Chloe watched her twin daughters impatiently as they groaned and whined at the simple task: listen and pay attention to the story. It was all she had asked of them, but still, on the wooden floor, the sisters fiddled, rocked, and did anything but give her their full focus. This was not acceptable; not when the words it contained were severe and could very well save their lives one day. When she paused the book, the girls sitting at either side of her noticed and finally looked at her.
"You know I worked hard on this. I spent hours and hours of time on the guide, and neither of you will pay attention. I tell you this all the time, and I'll tell you again: this information is critical," Chloe reminded them, but didn't get the reaction she wanted. Instead of receiving any indication of agreement, they only stared at her. "What's going on?"
"When will Forest be back?" Autumn asked, her big blue eyes meeting her mother's hazel ones. She avoided the question as she anxiously continued rocking back and forth.
Not only was Chloe impatient, but her daughters were likewise; she could tell. Closing the book, their progress lost, she placed it down in front of her with a defeated sigh. "These reading sessions only take half an hour, and we were halfway done."
"Yes, but you read this to us twice a day," Winter moaned, standing to her feet and her twin followed after her. "It might not seem like much, but it adds up. We practically memorized the twenty-something page book." Glancing over, Autumn nodded at this statement.
"Mom?"
Chloe, eyes tired, looked at Autumn. "Hmm? What is it, honey?"
"Why does our little brother train when we sit here and listen to a manual? I'd rather be in the fenced yard practicing with Dad then listen to you read about what to do. We train only a few hours every day."
"Yeah, and we're eleven. Forest is only nine," Winter chimed in.
Chloe closed her eyes, breathing deeply before speaking. This was a hard topic; one that she thought about daily and often cried about when she was alone. Knowing what Forest had to deal with in this harsh, sick world broke her heart. When she finally opened her eyes, it was then that she answered - the sad but honest reason. "Forest has epilepsy. You know this. It is because your brother is so special that he has to train more than the both of you."
As if on cue, the wooden door opened, and her husband, Hale, and her son walked into the room. Sweat dripped from each of their bodies, clothes soaked. Hale breathed heavily, but Forest was wheezing for lost air, the boy over-worked and pale. The moment he stepped into the house, he let himself drop to his knees.
"Hale! That boy's gonna pass out!" Chloe's eyes were wide, her lips drawn into a stern frown. Finding her feet, she hurried over to her son with sympathy and kneeled next to him. "You always do this. So is this how it is?"
"What are you talking about?" Hale asked unfazed, wiping sweat from his brow onto an arm.
"Just because I am almost due doesn't mean you have to be in charge. Forest will not go out tomorrow with you to throw knives and do hand-to-hand combat and whatever else you two do together." Locking eyes with her husband, his blue eyes held irritation, but still, he nodded.
"A few more months, I'm thinking," Hale said, walking past his upset twin daughters and lowered himself onto a wooden chair that he had made himself. And sighed. "I just hope our new one won't have, you know...epilepsy. It comes with genetics."
Chloe hurried away briefly before coming back with his medication. After he took his daily pills, she gave him a hug of reassurance. "You know I love you, right? I'm sorry things are so unfair, but it will all be okay. You and your sisters are going to live long after your father and I pass away, you hear me? Don't worry. And it won't be them taking care of you but, if anything, you'll take care of them. Epilepsy is not a disability."
"Water...!" he interrupted, the little boy beginning to cough.
"Of course! Water!" Chloe echoed.
Four months later:
Summer heat spilling generously over the landscape; a delightful feeling of warmth was given to all those who had the pleasure of receiving it. Lush green trees stood tall around the old and wooden house, the nearby river flowing steadily. That familiar sound of the waters was one that was often described as heavenly, but it couldn't be heard. Not this time. A higher noise went over it: a constant one. The scene taking place in that very house was a gruesome and dangerous one in an apocalypse. Screaming in agony, Chloe was giving birth.
Comforting his wife, Hale crouched beside her ushering words of encouragement. She lay on the hand-crafted bed, the hard and unforgiving wood doing little to calm the hysterical woman. She was about to be a mother of four. Lacking a blanket, Hale ordered somebody to grab one, urgency in his voice. Instead of moving, the three children just stood there in the doorway, frozen. It wasn't until Hale repeated himself once more in a harsher tone that any of them complied. Winter leaving her trance, she hurried away.
