"Everything can change in an instant.
Everything.
And then there is only before and after."
•••
"What the hell did I just do, Cal?" Luke whispers, staring at the black haired boy in horror at his own actions. He may or may not have just spilled everything about the events that took place over two hours ago with a certain very pretty, very stubborn girl. Calum glares at him, but pulls the covers from his body and sits up anyway.
He had been asleep when Luke scrambled into his tent after an hour of pacing and throwing knives into random shit. The blue eyed boy's mind was a mess, everything he had ever believed in was stretched into a thin veil like a window, and he's just now seeing through it. He had to talk about it with somebody, and the only person who he trusts enough to do so is Calum.
"Dude, you need to calm down."
"I like her Calum. Fuck me, I like her. This has never happened to me in my life, and I probably just scared her away. So don't you dare tell me to calm down."
Calum squints at him. "Calm down."
Luke gapes at him.
"Luke, you're overthinking this. Why the hell did you even say those things to her in the first place?"
Luke clenches his fists at his sides, the familiar storm of anger and confusion he's begun to associate with Alex swirling inside him. "I don't know."
"Yes you do."
"She just makes me so angry." Luke blurts out, finally mustering up the words in his head. "With her stupid pretty eyes and her stupid full lips and her stupid stubborn personality. She's so hell bent on her own feelings she doesn't even seem to care about anybody else's, and then accuses me of doing the same thing?? Jesus Christ, she drives me crazy."
Calum stares at him. "Luke."
"What?"
"You just described yourself."
Luke scoffs at him, but there's actual tightness in his throat. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, from what I've seen, all you've been to her is arrogant. Arrogant, then mildly nice, then indifferent again. You're constantly hot and cold because you're mad that somebody is having this kind of effect on you."
Deep down, Luke knows Calum is right. He's spent his entire life learning to be completely numb, to ignore his own feelings and others and just focus on the task at hand. He was taught that any kind of non platonic relationship only ties bricks to his feet and does nothing good for him. He was taught that all he should care about is his country and his troop, and that anything that threatens either of those things must be eliminated. He was taught, in a nutshell, how to be an unstoppable warrior that relies on logic instead of emotions. Emotions only slow you down. Emotions make you weak.
Luke swallows. "You're right."
"I know I am." Calum rolls his eyes, yawning. "Are we done here? I'd like to get some sleep."
Luke plays with his fingers, itching to be around a blade again. "Yeah, sorry."
He leaves Calum's tent with an entirely new perspective on things.
***
Alex
Hot and cold. That's how I feel when I peel my eyes open the next morning.
Hot, because it has to be at least 100 degrees in this damn tent and I'm wrapped up in a blanket cocoon. Cold, because today is probably the day and the events from the night before are forcing unwanted emotions equivalent to ice in my veins.
Screw Luke Hemmings.
I don't even know what to feel anymore.
I climb out of the tent with a sigh, rubbing my eyes at the sun rising in the distant clouds. The layer of smoke still hasn't totally receded. The air is sour, and I subconsciously put a hand up to my nose to check for blood. Nothing yet.
It's early. Too early. Camp is relatively quiet, and not everybody is up yet.
"Morning, sunshine." A voice says, and I turn around to see Ashton. He's sitting by a makeshift fire, a food packet in his hand. His face is streaked with dirt, his brown curls tied back on his head. It's obvious he's been up to something.
"You've been busy." Is all I say, lowering myself down across from him. I grab a food packet from one of the designated bags, breaking it open and pouring half of my water jug into it. The sweet smell of oatmeal fills my nose.
"Yeah, been working out all night. Trying to figure out how to use one of those swords." He takes a bite out of his packet. "Not as easy as it looks."
"Mhm." I reply, too caught up in how deliciously soft the oatmeal feels in my mouth. It's sweet and salty, the perfect mix. My stomach rumbles.
"What about you? You look like somebody just ran over your dog."
I look up at him, and raise an eyebrow. "Well, excuse me if I'm a bit worried about finding my families mutilated corpses in a couple of hours. You know, no big deal." My voice isn't kind.
Ashton swallows. "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. I forgot."
"What about you?" I ask. "Aren't you a least a little worried about your family?"
Ashton's expression turns dark. "No, actually. I pray every night they're suffering with radiation poisoning coursing through their veins. But, you know, no big deal."
Yikes. I'm not very good at beating around the bush lately.
Thankfully, my ordeal last night has left me relatively armored against this kind of thing for the time being. "Yeah." I say, chewing on my oatmeal. "No big deal."
Before any more awkward conversation can ensue, Ivy appears. She's already in gear, with tight black pants and her two swords strapped to her back. Her blonde hair falls freely down her shoulders. She looks totally alert and awake, as always.
