Choices 2 - Chasing hope [ENG]

1.

The fire I lit a little while ago is crackling in front of me. The sun has not yet gone down, but I prefer to light the bonfire as soon as I find good wood and a fairly sheltered place: it gives me the certainty to say that for that day, the fatigue of the journey stops.

I'm sitting on an old tree trunk, probably knocked down by last week's storm. I'm eating some berries that I found in the woods, while the little hare, caught almost by mistake, doesn't seem to want to cook.

Just under an hour to sunset, I can't risk leaving the fire burning: they could see me, both the infected and the hunters. I decide that if within a few minutes the hare is not cooked in the least, I will eat it raw: hunger is killing me and with it, also the burns on my shoulders and arms. I try to touch my right shoulder with a finger, but it immediately starts to burn. Fuck, I should have covered myself with something, but how should I did it? It is terribly hot, it will be at least 30 degrees during the day while at night, the temperature does not drop below 25: if I cover myself with something, it will not be just hunger that will kill me.

I stand up to check that there are no infected nearby, and in addition to the excruciating pain I feel under my feet, I remember the wound I got when I fell from a tree: I have a wound all along my left calf. Looks like it's getting me infected.

I sit down again. I start looking in my backpack for something to clean it and I find a carrot: I had decided to take it with me to feed it to Callus, my horse, but all this before that horde of infected made him escape. I still search but in a hurry, I find nothing. So, I take the backpack from below and throw it on the ground: all I need right now isn't certly to have to amputate half a leg because it has become infected, especially now that I am also without a horse.

I search desperately among the objects that I have spilled on the ground and my diary immediately stands out, the one that Tommy had given me. I pick it up: I haven't written to it for a long time, perhaps because I had the brilliant idea not to carry a pen with me.

I'm about to open it when my wound reminds me it's waiting to be healed. I take the alcohol that was hiding right under the diary and in a little while, I disinfect the wound and the bundle as much as possible. By dint of cutting shoots from my shirt, I will have nothing left to wear.

I try to stretch the injured leg without straining it and I can, more or less. I take the hare off the fire and start eating it. I turn to my left: I am on top of a hill, which is why I see in the distance the back of many other hills, now colored by the red of the sunset. This is my favorite moment of the day, it gives me a certain sense of tranquility, perhaps because Jackson was starting to celebrate at this hour. I search around me for the diary and see it near the fire. I take it quickly and start leafing through it without dwelling on anything in particular: the only thing that matters to me is to feel the surface of the pages scroll through my fingers and closing my eyes, I want to try to remind me of that feeling of serenity, which only Jackson is managed to give me. For a second, I can still smell the scent of my room, the sound of footsteps on the floor, the softness of that embrace that ... The memory hurts me so much that I throw the diary away: I can't go on like this.
I made a decision that led me to be where I am now, and this diary is a thing of the past. I reach out, grab it and without thinking twice, throw it into the bonfire. I see the pages begin to dismember in the flames, taking a black color, until they become ashes. I settle on my side, with my back to the bonfire: it will go out soon and I have to sleep, otherwise I won't even be able to get up tomorrow.

I run down the corridor. I hear her footsteps following me. I arrive in my room and slam the door just before she reaches me. I hear her knocking on the door.

"Charlie, please let me in, I need to talk to you" she says in a muffled voice from the distance.

I am sitting at the foot of my bed and have no intention of answering, much less opening the door for her.