Days of Decay

Chapter Nine

Before long, the pair found themselves asleep on the grass, exhaustion taking its toll on them. Despite Asha having slept so much already, she found it easy to slip back into another world. But when the birds started performing like the fucking Royal Variety Show, they both woke up groggily.

Asha wiped the sleep from her bleary eyes and peered around them; no-one was up yet still.

"I slept," Finn remarked, stretching his arms to the sky.

"See," Asha began, clearing her throat, "The horror gets easier to bear."

Finn started chuckling then.

"What's so funny?" She asked impatiently, sitting up, annoyed.

"I just realised how ironic it is."

"How ironic what is?" Asha spat, getting irritated at him once again, and he was doing so well too.

"You reassuring me while your face is caked in blood."

Asha opened her mouth slightly to come back with a witty remark, but she was cut short by the realisation that she hadn't washed her face yet; he was right. She lifted a cautious hand to her face and brushed her skin. Sure enough there was a certain roughness to it, the culprit; day old blood.

She was surprised she hadn't noticed the odd feeling on her skin, or the smell. She was more used to it than she'd first thought. A smile tickled its way across her lips, she didn't want it to come, but her lips quivered until she couldn't hold it anymore.

"If you say, 'I told you so', I will hit you," she grinned.

He held his hands up in defence and returned her bright smile. Her own cheeks ached as her muscles remembered how to show happiness.

The sun began to rise behind the soft swaying fir trees; it's light casting a much-appreciated glow on the forest. Asha watched it as closely as she could, trying to savour it.

She looked away when the sun became too bright, burning her eyes. That was one thing she'd learnt. Beauty doesn't last forever; it leaves you and it does it either gracefully or painfully; there is no in between.

She blinked at the earthy ground, letting her eyes adjust back to normal vision.

"Maybe I should go find a stream or something," she finally said, shrugging.

She was sure there was a small creek nearby, if not, there was always the lake that she'd become acquainted with the other morning. She stood up, swaying slightly, and patted herself down.

"I'm coming with you. Can't let you go al-" Finn stopped his sentence short once Asha glared at him. "-I need a wash too," he swiftly said, saving himself from an impending beating.

"You know, there are other people in the group. You could hang with them?" She said as she started them on the woodland trail.

"Yeah. I don't think they like me," he said quietly.

"And you think I do?" Asha laughed lightly, her eyes concentrating on the rough bushy path.

He bowed his head and kept silent; she could feel the air thicken between them once again.

"I'm kidding, kind of. Look, you're new, okay? And you didn't exactly make a great impression," she said, a slight smile on her face.

"Even the half-dead girl gave me a dirty look," he sighed and Asha's mind went to Daisy.

"Well, that's just how she looks normally. I'm pretty sure she hates everyone."

"I get it. They don't like me because I'm a fucking coward," he sounded deflated.