"We're heading out within an hour." She says, taking a swig of the water jug in her hand. "Be ready, alright?"
Something tells me she doesn't just mean being packed.
"Yeah, got it." I reply, and she turns back to wake the others.
***
After only thirty minutes of walking, it's clear we're entering dangerous territory.
Mutant after mutant stumbles out of almost every structure we encounter. They're slow but not slow enough, and every time a soldier decapitates one another comes out. Eventually we just keep moving, hoping to outrun the poor souls. They're constantly behind us, at least a hundred yards away, but still behind us. It only adds to my growing anxiety.
Four more flood out onto the road in front of us, blocking our path. Ivy kills them all with a single slash of her sword. Nobody even blinks, just steps over the bodies and keeps moving.
I want to throw up, but I don't. I just keep my head down, my fingernails digging into my palms. The sweat on the back of my neck does nothing to sooth my nerves, and my chapped lips part in an attempt to help my thirst. We have to conserve all water for now. The growing radiation levels makes breaking underground lines risky.
My nose drips red down onto my shirt, and I wipe under it with my wrist. My whole head hurts, my legs feel weak. My fingers are shaking when they run through my hair.
This is going to be a very long walk.
***
It's after two hours of walking that I see it.
Hallow Library, 1/2 mile
I skid to a stop on the cracked road, staring at the sign. Everyone else follows my actions.
"Alexandra?" Luke calls. "What is it?"
My voice won't work. Hallow Library. I used to spend hours there, reading endless books about wildlife and studying. It was one of the only places I felt like I belonged.
It's only a fifteen minute walk from my house. Which means, Hallow Street isn't far. My family isn't far.
"Alexandra?" Luke asks again, but I don't answer him. Instead, I start walking again, ignoring the moans and familiar shuffling of mutants in the nearby buildings.
My feet move faster than I thought they could in my current state, and I'm half running down the road as my eyes spot familiar territory. A broken baby pink building that used to be an ice cream store. The grooves in the sidewalk that used to be jackpots for bug hunting at night. The twisted street lamp that used to be the meeting place for all of my friends on the weekends. A crumbled light-up sign laying shattered on the street, reading HALLOW THEATER. It's splattered with blood. Bile rises in my throat, and I stop again.
A man stumbles out of the front, swollen and red, dripping black and green all over. A frayed striped hat sits on top of his blistered, veiny head. His red eyes lock on me, then go blank as a knife soars through the air and severs its head from his body.
Luke rips his dagger out of the side of the ruined building, eyeing me with concern. "I'm guessing you know where we are?"
"We're almost there." I say, but it comes out as a watery whisper. I blink at the mans limp corpse, twitching on the ground. "My house, it's not far."
Luke nods, and gestures for me to go on.
I swallow down my tears and look forward again, beginning to move in the direction I know is my home. The hope is beginning to rise again.
We walk for about ten more minutes, almost running with how fast I keep moving. The mutants never stop coming. It's only when we hit a familiar, large brown building that I stop.
It's the library. The hundreds of books surrounding the wreckage confirm it. My heart thunders in my chest.
I don't wait for Luke to call my name this time. Instead I look at the road in front of me, my mind rapidly mapping out the route I need to take to get to my house, the route I know by heart, and take off running.
I ignore the shouts of protest coming from behind me, and just keep running. I can't stop. My feet turn one corner, then another, then another, the snarls and moans of the mutants all around me. By the time I screech to a halt on Hallow street, I have barely any air in my lungs. I can't think. My ears are ringing as I stumble in the direction of what used to be my house, the faded blue paint covered in ash and the walls torn apart.
I stop on the shattered sidewalk in front of the place, staring at the broken remains of my home. My home. The tears run down my cheeks.
The mutants continue to slowly move towards me. I hear the mindless shuffle of their feet getting closer. I can barely breathe. The grief and impending sorrow have cold hands around my throat.
"Mom?" I choke out. "Mom?"
There's a shuffling. Then nothing. I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, trying to make it to what used to be the front door. It collapses when I touch it.
I can hear the troop making their way towards me, the clinging of metal as their weapons collide with the necks of the mutants. There's running footsteps coming in my direction, but I don't care. I don't care, because sprawled out in the hallway in front of me is my mother.
The whole reality of the situation isn't catching up with me. I feel like I'm in a dream.
She's long gone. Her skin is covered in blisters and pus, her fingers and limbs swollen beyond normality. She looks like a hunk of flesh on the ground, not a human being. Her hands move slightly on the ruined carpet, and then her head lifts up to look at me with red rimmed eyes.
It's almost like somebody just sucks the life right out of me. My chest tightens, my throat burns. I fall to my knees, and the tears come even harder.