"They shouldn't see this," Chloe told her husband, breathing heavily. "Tell them to leave, honey."
Nodding, he turned to the kids and said, "Go outside. Make sure they aren't getting in." The two in the doorway left without saying a word, and it was then that Winter returned with the blanket. After receiving it, he told her what she had told her siblings: to go outside and make sure everything was okay.
The three children spread out throughout the fenced yard, each taking a weapon with them. Autumn had taken a loaded pistol from where it always sat: next to the front door in case of an emergency, and this was nothing short of one. Finding the weapons in the shed to be unloaded, Forest grabbed a baseball bat for both himself and Winter. He didn't have time to search around for ammunition.
The place the three kids had lived their entire lives was always considered safe; no walker had ever gotten through the fence; but looking at it now, they all shared a common fear. Maybe they were about to have their first break-in. In all directions stood the infected people, or walkers as they now called them. Their moans echoed in a constant mock, bodies pushing against the structure. The pressure was too much for the old fence, its posture falling had an alarming rate.
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"Autumn!" Winter called desperately, her sister around the corner and barely in sight. "You are the only one with a gun, so aim well, or we all die!"
Hearing this responsibility, the twin was overwhelmed. Wasting no time, Autumn ran to the backyard in search of her brother. He had the most training, so when they traded weapons, she felt better. Epilepsy was not a disability, after all. That was what Mother always said.
The ones with the bats hit the invaders, while Forest fired shots. They know that if one managed in, more would follow. It was because of this that each was determined to wipe the walkers out before the fence was to break down.
Despite their best efforts, it took but another minute before a piece of the fence failed them and then another. Each collapsing to the ground with a noisy thud, walkers helped themselves through the two gaps. Leaving her sibling by themselves, Winter hurried inside to report the devastating news.
"Mom, Dad!" she said, distressed, once she reached her parents' bedroom. Her anxious eyes locked with her fathers, and she was at a loss of words. Immeasurable sorrow was displayed across his features; his lips were drawn into a solid frown and fresh tears trailed down his face. The girl couldn't help but feel as though she was intruding.
The quiet suffocated the room, and soon Winter herself began to cry, heartbroken. No words needed to be said. All the clues were there. Cringing away, she couldn't bear to see the scene any longer. Realizing her mother was gone and the baby had yet to be born, Winter sobbed. Two people, she had lost already, and that's when she remembered what was happening just outside.
"Forest and Autumn are outside and we really need your help...because they have broken in. We have at least fifty surrounding us." The words carried much sadness, and she hated the pause that followed. When the silence dragged on, she finally looked into the room to find her father to be weeping quiet tears. It would be another minute before she had managed to get him out of his frozen-state and outside.
When the other kids had been born, the gathered walkers were manageable; but over the years they had only increased in number. They were growing. No doubt about it.
It was on this beautiful day that these unfortunate events occurred. The summer heat generously spilling over the landscape, a delightful feeling of warmth was given to all those who had the pleasure of receiving it. Lush green trees stood tall around the aged and wooden house, the nearby river flowing steadily. It was on this day that the unimaginable happened.
One year later:
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Hale stared. Inhaling, his blue eyes were sharp. But they continued, blissfully unaware. It was when he cleared his throat noisily that the repeated noise stopped and it was quiet again. Finally earning the person's attention, he locked eyes with her.
"What?" she asked, her hazel eyes wide with innocence. But she was good at pretending. "I bounce balls from the wall when I'm thinking."
"You also do it when you're bored, which is often in this underground bunker. But this is serious. Now, Winter, can you give us any input on this at all?"
"Shouldn't it be obvious? Have you checked the calendar? He's depressed and he should be. It's his fault," the girl stated as though it was a known fact. "All of it." With that, she proceeded to bounce the ball from the wall. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Was it really today? It suddenly became clear to Hale why he had been so depressed.
"Winter!" The name was spoken with much irritation, her twin shooting up from a wooden chair. This structure, and the four other chairs nearby, had been painted black and built not a month ago.
