If We Survive

Chapter 12

Warmth.

It's the first thought in my mind, which is nice compared to the second. 

Pain.

Oh God, it hurts. It feels like my entire stomich has been ripped open and then sewn back together. The third thought in my mind is a funny one. 

It's Christmas.

What did I do last Christmas? I remeber we ate Chineese food the night before, and watched the fith Star Wars episode. And now, I'm at the end of the world.

Who would've guessed that twist? 

Not me. 

And I'm good with predicting things, as I've only mentioned about six thousand times before. 

I peel my eyes open, subconsiously expecting to see my living room back at the cabin, with Zack leaning off the couch across from mine. 

I don't see my living room, and I certianly don't see Zack. "Jacob!" I shout, sitting up all to quick. Pain shoots through my stomich, causing me to let out the smallest of screams. 

My big brother grins at me, his messed up curly blond hair sticks out at every angle. He looks much older, then he did, and I wonder how I recignized him- he doesn't look at all like Jacob James, pain-in-the butt and resident football player. 

"I though you were dead." I say, marvoling slightly at him. Probubly not the right thing to day- but what can I do, I'm the queen of ackwardness. 

"You nearly were." He replies. "But Good God am I happy to see you." 

Suddenly, I hear a loud zipping noise. My head yanks over to the side- I can now see that I'm in some sort of tent- not really the camping kind, but the ones you find after like a hurracane, or something to keep the sick in. 

Encoraging thought. 

"Is she awake?" Asks a voice from the entrance. Jacob blocks my way from seeing who it is. 

"Yep." Jacob calls back. I hear a rustling of several people entering the shelter. 

Three people. 

Three people that I know. 

Jose Drigg, Jenna Bryce, and my mother. 

I burst into tears. It sounds funny, but I honestly didn't know how else to react- you go nearly six months thinking that everyone that you know and love are dead, and then all of a sunnen you find out that they're still out there, happy and alive. 

Or alive, at least. 

"Oh my God." I choke out, managing a smile. I half expect my mother to rebuke me for using the Lord;s name in vain, but she doesn't. She's crying, too. 

Merry freaking Christmas, Cassy, here's the thing you've pretty much wanted all along. 

"You look so different." My mother whispers, taking a strand of my long hair between her thumb and forefinger. 

I don't even have an impulse to say something sarcastic. 

That's how damn happy I am to see her. 

You didn't think that was possible, did you? 

Jose and Jenna both went to camp- I don't suppose I was ever close with them, but I honestly don't give a crap. 

"Are you hungry?" My mother asks. She looks nearly the same as ever- a small scar runs through her left eyebrow, but other than that, she looks just like the picture on my wallet- my brother's thick, blond hair, a slightly upturned nose, green eyes, like mine, without rust. 

I manage a nod- fact is, I'm starving, although I was a bit too overwhelmed with everything to notice erlier. 

Jose brings me a tray of food- not a lot of food, but still, it's a welcome sight. There's soup and bread- and it's like the best food I've ever tasted. 

They leave me alond to go back to whatever they where doing before me being alive inturrupted. I need to time by myself, anyway. 

I gently push off the covers from over my stomich, and then I lift up my torn tanktop to see the damage. 

It's well wrapped in a bandage, but judging by the leingth of my wound, it was pretty bad. 

I was under the impression that I wasn't actually hurt terribly bad. It didn't look too terrible to my eyes, yesterday, although I was probubly too woozy from blood loss to tell. 

Jacob comes back in- and I notice just how tired he looks. It's clear that he hasn't slept for a long time. "What cut you like that?" He asks, nodding to my revealed stomich. 

"Bayonette." I reply, trying to maintain a competely normal face. Like who the hell nearly gets their guts slashed out by a bayonette? Not anybody normal. 

He gives me a look, like a what-the-hell-did-you-do-to-deserve-that look. I'm suprised when he doesn't ask. I sometimes for get that, no matter how much we act alike, Jacob is a different person than me- a smarter person. 

But there's something about the grimness in his way that tells me he's withholding information. 

I don't have to ask, because he bursts it out, a second later, "Cass, what the hell happened to you? And what have you been doing the past five months?" Not him withholding from me, but I from him. Jacob, the ever-courious one. 

"Do you remebr Zack and Stephen, the twins from camp?" I ask. I don't have to wait for the reply, because I know he knows who they are, "well, we were the only ones in out group who didn't change, and we ran around alone for a while. Long story short, we found people with food and supplies. I've been with them, ever since. Yesterday... or the day before that, I can't remeber which, we went hunting, and we got attacked. I don't know what happened to them, but someone attacked me. I escaped, and ended up here." 

My brother doesn't say anything for a long while, and then. "We've never seen anything like a cabin in this area. We've been around here for like two months now." 

Does he not belive me? Or did I just wonder so far that I'm out of the area of the cabin? It didn't seem like I went far, but I could have- there were many times that I blackout. I only have scattered memories of the past two days, and some of them I don't even know are real.

I shrug it off. "Well you haven't been looking hard enough." I don't know why I'm being so cross with him- I've just found my long-lost brother, and my mother, and people that I've though were dead, and... I'm bing an ass about it. 

Like, what even is wrong with me? 

-

I know, I know another short chapter. I'm kind of having to go in the dark on these things because I just competely changed the next four chapters, which for a person like me is a lot of chapters.