Gone (Natalie)

I pull the car to a stop and get out. It’s still smoky outside and it is quite hard to breath, at first I can’t see were the damage is, a few trees have been pulled out of the ground and some of them look like they have been sawn in half. I try to look at the houses more closely, but the smoke is too thick. House after house has gained a little lean to the left, leaning away from where it exploded. I can’t hear anyone moving around outside. Has everyone died? I don’t know what to think about it. As I continue walking to my house I see that none of our neighbours were home, well that’s suspicious. Slowly I come into view of my house, or where my house should have been. Nothing. Everything that I owned, everyone I love appears to be gone. I don’t believe my eyes. This can’t be happening. As I walk through the ash’s of what use to be my house I suddenly hear an ear splitting scream. Then there’s another one and another one, on the fourth scream I recognise who it’s coming from, it’s Bethany.

That’s when I start sprinting, finally I emerge from the smoke to find a monster lifting mum off the ground, and you can tell by the look in her eye that she can’t see what it is. Randomly I try to think of a way to stop the monster from tearing my mum apart, I glance around looking for the rest of my family, when I finally catch a glimpse of movement I look down and stop dead in my tracks. There on the ground not even a meter away is my dad or what’s left of my dad’s body. I can see bits of flesh, chard flesh thrown all over the ground, all of which have pieces of dad’s cloths on it. Emotions flood through my body; I have to stop this before he gets anyone else I love. The monsters large green body, breaths in a giant breathe and then blows out, the flame appears in his mouth before mum even has time to react. She catches fire instantly screaming and wailing her arms around trying to distinguish the flame, but it’s futile, she’s not going to live much longer. Then finally with one last high-pitched scream, she disintegrates leaving only a pile of ash left in her place. I can’t move, can’t scream I’m frozen in terror of the thought of living alone like Ash.

That’s when I hear a car pull up. I don’t want to see who it is but I dread I know. It’s Zac; he’s just got home from college to find a house of ash and fire. He comes running over to me, while I’m screaming

“Zac go back to the car.”
“Get back in the car.” Desperately I scream “Go Zac, leave, now.” I yell but it’s useless, he obviously can’t hear the frantic desperation in my voice. I start to run towards him but I’m too late, the monster gets their three steps before I do. It lifts him off the ground

“No” I’m screaming over and over again, “don’t do this.” But the monster won’t stop. Zac doesn’t know what’s happening but he can tell by the worry in my voice that something is wrong. The monster lets out a ferocious roar before biting Zac’s arm off and swallowing it. Zac lets out a painful scream before fainting, than the monster swallows him whole.

This whole time I’m screaming “No”
“Noooo” but that doesn’t do anything to stop it. My family is gone, mum, dad, Zac, but wait where is Bethany. I scan the surroundings searching for a sign that Bethany got away but there are no sign. Abruptly I become aware of a low grunting sound that’s coming from the monster. Gradually I spin to face the monster; I stare at it waiting for it to do something when suddenly it speaks

“You are the last Ma vista to be born this century. If you dare come after my master or me you will be killed immediately. Your family is dead and you are left alone on this planet to fend for yourself. This is your only warning.” Then it vanishes. I fall to my knees with grief I never thought my family would die like this. Suddenly I am overwhelmed with emotions, mum is gone, dad is gone, Zac is gone and I don’t know where Beth is, so I think she’s gone

as well. My whole family gone within minutes from a monster that they didn’t even know existed.

I decide sitting here in the ash is a waste of time so I get up and start searching for precious things that my family had. In the end I find my mum’s wallet with $2,000 dollars in it. I also find a picture of the whole family together at the beach, which was taken last summer. Then I find a photo album with photos of Bethany and Zac and myself when we were younger and pictures from recently as well. Then I come to a decision that I should go to Ash’s place and talk to him about what happened here tonight. Without further delay I walk towards my car. I try to remember what his address is but I can’t and I know if I call now it would be rude considering it’s like 1 in the morning. I continue to drive – for what feels like hours - until I find a red Camaro parked in a driveway. I get out of the car and walk towards the door, just as I’m about to knock an alarm goes off and I’m frozen in terror. Too many things have happened to me tonight, so I have all this emotion flowing through me that I don’t know what to do with it.

When the door opens to reveal Ash, my body floods with relief, it unfreezes and I run up to him and give him the biggest bear hug ever, then I realise, that I’m hugging an almost complete stranger and let go of him. I step back to apologise when he says
“I thought you were dead. The news had the explosion and it said that everyone who lived in the house had died from the explosion. So what happened?” I don’t know what to say so I just burst into tears and Ash picks me up and carries me inside and puts me in the spare bedroom and says

“You can tell me in the morning. Goodnight Natalie.”

“Goodnight Ash.” I manage to say through the continuing flood of tears. But I don’t sleep tonight, too many images were going through my mind, so many of them gruesome recounts of what happened to my family, while I just stood there and watched. I cry all night and when I finally stop crying, my pillow is soaked and some of the blanket is wet. My body is exhausted and my throat is sore from screaming last night, my eyes are also itchy from crying. Ash comes in around 10 in the morning and I tell him everything. New waves of tears flood my eyes. Ash holds me the whole time, soothing me, trying to stop the flow of tears. When we finally move it’s to go get food from the kitchen.