Drowning ghosts // Glenn Rhee

New possibilities

He wasn't unattractive but he definitely wasn't built for this world especially if he just goes around saving random people that could have the potential to chop his balls off the second they got the chance. He had nice features, happy features and he looked about my age. He was Korean, well I'm guessing anyway. He looked scared, he realized he made a mistake, lots of people I meet think of me like that, a mistake. I don't care though, I didn't ask for him to save me, and ill be gone the minute the hurd passes and I'm out of his grasp. He won't see me again.

What if he doesn't let me go?

If he is alone I can easily take him down, with one slash of my knife, I don't want to but I will if I have to.

But what if he is not alone

Our eyes connect and I can see the fear rush through his eyes, pupils dilate. I can't comprehend if he is scared of just me or them, maybe it's the scar that ran from my eyebrow to my nose or the mud and muck smeared through my hair. I looked like a mad man. Or maybe it's the flesh-eating cannibals that we are hiding our feet from, I cant tell.

I hold the contact until he dares to look away flicking his head just the slightest bit. I was good at analyzing actions and features, it was a part of my job. It became a natural habit now to pull apart people's expressions to find the real hidden emotion. The shimmer reached their eyes as they brimmed with tears. As their legs gave out like a folding table, recked sobs as some confessed the truths we needed, some not so much. They weren't weak. But we weren't either.

I hated my job. But I couldn't leave, I had family there more than my own, so I suffered from the consequences and the hungry nightmares, death wasn't new to me, it was an old friend yet enemy.

I made some space between us but not so much as I would get the back of my head mauled off. His eyes were wired shut as if he let into the possible outcome waiting for us. He knew he could die and he wasn't going to fight, I think. I wasn't as scared, if I was I didn't allow myself to feel it. Being scared makes it harder to fight and fights all I have.

I pray he is alone. The thought bubbled in my mind forming a question left to be unanswered, trying to force its way up my throat through my sealed lips. I don't speak, just look, leaving the answer to be whatever forms in the end. Are you alone?

It quiets down, the distant groans of the dead move further down the highway, I slip my body from under the vehicle, being as soundless as one could be. He does the same, not so quiet, more hurried and clumsy.

Run.

My first instinct. I need to leave.

Rolling my body to bring some feeling back to my muscles, I turn towards the bush, not letting my mind protest. I lead into a jog.

"Wait" idiot, he isn't alone, otherwise he would be wise enough to not speak so loud, I swear rotters have a better hearing than the alive.

"Shut up, do you want to get yourself killed" I bite he steps back as if on accident, I'm not fazed.

I just want to leave.

"Do you have a group?" his voice is more a hush of whispers now as if he were telling me a secret behind the playset in preschool. How do you answer a question like that?

Two possible outcomes

I could say "yes" and be bombarded with questions about where and who, they could try to use me as leverage to attack my non-existent group, then find out that I'm alone, and a liar.

Or "no" could lead to them trying to take me or my stuff (not that I carried much), try to get me to join their group or just kill me.

He must have thought I didn't hear him with the amount of time I took to leave him with an answer, he asks again.