𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗟𝗗 , the walking dead

[01] campfire

CAMPFIRE
———
FOUR YEARS LATER

THE FIRE CAME TO LIFE, the fire that Rory and Louis worked together to build sprung to life. The flames danced around with a spark, a king of warmth. It seemed to brighten their world, the darkness that surrounded them faded into the background behind the trees. The stars shone in the sky extra bright that night, hanging in the sky giving them all a sense of calmness in their world of chaos.

In this moment, it all felt like a breath of fresh air. Even though in a rotting world there can be no such thing as fresh air, but this was the closest thing Maeve could get. It felt good, like the burning in her lungs finally settled. The pain of it was still present, still existed and lingered but in this moment it was manageable. She was fine.

The smell of a campfire used to always be her favourite especially when she was a kid. Her father took her out camping and hunting when it was his week with his kids, at that age Maeve liked what it felt like to sleep on the hard dirt ground and eat what you hunt. When she'd be skinning the squirrel or fish she always thought to herself that this was easy, it was even peaceful. Just her and her dad out in the woods, no worries, no people. Just her, him, a bow and the stars. All she needed. All she wanted.

That was back when life was simple, back when even in the woods she knew she had a warm cozy bed to go back to. When the world wasn't killing itself or when the dead wasn't killing the living, when things weren't so fucked up as they are right now.

Nowadays Maeve doesn't have to wait a week to go to her dads to camp and hunt, now it's her life. Now she sits in front of a campfire every night just to keep warm, wishing and praying to get the old world back, or for more people, more good people and less dead people roaming the world. She'd wish she wouldn't have to see people dying everyday, or worry that she'll lose her brothers, Rory or Elliott. Wish she wouldn't have to be scared to sleep every night out of fear she'll wake up and the dead would be eating her family's guts.

Except Maeve stopped wishing and praying long ago, she refused to be caught begging some higher being that may or may not exist to save her, the only ones doing the saving are the ones on the ground. Maeve knew she'd keep her family save, she'd do whatever it takes, kill whoever it takes to make sure they survive.

Today was just another day of survival, attacked by the dead, barely making it out covered in blood and sweat. Throats and lungs raw from yelling from trying to find each other, bodies cut from the branches and bushes they ran through in the woods. All to get to where they are now. Starving, thirsty, left with nothing but each other around a campfire. 

So there the five of them sat, Maeve leaning against a log, Kai laying his head in her lap as she played with his now long hair, which without fail always put him to sleep. Elliott sat behind her on the log, letting Maeve tiredly rest her head on his knee. Elliott thought it was her turn to have her hair played with, he played with the ends of her hair since he knew how she felt about her hair being touched fully. Still, it made her eyes feel heavy. Louis sat across from her on the other side of the fire on a log with Rory between his legs, she was leaning her head against his body and they held hands lazily.

For a long time none of the spoke, they couldn't bring themselves to break the silence that was loud enough for them. It always was enough for them in their dark days with were becoming more and more frequent, the days feel longer and the nights are shorter. Sleeping became longer and hunger became more unbearable. They had no where to go. It would be easy to give up, easy to lay dow and die. Let the dead eat you or die of dehydration, starvation and exposure. Nowadays those options were looking pretty good right about now.