Graphic Novels/ 1°L LVA

He starts to cry. He has never felt so miserable, and desperate. “I need to find them, but not now. This area might be dangerous, but I’m too weak for the moment. I have to sleep. Tomorrow is another day…” He walks to his parent’s house, and notices that they left all their food. “Weird…” Then he collapses from fatigue, on the dusty couch.

Text day , he wakes up early on the morning. Nothing seems to have changed , he is still  alone. “ I need to move on and find my parents or anybody that would be alive. I have no idea of the place where they could be. But first I need to find a faster mode of transport than the bike.” He opens the barn door…

Solitude

A man riding a horse arrives in an empty town completely destroyed. He supposes the same thing happened here. Four day before Tomy woke up in the hospital with nobody in. He searched in the entire hopital looking for someone for more than five hours.  But always nobody. Tomy was scared to go out because of what was written on the door : « Don’t open, dead inside ». However he had to. He will always remember the smell  of the dead bodies which grabbed him at the throat. At that moment, he just thought the dead were behind the hospital but he was wrong.  The dead bodies were evrywhere : in the streets, in the houses, in the shops… And he saw people who were worst than the smell. He decided to leave the town to go and see if all the country was touched by the « virus » which killed everybody. On his way he found a horse, maybe the only survivor with him.  And now he is here.

Tomy crosses the ruins of the town. His horse seems weak. Maybe he is tired of walking. Suddenly he remembers the river where the horse drunk. And what if it was contamined ? He sees a barn and goes in to let his horse rest.

Tomy puts Jolly Jumper in a box. « Stay here » says Tomy to his horse, « I will find you a medicine  and you will be okay ». He doesn’t really know if everything is gonna be okay and he is really scared of what could happen to Jolly Jumper. How can he save his horse from a thing he doesn’t know ? How can he save him whan nobody has been saved ?

Mathilde  et sarah

Standing in the Harrison Memorial Hospital yard, I look around. Leafs and papers whirl around me, the wind leading them on the dry yellowish grass that squeaks under my feet. It is as desolated as the room I woke up in, no birds singing, no nurses, nobody. The weather is quite hot, heavy: I would like to take my shirt off, but I am scared of what I could find. When I opened my eyes, my whole body was sore, I could barely move, I could not even smile. I started moving my toes first, wondering if I could walk. Relieved, I sighted and bend my legs. Then, I figured that I had a scar on my right cheek, a large and painful scar, though it seemed healed.

As soon as I tried to get off the bed, I immediately felt a sharp pain from my shoulder blades to my waist, as if someone had almost beat me to death. I yelled for help, screamed even, crying and praying for somebody –anybody- to answer. Silence, silence was all I could hear, and for once in my life, I found it comforting.

I am sweating, my whole back is wet. Maybe I will find a shelter if I keep walking – maybe I will find someone- far away-

away from this dreadfully dull place.

I feel like I am walking on an endless road. Why am I alone? I don’t even know if it’s Monday, or another day of the week, I don’t know what time it is. I don’t know if we are still in September. That is probably the only thing I recall. I remember dropping my daughter Elizabeth in kinder garden – it was her first day. She was keeping her tiny fist tight around my jacket, whining and begging me to take her back home. Home. Do I still have a home? Will my loneliness continue forever?

As I keep walking – I can feel my knees bending by themselves- I notice a bike. I seize it and start riding, painfully. Is it a symbol of hope?

I recognize the streets I live in. It is desolated as well, a nasty smell is tickling my nostrils. It smells like mould, as if a corpse was festering nearby. The street is similar to the hospital yard: the grass is dry, burned by the sun and breaks under the wheels of my bike like glass. The window panes are shattered and the door is open, same for my neighbors’ houses.  Has everybody escaped? Even if it happened, why would no one come for me- why would Karen not come for me? I brake and stop in front of the porch. My heart pounds at such an extent it might explode. My hands are sweaty, my entire back is wet, my shirt drips. I leave the bike in the garden- I mean what is left from the garden- and push the door. It squeals, increasing the pace of my heartbeat. I am shivering: what will I find behind the door? Will it still look like my home?

“Karen?” I shout, still trembling. “Elizabeth?” I wail.

I wipe my tears in a wide and almost theatrical way. I must keep my mind clear if I want to survive, if I want to find my family. I should get to my garage, there is a drawer there, where I hide one of my guns- just in case. Being a cop helps sometimes. I turn on the lights- well, looks like the power is still running. I open the drawer: the gun is missing. Maybe Karen used it, to defend herself and our daughter from whatever made everybody flee  the city. It does not matter, I can take my father’s shotgun, the one he offered me when I became a cop. It’s loaded, and there is a box of extra bullets on the drawer. Another sign of hope I guess. I should pack a surviving kit, I need to get out of here. I leave the garage, grab my wallet – there are around fifty dollars and my ID- a flashlight, a box of matches, a Swiss army knife, a flask and some old biscuits I found in the kitchen – there is nothing else. I take a quick shower- I had nothing to fear after all, the only scar I have crosses my face. I change and leave the house.

A nice vacation

Walker woke up from his dreamless slumber to the feeling of the burning sun against his eyelids. His blinking eyes were tearing up because of the blinding light. He felt the urge to close the blinds. He weakly stood up, but as he reached out, his legs gave out and he fell to the ground. He stayed on the floor for a few moments, trying to put himself back together. His head was aching. He tried to reach the alarm bell near his bed. He pulled on it several times but no one answered. What was he doing here? He began to walk through the empty corridors and wondered why the building was deserted.

As he stepped out of the hospital, he was overwhelmed by the heat of the sun. It felt weird because his last memories were of a harsh winter. The grass had been covered in a thick coat of snow. There was a road sign which was indicating the name of the building: Harrison Memorial Hospital. .

A newspaper was whirling because of the windy breeze. He caught it and looked at the headlines. They read: “EMERGENCY ALERT: Tornado warning. Compulsory evacuation of the state of Alabama. First tornado will hit the 21^st. Citizens will stay out of the state until the 26^th.” This was the edition of the 19^th of August of 2036. Although he was not aware of what day it was, he assumed that the first tornado had already hit since everyone was gone.

He had to get out of the state before the next tornado arose. There was a large road in front of the hospital.  He only had one option: following the path until he arrived in a city, where he could get some supplies.

The trudge would be long and difficult.

The air was incredibly heavy and humid. Every breath he took felt uncomfortably warm. On the side of the road, he caught a glimpse of a bicycle. A flood of memories came back to him. He remembered the reason why he had been hospitalized. He had ben hit by a car while riding his bicycle. As he looked at the bike, he decided that no accident would keep him from riding one again. It would be faster to travel with it anyway.

After what seemed like an excruciatingly long time in the unbearable heat of summer, he finally entered a neighboring city. It was utterly devastated. Windows were broken, roof tiles had fallen. The wobbly doors of the houses did not offer any protection. He came in one of them, seeking for provisions. He did not find any. He did found a hat, however, which proved to be very useful against the rays of the sun.

Walker felt uneasy being all alone in this ghost city. Why had they left him to die here?

When he heard the neigh of a horse as he neared a stable, he felt quite relieved.

“Hey there, my friend,” he said as he gazed at the whining horse. He quickly saddled the stallion and they rode away from the barn.

It was now a race against time. He did not have any food nor water. Only his fellow companion could keep him away from loneliness and hunger, if need be. As they rode fast on the highway, they passed by the destroyed buildings and cars.

“What a nice vacation.”