and stared at her with angered eyes. He punched her shoulder. “Don’t say that!”

Li’s face became soft and her eyes became tearful. She never thought Gabriel was the kind of person to hit someone over a few words. He never cared about words. She pushed her hand to her injured arm and held tight to it. “I was just telling the truth! You’re so mean!”

Li pushed herself up and ran to the edge of the yard. She looked back and shouted, “I’m going to tell my dad so you get in trouble!”

“Whatever!” Gabriel shouted back at her and watched her leave. Once she was gone Gabriel’s expression softened and he looked back at the fish who was trying to swim some more.

“You’re not dying,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t do that.”

Gabriel stared at the fish and the longer he stared at the fish he could no longer stand there and do nothing. The fish looked sick and the more he thought about it the more he felt she was right. He wouldn’t let her be right. He wouldn’t let this happen.

“Dad!” Gabriel cried. He forced himself up and ran into his house through the back door. Normally he would never just run inside and find his parents, but he needed them now. He knew they were in the kitchen, it’s where they had been when he had gone outside. When they fight, they tend to stay in the same place for long hours.

“Dad!”

He ran into the kitchen seeing them standing beside the sink smacking their hands around and yelling at each other about bills of all things.

Even though it started with bills, it always seemed to go somewhere else.

“What do you want me to do?!” His dad, Lucas shouted. “Just get another job over my two? You’re the one who is pushing our kid to go to all those camps and all those extra classes that come out of my paycheck!”

“He’s going to get into a good school and he’s going to bring in good money!”

“Then why doesn’t his brain just bring it in now?!” The dad crossed his arms and walked away to the fridge. “The boy’s not that talented and you are putting too much on him, Delila.”

“We do not have–”

“Mom!” Gabriel shouted. “Dad!”

They both snapped their heads to face him realizing he was there only now. They looked at him and saw him standing there while panting. Tears were in his eyes as to what they said and everything that had happened came to his mind.

Delila looked at Lucas one more time before she took a deep breath and crossed her arms. “What do you want Gaberial?”

“The fish!” Gabriel said remembering what he came in here for. What he was originally crying for. “In-in the pond, I think he’s sick. He needs help. C-can we take him to the vet?”

Gabriel looked at both of them waiting for an answer. He thought they would have cared enough to say yes. Didn’t they see how he felt?

“See?” Lucas said to his wife. “Not smart or talented in the least.”

Lucas walked away and pushed Gabriel out of the way so he could leave. Gabriel pressed himself against the door frame and waited for his dad to leave. He wiped his tears and then turned back to his mom.

“Mom, please.”

“It’s just a fish, Gabriel!” Delila snapped. She grabbed her wine glass and her bottle of wine. “A fish we got from the fair almost two years ago.” She looked at Gabriel and laughed. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

Gabriel couldn’t hold in his tears this time. They escaped his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall off his cheeks. He wiped them away and ran away from her. Ran away from his father. He ran upstairs to his room which was decorated with sci-fi movies like Star Trek and pictures related to space, science, and numbers.

He jumped onto his bed and hid under the covers. He forced himself to stop crying and he eventually fell asleep. When he woke up the only thing he heard was the thunder cracking. He moved off the bed and for the most part, forgot about what happened earlier. At least enough for him not to cry about it.

Gabriel walked to the window to look outside. To check on the fish and to see something else that wasn’t this.

He looked out the window to watch the storm. He watched as it stormed so much that tree branches were falling and leaves were flying like they were supposed to do all along. He always loved storms and it had nothing to do with science.

He listened to the chaotic yet peaceful storm and he almost got lost in it. He did until he heard something that wasn’t just thunder. It was louder than thunder. It was like the sound of a million cracks of lightning and thunder. He pressed his face to the window looking for whatever it was.

He knew it wasn’t normal.

He looked up at the dark cloudly skies and in all that darkness there was light. A greenish light that cut through the sky like a shooting star. But it wasn’t going across the sky, it was falling from it. Falling right towards him it seemed.

It came closer and closer until he was sure it was a meteor or some rock form from space. And it fell. When it fell the flash of light was blinding and he collapsed backward from his little windowsill.

He rested on his back looking up as he gasped for air. He forget everything to this point for a second before he pushed himself up and he could breathe.

He grabbed onto the windowsill and forced himself up on his knees. He looked out and saw what had become of his backyard. There was smoke billowing out from a small hole that was once… The pond!

His fish!

Once again he felt like he couldn’t breathe, but he needed to. He had to get out and he had to get to the pond. He had to find his fish and make sure he wasn’t taken yet. Gabriel turned around and ran out of his room. He ran down the stairs and through the living room.

In the living room were his parents and his aunt and uncle with Li on the floor.

