As I stretch to get ready for another day of trying to stay alive, I get up and search around me for some bushes that have edible berries. I scrape together a handful of blackberries that I found on a thorny bush about 10 feet away from me. I eat the delicious blackberries as the purple juice runs down my shirt. I exclaim, “Dang this is my only shirt, whatever guess I have to wash some clothes now.” As I picked up the brown jacket that my father gave to me when he was still alive, I headed to the nearest waterfall. I walk until I hear the water crashing get stronger. I take a breath of fresh air; I realize I have not done that in a while. I shake off that thought and start to take off my garments and throw them into the waterfall. I get a fire started to collect some ashes to use as soap. As I am washing my clothes, I realize I have not taken a bath in a while; I grab a handful of ash and start to rub it on my body and run into the waterfall to clean off. As I am taking a bath, I hear a footstep and a distant voice whispering,  
  “Hello? Is anyone there?” I scramble to grab a weapon and hold it up as the person walks closer. Forgetting that my clothes were in the waterfall I grabbed my coat and held up my weapon as if there were no fear in my body. In real life, I was shaking and had no idea if this would be the end of my journey. No, I refuse to leave this earth without my brother, with that thought running through my head I grip my knife harder. A boy who looks about my age walks out of the trees, just because he’s young does not mean he's any less of a threat I quickly run and catch him in a headlock as he whimpers looking at the knife almost piercing his throat, 
  “I'm not one of them... I pr-omise, I'm just trying to survive like you.”  
     I get closer to his ear trying to keep quiet and spit with venom, “who are you, and what do you want?!” He seems to be shaking in my headlock. I wonder if he's telling the truth, he may not be one of the ubica.  
   He whispers, “Please pl-ease help me I don't wanna end up like that please believe me.” As he starts to sob, I loosen my grip and remove my knife, he falls to the floor sobbing. I wonder what he means not wanting to end up like that.  
   What could he be referring to, I say, “Stop being pathetic, get up there's no time for this.” He stops crying and I hear another set of footsteps, I say with urgency, “Did you travel with anybody here?” He shakes his head and I respond by grabbing my belongings and running to the nearest bush urging him to come with me. As we arrive in the bush like clockwork an ubica arrives out of the trees and looks around for its next meal.  

We watch as it passes and I let out a small sigh I ask the kid, “Now tell me who you are,” he responds, “My name is Adonis, I'm 17 and those things killed my family,” Does he mean the ubica killed his family also? I ask, “You mean the ubica?” He seems confused I follow up with, “That’s what my family and I used to call them it means murderer in Croatian. He seems to be a bit lost I continue with asking him, “Are you not from here?” He shakes his head and grabs rocks that are next to the bush he makes a shape,” and says,” there I'm from Brazil, I escaped and came here with my family,” That makes a lot more sense I think to myself, I realize that we have been sitting in this tree for way too long.  
    I say with urgency, “I gotta go now, I have to find my brother, He replies,” You know I can help if you let me come with you,”  
  I answer with, “Now how can you possibly help me you don't even know him?” He seems to be thinking deeply about something, he says, “Well as I was wandering, I came up to a place not so far from here that a bunch of survivors are hiding from … what do you call them... Ubica?” I roll my eyes as I shake my head urging him to continue as I am now intrigued. He continues with,” I'm willing to take you there if you agree to let me travel with you from now on,” I say with annoyance, “Ugh fine come on then dummy.” He seems a bit shocked at what I just called him, but I give him a look and he jumps up and starts to take me to this place. I hope that we find Demoni, he’s just a little boy. If I find him, I'll never leave him alone ever again. It felt like we have been traveling for forever, I complain,” isn't it time to take a break or something, it's not good to travel in the dark,” He throws a quick glance at me looking annoyed. 
  He says, “Yeah, let's find a spot to rest for the night,” We walk around the dark and gloomy forest for about 5 more minutes looking for a safe spot to sleep. “I found a spot here, between these two bushes,” We both look at each other awkwardly, Adonis says,” It’s a really tight spot eh...,.” I try to find another spot for me to sleep and he stops me in the action and says, “I think we can both fit” he says with a smirk on his face. I roll my eyes not completely against the idea, I move in silence as we both cuddle up inside the bush waiting for the sun to rise again. I could not sleep that night, I stared up at the starry sky wishing things were back to normal.  
  I feel my eyes start to tear up, I get up as fast as I can, so Adonis doesn't see me cry. I found the nearest tree and I broke down. I sob, my legs get weak as I fall on the floor. I miss my brother so much, what if he’s dead? I always thought he would be strong enough to survive alone but can he really? The thought continues to float around my head. I hear footsteps I quickly wipe my tears and stand up straight ready for whoever this was. It was Adonis, for some reason I felt better with him around I haven't had a person to lean on for so long I don’t know how to do it anymore. His heavy gaze meets my eye and I look to the ground as I can't stand for people to see me this way. We say nothing but he comes and sits by my side, I feel comfort with him. I lay my head on his shoulder as we sat in silence. I open my eyes as I realize I accidentally fell asleep with Adonis; I shake him awake as I finally am struck with hope to find my brother. He opens his eyes as I watch and realize how attractive this man really is. His beautiful honey brown eyes, his skin dark like mine soft and just like chocolate drops. I shake the thought out of my head trying to focus on trying to find my brother. I say with excitement, “Let’s go find my brother, I can't wait for you to meet him he’s the sweetest little boy you’ll ever meet,”  
“I'm excited to meet him,” He rumbles with his smooth deep voice. As we get ready to get up, we hear a screech from not even 10 feet away from us. We give each other a quick and alarming look as I urge him to follow me towards the sound. As we arrive, we see a woman getting demolished by the ubica. Blood was everywhere, there was a red stain on the ubica’s mouth as he began eating the heart of the poor women. We stare at this horrific scene. I scan the area, I see livers, a stomach, and even a kidney spread out all over the floor like he was looking for something specific in her body. Adonis steps back in shock and makes a crunch sound.

