ART Of Survival - Chapter 1

*Noise of wind blowing through the curtains*

Amongst the noise of the wind blowing, another sound was coming from a house, it was very a small single bedroom house where after 1 pm one cannot even see the sunlight. The apartment was situated in a very small street of Busan, South Korea, which was now filled with wild plants and even some wild animals like monkeys, snakes, and rodents. In that house was a young man whose facial features can be hazily seen under the dim light coming through the window. He had hazel-colored eyes, which one can see under the messy deep black hair on his head. he had a straight nose complemented with a small mouth and his face had a prominent jawline.

If the world was what it used to be 10 years ago then he probably would have been famous. But the most eyes catching feature of him was his long and elegant fingers which were holding a pencil and he was scribbling something on a piece of yellowish paper that seemed to be worn off because of the constant erasing and redrawing. While drawing he has a small gin on his face and even his eyes were shining. This young man was another victim of Virus X which started spreading 10 years ago and now all that left of the world is a mere 60% of what it used to be. He didn’t catch the virus but his family did and thus he was left alone in the world.

When there was no one there to keep him company, he caught hold of a hobby which later turned into an obsession. He got obsessed with drawing and sketching. If one enters his room they can see hundreds of paper lying around the floor and even stuck to the wall, even the walls and furniture were not left alone they too were filled with various kinds of drawings and doodles.

After completing yet another drawing which now after 10 years of practice was comparable to professional artists, he stood up and moved his thin yet tall frame towards the television. *Click* he opened the television which now only had one channel running which showed updates on the Virus X and other information, after seeing that there was nothing different showing on the TV, he was going to turn the TV off but suddenly he froze as he heard something in the TV.

“Breaking News!” “Breaking News!” People in Coma due to Virus X are waking up and even some patients which had recently caught this disease are showing signs of recovery! Is it the end of the Virus X? “Breaking News!” “Breaking News!” Even the reporter speaking was shaking and was on the verge of crying.

Mal-Chin the person standing in front of the TV the drawing addict froze on the spot, he was unable to process the sudden piece of news he got. He stood there with a confusing look on his face for 10 minutes then suddenly his body started shaking he looked down and warm tears automatically started falling from his eyes. “Mom, Dad I survived,” he said in his shaky yet powerful voice and he felt something was lifted from his chest.

He ran towards the window to see what was going outside and he saw people running and jumping and hugging each other while crying tears of joy. For a moment he thought of jumping out of the window but he stopped himself from doing so. He looked around his house, in which he has spent almost 10 years of his life watching the mess he has made a smile appeared on his face. After his parents died, he spent some months in that house where they used to live together, until he moved towards the main city to survive as the rations were provided mostly in the city and there was little to no chance for him to get food where he was living.

“I should probably start cleaning my place now,” he said as he started moving towards the house picking up trash and cleaning his room. He was in the process of cleaning as he felt the ground shake. He just brushed it off as he thought of it being a normal earthquake, but, after some time the ground started shaking again but this time it was not a normal earthquake. this time the earthquake instead of dying down was getting more and more vigorous. Mal’s (Auth:- I will call him Mal, The meaning of his name is Persisting till the end = Mal-Chin) face turned white as various thoughts surfaced in his mind. “What if I die here,” “After 10 years would I not be able to see the outside world?” “I am just 19 and virgin, I cannot die just yet,” (Auth:- Woah buddy calm down ‘Chotto matte’).

Suddenly everything came to a stop as if all that was happening a moment ago was a bad dream and he woke up from it. Mal rushed towards the TV to see if all of what he heard before was true or not. As he opened to TV he heard something that no one would have ever thought of.

“Breaking News!” “Breaking News!” We have just witnessed the greatest earthquake of the century! The reason for this happening is still unknown! The earthquake that shook the world! “Breaking News!” “Breaking News!”

“WTF!!” O_O