Sam lay awake atop the sunken mattress that served as her bed. Across the room she could hear Karma’s steady breathing. She should be asleep like her sister but too many thoughts were swimming around in her mind, refusing to let her sleep. Most of them were bad memories: memories about her father, about the time after his death. An odd sound in the distance made her swing her legs over the side of her makeshift bed and walk over to the window. In the quarantine zone there was always noise—babies crying, people shouting, the occasional shot being fired. This was something else though, something that send chills down her spine.

Drawing back the curtain, Sam saw fire in the distance and blinked. Fires happened occasionally and were quickly put out lest they spread like wildfire. These fires weren’t being tended however and in the glow of burning buildings she could see people running, and finally understood that was she had heard were their faint shouts and screams and an eerie sort of shrieking. Her skin prickled, her instincts warning her that something was very wrong. Whatever was happening was coming their way and she didn’t want to be here when it arrived.

Tearing the curtain away to provide light to work by, Sam shook Karma awake. ”Karma wake up,” she growled, trying to keep calm for her sister’s sake. ”Hurry up, get dressed, we’re leaving,” she added, throwing clothes at her sleepy sister. There was no time for explanations, she could hear the noise escalating outside. The young woman threw her own clothes in record time and shoved her feet into her ratty sneakers. Grabbing the pack that she always kept ready just in case, Sam took one last look back at her sister to make sure she was up before going to shake her mother awake.

((Don't worry about posting a certain length, quality is better than quantity in my book and I've been wanting to work on making some shorter posts myself.))