The ubica makes eye contact with us and I feel my body freeze with fear and anger. Next thing I know Adonis is grabbing my arm and we thrash through bushes and trees trying to get away. As we are far enough from the ubica I realize there’s no way of getting out of this. 
  "We have to kill it,” I say with urgency in my voice. I take my knife out of my pant pocket and hold it out. Adonis grabs a boulder he found from a side of a tree. We converse and make a quick and clean plan to kill this ubica, we hide behind two trees that are close together as the ubica falls into the trap and walks right in between us. I run to the back of him while Adonis throws the rock at it. It seemed like the rock was screaming at us telling us it was on our side because it hit the ubica right at the temple of its head. I took my knife as I slit the ubica’s throat watching the blood escape from the artery that I have just pierced. I feel a certain sense of release as I shake off what happened as no one talks about it on the walk to find the village. We walked for maybe 4 hours as I tell time with the sun. We finally arrived at the village. I saw lots of commotion happening at the bottom of this cliff that is above the village. I feel a severe sense of animosity praying that my brother is okay.  
   Adonis and I walk down the cliff into the village and see a group of child bodies lying on the floor, their guts spattered all over. My heart started to beat out of my chest, I ran to the bodies searching for my precious brother's face. “Good,” I say with relief seeing that there is still hope for his survival. We ran into the camp to find more bodies of civilians. It felt like we were looking for hours until we found a group of ubica surrounding what seemed to be a little child. There were about 10 ubica surrounding this child. I felt so bad I got closer and closer to the group as Adonis stayed back. I needed to find my brother I pushed the ubica out of the way they watched me get into the middle of the circle and I saw him. My brother is lying on the floor covered in blood. I am not sure if it is his blood or not, but he seems to be startled to see me alive still.  
   He screams, “IDEN IS THAT YOU! PLEASE HELP ME I DON'T WANNA DIE!” I am not sure what to do anymore, I have come all this way to find my brother and I cannot stop now. I ran to help him as I felt something grab my arm and push me to the ground.

They kick my leg; it throbs in pain I cannot get up anymore. I look up trying to crawl towards my brother. BOOM. another kick, this time in the stomach I spit up blood still crawling to save my brother. The ubica sprints towards my brother trying to cut open his skin.  
   I scream in horror, “LEAVE HIM ALONE HE’S JUST A LITTLE KID,” Demoni and I meet eyes and I see the fear set in and he realizes this may be the last time he ever sees me. He mutters with tears falling down his face, “I love you sister so so much,” I can't let him die I can't I've come way too far. I looked back to see Adonis was running towards me on the floor. I need to save my brother I get up even though my body feels as if it will give out at any minute. I stumbled towards my brother with Adonis now caught up next to me. He helps me up as we charge forward through the crowd, I'm too late oh no. I see my brother lying on the floor with no life left in his body. His body parts are scattered over the ground, I scream with so many emotions brewing in me. Anger, Depression, Numbness, Death. I fall to the ground as Adonis picks me up and takes off running with me over his shoulder back to where we arrived.  
   I screamed and hit his shoulders demanding him to take me back to my now-deceased brother. As we arrived back in the hooded forest, he set me down on the floor. The sky is now dark just like my heart, I feel empty, I no longer want to live. The only thing that was giving me purpose was just being killed in front of me, that horrible picture burned inside my head. It sunk in... He was really gone. I broke down even worse than the first time, Adonis tries to help as I crawl up into a ball I cry in his arms for hours as he just sits there with me trying to support however, he can. I watch with tears streaming down my face still after what seemed like years. How am I supposed to move on, my only family member left was just killed. I hold Adonis tighter as I feel as if I am numb, I feel nothing anymore no pain; no happiness nothing. I have no meaning for life. 

* 3 years later* 
  It’s been 3 years since my brother's death, the famine has still gone on but there is less ubica walking around. Adonis and I are still travelling together, we confessed our love to each other after a year of travelling. We both just turned 20 years old and have a little one on the way. In the middle of this horrible experience came positives, for so long I felt as if I had nothing to live for, but Adonis changed me. I now have a beautiful family with me and Adonis. I decided to take all the negative things in the world and change it into a positive, safe place to live, one where my brother would be happy. I created a beautiful oasis for survivors of this epidemic. There are now hundreds of us living in this forest that I have so many memories in. I supply them with food, safety and a home, something I've never had during this time, and I need nothing in return. I finally found my happiness, my purpose in life is helping people. I feel like life has increased for me so much, I like to think my brother was the reason all this has happened. Even though I miss him so much I thank him for making my life better. I whisper while looking up at the beautiful clear sky, “I love you Demoni,” A thought hits me, Adonis and I have been trying to find a name for our little one, I ran to Adonis to tell him my idea. I exclaim, “Adonis I got it! We can name them .. Demoni,”  
    He looks at me like I just completed an 10,000-piece puzzle in 15 minutes, he says, “It’s perfect babe, absolutely perfect,”.