Chapter 1
The Forgotten
Copyright © Miriam Khan 2026
All rights, electronic, print and other reserved by the author. The reproduction or other use of any part of this publication without the prior written consent of the rights holder is an infringement of the copyright law. This is a work of fiction. People and locations, even those with real names, have been fictionalized for the purposes of this story.
The moral right of the author has been asserted and has been identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
Elaina
I had been grocery shopping when the sirens went off. I quickly grabbed a bag of kumquats—small fruits that looked like tiny oranges that made the back of your jaw zing— crammed it in my pocket along with two papayas, which were my dad’s favorite, then hurried out of the store and back into my Jeep.
Once again I had to go home with hardly any food. My father will have been waiting on the veranda, cane beside him, drinking a cup of tea he would have made himself, with two plain cookies that I always considered boring, but which I now knew were misleading due to seeming so simple—a lot like him.
He was a very basic man with basic needs. Yet far from meager and boring. He had stories to tell, real survival tales, of loss and hope, the kind that ached your heart, but also inspired you. He was my hero for a reason.
These days, I had to be my own hero. He was old now. Ninety four. He loved me like no one else. Only now he was getting weaker and unsteady on his legs. He was unable to defend me from the Searchers who came to visit from time to time, ransacking the house I grew up in and patting us down like two children hiding candy.
He would have been unable to do anything if one of them turned nasty and raped me like I’d heard they did other girls and women. I was probably too scrawny for them. An attribute I could thank my dad for, as well as his temperament.
I suddenly longed to get back to him.
The siren always made me anxious, even if it was just to keep us controlled and in order. Curfews weren’t just at night anymore. Since the ‘outbreak,’ they happened at any moment of the day, usually when there was a risk of the infected making their way past the border we had to create to keep us separated from the ‘The Forgotten’ as they called them.
I drove through the not so busy roads. It was the only good thing about being allowed out in small groups. I tried the radio out of habit, listening to the usual static to drown out the morgue-like silence of my hometown of Jackson County.
Luckily, I was back home five minutes later. As I pulled up I was surprised my father wasn’t sitting on the porch like I imagined, soaking up the mid summer rays. There was a time the stench of rotting flesh made it hard to sit outside in this season. Since the dead infected had been cleared away, we had some fresh air back.
I got out and climbed the steps to the house we’d lived in for the past forty six years, which was my whole life.
“Dad” I called out, opening the porch door. “Dad?”
The house was still. Too still. I hurried into every room. Where could he have gone? There were only two other families that lived on this section of Missouri, and a few others. The rest was cordoned off.
There was a groan coming from his bedroom. I ran inside and found him on the floor.
“Dad” I yelled, running over to him, my heart sinking.
“Elaina. My legs,” he said. “They just went.”
I tried to lift him, but he was heavy, despite how thin and frail he’d become. I eventually managed to get him to help me by pulling himself up against his bed.
Once on top of it, I rolled him onto his back, then sat beside him.
“Dad, are you okay?”
“I don’t know what happened to me.”
“Shh, don’t worry. I’m here now.”
He wasn’t looking at me, just at the ceiling, his eyes distant, sorrowed, much like they always were these days. It was another reason why he couldn’t be my hero as much as he used be. I had to be the strength for both of us. I had to keep us optimistic.
“Shall I get you some fruit? I got you some Papayas.”
He finally looked at me. “Papaya?”
I nodded with a smile, knowing this would get his attention.
“That’s right. Sit tight and I’ll cut it up. Then we can try and get you sitting on the veranda to have some. Sound good?”
He nodded, his eyes still downcast, but with a slight gleam to them. Any small amount of happiness I could place there was all I needed these days. He was the only person who had ever loved me, after all.
He had let me down in recent years, long before the outbreak, and it made me see that he wasn’t all that different from everyone else who tried to berate, make fun, and bring me to my knees.
He just did it behind my back once I grew up. I’d often hear my mother and him joking about how I’d never amount to anything, and would end up alone, with only cats to keep me company.
I expected it of my mother. She has been mentally abusive my whole life, always putting me down. It made me respect her more for not hiding who she truly was and how she really felt about me.
I would have been lying if I said I hadn’t begun to resent my father as I’d grown up. As a child, he could do no wrong and didn’t. He was my Earth angel, who worked during the day and slept through the night to put food on the table and give us the house we now lived in.
He took me to the park on the rare occasions he got time off work, rather than sit and read his paper like he could have chosen to many times.
I would only see him when he woke up to have his dinner before leaving for his job at the factory. I would leap on him and wrap my legs around his waist like a giant crab. He’d always smell of toothpaste and bread as I nuzzled his neck and kissed his cheek. I never wanted to let go.
