Born to Die

6

2 weeks later

Alli
I walked beside Carl, only a few inches apart from each other and we paced around the perimeter of the courtyard. "So what happened after that?" He asked me, I was telling him about the time my best friend and I accidentally set our science classroom on fire, whoops. "Sarah thought that it'd be a good idea to mix hand sanitizer into the experiment, she didn't know it was flammable." I laugh and he raises his eyebrows "doesn't hand sanitizer have alcohol in it, you know, flammable alcohol?" he asked sarcastically and I laughed again "she didn't realize I guess.".

"Anyway, she spilled the beaker and the burner lit it on fire. So most of the table had fire on it, and we thought that we could smother it with paper towels, instead of telling the teacher apparently" I rubbed my temple, thinking of how dumb I was back then. "Basically, we kept throwing stuff into the fire, trying to stop it, and nobody even realized until my friend Tommy's sleeve caught on fire. Nobody got hurt, but needless to say, Sarah and I got detention for a few weeks." I finished and he chuckled "wow, I'm surprised it wasn't suspension" "we both had good grades, the teacher let us off easy, my mom was pissed though".

We'd been telling stories for the past hour or so, just walking around the courtyard. It all started because he asked about my parents, and when I wasn't feeling ready to talk about it, we decided to start before the apocalypse started. "You ready to talk about it now?" He asked and I nodded "Yeah, but for every question you ask me, I get to ask you one" I negotiate and he nods in agreement.

"So, your parents, you said they died. How did it happen?" He asked, his voice was softer now, he tried to be sympathetic. I close my eyes, they're already gone, you've been dealing with it for years, don't get emotional, I told myself this as I began to tell Carl what happened.

"Our car ran out of gas, so we were on foot in the woods, roads were even more dangerous. There were herds in the woods though, and by the second one, my parents had been bit. It came out of nowhere. My sister and I were about to start a fire for the night, but I heard my mom scream. I looked over and a walker had already got into her neck, my stepdad got bit then. All the sudden, walkers were everywhere, and all we could hear over my mom's screams, was my stepdad yelling for us to run" I took a deep breath as we kept walking, Carl looked sorry for me.

"What happened to your mom?" I asked, immediately wishing I'd asked something else, I didn't wanna talk about it, why should I make him. "Never mind, you don't have to-" "It's fine" he cut me off, taking a deep breath, resembling me a few moments before.

"My mom was pregnant. This crazy guy at the prison set off a bunch of alarms, they drew walkers from all over the place. Maggie and I, we were running with my mom, looking for somewhere safe. The closest we could get to was some storage room or something. My mom went into labor then, everything just... went wrong. We planned things out for months, but nothing from the plan happened. I um- I had to kill her, so she wouldn't turn" I looked at him, almost in shock at how he could go through with something like that, his story was so much worse than mine.

"I'm sorry Carl, that you had to go through that" I couldn't imagine something much worse, at least I didn't have to kill my mom, I couldn't imagine what it must be like for him. "It's okay. It's something you learn to live with, there wasn't another option. And...we have Judith now" his voice was monotone, avoiding emotion.

There was a pause, a moment of silence, then he seemed to return to his usual self, he always seemed as if a smile was right around the corner, I didn't understand how he could do that now, after hearing things that actually happened to him. "Any more funny best friend stories?" He asked, half smiling and I returned one "One time we were at the golf course behind my house and we sunk a golf cart in the pond" I shrugged and he laughed a bit "let's hear that one".

Carl
When everyone fell asleep, Alli and I met in my cell to sneak out to the house again, it had become a habit, we went there almost every night. "So I'm thinking that we go swimming tonight" I suggest and she nods, there's a pond behind the house, there's no walkers so that's good enough to swim in.

"Alright, I'm gonna change into my bathing suit then, I'll wear a sweatshirt or something over it" she whispers and I nod "same, just meet me at the fence" I tell her and she gives a thumbs up, leaving my cell.

We'd been keeping an eye out on runs for stuff that we could use at the house, swim suits were one of the recent things that we added to the list, they were easy to find though. I put on the pair of swim trunks, throwing on a t-shirt and grabbing my gun before I left. Alli was waiting at the fence when I got there, sweatshirt on along with a pair of sweatpants, her hair was pulled into a bun.

She smiled as she saw me, then started to climb the fence, knowing I'd follow her in a few seconds. We stayed silent on the walk to the house, we were always really cautious until we went over the second fence. "You wanna swim now or later?" I ask her and she shrugs "I guess now, that way we have time to dry off" she tells me and I nod "I'll go look for some towels then" I say and she gives a nod, sitting down at the piano.

I go upstairs, finding a few towels in the bathroom, I could hear the piano playing as I walked. Alli had been remembering how to play like she used to, at least I assume that's what she's doing, because she's really good at it. I get to the bottom of the stairs, watching her as her fingers danced around on the keys of the piano. She seemed to be in her own world whenever she played it, it was fascinating to see, like watching magic.

She finished the song and I smiled "you're picking it back up pretty quickly" I say and she turns around, clearly not knowing that I had been there. "Thanks" I saw her blush again, she does that a lot. "Okay, lets go check out this pond" she grins and I follow her as she goes to the backyard. I put the towels on the grass beside the pond, looking at the surface of the water, it seemed empty, as if a fish hadn't been there in years.

"Well" Alli said, pulling off her sweatshirt and sweatpants "last one in's a rotten egg!" She laughed as she said the childlike phrase, jumping into the water. "Not fair, I didn't even take my shirt off yet" I told her as she resurfaced, earning a playfully smug look "sucks to suck". I pulled off my shirt and jumped in the water beside her, it was somewhat deep, but I moved to where I could stand, she just stayed in the deep part though, treading water.

"I hope there's no fish in here" she mutters and I laugh "I've seen you kill like 10 walkers within a few seconds, but a fish is what scares you?" I ask and she nods "basically, I'm not scared of them, they're just gross" she somewhat explains and I laugh. "What would a fish even do to you?" I ask jokingly and she shrugs "I don't know, pull me down or something" she answers and I smirk "you mean like...this?!" I went underwater quickly, tugging her foot down, I could see her laughing as I opened my eyes underwater.

She gave me a fake annoyed face as I came up for air though "you suck" she crossed her arms and I laugh, hugging her jokingly as an apology "you know you love me though" I say grinning and she laughs "yeah, I do".