Adam/Eve – The Creation.

Sunset Valley was once a town filled with joy. Perhaps not the most exciting of towns, populated mostly with the elderly or the very young (or simply the very bored), it still maintained a sunny disposition at all times.

Back then, everyone would wave at everyone, even if they didn’t particularly get along.

They even drove cars without a care back then, back in the good times. Back when people could go out at night without fearing for their lives.

But then everything changed. Seemingly overnight, the town died as though someone had sucked the very life from its veins. Even the sun felt muted against the cold blue sky. The once joyful town somehow seemed cold and empty and alone. It had been orphaned in the rain.

Even the sea seemed to have stopped moving. It appeared bored, like a slob unable to shift from the chair they’d become so used to.

There was, however, one spark of life in the emptiness that was Sunset Valley.

Fatima Caliente had lived in Sunset Valley all her life with her grandmother Dina. She’d expected to move out when she turned twenty and go and find something more exciting for herself. But she stood on that beach staring out at the bored sea at twenty years of age.

She had not moved out, she had not found anything more exciting for her life. She’d nearly died countless times however, and had to hide from the darkness every evening in her grandmother’s house. She’d never expected to be one of the last people left in the town.

Her grandmother’s house was unarguably beautiful. It was big and comfortable and filled with the warmth that radiated (sometimes) from the elderly lady herself. Fatima had no quams with staying there at all.

The only problem she had with it was the fact that it provided little shelter as a hiding place. She knew that They were forbidden from entering homes without invitation or permission, but it still scared her. They were only walls, and they were only thin walls. All it would take would be for Them to get angry and forget the rules.

Fatima would spend the afternoons gardening. Growing fruits and vegetables had become her new escape; nature was what kept her from thinking about Them, thinking about how many of her friends They’d killed, thinking about the amount of blood that had run down the streets of Sunset Valley because of Them.

Sometimes she’d get so caught up not thinking about Them that she wouldn’t see the sun beginning to set over Sunset Valley.

Run fast Fatima. Run like you’ve never run before.

And she’d hide in the safe womb of her grandmother’s home until the morning came.

“Adam expects us to be outside by now,” Jacob said as he stared out of his bedroom window. He was one of the patrollers, one of the Children. Adam, his leader, controlled him. Adam, his leader, was his new father. Adam, his leader, was a murderer.

“Then maybe you should go out?” Eve smiled slightly at the shaven-headed man as she stood behind him, gazing out the window herself.

Eve felt proud that she was the last surviving female member of their group. She was the ‘perfect specimen of humanity’ according to Adam, and that was something that she would always remember. Adam had become so possessive over her that he wouldn’t even let her go out with the guys on patrol. She was his baby – his one and only. Perhaps it was that she was called Eve, perhaps he felt that he was recreating humanity. She didn’t know, but she knew that she was safe – and that was all that mattered.

Adam sat quietly in the living room, his sofa facing the large bay windows which looked out on to his town. His town – that felt good to him. His town. No one else’s. He ruled it, he ruled the night – he owned Sunset Valley.

And so Adam’s Children went out in to the night, heading away from the mansion they had overrun to comb through the rest of the town. They knew the rules. They couldn’t go in to houses, but anyone caught outside was a victim to them. They were prey.

If they were not with Them, they were against Them.

Cars still stood still, empty in the road, abandoned by their owners when they fled the town. They had banned the use of cars. Cars had been abolished under Their rule. Cars were evil, unnatural, unfriendly, cruel to the world Adam and Eve were to create. But Jacob knew that Eve had nothing to do with it – she didn’t really believe in what the others believed. She was a drifter, just looking for the security of protection.

But Adam didn’t know this, she was perfect in his blinkered eyes.

But then the sun would come up again, and safety would at least be partially restored to the town.

Sometimes in the mornings Fatima would sit on her balcony and think about everything that had changed. The people that had died. The way the town had evolved, twisted and crumpled under Their weight.

And she constantly thought about her sister: Eve.

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