#us7

“Me? Naive?”

“You think we’re some perfect little family.”

“Well we could be if you weren’t such an ass.”

“We’re not a family,” Sebastian hissed. “We never were and we never will be. Now get the hell out of my room.”

Maru started blankly at her brother. “Well,” she said quietly. “The truth comes out, doesn’t it?”

Sebastian made no effort to apologize for his remark, though the pit of his stomach twisted in a pang of guilt. He never meant to hurt Maru like that, despite how different they were. He moved his eyes back to his computer and sat back down in his chair.

“I guess it’s better for all of us that you move out,” Maru muttered under her breath before leaving him alone in his dimly lit bedroom.

Sebastian stared at the computer screen blankly. Maru would never understand. He didn’t expect her to. She was the one with the family. A mother and a father. She was the favorite child. She always was and always would be. He was just a part of his mother’s life that she wanted to forget about. The man she left. And he was just a reminder of that life. She would never admit it, but Sebastian knew it. They were a family - Robin, Demetrius, and Maru. He was just the left over from a failed marriage that no one wanted to talk about. He didn’t fit in with their picture perfect family. He never would. Demetrius made sure of that.

The computer screen flickered, catching his attention for a moment before it went black. Sebastian sat in the darkness for a moment, taking in the silence, and sighed. Of course the power would go out. He blinked in the darkness as his eyes adjusted, jumping when he heard Maru scream from downstairs.

Sebastian opened the door and peered down the hallway. “Maru?” The house was quiet. He called for her again, but there was no answer. He closed the door behind him and moved to the top of the stairs.

“This isn’t funny,” he called into the darkness. “Grow up.”

There was a loud thud as something went crashing onto the floor. Glass shattered and Maru shrieked again. Sebastian held his breath as his heartbeat quickened. He stood frozen at the top of the steps, listening. When he didn’t hear anything, he moved down the staircase slowly, taking one step at a time.

“Maru?”

A pair of glowing eyes illuminated the darkness and Sebastian stumbled backwards on the steps. A beam of light split the darkness in a warm, yellow glow, and the creature shrieked and fled.

Sebastian followed the light to its source, a shaking flashlight in Demetrius’s hands. The light bounced around the room until it landed on Maru, huddled in a panic in the corner of the kitchen.

“What the fuck was that?” she said, her voice shaking.

The light fell onto Sebastian. He shielded his eyes as Demetrius brought the light back to his daughter.

“Are you okay?”

Maru nodded quickly, her eyes still wide with fear.

“They’re all over the place,” Demetrius said as he went to her side. He pulled her up off the floor. “All over the city.”

“Where’s Mom?” Maru asked. “We need to find her. We need to get out of here.”

At that moment, Demetrius’s cell phone rang in his pocket. He fumbled with the screen, answering it as quickly as it could.

“Robin… No… I’ve got them… They’re okay… I’ll get you…”

Sebastian watched as his face fell and seemed to whiten in the glow of the flashlight. He and Maru listened closely to the muffled voice on the other line. There was a sound of panic. Screams.

“Robin!” Demetrius was still as the phone fell from his face. The line was dead.

“What’s going on?” Maru shouted in panic.

“We’ve been invaded,” Demetrius said quickly. “We need to get out of here.”

“Is Mom okay?” Sebastian asked quietly.

Demetrius nodded, but his expression did not show the same certainty. “We’ll find her,” he said. “She’s going to meet us outside of the city.”

“Where will we go?” Maru asked.

“I don’t know,” her father said with a defeated tone. “We’ll figure that out later. We need to get out of here first.”

“How are we supposed to get out of here if those things are in the city?” Sebastian asked angrily.

“We fight our way out,” his step-father said simply. “We don’t have a choice right now.”

Maru and Sebastian followed Demetrius out into the dark city. They quickly got into the car and the headlights illuminated their path. They navigated through the streets which started to fill quickly with more and more cars trying to escape the city. Demetrius slammed on the breaks as more of the creatures took over the intersection and cars collided.

Maru watched in terror out the window as a girl with purple hair ran towards a man and a woman. But they disappeared quickly as Demetrius sped the car around the corner.

“We need to help them!” Maru shouted at her father.

“If you want to get out of this alive,” he father hissed, “we need to worry about ourselves.”

“The bridge is packed,” Sebastian said as they made their way over the top of a hill, bringing the bridge out of the city into sight. “We’ll never make it through.”

“Shit,” Demetrius muttered as he spun the wheel quickly, turning the vehicle around abruptly. He sped through the streets in a desperate attempt to find an alternate way out.

“The graveyard!” Sebastian leaned from the back seat.

“We can’t go through there,” Maru scolded.

“Looks like someone already did,” Sebastian said as they neared. The fencing was torn down as if someone had sped through with a large car.

“Hang on,” Demetrius said as he stepped on the gas. The car lurched forward, following the torn up path out of the city.

Maru buried her face in her hands, muttering to herself. “This isn’t happening.”

The car sped through the opening on the far side of the cemetery, bounding across the field, down the hill, and onto the high way which had started to glow with headlights.

“What about Mom?” Maru shouted as Demetrius turned the car to follow the pavement. He quickly weaved in and out of cars.