fourteen
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↳ burning away ↲
IN MY EARLY ELEMENTARY YEARS, I was taught that around 300 million years ago, humanity simply did not exist. Just as the Carboniferous period began, vascular land plants began to sprout with the large releases of limitless carbon. A dense mass of plants, and more plants overtook the earth, stretching for miles.
It was beautiful, without humanity.
Though, the plants, they weren't the only thing inhabiting the planet. If it wasn't humanity, it was always something else, right? Just like it is, now. In the years that the streets of Atlanta had seen nothing but sunlight and clean air, it flourished. The city had taken on small colonies of moss, and overgrown ivy which traveled up the sides of buildings, bursting into a sprouted bloom in areas of direct sunlight.
In a sense, it was beautiful, but a frightening kind of beautiful.
Although the time of early life sounded peaceful and serene, it contained some of the largest insects ever existing, consisting of scorpions ten times the size of their current shape, and enlarged beetles. All this time later, we still were posed with a threat. Not insects, but in this stage, a virus. A walking virus we had to outrun, everyday. The same virus I ran from at the current moment, the corroded dead behind an injured boy and I.
I turned for a short moment, pointing the barrel of my pistol to the group of walkers behind us. My finger naturally slid into the curves of the trigger, pulling back, nothing but a click coming from the weapon.
"Shit, I'm out." I told Noah, pushing the useless object into my back pocket.
He tried his best to keep my pace, scrunching his face through the pain with short, deep breaths.
"You have a knife? Anything else?"
I grabbed his arm, helping him along before his legs collapsed on him.
"Don't you think I'd be using it?" I said in a panicked manner.
His head turned in multiple directions, forcefully planting his legs down for a moment, and pointing. "Over there. We can make it in, if we hurry."
I looked to the group of closely connecting institutional buildings, then pushed forward towards the closest side door. Noah attempted to use his remaining strength to open it, regardless, it had been locked from the inside.
"I'll find something." I said, watching the boy slam his shoulder into the door.
"We got about thirty seconds before those rotters catch up." He twisted his head to the oncoming, growing group of the dead just down the street.
"Keep trying the door." I told him, descending down the steps, and running towards the main entrance.
The glass doors made it extremely easy to tell it had been barricaded high with objects, impossible to enter in this amount of time we spared. A PVC pipe was placed between the handles on the outside, locking it from both ways.
Whatever was secured in the building, was better than being unsecured out here.
I turned at the sound of a shout, my eyes traveling to the boy who was pushing back a walker, the rest not far behind. I grasped the plastic pipe which held the outside handles together, making my way back to the side of the building.
"Over here!" I shouted, clinging the pipe along a metal drainage line.
The dead turned their attention to such a foreign noise, just enough time to overhead toss the pipe to Noah, allowing him to hit it into the door with blunt force, and push it open.
I led myself backwards slowly, egging on the walkers, although not all of them followed, leaving a few for Noah. I carefully footed each step, making little error through the sloped grassland. Noah then entered the door at last, fighting to keep it open, but have the few roamers on his end stay out.
"I cant hold it open much longer!" He alerted me.
I scanned past the dozen walkers nearing closer with my taunting, through a gap I was planning on running through, near the sides.
"Come on!" Noah shouted, struggling to keep it steady.
Despite my effort to get past the crowd closing in, I was caught extremely off guard when a body impacted against my back, bringing me down to the ground.
A shout escaped me as I wiggled from the dead's grasp, attempting to twist and kick it backwards, though it grabbed my boots, aiming to bite through the weakened leather. I grasped my fingers onto the grass, pulling myself away from the group that now kneeled at me, gathering round with extending hands, and unforgiving dull faces.
In this exact moment, It all made sense to die in my very spot. I would be back, but not the same. I'd come back wrong, like the people who I had caused this same fate for. Snapping jaws, hunger churning their insides. It was the price for resurrection.
I found myself bringing my body upwards, set forward in motion through an area of vacancy, glancing to the door Noah had been able to open.
Except for all that, It was closed. The door was shut, two of the dead left banging up against it.
My lungs burned, my heartbeat thumping in my throat, and crawling into my head. As I had no other choice, I ran with the last of my stamina for the opposing building, struggling with the doors, then eventually getting them open with much effort, closing them.
This is it, for the rest of my live. Running, fighting. I would never get a break, it seemed.
I came to an exhausted slump on the floor, quickly examining the boots I wore. A bite mark was prominent on the material near the ankle, just a slight amount of pressure more from reaching my own skin. I was lucky, extremely, if 'luck' was the name for it.
I hadn't been wearing socks, after all this time. A goddamn sock could have been life or death, with everything I've been through. I had survived cannibalistic dead people for years on end, ambushes, a war at the prison, yet the lack of a sock almost had me dead. The closest to dying I had ever been.
I leaned my head back, catching my breath while staring at the ceiling, squinting at the small unexplainable moving squiggles and lines in the air. I breathed out one last time before rolling my neck, allowing my head to drop to the front again.
The building was in good condition, considering all circumstances. It seemed to have shut down before the end of everything, the carpets being well preserved, everything in its rightful place.
I first checked the main floor with the only weapon I had - my shoe in hand. I scaled up a main stairway, coming to a stop at the last step. These floors felt static against my feet as I began to walk the narrow halls, tapping a finger on one of the many doorways in close range.
