Nepenthe | Sapnap |

Plans of Attack

Two weeks have passed. Two very long and slow weeks of me doing absolutely nothing but receiving insights that I couldn't really do anything with.

Couple patrollers have reported seeing footprints around the routes again, but that's it. No other sightings. No other signs of movement.

Footprints. That's how it started last time. They are probably a distraction to have us put up our guard on routes and lower it in other places.

More infected have been recorded as well, but that isn't uncommon. The infected have migration periods and they always fall at the end of January. Clay and Phil wanted to bring back the clean-up crews; groups of a few survivors who go out with the sole purpose of killing infected.

But with Bex here, it's risky. At the same time, she could use the hordes to her advantage. Luke mentioned she was already keeping some infected on a leash to try and pick us off, so she'd probably find a way to use the hordes against us as well.

We also don't have the patrollers to spare on clean-up crews. And I doubt that anyone in town really wants to volunteer and go outside the walls right now. They were all still on edge, and honestly, I don't blame them one bit.

Even though everyone in town has to have some knowledge on how to survive and take a firearms test every six months, they are still allowed to be afraid. It's the world we live in. It's kill or be killed, whether it's by infected or other people doing the same to survive.

Besides those couple of things, everything else here slowly started to get back to the swing of things. The boys played their weekly game of basketball, our monthly movie night happened a couple days ago, we shared meals at Darryl's again.

It felt almost normal.

Especially right in this moment with Nick and I reading our own books in the comfort of his own room.

His bed was a mess from not being made for days but it didn't really matter since that's the only place we ever were. Random things were sprawled all across the floor, ranging from other books to movies to video games. Pretty much anything to keep our attention on something else besides each other.

I haven't been home in a couple days. And there wasn't a reason to be.

I still wasn't back on patrol, so I didn't need warm clothes or anything of any use. I showered here and wore Nick's clothes every day. The only reason I would go home would be to talk to my family but there was no need to do that either. If either one of them needed me, they knew where to find me.

Subconsciously gnawing on my nail as I read the book in my hands, I jumped slightly when Nick tapped his foot against my stomach.

I picked my eyes up away from the words on the page to look at him. He was lying on his back with a manga on his chest. His eyes were still attached to it when I looked up at him.

"Stop chewing at your nails," he scolded as he tapped my stomach with his foot again before laying his legs back over my lap.

I swallowed and tightened my hand into a fist before putting it down to lay on his calf. I mumbled, turning back to my book, "Sorry."

"Don't say sorry, you're the one who complains that you can't break your habit," he chuckled.

We quickly fell back into our own little worlds. Only sound in the room was the music Nick turned on just so it wouldn't be completely silent. The album has looped already, but neither of us moved to change it. With his legs in my lap and my back against the wall, I doubt either of us wanted to get up from his bed.

The sunlight was starting to fade, and the room was getting darker due to none of the lights being on. It was starting to get a bit difficult to read with the dwindling light but that doesn't matter at the moment. What did matter was what was going on in the narrative and rubbing my thumb back and forth on Nick's leg.