𝒑𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒓 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ 𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖𝚜

chapter four : collision

[IV]

AS THE HAZE of my sleep caught up to my consciousness, I found myself somewhere I had decidedly not landed. The more the world came into focus, the more clear my thoughts were.

Shit, shit, shit.

I scrambled for the map in my left jean pocket, hastily unfolding it to see if I was on the same path to Seattle. The path the last time I saw it, curved left for at least another half-mile. But there was no path in front of me here.

The sound of a loud whinny caught me off guard, and I jumped.

"It's not going to eat ya, you know."

I dragged my pen knife instantly from my pocket and flicked it open, guarding myself against the source of the noise.

It was a girl. Of medium height, and an over-average stocky build. She could have been around my age, it was hard to tell. But she had a lot of freckles. Freckles that, in the moment, made her seem alarmingly disarming.

"Woah, there," she raised her hands in surrender. "I'm not gonna eat you either, so, you can put that down, Edward Scissorhands." Her demeanour seemed fairly normal, but I needed to check she wasn't planning on doing something weird like...eat me, I guess.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, venom in my tone as I continued to keep my guard up.

"That's a lovely way to greet your saviour," she said, gently moving towards me, her arms still up to signify her unwillingness to murder me. So far. "My name's Ellie. Also, weird accent."

She was referring to the fact that I had the same accent as my mother, who was born and raised in England.

Mum...
Wait, 'Ellie'? I interrupted my own thought. Where have I heard that name lately?

I lowered my knife as she approached me, but wouldn't let go just yet.

"You said you saved me. What did you mean?"

"Well," she started. "You would have become something's lunch had you just continued lying out there on Acrebay path like a prize turkey. So I dragged your ass to my camp. Don't make me regret it."

I flicked the knife back in and went up to her, grabbing her shoulders with passion, which she seemed a little uncomfortable with, and said,

"You know the path I was on? You have to take me back!"

She gently prized my clutching fingers off her shoulders, and explained,
"That's a cute idea, but you'll die if you keep going down that path alone. Geez, I don't know how far you've walked, but you'll die of exposure before the monsters can get you."

I grimaced. In my travels, I had been so lucky to almost forget about the undead. So focused on getting to Abby that I forgot half the reason I was chasing after her in the first place. How fitting.

"You don't understand, that path is the only way I know to get to Seattle."

Ellie stopped what she was doing. Her face changed into one of deep anger and pain, and she asked me one very cold, cutting question.

"Now what the fuck do you want in Seattle?"

Before I could blink, she had snatched the pen knife from my pocket that I had so prematurely put away, and now pointed it to my throat, backing me up against a tree.

I glared at her. "None of your goddamn business, bitch."

She pressed the blade a little further into my neck. "I wasn't really giving you the option to not answer."