With no inner movement, I twisted the knob, pushing it open to reveal a normal looking room. It contained minimalistic furniture, like the company who created these were on a budget. A bunk bed made with thin metal rods, a simple wooden desk and chair, and a bathroom connected.
I went room to room, checking the others next to mine, before coming to the conclusion that this building was a shelter of some kind, not a survival one, but a temporary housing connection. There were many reasons leading me to believe this, such as the childlike toys placed on beds, coloring pages hung on walls, and household belongings still unpacked around the place.
For a short moment, I clicked out of the current reality. The building had been frozen in time, not a single touch of the present, although the streets behind me, separated by a sheet of glass had already begun filling with the dead. But this place, it still belonged to the living, or at least what was left of it; me.
I didn't know if Noah was safe, or Beth. I was oblivious being holed up here, yet I couldn't risk going out at this time. Inevitably, I couldn't stop myself from entering at once, throwing my useless shoes to the wall, and sinking to the mattress. It's soft layers cradled my aching body - my sore muscles. It was the type of comfort I couldn't buy, only come across on rare, rare occasions.
For this reason, the sleep that came next was irresistible. It hypnotized me inwards, whispering softly to fall right into its hands, let it willingly guide me away.
It was calling me, a type of magnetic pull I couldn't resist. So I didn't.
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In the late hours of the next day, I had awoken from a slumber in which had lasted for hours, an amount of time I didn't know was possibly capable to stay asleep for. The sky surrounding had already become toasted with the usual dusk-time Georgia heat, dulling of color at the edges. It was a background, washed away by the dead crowding further into the streets.
I was made known of this from the current seat I had taken near the window, lazily slouching on a chair pulled into the desk. Many items were placed upon the top, consisting of a textbook on 'dealing with childhood trauma', and highlighters as If whoever was reading this, had been taking consistent notes. I on the other hand, didn't bother to open the book. I could remember a time in my own younger years that a similar item had been present on my school counselors desk, after pulling me in to further examine a bruise discoloring the pale skin across my cheekbone.
She had told me that it was okay to tell her the truth and that everything would be okay, but I had already been instructed on what to say by my mother beforehand.
"My sister got a soccer ball from her birthday. She's still learning, bruised me by accident."
And they believed every word, even as my expressions sat in a bothered look. It was because nothing, not even being hit, could be worse than a girl being taken from her mother's and sister's arms. Anyways, none of them truly wanted to hear it. It was only mandatory they ask me, protocol if they must.
At the end of the day, I was silent. I had always remained that way - a silent child. I knew that the misery I had experienced at home was only a bother to others, and indurable to stay beside the only few that ever had loved me.
I leaned back, my gaze wandering to the drawer hanging slightly open. I reached a hand in the mess of utensils, rustling around until I found myself grabbing hold of something larger.
It was a darkened brown leather journal, wrapped around with thickened twine of the same color. I pulled the string, finding that it had been emptied, a few pages torn from the front, the remains of the tan paper clinging onto the spine still. I ran my hand gently across the textured item, pattering the pads of my fingertips at the middle before testing the first page with a quick statement of thought, then stuffing it into the backpack on the floor alongside a pair of newer converse found a few rooms over.
Trying them on, they fit much better than my last pair of boots. Even better, the scabbed blisters on my feet felt at ease with the thin, but effective layer my new socks provided.
It was the best I could do, as I found now to be my only small opportunity of leaving safely. Dusk would fall, making it harder for walkers to spot my movement if I was quiet enough. The risen weren't fast, but with all of them out there like that, it only took a split second to be cornered with nowhere to go.
At once, I grabbed the backpack, leaving the remnants of my perfect little world behind. The world in which I could be on my own with no objective to take the blood of others. My fingers, my palms - they were burning away from all the lives I had ended with the pull of trigger.
It was hard, having hands of a killer. No matter how many layers of skin I'd shed, they were always dirtied.
My hand instinctively wiped along the blue sleeves as I pushed my side against the door, carefully taking the few stone steps one at a time, an unsturdy broken broom end as the only weapon I had acquired inside.
For the most part, the entrance area was clear of walkers, only minimal roamers shuffling across sidewalks in the distance, distracted by even the sound of a breeze. The most of them had crowded around the corner, grouping together.
My breathing seized at the sound of a door opening, and I hunched over as the connecting buildings door flew open, at first finding a dead to push itself out until I looked closer. A woman I had met before stood to the front, uneven shortened grey hair, and matching eyes. She had coldness resting beneath her pupils, unspoken memories twisting in the black circles. She didn't notice my presence from behind the large pillars as she attempted to run across the street, a goal driving her forward.
It then came, just as I stood to speak Carol's name aloud.
A rushing car, one of the same kind I had been avoiding during my short time of freedom. It screeched to a stop as it collided with her figure, pushing her backwards with heavy force into the road.
As the officers hurried to open their doors, I dropped, landing downward onto my kneecaps into concealment,
just not quite fast enough.
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day 1, 2:17pm
I found you pushed into the back of a drawer, just sitting in the dark. How long have you been like that? I think i'm going to start writing in you, right? That's how journals are supposed to work.
I guess jotting down the time of my entry is pointless, because the clock in front of me is broken, but it gives me something to do, so it'll always be 2:17 for you.
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2,520 words • 12:20 pm
HEY GUYS, UR BACK AND IM SO SO GRATEFUL YOU'VE STUCK AROUND W ME! <3
sincerely yours,
nika.