The thing in front of me wheezes, and opens its mouth in a rasp. A single gold tooth sits in the middle of its mouth, the final piece of the puzzle that proves that the creature is in fact my mother. She begins to drag her body towards me, black dripping from her lips.
There's nothing in her blue eyes but hunger. Hunger, and hate. She's not my mother anymore. She's just a monster.
"Momma." I whisper, a sob ripping its way through my throat. "No."
Somebody sprints up the sidewalk behind me, bursting into the shell of a house. I don't need to look up to know that it is Luke.
"Alexandra." He pants, and I sense relief in his voice. How can he possibly be relieved? "Alex, we need to go."
I ignore him. I can't stop crying, and all I can think about is how much my mother must be suffering. If her body is on autopilot, the poison is torturing her. She can't die. Her brain won't die. She can't be at peace.
Peace. That's all I have ever wanted for my family. Peace.
My body is numb.
"Alexandra-"
"Luke." I cut him off, my voice shaking. "Give me a gun."
There's a pause. "What?"
"Give me a gun."
At first, I don't think he's going to do it. My mother is less than two feet away now. My throat, my chest, everything is on fire. Then I hear the rustle of his belt, and he wordlessly holds out a pistol.
I take it with trembling hands. I've seen enough movies to know how to fire a gun, even if I never have before. My mother makes a rasping sound, a foot away. I can see the wedding ring sunk deep into her swollen fingers.
I raise the gun and aim it at her head.
For a moment, everything goes in slow motion. My mother looks up at me with those ruined beady eyes that were once a vibrant blue, reaching out a mangled hand. Luke begins to say my name. My middle finger clicks the little button in on the side of the pistol to load it, before my index goes on the trigger.
The tip of the barrel hits her forehead.
"I'm so, so sorry." I whisper, blinking through the relentless tears pouring from my eyes. Her jagged nails touch my leg, and she moves to bite it.
BANG.
***
"It has been a full forty eight hours since we last heard from General Pauling." Dan Irving, second in command, stands before the crowd of worried soldiers. "We aren't receiving any signals on hovercraft pc47, and the tracking devices are no working. We can only assume the worst."
Carlton closes his eyes. The main military base is gone. The environment was lethal enough to kill a whole missions worth of soldiers. Compared to them, his family doesn't stand a chance.
"We are beginning to lose contact with the other bases as well." Irving continues. "They are being found and taken over, to my understanding. We must keep moving until we can figure out what can be done."
Nasim Kieran really is going all out this time. Carlton can't help but curse her for the cruelty, her complete and total disregard for innocent people's lives. Warner should have had her shot when he had the chance, in all honesty.
"Have you heard from Superior Warner?" One of the soldiers asks the question everybody is thinking. Irving sighs.
"Jason Warner is no where to be found."
***
When I peel my eyes open in the dark, my head is pounding.
I vaguely register the crackling of a fire a few feet away, but that's the last thing I'm concerned about at the moment. My whole body hurts, but I feel so numb. My family is gone. My family is gone.
Yes, I was aware that they probably didn't have a chance. But that doesn't change how I feel. It doesn't change the crippling realization that I am alone in this world. It doesn't change the horrible, deep sadness coursing it's way through my veins.
With shaking hands, I press my palms into the cool concrete below me and sit up. Concrete? Where even am I?
It comes to me in flashes. Screaming, fighting off Luke, trying to get to the rest of my family and put them out of their misery. Nearly shooting myself in the process. Mutants closing in, Luke shouting my name, falling and slamming my head into the side of a dresser in the middle of my effort to run.
I can feel the bandage wrapped around my forehead. My throat burns. I press the heals of my palms into my eyes, trying to hold back the tears and grasp some form of control. I fail. I choke on a sob as the tears flow down my cheeks, and I cover my face with my hands. My nose is running, just not with blood this time.
I can't stop crying. I just can't. My family is dead. What else am I supposed to do?
I try to focus on the science aspect of it. It always has a way of calming me down. Tears contain stress hormones. By getting rid of those, I'm supposed to be flushing the negativity out. But I don't feel any different.
"Guess I'm not the person you wanna see, huh?" A soft voice says, and I wipe viscously at my eyes in a sad attempt to dry them. Crying in front of other people is not something I like to do.
Luke sits across from me, his legs crossed in front of him. There's a small fire beside us, created with some logs and pieces of torn cloth. We seem to be in a concrete building, probably a parking garage. I can barely see the flickering of other fires several walls down.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, my voice broken. I realize now that there's a blanket around my shoulders, and I hug it tightly.
"I figured you would need a little bit of a break from everybody else. But somebody had to make sure you wouldn't try to run off or something."
"Why the hell would I do that?" I croak.
"Grief makes people do crazy things."
