If We Survive

Chapter 16

Dinner is a quiet affair- apparently, that man wasn't the first less-than-friendly survivor that they've found. It scares me that someone could just kill someone else like that, especially Jacob. Easygoing Jacob with a big smile and a gap in his front teeth...

I opt to stay on watch, because I need time to clear my mind and think. It's a sort of oxymoran. 

Long after the final whisps of smoke dissapear, and the general tossing and turning in sleepingbags ends, I'm still competely lost in my own mind. It's like a scratch on a DVD. Every time I try to go back, my mind just skips. 

One moent, I'm sitting in a tree, hiding from an unknown evil, the next I'm stumbling through the woods, dying. 

A byonette. 

That's all I can remeber- can honestly, how many people have bayonettes in the 21st century? How do bayonettes even work, anyway? Like, wouldn't the heat from the rifle blast screw up something-or-nother. It's probubly made of the same stuff as the barrel of the gun, which is why that doesn't implode every single one shoots. 

My brain is a bit slow, clearly. 

And also ADD. 

Right then, I want to leave. I don't even want to go back to the cabin- I just want to start over. It happens every few months to me. I get boared of being where I am, and I want to move, and it's still happening at the end of the world. 

A free spirit trapped in trapped body. 

You know what? I really shouldn't  do that whole artsy-fartsy thing. It's true though, now, more than ever. I'm stuck here because it's my duty to protect my family, and all that honorable stuff. I wish cell phones still existed. 

I actually used to hate my phone, before. 

Well, I don't suppose it was actual hate, but I had a terrible knack for losing it. So if I was ever in a bad situation, I would have to use flag signals. I actually learned how to do that with all the time I saved in not texting people. 

Sometime around three, Jenna comes around to relive me of my shift. 

I fall asleep almost instantly. 

-

I'm back in the feild by the cabin, in the same yellow-y grim light that I dreamed of before, a few weeks ago. 

Ahilles is no were to be seen- fact is, the land is competely devoid of life, aside from myself. There' aren't even any birds. The air is thick and humid- a polar oppsite of the air at 10,000 feet. 

I turn in a circle, looking for something... I've lost... something. Something big, something that I need very bad. 

Again, I see the three people. I don't exactly know how I know they're people- they're no more than three black dots. 

Are they what I'm looking for? No. That doesn't quite right, although they momentarily intruge me. Who are they? What are they doing, all out here?

But I lose interest.

I go to the house, which seems much darker than usual. Nothing is refelcted in the windows, which is unusual, considering the light. 

There's a layer of dust on everything, like it's been abandon for a long time. 

"Choose." Commands a voice. 

What am I to choose? 

"Choose!" It yells, like some angry version of GLaDos from Portal. 

Oh, wait. 

"I don't understand!" I bed, looking around. It gets dark, terribly dark...

-

"For the love of all that is holy, WAKE UP!" Someone shouts at me. I roll up, facing Jose. It's still dark out, which is bothering. It looks essentially the same as when I went to bed. 

"You were yelling." My mother says, worry written all over her face. Even my brother seems mildly concerned. 

After reassuring four very concerned people that I was just having weird dreams, I find out that it's a lot later than I originally thought. It's almost six, but the sun isn't coming up, which is funny because even at this time of year, the sun is showing her nice face. 

Also, it's New Year's Day. 

Jacob doesn't want to stop for the day, but we convince him anyway. I wish we had firecrakers. 

Before now, I always hated the annoying neighbors who set off firecrackers illegelly on New Years. Colorado: were you can get high, but not set off firecrackers. 

I don't suppose those laws even really matter at all anymore.

I realize, for the first time, how uch hell the cities are- most of the population didn't survive, some of whom left ovens on or whatever. Fires would've started, and everyone would be in a compete panick. I'm sort of glad I wasn't at my comfortable home in suberbia, bacause I wouldn't have survived. Comforting. 

It's kind of like soeone wanted me to be in thr ountians the moment that the zap happened, because camp was supposed to be the week before, until like January of last year, when someone absolutly had to have our capgrounds that week. My parents and the Camp Director both let them have it, being the nice and considerate people that they are. I would've said "No" very promptly, and given them a nice slap upside the head to accompany it, but I suppose that's why I've never been elected the leader of anything outside of history class. 

"Can I brush you hair?" Asks my mother. She's always loved to do that, and I always hated it, especially as a kid. 

"Sure," I reply, even though it'll probubly hurt like the dickens since it hasn't been brushed in like a week. There are probubly little animals nesting in there. 

Mom has her old, worn green brush that would be the one thing to survive the apocolypse. The thing is invinceable. 

She begins to run it through my dark hair. She's very tender. "You souldn't worry about Jacob." She says soothingly. 

Yeah, mom, ok. 

"He's just under a lot of pressure of being the leader of all of us right now, and he does love you very much."

"I know." I reply. I don't actually know what else to say- I do know that he loves me, because, well, he's not the kind of guy to hate. I mean, sure, we had our fair share of fights as kids, but we're too much alike to avoid it. 

"Good." I can tell she's smiling- my mother is, honestly, the best woman ever. She's pateint and calm, and... Not me. It's not like I hate myself (Not always, at least) but compared to my mother, I'm a train wreck. 

I suddenly remeber something. Not anything useful, just crious. "What happened to that man's dog?" I ask. I remeber the husky from right before I passed- I havn't seen the thing since. 

"What dog?" My mother replies, pausing.