“Gabriel,” Delila said when she saw him. “Why don’t you–”

Gabriel didn’t even shout for her to wait a minute. He ran down the hall and past the kitchen. He went past the basement and to the backdoor. He opened the door and ran into the storm. He didn’t care to shut the door behind him.

Gabriel ran off the small stairs and into the grass. He ran through the puddles that were nested in the yard. He jumped over the branches that fell and when he made it to the pond he fell on his knees. He didn’t care how cold it was. He didn’t watch how wet he was getting. He didn’t care that his parents were shouting from the door.

Gabriel smacked his hands around getting rid of the smoke that was coming from the pond. With the rain and his arms, he was able to get the smoke away within a few minutes. He was able to see into the water. He saw his fish that was laying on the rock that it was before. But it was eating something. It was eating something that was stuck on the rock. It was green and glowing. It looked like slime almost.

The fish was eating it and Gabriel didn’t know if he should stop it or not. If something is dying isn’t it good to eat?

The fish had eaten it all and within only a few seconds the fish started to move. It moved more than it had all morning. It thrashed around in the water. Its head hit the rocks and its tail went above the water. Its skin became whiter and it looked more alive.

And it was active more too.

Once it stopped thrashing the fish looked forward and started swimming. Round and round it started swimming. Gabriel couldn’t help but smile. His fish was okay. Whatever the fish ate was helping it regain its life.

“You’re back!” Gabriel shouted, a big smile on his face.

He never grabbed the fish and carried him before, but he couldn’t stop himself this time. Gabriel plunged his hands into the water and grabbed the fish. With its energy, it was hard, but he knew the fish and he could do it.

He picked it up and held it close to his heart. “You’re back! You’re back! You’re–Aaaaggh!”

The fish bit him forcing Gabriel to let him go. The fish dropped back into the water and he almost fell backward. He grabbed his hand and looked at his thumb where it had bitten him. There was blood, massive amounts of blood coming from his hand. But the wounds that the fish had left on his finger were not right.

The teeth marks had something on them and it was seeping into his skin. It was starting to burn.

The green coloring of whatever had the fish been eating started to spread into his veins. All Gabriel could feel was pain.

He fell backward, hitting his head on a branch. He held onto his wrist and screamed some more.

“Mom!” He cried. “Help me! Help me! Dad!”

Between his screams he found the strength to get some words out. And he felt his parents around him and trying to pick him up. But he wasn’t able to see them because he was passing out. He passed out before they could even get him into the car.

And when he woke up he was in the hospital and went he got home, his fish was dead.

Cas walked out of the bathroom fully dressed in the new clothes that Gabriel had someone buy her. It’s been almost the third week since they were finally allowed to be out. The first two weeks were for their injuries, and then Gabriel had put Cas, himself, and Liza, through so many tests to figure out if they were affected by anything.

He took their blood and put them through a three-day-long quarantine where they took showers constantly and were watched nonstop. They were watched as if fungi were going to sprout out of their skins or they were going to go on a murdering spree.

It wasn’t the best week.

But they were out now.

Cas didn’t know what was going to happen after this. She didn’t know if Gabriel was going to keep her around or go tell her to go live back on the streets. She didn’t want that to happen. Not only because she wanted to find her brother, but she didn’t want to see her old place. She didn’t want to go back to how she and Marcus lived.

She thought about Shane too.

She’s been gone for almost a month without calling him. Without telling him anything more than what she said the day she made it to that bridge.

By now he already knows about Marcus. He may not know that what he sees on the news is Marcus, but he knows about it. Marcus didn’t die at that bridge. Gabriel came in and told her a week ago.

On the news, Cas watched the report on Marcus.

Marcus has passed down through the river to San Mateo. The entirety of California is on lockdown. People are trying to escape the state or the country, but they’ve shut down everything.

No one leaves their homes anymore because no one knows where Marcus is. He was in San Mateo only a few days ago, but he was in San Bruno six days before that. The last place anyone saw him was when he jumped into the water and swam away. He could be going anywhere and nowhere was safe anymore.

All of California became a military base and soldiers were coming in and out. The CDC was working around the clock to find some way to stop this. Scientists, along with Gabriel, were trying to find a way to either cure or kill. But from all that’s happened, Cas believed there was going to be no intention of finding a cure.

What they were going to do was kill him. They were going to make new guns like the gun that Gabriel had and not stop until Marcus was obliterated and they were “safe.”

Cas found her way to the window where she looked outside. She looked at the empty streets and the apartments that had their windows closed and some had their windows barred and boarded up. There were many rants online about what this was. That it was done on purpose by the government.

And Cas believed most of those rants to a point.

She knew Marcus wasn’t sick when she left. She knew that Marcus wouldn’t do anything dangerous enough to give him this kind of virus. Someone gave it to him and it was either the government or some group that thought millions of deaths would be good. They thought this was the best way to get their word across the board.