I stare at him. He's beautiful in the flickering light, his eyes shining and his black hair messy over his forehead. He looks calmer, more approachable then I have ever seen him. "How would you know?"
Luke glances down at my hands. "Hey, stop that."
I realize that I'm digging my nails into my palms so hard, blood is trickling down through my fingers. I open them gingerly, revealing the tiny crescent shaped wounds.
I don't protest when he gently grabs my hand, running his thumb over the newly made cuts into the skin. He seems to be contemplating something, before reaching behind him and grabbing one of the little red boxes I saw Calum getting cotton out of before. He pulls out some gauze, and presses it against the wounds in my palm.
"Luke." I mutter. "Why are you helping me?"
The boy sighs, wrapping the cotton around once before switching to the other hand. "I kind of feel like I should. I was pretty rude to you last night."
I wince in pain at the pressing on my palm, but manage not to let any extra tears slip out. Crying seems like the only logical response to anything right now. "It's ok. I realize now I was being selfish. You shouldn't have to worry about my-" I cough, my chest tightening more. "-feelings. It's not your burden to carry."
Luke doesn't respond to this, just finishes bandaging up my hand. He holds it in his own for a few seconds, running his thumb down mine, before letting it go.
We sit in silence for a few moments. My head is still throbbing. I must have hit it pretty hard. Too bad it didn't kill me.
"Alex, I wish I could say I know how you feel, but I don't." Luke says suddenly. "I almost wish I did, so I could help you."
"Stop." I whisper, feeling the tears coming on again.
"No, just hear me out." He bites his lip. "I don't have a family. I never did. I don't even know who my real parents are, they threw me in a dumpster an hour after I was born." There's a hidden pain in his voice. "But you did. You've always had one. They loved you and raised you, and you loved them enough to walk a hundred miles for them. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I guess what I'm trying to say is-" He shakes his head. "Try to focus on the positive, ok?"
Now this, this is new. He's being honest, I know, but he's being nice about it. And he's right. Damn him, he's right. I wrap my arms around my knees. "Is this you trying to be sentimental?"
"Depends, did I do ok?"
I want to laugh, but I can't. The pain is too much. I just nod my head. "You'll learn."
He's looking at me with those eyes again. He's so damn beautiful. I kind of want to punch him in the face for making me feel so many things I shouldn't be feeling. "Why do you do it, anyway?"
He frowns. "Do what?"
"Act like you're made of stone."
This gets me an expression that's hard to decipher. He doesn't speak for a few moments. Then, "It makes it all easier."
I breathe in slowly through my nose, and the burning in my throat ceases. "What easier?"
Luke sighs, and looks off to the side for a second. "Everything, I guess. Fighting. Killing. Living every day knowing that the only home I've got is a shitty bunk bed, if I'm lucky."
Something in his tone suggests that there's more, but I don't push it. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
He twirls a knife in his hands, he must have slipped one off the ring when I wasn't paying attention. His fingers glide gracefully over the blade, turning it over and over. The lion carved into the hilt glares at me.
I suddenly remember the one tucked into my boot, and reach down immediately to see if it's still there. For some reason, a pang of relief shoots through me when my fingers slide across the cool metal.
Luke notices, and I don't miss the small smile on his face. "Wow, you kept it."
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Figured you would have left it behind after last night. I didn't exactly hand it to you."
I shrug. "It's good protection. I've got to stay alive, remember?" Even if I don't want to be anymore.
Luke smiles fully this time, and a weird warmth spreads its way throughout my cold body. The pounding in my head has begun to seize. I still feel like crying, but not as much as I did. The pain of what I've lost is still as great as ever, however, and it won't go down for a while. That's one of the only things I'm sure of.
"Yeah, stay alive." He mutters.
I yawn suddenly, and reach up to wipe roughly at my eyes again. I know I was out for a long time, but the darkness of the night around us isn't helping the deep seated exhaustion in my bones. The fire crackling between us doesn't help either.
"You should rest. Get your strength up." Luke stands, brushing the ash off his pants. "Remember, focus on the positive."
I nod, but I'm barely paying attention to him anymore. "Ok. Goodnight, Luke."
At first I think he's not going to leave, because he just stands there for a few moments like he's contemplating something. Then, he bends down and presses his lips to my forehead.
They're warm and soft, touching the skin uncovered by the bandage. Goosebumps surface on my arms, and I close my eyes.
Luke pulls away slowly, and straightens back up. "Goodnight, Alexandra." He murmurs, and then he is gone.
•••
what was that bitch? LALEX
i actually love this new update schedule so yes we're sticking to the every 10 days thing.
anywho the story is about to be shot up with steroids so i hope the two people that read this are ready
i love you guys!! please vote and comment your opinion on the story so far, i would really appreciate your feedback!
see you soon and stay rad
Xoxo
~Camryn