6TH DECEMBER 2034

8.30 AM

.................................................................................

"What about me?" I ask furiously.

"It was not enough for Fil and I. It was too sweet so it is not good for your sperm..."

"Seriously? Ann you do not say sperm in front of a child — "

"She is not complaining, is she?" She retorts, liking her lips purposely to piss me off.

I am furious that she drank the whole liquid portion with Fil and left me out. I had handed the bottle over to her to take a sip but she fed it all to Fil and drank the remaining.

Someone tell me why Ann is always extra!

I am too worried to be angry at this moment but Ann is hell bent on annoying me. I am staring at her and Fil licking their lips from the sweetness of the potion my father gave to us to share.

"Just drive Zach..." She says, annoying me even more. I just feel like twisting her mouth in-between my thumb and index finger but I cannot because they are full, soft, sexy and sweet.

We are in her exquisite red sports car with me in the driver's sit and her sitting right next to me. Fil is strapped in a sit belt behind. The interior of the sports car is brown, cozy and comfortable but I am far from comfortable because my father's words bother me.

I am not even comfortable leaving him behind but he is sick with a terminal disease. Many  years he exposed himself to radioactivity at his work place. He was also carrying out his own little science project on me which involved radioactive rays of light as well and now it affects his health.

I know how much that man has sacrificed for me so I feel guilty for even leaving him behind in the house...

My thoughts are interrupted by a loud explosion!

The explosion is so loud and intense that it causes our ears to tingle even through the sound-proof windows of the sports car. Ann ducks to protect herself but I don't. I am looking straight through the windscreen to find out what causes this enormous explosion.

I see a thick black smoke rising from a distance. It forms a thick cloud in which fire can clearly be seen at the core. It rises from the midst of residential buildings in my neighbourhood!

Electric poles begin to spark violently leading to an explosion of a transformer located at the extreme end of the street as lights go out.

"What the fuck!" I exclaim attracting Ann who raises her head to behold the horrendous sight.

We can hear sirens wailing from afar and voices of women crying as people slowly begin to emerge from their houses to observe the happenstance.

what is happening?

Fil begins to cry for she is afraid — the loud intensity of the sound scares her. 

But as I turn in an attempt to console my baby, another loud explosion occurs! This time it is louder and closer than the first one and it's impact can be felt even inside the car such that the side windows of the front seats explode into small glass pieces.

We all duck as a cloud of fire almost consumes our car. This particular explosion is from my father's house!

For a moment my ears can no longer hear a sound, all I can hear is a constant whisle as the world begins to swirl in slow motion in my eyes. I manage to turn to behold my father's house consumed in a thick ash cloud with flames burning violently within.

"Father!" I hear myself yell.

I recall that my father was in there even before the explosion because he had just bid us farewell. As I begin to regain balance in my senses, I put in an attempt to leave the car but Ann holds me back!

"Drive Zach!" She yells at me and I turn to her with a fury in my eyes.

"No! My father — — my father is in there!"

I am trying to leave but she is fighting with me to keep me in the car until I behold her eyes which are smart with tears and her face which is red with fear.

"Look at your daughter Zach..." She turns my attention to Fil who is crying uncontrollably in the back seat. My heart melts.

"Please drive my love, or we shall be consumed too..."

The sound of my crying daughter triggers my senses in a hurtful way. I try to get myself under control as I breathe heavily but I feel jolts of fear and tension ravage the centers of my being as my fingers quaver uncontrollably on the steering. It is almost as if my head is on fire and I cannot even seem to be able to find the start botton.

Ann notices this.

"Tesla start!" Her voice triggers the car on.

"Now fucking drive Zach!" She yells.

The sound of her voice drives my feet onto the accelerator as the car is thrust into full speed, screeching through the ash smoke. We move!

****

Now we are away from the site of explosion with the red Tesla speeding through an almost lonely highway, darting towards a long bridge with a large river underneath. We have been driving in silence for thirty minutes now with the melody of whistling winds harmonizing with the faint vibration of a roaring tesla engine.

The shock of the previous event still keeps my hands quavering on the steering.

I have just lost my father.

Could it be as a result of my actions the previous night with the T.V reporters?

A lot of questions and possible scenarios are going through my head. I am wondering what could be the reason behind this explosion. I am wondering if my father knew it would happen causing him to send us out of the house just before the event or if was just an accident.

My father has always been a genius. In many years with him I have learned that all his actions do have reasons behind them hence I suspect that it could be what he told me about many years ago that has begun to happen.

Fil is still crying uncontrollably and Ann is trying to console her. She cannot bring her to the front seat because of the way I am driving erratically, I might just collide with an approaching vehicle.

Ann cannot speak to me for she sees tears rolling down my eyes uncontrollably — I have just lost my only parent.

My mother died while giving birth to me while my father took care of me ever since. Even now that the only thing I can amount to in life is a male escort, he still takes care of me and my daughter. Her she is facing backwards towards Fil who she is trying very hard to console.

"She is burning up Zach." Ann finally breaks the silence.

She reports Fil's health condition to me as she wipes tears off my baby girl's eyes. She is surprisingly in control of herself through all these and I'm impressed with her given that she is usually the dramatic one. I am grateful because at least one of us is staying sane.

"What do you mean?"

"She is having a terrible fever, we need to get her to a hospital..."

"We can't go to a hospital right now Annaliese, not with all these happenings..."

" — You want her to die huh?"

"She is my daughter, how can you even say that?"

"Then get us to a fucking hospital! Her fever is terrible."

I puss my lips. I totally have a bad feeling about this but Ann is right, even if we are to escape to the end of the world, we will certainly need medical and food supplies to take us through the journey.

I am carrying a child for goodness sake!

"Fine." I agree... "But I don't have any money with me."

She heaves. "Don't you think I know that?"

She begins to search her Hermes hand bag for something but when she does not find what she is looking for, she searches the glove compartment and finally emerges with a black debit card which she offers to me.

"Now don't say no because this is about your daughter's life..."

I do not reply her. I form a serious focus on the road before me ignoring her offer of a black debit card — a card with no spending limits. She just drops it on the dashboard ignoring my stubbornness because she knows I have no choice.

"Tesla, take us to the closest hospital around here." She says to the screen on the dashboard and it comes alive with a google map showing us the closest hospital locations on a screen.

Ann quickly selects one 'St Luke's Hospital' by pointing a finger at the touchscreen.

I observe that I loose total control of the car immediately Ann selects that location because the car switches to auto drive.

She looks at me with faint eyes;

"I am burning up too Zachariah..."