It Ends With Us

Chapter 18: Don't Let The Crows Catch You

A week later

I woke up to the sound of Brian's voice calling me. I slowly rise up, realizing I had fallen asleep on Aaron's bed last night. Not only did I start sleeping in his bed ever since I lost him, but I just also did not have enough strength to climb up on my own bunk bed from above.

"What is it?", I asked as I yawned.

I felt something sting my face, I still had my bandages wrapped around. To this day, I still haven't gotten the chance to take a full look of what I look like now, afraid to see how much of a mess the feral woman had done to me. The stitches had slowly started to come off one by one each passing day.

"The storm has finally calmed down... it's time", Brian says to me. He rests his hand on my shoulder as comfort. We've both have been grieving still over the death of Aaron. After a long week of rough snowstorms, it finally stopped.. for now at least. I never thought it would take that long for it to calm down, my heart beats fast on the idea of finally getting to escape this hell camp.

I hear a knock coming from behind our door. Brian walks over to open it, revealing Lena. In her hands, she was carrying the box of bandages. She was wearing her black leather jacket today. She walks over to me, sitting down beside me.

"Mind If I switch your bandages right now?", she asks me, giving me a soft smile.

I nod.

"I'll meet you guys at the park, I'm going go to let Louis and Ella know to start getting ready", Brian says to the two of us.

Lena nods, "Yeah sounds good, we'll be there"

She opens the box, grabbing a new set of bandages to replace the one I currently had on. She takes off my old one, unwrapping it slowly. As she takes it all off, she stares at my bare damaged face for a little too long. I could see behind her eyes that she felt bad for me, but I didn't want her to feel like that towards me. I couldn't bare to have anyone's pity because of how messed up my face now looked, I did not want to be reminded.

"Something wrong?", I ask.

Lena snaps out of it, shaking her head, "No, sorry. It doesn't look all too bad you know"

"You don't have to lie to me", I say. It was no secret just how much of a horror I was to look at now.

She sighs, "No really, I don't think it looks bad. It's going to leave a big scar on you yeah, but I honestly think it'll make you look really tough from now on. Might leave people not wanting to mess with you". She was clearly joking on the last two sentences, trying to make me feel better. It helped a little having to hear her joke like this, considering what was about to happen in the next hour.

In a few hours...we will be far away from this place.

I smile to myself, thinking about that thought. Having to be away from Lloyd.

"There it is", Lena says smiling. "It's good to see you smile even if it's only temporary"

She begins to wrap the new bandages around my face. As she finished, she held my hand softly. We stay like this for a moment, I didn't mind the silence with her.

"You don't have to be afraid of Lloyd. Pretty soon today, we'll be able to go anywhere we want where we can be free. A new place to call home. It honestly sounds too good to be true doesn't it?", she finally says, her optimism never failing to show.

I touched my bandaged face, feeling a little where the scar ended on my jaw. "It does, though any place but here already sounds far more better to me"

Lena laughs softly, "Yeah, you're right. It's pretty ironic that this camp was supposed to be our "safe" place, our home. But it all turned out to be quite the opposite ever since that day...". She was referring back to the day Nick got killed. Nothing was ever the same after that of course. Lloyd showed his true colors, I guess that's what the end of the world does to someone if you let it get to you.