Would it work? Possibly.

Could they have found another way? Definitely.

At least in Cas’s mind, they could have.

She looked away when she couldn’t take it anymore. She could walk easier now, easier when she held her stomach like she was holding in her insides. She moved out of her room and to where Liza’s room. In this closed-off hall, there was only Liza, the two unconscious soldiers, and Gabriel to talk to. Cas would only go for Liza at this point.

Plus, she’s good company.

Liza probably got the worst of it since she won’t be going anywhere soon. She may get out of the hospital, but she’ll be useless in the field and will have to go home and stay quarantined there. She was pretty much out of the game.

Gabriel was usually never in the field, so it doesn’t matter if he was injured. He’s got his mind sharp and enough movement in his body to work in his lab. Most would say he should go home, but there was no way he was going to listen to them. There was no way he was going to give up on something that would push his career to the max if he had helped save the world.

“Hey, girl,” Liza said when she saw Cas walk in. She set down her book and pushed herself up against the wall. “What’s up?”

“Leaving today apparently,” Cas said. “Gabriel rushed in to tell me that we’re going.”

Cas found a seat and gently seated herself down. She wasn’t in the shape to go out into the field or pull off any more thoughtless, reckless, rescue missions either.

“You two are going,” Liza said. “Now that my leg is a shattered mess, plus my back is fractured, he’s ditching me to the… well the ditch.”

“That’s what he does, unfortunately,” Cas said. “But he’s right in the aspect that you shouldn’t be helping anymore. You’ll injure yourself.”

Liza nodded and laughed. She gave Cas the best smile she could give her at the moment. “We’ll see about that.” Liza wasn’t about to say that there was no way she could help. She knew there could be something she could do. They were the ones that wouldn’t try to give her a chance.

“In all seriousness though,” Liza said. The look on her face told Cas that she had to pay attention. Cas only hoped that it wouldn’t be life-changing news because she really couldn’t take anything more. “When you get out of this ugly hospital, get out. Don’t come back and try to help. I know he’s your brother, but you stay in this game and, you’re dead.”

“Respectively,” Cas said. “I can’t do that. I’m not going to give up on him like the rest of them.”

“Why are the strongest people the dumbest?” Liza asked. “I mean, it’s your funeral. Just don’t expect me to bring you flowers for your suicide mission.”

“Okay,” Cas said and they smiled.

Their conversation died there. They weren’t exactly friends just as much as they weren’t strangers. Knowing that Cas was going to be leaving and probably make a million and one mistakes was not good for light conversations.

Cas rested her head against the chair and took a deep breath in. She wanted to get out of there but there was also the want to stay.

What was it going to be like out there? The news was not real life. She had no idea what it was like outside this building and what would happen to her. She figured if the world knew that her brother was the one that caused all of this, they wouldn’t be so nice to her either. They would see her with as much blame as they do Marcus.

Even if none of them were at fault for this. Neither of them asked for this.

None of them wanted this.

Cas sat there with Liza. She didn’t care to go out there unless she needed to. She was hungry, but she wasn’t going out there.

She sat where the door could no longer see her and she reframed from anything else. But she could only hide for so long. She couldn’t hide when Gabriel walked in on his crutches. He looked at Liza for only a split second and it looked like they were feuding over something. Like when siblings or friends were angry but were pretending it didn’t happen because there were other people in the room.

Gabriel looked away from Liza and went to Cas. “We’re leaving now.” He didn’t seem to want to stay here at all. He wanted to get out as fast as he could. Like he could be much help with his body out of shape like that.

“Where are we leaving to?” Cas asked him without getting up. She crossed her legs and her arms and waited for his repose.

Liza covered her mouth in an attempt of holding in her laugh. She looked over at Gabriel and waited for his response. That was not something she was laughing at. She needed to know or at least felt like she had to. It was troublesome.

“I’m going to get you out of this hospital secretly unless you want the forming mobs to come after you because you are the sister of the virus’s host that will probably kill us all. Let’s go, Cassidy.”

Cas took a deep breath in and her arms squeezed harder around her chest. She thought about what he said. About the mob that may or may not know who she was and decides that she should die. That she should die only because she is related to Marcus. That wasn’t fair, she didn’t think.

Cas rolled her eyes eventually and stood up. She fixed her jacket and brushed her hair out with her fingers. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The ease that washed over Gabriel was obvious. When he closed his eyes to let out a relieved sigh it was the most obvious. “Thank you,” he said. Cas didn’t know if it was to her or himself or to whatever he thought made this so easy.

“There’s a car outside that will take us out easily.”

“A car?” Cas asked. “Sure that won’t be the first thing to be taken if this is the apocalypse.”