"What? You know as well as I do that it's true," Winter yelled back and stood abruptly from her chair as well, ball in hand dropping to the hard ground with a careless thud. "If he didn't seize up on that day, he could have actually helped. He was completely useless. So much for all that training because he's no better than us."
Watching his twin daughters eye each other with a hatred broke Hale's heart, but when he was reminded once more of Chloe and her tragic death, he had to hold back tears. It was today.
"You just can't forget, can you? That memory of Dad weeping beside Mom. Ever since then you haven't been yourself. You've grown hard," Autumn said, her blue eyes planted upon her sisters' hazel ones, and there was a pause.
"Girls, girls," Hale tried, rising from his seat, "you both need to stop. I think I know why he has stopped eating and talking for the past few days. It's the anniversary of...their deaths'." Stepping away briefly, he rounded the corner and unpinned the calendar from the otherwise bare wall. Reappearing, he held it up with a mournful look and pointed to the date.
"I know," Winter said bluntly, retrieving the ball off the ground and walked away in the direction of her room, rounding the corner.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Autumn demanded, and the fading footsteps stopped before retracing back the way they came.
"Wait, why are you mad at me? You and Dad have been either oblivious or ignoring our pain all month. We saw this day coming weeks ago, both of us counting down the days. And here you two are completely in the dark on what today is. To think you're yelling at me." Inhaling deeply, she stormed out of sight.
Exchanging a quick glance at his daughter, each evidently hurt, Hale took a deep breath. Rounding the corner, he disappeared down the hallway and stopped before his son's room. Hesitant, he knocked upon the hard door and received what he had been getting for the past week. Nothing.
"Forest?" After he confirmed his presence behind the door, the father creaked it open and peeked inside for the first time that day.
The all-too-skinny boy laid in bed, motionless, and if it weren't for his chest moving up and down, he might have been mistaken for dead. Pronounced on the side of his head was a bruise still in the process of healing, the large site taking on a shade of purple. Staring at the gray ceiling, he just looked plain miserable.
He quietly closed the door behind him and made sure to walk around the blue blanket sprawled out on the ground. Drawing near his bed, the boy didn't seem to realize he was even there.
"I understand now, Forest. And it's not just you because we all share your pain. Trust me. She was my wife and I still live every day in remembrance, even if I haven't been keeping track of the date," Hale said gently, and when he had fully approached him, the man looked down at his son with sympathy. But, still, Forest avoided eye contact. "Epilepsy is not a disability."
He scoffed at his father's statement. Finally pulling himself into a sitting position, the boy sluggish due to a lack of nutrients, he asked, "How?" Meeting his father's eyes, his held much doubt. "How?" During the short pause, fresh tears were ready to fall down his troubled face and he had to look away.
"That's what Mother always said, okay? Don't ever forget that. It's good to remember. And you're not allowed to quit, son. You and I were out there by ourselves daily, except when you needed a break now and then. You learned things over the years, Forest, and I expect great things from you. You trained since you were five, so don't just give up."
"No, listen! This bruise on my head has been aching for days from when I fell against the road and will for many more, but it's so much more than all the injuries I've gone through. My seizures haven't just hurt me, Dad," Forest spoke up suddenly, voice cracking with pain and, finally, the first tear fell down. And then another.
His son sobbing, Hale just hugged him and Forest gave do resistance to the gesture. They would stay like this for a few minutes and when his crying subsided, only then did his father step back.
"Autumn gave me the gun, Dad. She gave it to me because I'm who she trusted the most. Not herself, not Winter. Me. And I failed her. I may only have seizures every few weeks, but somehow it had to happen on that day. I had a seizure when I was supposed to be protecting us from walkers. You should have just left me. My seizures may be once a week, but I can't be trusted in those kinds of situations anymore. I never want to be considered the best ever again."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just behind the door were the twin sisters, each listening in on their conversation. By the time Forest had finished speaking, they had shared a common feeling of sadness, and soon they were also tearing up. Winter leaving without a word, Autumn only stood there. The cause of his depression had finally been revealed, and she couldn't help but feel guilty that everyone else was healthy.