Ellie Dixon

A Fine Line

Me and Sophia were running in the woods. Again. It was dark, we only had one torch that Sophia had put into her pocket at some point while we were leaving the house. I was holding the torch in one hand, my gun in the other since I safely secured Teddy in my backpack.

Sophia was crying, but she was keeping it quiet, so we didn't draw the attention of walkers. I had bullets, but we still wanted to avoid the dead as much as we possibly could. "Stop, stop, stop." I said and we stopped running. 

I heard the groaning, it sounded close, right behind us. I turned around, raising my gun and torch at the same time. I was about to pull the trigger without hesitation until I saw who it was. "Oh my god." Sophia let out as she started backing away.

"Mama?" I let out. Her left arm from the elbow down was gone, her right arm was barely hanging on since it had so many chunks taken from it, her head was hanging to the side since the left part of her neck was missing so much flesh, I'm not sure how she was walking since there were so many bites taken from her legs, she was barely recognisable since her face was missing half of her features, but I knew it was her. She was wearing the same clothes, the necklace around her neck was the same, she was missing one eye but the one she had stared at me. I knew she didn't recognise me, because that wasn't my mother, it was her body, but it wasn't her. However, there was something about her eye, the way it looked at me, maybe it was because I've seen her look at me like she wanted to hurt me so many times and that's what this walker wanted to do. "Oh my god." I muttered, keeping my arms raised. I backed away; I didn't want to shoot her. "You did this to yourself! You're the reason we were in that forest! If you didn't make me go out there with you then you wouldn't be like this right now! Why do I feel bad if you did this! You're dead! You're not my mama, I'm not hurting her, you're just a chewed-on corpse!" I yelled at it, still backing away so I wouldn't have to shoot it. "Damnit." My voice cracked as tears streamed down my face. "I hate you! This is all your fault!" I yelled at the body of my mother.

"Ellie, we either have to run or you have to pull the trigger." Sophia said sadly from behind me.

"Goodbye, mama." I said quietly before pulling the trigger. The bullet lodged itself in her head before she fell down. I walked over to her, taking the necklace from around her neck and putting it in one of the side pockets of my bag. I stared at her for about twenty seconds before I saw figures coming our way. I kissed my fingers before gently touching my fingers to her forehead. "I hate you, but for some god damn reason I still love you... I'll see you on the other side, mama." With that I got up so me and Sophia could keep running.

Me and Sophia hadn't gotten to the highway, but we'd gotten to a nearby town. It looked like a nice street, where families would've lived. I headed over to a garage, I shot the padlock before pulling it open. Their car was missing, so whoever lived here tried to escape this world, maybe they did, maybe they're out there somewhere. Either way, two children were a part of this family. I grabbed one of the children's bikes and a cart, using rope I found I connected the two so that when the bike was moving it would drag the cart along with it. I wheeled the bike out. "What the hell?" Sophia laughed.

"You wanna get to that highway? Get in." I pointed to the red cart with a smile. "You can't cycle, so I'm gonna have to pull you."

She shook her head and got in, holding her crutches over her lap, taking dolly out of her waistband and holding her close to her heart. "What if my mum and your dad aren't there when we get to the highway? What if nobody else got out? Or they did, but we may never see them again?... I don't think we can survive just the two of us."

I sighed. "There's a fine line between the beginning of the story and the end of the story. People think they're two different things, but they aren't, they're actually quite similar. It's you who chooses whether this is the beginning or the end. Whether there are people on that highway when we get there or not... This is just the beginning, because with me around? Nothing bad will ever happen to you." I smiled at her.