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'ekatón eíkosi éxi' is Greek for 126!
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*CONTINUED FROM CHAPTER ONE.*
CALISTA SAVAS
"How many walkers have you two killed?"
The remnant of the group seemed to be stunned at that question. Truly, Calista grew perplexed. What does her kill count have to do with the current situation? Was it a plotted question that could only be solved with a distinct answer? Because truly, the young teenager had lost track of it by now. She compared this question to 'how many times have you blinked today?' because who was supposed to genuinely remember the specific count?
This was their living condition, for now, anyway. No one in their rational mind would keep a record of something like that.
Gabriel, however, determined his answer to this impracticable request.
"Not any actually." The priest revealed. The group's leader turned to Calista, waiting on her response. She looked at the ground, trying her best to evoke a response to this.
She finally looked up at the pondering man, and declared, "Ekatón eíkosi éxi." Calista did not apprehend her conversion of language until the words eluded from her mouth.
She had always spoken in her native language when she grew uncomfortable, it was a nervous habit from her childhood. Of course, she wasn't used to this reaction, however. The confusion. The blurring. When you lived on a Greek island, mostly everyone was knowledgeable of the language the people who lived there regularly spoke in.
"Do you speak any English?" The man questioned, visibly confused. Before Calista got a chance to answer his pending question, a separate group member began analyzing her former response.
"That right there was the Greek language," he went on to pronounce, "A beautiful language that is, it's a shame there's not a lot of native speakers around here anymore-" The same redhead from earlier disrupted the man's lecture.
"Alright, pipe it, Eugene."
Calista then repeated her answer, only this time in an English translation. "One hundred and twenty-six." Although she wasn't entirely sure if that was the exact amount, it did seem reasonable. She had been by herself radically from the rise of the ghastly pandemic.
A voice was overheard from the group that persisted amongst her. "Now that's a thick accent if I've ever heard one." Her accent was undeniably thick, as Greek was her first language. Calista held her head down, dodging the prevailing attention. The group's leader then proposed another question, this one definitely more personal.
"How many people have you killed?" This prompted Calista to lift her head, staring at the man. She felt like that question was a bit intrusive. Who was this man to know her past? She didn't even distinguish his name, yet.
She abruptly spoke, "Name?" The man found himself pondering at her response, but Calista had logic behind her abrupt question. He retorted back to the adolescent teenager, "What?"
Calista believed what she had asked of him was explicit, but she found herself having to define it for him. "Your name," she continued, "What is it?"
The man avoided her question and recasted his former one. "Answer the damn question." Calista flinched at his remark, finding him rather intimidating. As if his large beard wasn't threatening enough.
"Two." She eventually muttered out.
"Why?"
Calista marked down at the ground, studying what he had just requested from her. Why does he need to know why? Just telling him the pure amount should've served, but clearly, it didn't. She hesitated before she shifted her eyes back up to the man awaiting her justification. "I was mending them. They got bit. I put them down."
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He turned his furthermore awareness towards the fraught priest. "And you?"
The priest instantly responded without any delay, "None." The man scanned Gabriel's expression. "Why?" Gabriel arose uneasily at the responses that were demanded of him. "Because the Lord abhors violence."The entire group stared at the man, in utter disbelief at the words that had fled from his throat. Calista was never one to be religious, or even curious about it. But, it struck her on how some people could still believe in it after this. Even if she was religious, she would grow skeptical of the truth behind the afterlife as time gradually went on, and days got harder. More difficult to sustain.
Because days did ultimately get tougher. Either because of the lack of supplies or the incline in the amount of prowling lifeless creatures. Supplies went away, at a rapid pace. The hunting opportunities weakened, as the dead reached the potential meals before the living did. The bodies of water leisurely became flooded with the sickly monsters, preventing people from using the natural resource.
"What have you done?" the ringleader began, "We've all done something." The priest paused, but then began explaining his defense, "I'm a sinner. I sin almost every day. But those sins, I confess them to God, not strangers."
The same woman who had checked Calista for weapons chimed into the conversation, "You said you had a church?" Gabriel nodded, with a look of despair.
The leader then turned to Calista, with a mellower pitch. "I'm Rick, who are you?" Calista couldn't help but feel at ease. She would unmistakably get by a tad easier with this group. She'd possibly even get something out of it.
"Calista. Calista Savas." She returned, burrowing her smile behind her grievous eyes.
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a/n:
hi everyone! i hope you enjoyed the second chapter of 'wildflower'! i really did enjoy writing this chapter, we def got a peek at calista's backstory by the reveal of the people she killed </3 anyways we'll dig more into that in future chapters!
also this chapter was a bit shorter, because i wanted to get past the whole "gabriel introduction" so now they're heading to the church!! excited for what's gonna happen there!
anyways, i definitely have a lot planned for calista and i really hope you guys grow to love her character just as much as i do, lolz love my greek goddess
also the next chapter will have a LOT of carl and calista interactions, sorry for the lack of them in this chapter lol like i said, i was just trying to get past the gabriel interactions
lmk what u think and as always, until next time my friends!!
