Prologue

The Cost Of Survival

Sabrina Holland stared up at the smog-stained sky, her mind trying to piece together the puzzle. Only moments before, the eighteen year-old had awoken from a dream she had already forgotten wondering why in the world she was laying back-first on what felt painfully like gravel. She could feel the small pieces of stone stick up into her back but her body just didn't feel like moving.

So instead she gazed at the black smog, admiring the way it folded in on itself before billowing outwards like an ocean of bleak blackness. As she stared, she realised that this smog could only come from something like a large fire. This realisation caused her to sit up suddenly. Her bright blue eyes widening at the carnage in front of her.

The source of the roiling smog was a collapsed two-story building, the east-facing wall the only evidence of how big the building had been. The blackness covered the majority of the ruined building, with the flickers of orange flames showing through only to be engulfed once again. Thrusting out of the darkness was the back-end of a ravaged petrol truck, its cylindrical truck-bed torn apart by the fire and flames. It was obvious to Sabrina that the building's collapse must have been due to the petrol tanker exploding.

Is that why she was on the other side of the road?

With this thought, Sabrina looked around her. She was indeed sitting on white gravel in what looked like somebody's driveway with a low wall to her left and the tall side of a house to her right. Debris was strewn all over the gravel of the driveway and the tarmac of the road; Broken bits of wood, wrenched pieces of stone, shards of shattered glass. Sabrina's eyes rested on the fire-eaten remains of a sign. The golden letters had been scorched and the metal it had been attached to was twisted around though the words could still clearly be read.

The Ferret Inn

These words struck a chord with Sabrina. The Ferret Inn? Why was that so familiar?

Sabrina narrowed her eyes, concentrating on the sign, willing her memory to come back to her. It was… an event? Some kind of party? That's right, it was a party! It was Sabrina's eighteenth birthday today and they had gone to the village of Lelant for the week, just off of St. Ives in Cornwall. Her parents had—

Her parents!

Bursting to her feet, Sabrina immediately regretted her impulsive actions. A tremendous wave of pain rushed up her body and her right leg buckled underneath her. Sabrina fell onto her hands and knees, gravel digging into her bare palms. She spat curses through her teeth as she twisted around back to her rear, gazing down in horror and repulsion at her right leg.

A great maw of red and pink was gouged out below her knee slowly oozing blood that stained the white gravel crimson. Sabrina shakily reached forward, plucking a piece of gravel out of the wound. This small action alone was enough to cause Sabrina to nearly scream. She threw the gravel away where it skittered among its brethren. She tried again but decided two was two too many.

"Mum…" Sabrina muttered, looking hopelessly at the bleak wreckage of the inn. "Dad…"

She couldn't just sit here. She had to find out, she had to see if her parents were… were…

Without letting her thoughts go any further, Sabrina reached to her left to grab the low stone wall, almost submerged in green-vined leaves. Gritting her teeth, Sabrina pulled as hard as she could, levering herself off of the gravel. She tried her best not to move her right leg, but nevertheless pain wracked itself through her body, almost enough to make her tumble back down again. Instead, she managed to keep a hold of the leaves, panting, cold sweat making its way down her warm face.

Awkwardly she hopped forward, her trainers pushing their way through the loose gravel, making her lose her balance. She caught herself but in the process bent her right leg. Her eyes watered as she hissed, taking a moment to regain her composure.

Sabrina's second hop was much more successful and she managed to make it to the end of the wall and the start of the road without moving her right leg much at all. However, the few metres of tarmac looked to all the world like a mile. There was no hand-hold to keep her supported. She wanted to give in there and then but when she thought of her parents she knew there was no way she could. Gritting her teeth, Sabrina let go of the wall and shakily hopped onto the road.

As she got closer to the destroyed inn Sabrina could feel the heat buffeting against her, trying to push her. She pushed back, making it halfway across the road.

The wind suddenly changed direction as if to spite Sabrina personally, sending the buffeting smog into her. Instantly Sabrina's eyes were watering, soot staining her face. Even this wouldn't stop her and Sabrina clawed her way through the smog, finally making it to the opposite sidewalk. She rested against a remnant of wall before letting out a small gasp as the stone crumbled. Sabrina hit the floor hard, scraping her elbows and causing a fresh pulse of pain to roar up her body.

This close to the floor, the smog was mostly above her. Sabrina could see through the darkness strange shapes on the floor. Narrowing her soot-covered eyes, she realised that they were corpses, twisted in grotesque ways as they succumbed to the flames. Their flesh was black and coarse, all hair burned away, the remnants of their clothes stuck to their crisped skin. Sabrina desperately reached across the floor and grasped the hot floor with her nails.

She let out a stubborn groan as she pulled herself across the scorched wooden flooring. The wound in her leg screamed at her but Sabrina silently screamed back, willing herself to move. To her right the looming corpse of the lorry stood resolute, grey and withered. She tried to use the metal undercarriage to help pull herself forward but the metal burned at her hands, refusing her attempts.

