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The streets were empty.
The streets had been empty for a very long time.
Well, unless you counted Gem.
Gem was just about the last man standing, she hadn’t seen another human for weeks. Which was surprising, considering the city was usually rather large and bustling with life. Or, it had been, before the apocalypse had begun.
She could hardly recognise the place she used to call home, not anymore. The shops had all been raided long, long ago, leaving smashed glass from the windows scattered through the streets, and shelves toppled over, not a sign of anything edible remained.
She had long since abandoned the prospect of a happy life, not here anyway. Her family was long gone, presumed dead after weeks of searching had found no sign of them. Her friends had all left too, those lucky ducks.
Before it had all began, herself, Pearl, Cleo and Lizzie had been planning a trip to a tropical island, far, far away from where they had lived. Unfortunately, Gem had decided to leave just a day later than the others, having her last shift before the holidays the day that the others had decided to leave on. It was fine! She would go the next day, meet her friends, and the holiday would be great.
Unfortunately, that is not what had happened.
Mere hours after her friends had left for the island, the worst had happened. There was some kind of... outbreak. For some absurd reason, the government had been secretly testing on every species imaginable under the lab, and their security system was not prepared to handle an escape.
The creatures had gotten out and gone rampant on the streets. Bunny rabbits with bat wings, and unusual poisonous fangs. Birds who had gained an extra set of legs and bloody red eyes.
If that had been all, the city would have been fine. The government would have rounded up the animals after a couple days and made some half-hearted apology about how it wouldn’t happen again. But it wasn’t all that happened, because, of course, life was never easy for Gem.
A few humans had been bitten by the animals, and they were humans no longer. Wings sprouted from their backs and beaks from their faces, and they were overcome with the urge to infect others alike. Well, that's what Gem guessed had happened, the only person she had seen was her brother, before he...
She was going to try not to think about that.
The other thing about these ‘hybrids’ as she liked to call them, was that they had absolutely no survival instincts. A large building seemed perfect to jump off of, a brick wall the perfect thing to run head-first into. The sense of humanity, the ideas in their heads that made them human, all of those were gone.
And that was why the city Gem was currently in was a ghost town- or maybe a ghost city? She wasn’t sure. Regardless, the place was practically destroyed, and she’d be shocked if it were to ever become the haven it once was again.
So, as she made her way towards the park, about the only remaining place that was... well, ‘pretty’ was a strong word. She almost flung herself onto the bench once she approached it, and ended up sat atop it, cross legged and staring into the sky.
Her thoughts raced quickly, and among the chaos of her mind she couldn’t even hear her own thoughts. She wrung her hands together, fidgeting and trying to keep herself calm. Her mind was a cacophony, a storm that she couldn’t see through, couldn’t hear through. Her heart was almost beating out of her chest, and then, and then-
“Gem?”
A voice singlehandedly managed to put out the fire in her mind. It was familiar, but until she looked, she couldn’t tell who it was, couldn’t tell who the voice belonged to, couldn’t tell who it was that made her heart flutter and her racing thoughts rush to a pause.
Hesitantly, she looked around, and when her eyes landed on the owner of the voice she couldn’t tell whether to cry or scream or an amalgamation of both. Her heart skipped a beat and any words she might have been able to say before refused to leave her mouth. There was but one word that she could think of, one name that she could say.
“Pearl?” A choked sob, somewhere between a cry and a whisper, escaped her lips.
Pearl, her best friend. Pearl, the one who had been there for her through thick and thin. Pearl, who she could not believe was stood right before her eyes, wholly in one piece. Pearl, who she thought she may never see again.
Her legs propelled her towards Pearl and Gem flung herself into her arms. She clung onto her, for fear that should she let go, Pearl would fade away and she’d realise this was all a dream. She squeezed her eyes shut, for fear that should she open again, the sight that she saw may not in fact be Pearl. She let herself live out that fantasy, let herself cling onto the hope that maybe just maybe she could have something nice. For once, Void, could she have something, anything at all to ease her sorrows.
Maybe, all that suffering she had gone through would prove worth it, if she could finally be with the one person who could ease her sorrows, bring a smile to her face.
But, as she looked up, something felt innately wrong. Pearl’s eyes were no longer the blue oceans that they had once been, instead a dark, crimson even, shade of red. And as her hands travelled further up Pearl’s back, she found two things that had not been there before. Wings. Pearl had wings.
Gem’s eyes widened, fear shining in them as well as the undoubtable thought to run coursing through her veins. She took a hurried step backwards, almost tripping over her own feet, before being caught by the very wings which were the reason she wanted, no needed to escape.
Pearl’s wings tugged Gem close to her chest, suffocating her and holding her tightly.
“Forgive me for what I’m about to do, Gem.” One last apology escaped Pearls lips as her arms snaked around Gem’s lower back, trapping the human where she was.
The last thing Gem felt was a sharp pain in her shoulder, and then it all went black.