“We’re not in the apocalypse yet,” Gabriel said. Any other time someone would say that sentence it would be passed off with a laugh, but with everything that was happening, the ‘yet’ was scary. The ‘yet’ could be true. The ‘yet’ was the truth if things kept going this way.

That was the last thing they need.

Cas hugged Liza and told her she hoped she got better soon. Liza said eventually and then the goodbyes came and Cas and Gabriel were gone.

Cas pushed her hand tighter against her stomach and ran to catch up to Gabriel. Even with crutches on he was still fast. Too fast. Cas jogged until she got to Gabriel and then she kept a walking pace when Gabriel used all the energy he had. He made it down two different halls without stopping.

“So, now can you tell me where we’re going since you want to get there so fast?” Cas asked. “Am I able to go home now?”

“Home?” Gabriel asked. “You don’t have a home, if you do not remember you are homeless.”

“Hey,” Cas said. She pushed herself ahead when she realized she was falling short of his pace. “Look I’d rather not fight with you, so once we get out of the hospital we’re going to split ways. That’ll be the end of it.”

“Split ways?” Gabriel asked again without looking at her. He looked for every sign that said he was close to the building’s exit. He wanted to get out of there quickly. “Now that you’re in this I can’t let you just… split ways.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Cas said. “We walk outside and split ways. You go back to your lab and I’ll head to wherever.”

“I’m sorry if that is what you thought could happen,” Gabriel said. “But you were looped into this game and now you have to see it to the end.”

“You tried to kill Marcus, there’s no way I’m staying in this game with you,” Cas said. She had no intention of working with an untrustful person. She remembered now why she liked doing things on her own.

Gabriel got the elevator door open and he got in. He pressed the floor to the main entrance and they waited inside the elevator till there was a ding and they got out for others to get in. “I did what was best for the country. For the billions of people that live on this planet. We can’t spare one soul for the world.”

“You don’t understand,” Cas said pushing her pace further so she could meet at the same line as Gabriel. “You probably don’t have family and if you do, you’ve cut them off.”

“And maybe I cut them off for very good reasons,” Gabriel said finally stopping and looking at her. “Family is a hindrance to everything. They judge you, they push you too hard, and they do whatever they want and say they can because they are “family.” He laughed as he shook his head. “You should be able to understand that.”

“Marcus isn’t holding me back or pushing me too hard,” Cas said defensively.

“He isn’t? You’re living on the streets because he’s a minor and your parents died. You have no life, no future because you want to take care of your brother. That is holding you back and it causes all the problems in your life. The homeless college dropout.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this, but you’re stepping out of line.”

“I push past lines and borders, I don’t stop because I hurt someone’s feelings.” Gabriel found the receptionist and he signed a few documents before he was told they could leave now. “If we worry about how other people feel, we die. Do you want that?”

“I would rather die than kill others,” Cas told him. She followed him outside the hospital without giving it another thought. She only realized where she was after she looked away from Gabriel and looked around her. The parking lot, besides a few cars, vans, and ambulances, all around. But there was nothing else. There were no people. It was like the start of a ghost town.

“Oh, my…”

“Are you going to stand there in shock or are you going to come with me?” Gabriel asked. He was standing in front of a black car that must be his as he was opening the door to the backseat.

Cas felt a small feeling of sickness that had been coming and going since she first woke up in the hospital. She looked at the car and the person inside. She looked back at Gabriel and the only thing she saw when she looked at him was him on the bridge. Him holding that gun without a doubt in his mind that all this was going to end. He wanted it to end and that’s what he always wanted.

She had the feeling he lied since the moment she met him. He lied about wanting to find a cure and bring him back. He could be lying about so much more, but she didn’t want to think much about that.

She looked back up at present Gabriel and took a deep breath in. “I’m not going with you,” She said. “I’d be crazy if I did. I will not be wishing you good luck and I will be doing things my way now.”

Gabriel’s face looked unchanged. He looked at her for only a second before he looked down at the ground. He licked his lips and let out what could only be described as an ominous chuckle. It made Cas take a step backward.

“Then I’m so sorry Miss Cassidy,” Gabriel said. “But I can’t let you do that.”

“What,” Cas said with confidence that she didn’t have. “Are you going to–” Before she could finish what she was going to say, she felt something go over her mouth and she felt someone strong holding her. She felt the injection into her neck and felt the burning pain of something spreading over her. Until it wasn’t painful and she wasn’t feeling in control at all. And her eyes started to fade. When her eyes started to fade and she could no longer move she felt her body falling to the ground.

She almost hit the ground when she was picked up and carried to the car. She was placed into the seat and once Gabriel was in, the door closed.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Gabriel said. “It wasn’t supposed to include you.”

That was the last thing she heard before whatever she was injected with took control of her and she passed out.

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