She finally got to the building she's been trying to reach for what seemed like hours now. She put me behind the counter and started relentlessly killing the creatures that never ventured out of the store. Once that was done, she dragged one of the shelves to the entrance to block anything from coming in. But she had missed one of the creatures and it noticed me behind the counter. It started coming towards me, it smelt my blood. It was so close that it started crawling towards me. but I still couldn't seem to make a sound. It was like my vocals had vanished. I frantically looked for something to hit this monster with, but it was no use, I was too weak to move.
I saw something to hit the creature with, but by that time, he had already grabbed ahold of my arms and tried biting me. I tried to kick him away, but it was too painful, and my legs were limp. I tried punching him, but his grip was to strong. I felt completely helpless as his mouth ventured just inches away from me. But this extraordinary girl jumped over the counter, and within one hit, decapitated the very thing that was trying to eat me alive.
"You really need to work on defending yourself, or talking." She joked as she moved the dead body off of me. "Are you okay? Did he bite you or anything?"
"N-no" I said, choking.
"Wow! You can talk. Well, just relax, I'll get you some water."
She grabbed her backpack and handed me some water, "You'll be okay." She said as she sat next to me.
I looked around at the things I could see, there wasn't much behind this counter. When I looked at the girl that saved me, she seemed to be sleeping or resting with her eyes closed. I struggled to get up after a while, but I managed to at least kneel after struggling for a bit. There was a wheelchair near by, and so I slowly made my way towards it, lifting my body off the ground and into the chair. I don't know what happened, but I think she drugged me, because I didn't scream at any movements I made.
I wheeled myself down to the bathroom to try and clean myself up. I looked myself in the mirror and could barely recognize my own face. I scrubbed my skin trying to get all the dirt, blood, and sweat off me, but the harder I tried, the harder the task seemed. I was scared to look at my legs. I was scared to see the destruction the building had caused, I feared I would never walk properly again. Something I would surely need if I wanted to survive in a world like this. I couldn't bare the thought of living a life helpless.
When I gained the courage to look down, I was horrified at the sight I saw, my legs were dirastically split open, and cocked full of dirt and who knows what else. Every inch of my skin was horrifically bruised and swollen. I tried cleaning my legs, but it was to much for me to handle. I started to panic. It was this huge mess that I didn't know how to deal with. I gave up and relaxed in the wheelchair for a bit, thinking about everything that has happened to me so far.
I was tired, but I was glad to be soaking up all this light in the bathroom. In this entire store, the only lights that worked were the bathroom lights. I could see everything so clearly, but that also meant that I could see what was wrong with my legs. I grabbed the jacket I was wearing and ripped it into pieces to make bandages so I couldn't see the damage. I wheeled myself back out of the bathroom and started looking for a first aid-kit, I didn't find much, just some pain killers. I took a handful, but they didn't seem to help much of anything.
I started to hear banging on the door and groaning as the creatures were trying to get in, the girl didn't seem to be bugged by the sounds and just turned over, but I was scared for my life. I grabbed one of her weapons and held it close to me, I slowly wheeled myself towards the window and as soon as I looked out, a creature's face slammed against it. I let out a weak yell and rolled away. The door started to make more noise as the creatures were up against it trying to get in more persistently. I sat back, rubbing my legs, crying from the pain I felt in my chest and looked at the mysterious girl.
She opened her eyes and looked at me, then looked at the mess at the door, her face changed immediately and tried looking for another way out. She looked in the manager's office and then motioned me to come in. I slowly followed her, still yelling and groaning with every breath. In the office was jugs of water and food, and there was a window leading up to the top of the building.
“I think we should stay in the office until the creatures get in, then we can head up to the roof, plus your legs look pretty bad, this would give your legs sometime to rest.” She said.
This girl continued to look around the room and found a backpack under the desk. There was a flashlight and a bag of batteries. She filled the backpack up with stuff in the store and then came back to the managers office.
“Well, this could do us some good for a couple of days. Let's try not to us this flashlight to much until we need to. I’ll be right back, I’m going to go look for more stuff in the store just in case I missed anything and bring it back,”
She left the room and as I was waiting for her, I began drifting off to sleep. I didn't know if it was due to being tired, or in such severe pain, my body could no longer take it. But minute by minute I could feel myself being taken away from reality, and into another word. My body felt as if it was disconnecting itself from the world. I dreamt another dream that was full of fighting and protection and saving the world. But after awhile, this mysterious women took away my dreams and brought me back to her world. She threw a backpack at me and told me to fill it up with everything I could get my hands on, we both grabbed what we could.
“The creatures got in while you were sleeping, we need to go, like an hour ago.” She said.
Though I was in pain to just stand up, I forced myself out of the window and crawled up to the top of the building. As we did so, they broke through the office door and started rampaging through everything. She hopped from one building to the next and then put planks across for me to walk across. When we got to a hotel, she said that’s where we were going to sleep for the night. We got inside the hotel after breaking into one of the windows. Because of the break proof glass, it ended up taking us hours to break through. We both laid down on the beds of the hotel to rest and relax before heading for a new safe place.
