A Day In September - BTS Zombie au

21: Crusade

Just warn them and go, her mind begged, already resigned to the idea of her leaving unnoticed.

Do they look scary or is it just me?

Mara's paranoid mind felt more alarmed than ever. However, she couldn't quite pinpoint the reason.

"We didn't mean to just barge in. But we looked everywhere and couldn't find anyone. We figured it was...abandoned," the man explained, eyeing the gun once more before sighing, "Listen, the gun is making me nervous. Are you going to hurt us?"

Mara blinked multiple times, the question catching her off guard. She had never set out to hurt anyone in the nearly four years she'd been alone in the world. She'd never once put others in danger for the sake of enjoyment or gain. However, something in her was refusing to put the gun down.

Noticing her unwavering stance, the couple glanced at each other. 

The woman approached slowly, trying to block her view of the man to get eye contact with Mara. Mara didn't take kindly to this, backing away with the gun in front of her.

"We will leave in the morning, if you could just allow us the night," she smiled warmly, "we mean no harm."

Mara wordlessly stared, and the couple once again glanced at each other.

The man cleared his throat awkwardly at her silence, "My name is Josiah," he softly spoke.

The woman smiled, "A-And I'm Lilith," She spoke.

Mara nodded, slowly lowering the gun but refusing to loosen her grip on it. This seemed to ease the couple as they both appeared to relax. Mara still watched them dubiously, eyeing their hands for any type of movement and looking around for their belongings.

Mara slightly frowned at their lack of possessions. Two small backpacks, both barely filled, sat on the kitchen counter, some items hanging out of the bag haphazardly. They had no weapons on them, and though this eased Mara a bit, she couldn't help but wonder why.

She peered out the blinds, noticing that the rotting limbs were gone. Only questionable dark stains were left in their place as a gruesome reminder.

The animals are quick.

"Where do you come from?" Mara finally muttered, turning to the couple. They seemed to be slightly relieved at the fact that she spoke, and bore widening smiles that didn't do much to calm Mara's nerves. She still wasn't quite sure if it was their appearance or their weirdly friendly smiles.

"We've been walking for a couple days and haven't had much time to rest, we were hoping this place would be abandoned so we could stay for a bit. But seeing that you're here, we would be willing to only stay the night if that's okay with you."

Mara was split in two, her heart telling her that denying them shelter was cruel and her paranoid mind refusing to let her guard down. She wished it was easy to know the intentions of every person she came across, but that was simply not possible. Despite the nervous swirl in her stomach, Mara gently lowered the gun. She backed up further, nodding and looking around the living room. She didnt really maintain upkeep for the lower half of the building, deeming it unnecessary when she never used anything there anyways. However, she felt slightly embarrassed at the thin layer of dust on everything and the lack of light except the slightly open blinds where rays of moonlight peered through.

Mara felt guilty for wanting them to leave, but she desired no company other than herself. Faced with so many pitfalls in her path already, the girl simply wanted peace and quiet—alone time. The only company she wanted was from someone who was dead.