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Eve:

Chapter One: Such Small Hands

"It's time for a new beginning."

-???

Dawn was breaking. The orange color of the sunrise bled into the small room, the ruddy color steadily reflected off of the black scales of the dragoness laying in one of the cots laid out. She opened her eyes slowly and smiled into the warmth. Her sickness was gone, as she wasn't in pain this morning; a fact that she became more aware of as she stretched marveling in the freedom of movement afforded.

She jumped as a cargo plane suddenly roared overhead taking off from an airport a few blocks away, the sound from the propellers shook and rattled the windows in their panes, the entire building shuddering as the deep note slowly started to fade. It was amazing she could've slept through such as sound seeing as the C-130's were coming and going every hour or so anymore.

The dragoness stood slowly careful not to wake the other occupants of the room as she shuffled her way out into the hallway. She opened the door slowly and slipped out. The soldier stationed outside the door was sound asleep his breathing amplified by the gasmask he wore. She crept around him down towards the bathroom his breathing echoing down the hallway.

She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door with a sigh, stripping her clothing off quickly and turning the water for the shower on. This was the first shower she'd had in a week, and the first one she could enjoy alone in... Well... She couldn't remember actually. Slowly she slipped into the warm embrace of the sheets of water shivering and murring as the warmth cascaded off of her midnight form.

She tilted her head back musing to herself. The fact she was no longer in pain was good. It meant her body had developed an immunity to the bio-weapon that had been released in the city. She'd been told a week ago, that she'd probably die a slow and painful death. She'd watched countless people come through the door of the clinic and do just that. But somehow she, and maybe a few others; were able to pull through the illness. Those who survived the sickness could navigate the city without gasmasks and purified water, but it was a miniscule number.

The whole city of Caston was in turmoil. It was about two weeks ago when the bombs went off in the residential areas, releasing their toxins over the city. The National Guard was there within hours helping the survivors and administering medicine to all they could. Unfortunately the medicine ran out before the infected did. Now they were here just supplying food and water as well as a twenty-four hour guard service for the clinics and hospitals.

She got caught up in the mess since she was an assistant for one of the surgeons at the largest hospital in Caston. She'd been called in the middle of the night to come and help assist with the infected and had managed to contract the disease herself. But it was all part of the oath she took a year before to help the sick anyway she could.

The dragon ran her hands through her hair washing the feeling of sickness and grime off of her body, trying to forget; at least for a moment, all the things that had happened over the past couple weeks. She basked in the warmth for a little longer before shutting the water off and stepping out of the shower.

The power flickered and went out, leaving her in pitch black. She sighed, the entire city was falling apart. Blindly she groped around for her clothes and slipped back into the dirty things effectively undoing all the cleaning the shower had done. With a grimace she started to open the door before she heard shouting from down stairs as well as gunfire.

She backed away from the door in fear as the shouting and gunfire got closer. She heard the guard in the hallway shout something before his voice was drowned out by more gunshots.

Suddenly the door to the bathroom was kicked open. A foreign soldier of some sort was silhouetted in the doorway as he glared into the room. The dragoness was frozen unable to move or make as sound as the soldier shouted something in a language she didn't recognize and then continued down the hallway to the next doorway.

There were screams and gunfire from the next door over. Then silence as the dragoness fainted from the shock.

. . .

"Hey, wake up."

Something was prodding her in the side; she opened her eyes slowly to find a canine looking down at her,

"Are you alright? You're the only one in this city block who isn't full of holes." The dog looked wide-eyed. Scared even.

She sat up slowly and rasped out, "I think so... I don't feel injured..."

"You're lucky then. 'cadians came through and executed nearly everyone... Except me and you it seems." He extended a hand to help her to her feet, "I'm Adam by the way."

"Eve." The dragoness took his hand and was pulled to her feet, "So you said everyone is dead?" She asked her voice wavering.

The dog nodded, "Yeah, as far as I can tell, I haven't done a lot of searching but I've gone through about two city blocks and you're the first survivor I've found." His eyes were large, he looked close to tears.

Eve looked over the canine, a husky as far as she could tell, he looked nineteen maybe twenty, several years younger than her. He was skinny, and short, probably had found himself a good hiding place to not get killed.