My siblings found it irritating. But I was glad I had such a close bond to him. I needed one loving relative who had their head together. My family was too emotionally distant and bold to ever truly gain real love from.
I left him to close his eyes and rest, then went to the kitchen to cut us both some papaya. We deserved a treat and a way to forget about how different life was now, and how it was to possibly stay.
***
As I grabbed a knife and peeled the Papaya, I could faintly hear my mother telling me to use the chopping board and not the plate to cut it on.
“For goodness sake, use your brain,” I could hear her whine.
“Just like your dad, you haven’t got much of one.”
It still made me shudder. I could smirk about it now, though, even miss her to an extent. She was difficult, over bearing and bitter to the core for having had so many children so young, but she had her moments of being motherly.
She was the only person who would check that I’d had any food, for instance, the only person who would call if she hadn’t heard from me in a while. She was the only person who’d try to help me if I was ever unwell. Dad would just pray, which was enough, since his conversations with God seemed to hold a lot of power, probably because his maker was as proud of him as I was for staying quite true to his higher self. Compared to most, he only allowed himself to slip into his human deficiencies every once in a while
I found myself missing my mother. She was a strong and fierce woman, with no guilty conscience. I couldn’t help but admire that about her, since I was a person who thought too much and was often riddled with worries and anxiety. I admired anyone seemingly fearless, like Madonna, Axl Rose, Courtney Love, Mike Tyson. Their ability to not care was a gift I tried so long to have. Now it seemed to be finally mine— mostly. It took going to hell and losing a lot to make me gain it. It was usually the way, though, wasn’t it?
I wiped away a tear and hoped my mother was happy, and thanked her for the moments she was able to love me, not hate.
Dad appeared at the kitchen door. “Is it ready, Elaina?”
It was funny how the tables had turned and my dad had become the child and I the parent. But I liked him needing me. It gave me a way to get closer to him again, a way to hug him without making him uncomfortable. I was a grown woman now, not a child. I think he saw physical contact as inappropriate.
“Yep. I’ll bring you some tea, too. Shall I help you to the veranda.”
He was already heading that way. He lifted up his hand. “No, no I’ll manage.”
That was my dad. Too independent and a constant soldier.
I giggled. I love you dad, I thought. Don’t leave me just yet will you?
Minutes later I joined him on the veranda. He was at the small table, sitting on one of the chairs on the left. I sat on the one to the right. The tree beside us created a nice canopy to shade us from the scorching sunlight.
We sat in silence and had our fruit, sipping on our tea as we watched birds flutter by as the only movement other than a slight rustle of the trees.
Moments later, I noticed a tear running down Dad’s cheek.
“Dad? What’s wrong?”
He placed his cup down onto his saucer. “Who’s going to look after you when I’m gone.” He began to sob.
He had always hated seeing me cry when I was older. He said he couldn’t stand it, and would tell me to leave the room. It was another moment that had broken my heart. Now he was the crier, a lot made him emotional, even a news report on infected birds being burned alive. Seeing him cry was too much for me to handle. It felt as though a blunt knife was pressing down between my ribcage.
“I’ll be alright Dad,” I tried to say convincingly.
He peered down at his cup. “I have a feeling I don’t have long left Elaina.”
I kept having that feeling myself. I’d even been dreaming about him being gone. I tried not to think about it becoming true.
“I’ll have God with me, Dad. You’re religious. You should know that.”
He began to sob again.
“Please Dad” I said, gulping down tears of my own. “You can protect me from where you are, can’t you? You and God both can?”
He closed his eyes and nodded, tears fell into his tea.
I reached out for his hand. He took it, his hands bigger than mine. Even now, it was still my crutch. They were the hands that would never leave me, not even in death.
I began to sob now. “Dad, I love you, you know? You’re all I have left, but it’s enough. You’re all I’ve ever needed. You know that, don’t you?”
He nodded his head again and coughed. “You’ll always be my dear, Elaina. Forgive me if I’ve done anything wrong to you,” he choked out.
“I already have.” It had melted away the moment he became vulnerable and needed me. “Forgive me if I’ve done anything wrong to you, too, Dad and if I’ve ever snapped at you. You had hurt me, that’s why. I’m sorry.”
I squeezed his hand tighter. He didn’t squeeze back. He didn’t need to. There was no need for him to prove how much he loved me. His tears and fears for how my life could turn out without him was enough.
He would always be enough.
Let me know if you like it and would like me to post the next part, which would be Bobby's POV. It's just the bones of the story right now, the initial draft. It's not been fully developed yet. Thanks 4 reading :)
