Amnesia

Dead Weight

Every time I wake up, I jump in fear. This morning I didn't. The sun shines through the window next to my bed, giving me a sense of warmth. It's hot in the house, and I have to toss the blankets off of me to get comfortable. I don't want to get up at all. I want to stay in this bed for days, not worrying about anything trying to kill me.

I look over when I see movement. Chris is sitting up on the floor, looking at me. As soon as we make eye contact, we both look away.

"Good morning," he says as he stands up.

I nod to him, too exhausted to say anything. I watch as he grabs his blankets and begins to fold them neatly. Once he's finished, he puts them next to the end of the bed. He looks up.

"I like neatness," he says with a shrug.

I can't help but laugh. "Outside there are people trying to kill us and yet you still find it necessary to fold blankets."

He laughs with me, but holds up one finger. "But one thing is, they're not people."

We both stop laughing. "Before this all happened, people killed people. People murdered the innocent. Now it's no different, Chris."

He shakes his head. "Alice, this is different. They're not people. They have no soul. They died, and they're still dead."

"That doesn't mean they're some kind of different species!" I argue. "They were people before. They had families. They each had a heart and a brain. Murderers had those same things. Not the greatest heart or brain, but they had one. You can call them what you want, but you can't say they're not human."

He looks at me in wonder. "Look, I know it's been rough for you. I can't imagine how hard it would be to wake up and not remember much, let alone in a world that fell so quickly to this. I get it. They are humans. But they're also monsters. And they are out to kill us all, just as they killed my family and my friends."

Chris gives me a curt nod before walking out of the room, disappearing down the stairs. I sigh, putting my head in my hands. Why must I always screw things up?

It would be better if I left. If I just sneak out of the house and slipped away. I basically was the cause of their loss of Jacob and the market. I found a way out, but that doesn't matter because that was the smallest portion of the entire disaster.

I'm nothing but a burden to these people. They all have a right to hate me.

"Are you okay?"

My head shoots up. In the doorway Anne stands with her arms crossed over her chest. I smile at her. "Just tired."

"I bet," she says. "Come on, get some breakfast with me. We got pears from a can to share."

I slowly get up, my entire body screaming for me to lay back down. My muscles are on fire with every step, and the injury in my foot makes walking ten times worse.

Anne kindly helps me downstairs and into a chair at the dinner table. She puts a bowl of pears in front of me, but I don't dig in yet.

"You're not allergic, are you?" She asks.

I shrug and scoot the bowl closer. I take a bite of the pear, savoring the juicy flavors of canned fruit. I never thought I'd love canned fruit as much as I do now. I eat the pears so fast that I instantly regret it as soon as I lean back in my chair.

"So what should we do today?" Todd asks from the other side of the table.

"Maybe scavenge," Brenda suggests.

Anne nods. "We should send out a group to do a scavenging hunt. There isn't that much water left, and we can always hope for more food. If this house wasn't cleaned out, then the others might be okay too."