He broke her train of thought abruptly, "Yah know, you're lucky your scales are so dark. That's probably how they missed you; I almost didn't see you in here as I came by."

Eve nodded slowly in agreement, "How'd you escape it?"

He shrugged, "I have no idea actually..." His eyes lowered in shame, "I fainted as soon as they came in my house. I guess they thought they killed me? I-I dunno."

He started to tear up a little and Eve wrapped a wing around him, "Come on, we should get out of here."

"Where are we gonna go?" He asked looking up at her his eyes still huge.

"I don't know, Adam. I don't know. Somewhere that doesn't smell like death."

Eve led Adam along down the hallway skirting the guard's body and heading down the stairs to street level. She shuddered seeing the blood spray over the walls and windows of the lobby, Eve didn't dare look at the bodies littering the floor, lest she recognize someone and lose all of her resolve.

She pushed the door open and glance up and down the street. Totally deserted. And silent. It was eerily quiet as she and Adam stepped out into the street. The entire city was without power and all the denizens dead. It didn't look any different than usual aside from the lack of lights but the aura was disturbing.

Eve paused looking first one way up the street and then the other eyes searching for signs of Acadian troops. Seeing none she sighed,

"We'll head for my house. I have a battery powered radio; maybe we can figure out what the hell has happened and go from there. I've also got a car if we decide it's safe to use it."

Adam nodded and followed in silence as they hurried up the road. The walked through several miles of empty city all the buildings dark with the occasional blood splatter on the windows from the unlucky occupants inside. The smell of spent cartridges and blood was everywhere even if the evidence of it was mostly hidden from view. Caston city had become a ghost town in less than a day and it seemed like Eve and her companion were the only two souls left. Briefly Eve wondered if anybody in the subway system might have survived, but she dismissed the thought quickly. Too many thugs and bums for that to be a good thing.

It took about two hours of walking before they reached Eve's neighborhood. It looked just as the city had, dark and unoccupied. The smell of death was less here though, since most people had left their homes and headed for shelters and clinics after the bombs went off.

They walked up to her house and she opened the door ushering Adam inside with her before locking it after him. The inside was well lit even without the power because of the skylights in the ceiling.

Eve gestured towards the couch, "Make yourself at home, rest. There's no telling how much peace we'll get. I'm gonna go dig out the radio so I'll be back."

Adam nodded and flopped onto the couch tiredly the walk apparently had been a little too much for his un-athletic form.

Eve looked at him for a moment, "You want some food or drink first? You look beat."

Adam shook his head, "I can wait until we have the radio on. I don't know if I can stomach anything right now anyway."

Eve nodded in agreement before heading back towards her bedroom. She rummaged around in the dark for a few minutes before finding the radio. It was nothing special just an old radio her father had given her years ago when she'd graduated medical school.

She returned to the living room to find Adam had fallen asleep during the time it took her to find the radio. She smiled softly,

"Poor kid, this must be terrifying for you." She murmured quietly setting herself down beside the canine. She stroked his ears gently, "Though... I'm scared shitless myself. I just know how to handle myself in situations like this thanks to my medical background. Can't have a surgeon panicking..." She trailed off realizing she was talking to herself.

With a sigh she turned the radio on and started flipping through the frequencies slowly. Everything was just static, no stations within the radio's range were transmitting it seemed. Eve sighed again, letting her breath out as slow as she could manage. She turned the radio back off and set it aside. She leaned back into the couch farther feeling small and isolated from the world.

She had get little idea what was going on, but it was obviously not a good sign for Caston. First the dirty bombs had gone off, the government had blamed terrorism for the attack, but now an army had come through and slaughtered the residents of Caston. Eve wasn't familiar with military tactics, but it sounded like an invasion or extermination to her.

Eve stopped her train of thought realizing her breathing had increased exponentially. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself calming back down. She closed her eyes slowly and almost immediately slipped off into sleep not realizing how tired and worn out she was.

The two slept soundly on their separate sides of the couch with the late evening sun filtering through the window. Unfortunately, this was hardly the last of the duo's troubles, they had only just begun...

...tbc