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When I had awoke, she was taking a shower, I was still amazed the water was working all this time. I looked through a couple suitcases that were on the floor by the bed. But nothing seemed to be of any use. Except maybe cleaner clothes. There was really nothing except some towels as well in the room. She came out of the bathroom without any clothes on and water ran down her sun kissed skin, soaking the royal blue color on the carpet floor. She grabbed a towel that was in my hands and wrapped it around her body and then walked pass me, slightly bumping into me. She opened a closet door and pulled out some ripped up jeans and a blue t-shirt. Then walked back to the bathroom to put everything on, she then walked back to her bed where she put her black leather jacket back on.
She put all of her equipment back on and walked out the hotel door, she handed me an axe as I followed her out the door. We walked down the hall to the stairs and walked all the way down to the first floor where the creatures seemed to be hoarding. We walked back up to the second floor, entered a room and broke the window leading outside, we climbed out and climbed down the ladder as far as we could before jumping on a car and began to walk down a road.
"My legs, they're better. I didn't notice 'til now." I said.
"That's the beauty of dreams isn't it." She replied.
"What? What do you mean?" I said, but never got a response back. "Hello?"
Everything seemed to go into a blur as I woke up to the sound of my brother and mother talking. One of the babies were crying as well. I rubbed my red tired eyes and tried to look around, but my neck was stiff and hurt. I couldn't quite make out what my brother was saying, but it sounded like someone was in trouble and they were debating whether or not to tell anyone. Soon, they stopped talking and saw that I was awake. They looked at each other and smiled.
"What?" I said, a bit dizzy. They started talking among themselves again asking each other if they should say anything.
"Just tell me!" I demanded, irritated.
Mom sighed and told me that she was pregnant. With another child. Something about her being able to feel it and how she just knew. I first thought it was impossible, given that she already has one inside of her, but I guess you can get pregnant twice in nine months? So now she has a baby ready to pop, and another barely developed apparently. I already thought it was irresponsible enough for her to have a ninth child. But a tenth? I couldn't believe mom got pregnant at a time like this, or how it could of happened, or even when. And how were we suppose to support four growing babies? It was scary to think mom was going to have two babies at this time in this place, screaming and putting us all in danger. Plus the other two as well.
Mom got a call earlier that day saying that dad wasn't going to be home for another three months and a half. Mom seemed upset by this news and just laid in her bed after telling us what she heard. She looked and acted depressed, and barely ate anything. And in a day I saw her stomach completely grow another three inches. I didn't know how that could of happened considering how little she's eating. But at least our rations would never go out that way...
Everyone else began doing what they always did every day in a world like this now. I wanted to make sure every day was perfect. Not just that very day would keep me safe, but that I would get to live each day.
“Hey Liz, now that you’re awake… Do you want to go adventure outside?” Jared asked.
“Sure, I guess.” I responded, getting up and putting shoes on.
I walked towards the door and Jared opened the door for me. We walked outside and made our way down the street. We started talking about the most stupidest things, but it made us both laugh. We turned the corner and passed people who were also talking among themselves. Then we passed some children playing on the playground in the front yard. Despite recent events, today seemed normal. Funny even. If I can even remember what normal is that is. But then we passed the church. There was some kind of event going on. They tried desperately to get us to come inside. Something about overthrowing the military. I knew it couldn't be good, and I didn't want to be involved. But the more we said no, the more angry they got and started insulting us and trying to grab us. I knew that was a group I didn't want to be apart of. I think they wanted to destroy the wall... Which that was the only thing keeping us apart from the masses of diseased. And even then, it wasn't fully working. As some escaped through anyway.
We quickly walked away from them, ignoring their insults and went to the park. We sat down on the playground for a bit. We watched as people ran by, we watched as two drug deals took place, and then we decided to take off to somewhere else. We walked more into town and passed the appliance store. The manager came out running with tears in his eyes, screaming his head off at us. Screaming that Barbara's death won't be for nothing, and that we will die a slow and painful death. Unfortunately I didn't think he was that far off from the truth. We ran away and went to the ancient rail road tracks and started playing around on them. Neither of us talked to each other. We just wanted to forget the bad and enjoy the nice for awhile. So we laughed as we hopped around on the tracks before we headed back to our home.
We noticed that everyone was already in their homes, and there was absolutely no movement outside, aside from the wind. The military soldiers were roaming the streets. I guess they put a curfew out that we didn't know about. We had to be careful to not get caught. At a time like this, we had to follow their moves. Know when to jump in and out of bushes quietly and be tactful. What turned into a twenty minute walk home, turned into two hours. But eventually we made it home without being detected. However, we weren't hidden from mom, who was seemingly pissed. But she was more glad that we were okay and safe than anything else. But damn did she have the worst mood swings you'd ever come to know. She gave us some food and then sent us on our way to our rooms for the night.