With much agony Sabrina finally made it to the first corpse. She knew it wasn't her parents. It was too small, too thin… and looked too much like a child. Sabrina closed her eyes, the scene almost too much for her. She pushed it down deep into the pit of her stomach and forced her eyes to open, staring at the other corpses.

Finally her eyes caught a faint glimmer of a reflection from a pair of glasses.

"…Dad?" Her voice came out a croak. She crawled her way over to the body, looking at it with damp eyes. The body was barely recognisable with the blackened, cracked skin and the twisted shape of its limbs. But the twisted remnants of those glasses, the glistening metal that was no doubt a watch on its wrist… Sabrina knew.

"Dad!" Her bottom lip quivered as she held her hands over her father's corpse. They shook vigorously as her mind flashed back to only hours before. Her father… A smiling man, an optimist, a man who took the effort to do well for his family. When Sabrina was young he would sit her on his lap and read her stories, holding the book out in front of her so she could see the pictures. He had upheld her honour when she just started school by confronting a pair of elder girls who seemed intent on ruining her school-life. He had been amusingly over-protective of her when she had made friends with a boy at fifteen who he assumed was her boyfriend… But he was always understanding, always smiling and now…? Now he was a chunk of charred flesh… No sign of the great man he had once been.

Sabrina shook wildly, her teeth chattering, her shoulders shaking. This was too much, too much, too much! She managed to roll onto her back in order to sit up, clutching her head in her hands. Her father was… he was gone, dead… he was…

"Where are you going, Sabrina?"

He had been concerned for her and she had just blown him off, just like that…

"I'm just feeling a little light-headed. I'll back in a moment, I need some air."

Light-headed… Light-headed! Sabrina tore her fingers down her face, eyes wide open. She had seen this! She had seen that lorry come hurtling down the hill, the brakes not working. She had seen the massive vehicle smash its way through the modest walls of the Ferret Inn. She had watched her father die before… She had… She had died herself… Crushed under the wheels of the lorry, pinned to the floor, unable to move. When it had exploded, it had taken a long while of suffering and pain before she was gone and the next moment she was back in the inn, at the table with her parents, with her father and…

"Mum!" Sabrina tore her hands away from her face to look wildly around her room. Surely there was a chance – the slimmest of chances – that… that…

But as soon as the thought occurred to Sabrina, it was soon thrown away. There, slumped against the lone standing wall, was a corpse. There wasn't any room for doubt on this corpse. The fire had torn through the woman's legs, charred and blackening them. But her upper half was still relatively in-tact. There were burns on the skin and the clothes were singed but she could still see the modest studded earrings, the freckles on her cheeks, the orange hair…

Disregarding the tear in her leg and the burns on her hands, Sabrina practically threw herself across the room to kneel in front of her mother's corpse, the pain in her leg nothing compared to that feeling in her chest of knowing that her mother and her father were… were gone…

"Please…." Sabrina pleaded faintly, cupping her mother's cheeks with her hands. Somehow, despite the fire raging and the heat all around, the skin was cold but still soft. "Please! Don't leave me alone! Don't… Don't do this!"

"If you're feeling unwell, we could leave, Sabrina."

"I didn't mean… I didn't want… I couldn't know…" The tears were flowing down Sabrina's cheeks now, dripping against the blackened floor only to sizzle in the heat.

"No, no, it's okay. You guys stay here, I'll be fine. Probably just that glass of wine, heh. I'll be back in a moment."

Sabrina fell back onto her rear, staring at her mother's motionless face. Her whole body was quivering, the tears spilling over her cheeks. Blood was oozing out of the gouge in her leg but Sabrina had no thoughts about that any more. She didn't feel any more physical pain. Instead, she clawed at her face slowly, dragging her nails down her cheeks.

"I… I saw this… I saw this! I… I could have saved you… I could have… done something, I could have… I could... I... I..." Suddenly, Sabrina laughed. It was a strange, gargled laugh. It was a laugh of someone truly gone. "Ha… I saw it… And I… Hah… Hah… Left you to die… It was me… Haha… This was my fault…" Sabrina's nails tore through her skin as she could only stare at her mother. Behind her, shadows were making their ways into the building but Sabrina didn't notice and didn't care. "I did this… Hahah… It was me… me… I… I killed you… Hahahaha! I killed you!"

The young woman was still laughing, crying, and madly murmuring as she had to be forcibly dragged from the inferno. She didn't even protest, didn't even fight. Just kept looking at her mother, even when the building was far out of sight.

A/N:- Well, well, well. How time flies. To think it's been around about two years since I stopped Encore in the middle of its run. The tides have finally turned and my heart wants to - needs to - write again, so here we are for the first story of my Project Phoenix (Something you can read more about on my profile). It feels really, really good to back at this and the last thing I want is to disappoint my readers again which is why, as of publishing this chapter, the entire story has already been written. Yep, that's right. There will be no excuse for delays, no excuse for late chapters, since they are already done.

I will be submitting twice a week, on Mondays and on Thursdays, starting on the 6th of April. Look forward to an adventure like no other in the first book of the World's End Chronicles - Final Destination: Encore!