𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄'𝘀 𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 | an apocalyptic novel ©

Chapter 87

Alive

2035

Aidan

She is alive. I brought her back.

Valencia is alive. She is here, clinging on to me, while we are silent. No words are needed, the gesture said it all.

I managed to bring her back, without any experience of resuscitation before. Valencia is very much alive. Her heart beats fast against my chest, she breathes into my neck. Although she is shivering, she is alive.

Her clothes are completely soaked, mine are too. We'll figure something out. I rub her back. "Let's find shelter," I say quietly and I can feel her nodding. After I help her stand up and shoulder her backpack as well as mine, I give her support while we walk away from this awful roller coaster, this awful amusement park and this awful scenery.

We find shelter a few good thirty minutes after leaving, in an apartment complex building, built out of concrete. I help Valencia get up the stairs until we reach the fourth floor. The room we now stand in is small, the only piece of furniture is an overturned table. There is a door to my right, but when I try to open it, it is locked. And no, I won't try to kick it in again.

Valencia stands in the middle of the room, her clothes still wet, shivering.

"Right," I mumble and drop my backpack to look for the blanket and my spare clothes.

Who knew they'd be for good use now?

"I'll change, I have some spare clothes in my backpack," she hesitantly says, her voice hoarse. I look up to her. "Okay."

We changed into our spare clothes, our soaked ones hung over the table to dry.

The sun has set. It's a few minutes before 7 pm. I gave Valencia my spare sweater to put on over her spare one, meaning that I'm leaning against the table without a shirt, covered with my blanket.

I rarely get cold, but Valencia is still shivering - maybe from the cold, maybe from the adrenaline still running in her veins.

We sat next to each other for the past few hours, talking - about everything, on how we lived the past years.

The night eventually comes over us. Now we're sitting here, warming ourselves by scooting closer to each other. Our dinner is a can of cold soup I found in my backpack.

Valencia is still shivering a bit, but she clears her voice. "I guess a Thank You would be appropriate."

Bracing my head on my knees, I listen. I know. I know how she feels.

"Don't thank me. It happens to the best of us," I joke, to lighten the mood. That makes her laugh quietly, but then she is honest again.

"No, seriously. I can't even return a favor as big as what you had done for me today," she says.

I shake my head. She nudges me.

"What?" I ask with a grin.

She blushes. "Nothing. Just ... wanted to see you smile," she mumbles.

Automatically, I bite my lip to hide my smile. We're silent again.

"Have I told you that I keep track of the anomalies in a notebook?" Valencia suddenly asks. I shake my head, but she already struggles up to open her backpack and fumbles around in it. Eventually, she holds a booklet in her hands. When she sits down next to me again and opens it, I stare at pages and more pages filled with every day written as a diary entry. Many different colors of ink are on the pages and some small drawings on the earlier days, too.