I WAS ALONE again. And as much as I didn't want to admit it, I hated being alone. I didn't like the silences between me and Ellie much, if they were built on the premise of a fight. But there was an eternal silence between us now. We would never speak again, unless we reunited at the WLF, in which case, she would likely kill me. And you don't realise until you feel the weight of isolation, but the forest, especially at night, is terrifying.
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ⁿᶦᵍʰᵗ ᶦⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵒᵒᵈˢ, '³⁸
It's like, being in one of those old choppy horror movies, except instead of some woodland witch or swamp creature which is decidedly not real, or at least up for debate, I knew for a fact that monsters were most certainly out there. They might not have been hiding behind every tree stump or standing above me on every branch, but I knew if I came across an abandoned car or a clearing, there would almost certainly be at least one runner.
Practically, moving forward without Ellie was a huge loss. It wasn't like I was incapable or anything; I was armed and I had trained for a long time at the WLF. But Ellie was strong, really strong, and smart, and quick, and...a lot of things that would have helped. Safety in numbers, and all that. But I made it thirty-six days alone, and Seattle couldn't be that far now. So I walked. I could hear my heart pound and my chest tightened every time a twig snapped or a leaf rustled. At one point, an owl fledged from a branch behind me, and I had to calm myself down by a tree for ten minutes, just to crank up the nerve to keep moving.
Fear felt a lot more real when it was your only company. I felt it walk with me in the night, the only light forward the bleak glow of the dusky moon whom I'd loved since childhood, and yet now, its white light was of little comfort when travelling completely and utterly solitarily.
So what do you do, when you're all alone, and it's nighttime, and it just so happens to also be the apocalypse?
Well, though you may feel the urge, I'd advise strongly against whistling. Could easily attract unwanted attention, and has no real purpose besides filling the void of silence.
Same with talking to oneself, which has the added perk of making you feel like you're going absolutely crazy.
You can think, for sure...plenty of thinking can be done alone. But sometimes, thinking too much? Also a fast track to making you bonkers.
So, if you can't whistle, talk, or think...what is it that you can do while you're all alone in the apocalypse?
Is it:
A) Blow your brains out (fast but unproductive) B) Take up knitting (productive but hard to do whilst walking at night) or C) Hold your knife and keep walking and expecting death around every turn until daytime (optimal)
