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CHAPTER FIVE. the valley of the shadow of death
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EZRA WINDSOR didn't sleep much that night, his main motivator for staying awake being one thing and one thing only — fear.
Fear was a strange concept, but one Ezra had grown used to over the years. He wasn't like most kids. He didn't grow up in a big house behind a white picket fence. He didn't get to have a family pet ( even though he really wanted to ). He didn't get to go to school and make friends. He couldn't afford the simple luxuries in life, like toys, and candy, because they simply did not exist, not anymore. He didn't get to go on vacation in a big plane and fly across the world, or celebrate Christmas, or his birthday. He never even got to enjoy being a kid because there was never a moment in his life worth celebrating.
From the moment Ezra Windsor left the comfort of his mother's womb, kicking and screaming, he was raised to do one thing and one thing only, and that was survive. His parents wanted him to beat the cruel world he was suddenly brought into. His dad taught him how to shoot when he was only four years old, while his mom taught him how to stay hidden, how to ration his supplies, and what he should do if he ever found himself in trouble. And if there was one thing he learned growing up, even after his father's sudden and brutal death, it was to never let his guard down, because one way or another, there was always something or someone out to get him.
That was where his fear of the world sprouted from, like a tiny seed planted into the ground, it only continued to grow with each day that passed him bye. The older Ezra Windsor got, the sooner he saw the world for what it truly was. The apocalypse wasn't something that should be embraced, or something everyone just had to adapt to. It was a cold and empty place with death, horror, and violence lurking around each and every dark corner in his path. It was a never ending cycle that no one could escape from. Especially him.
Fear kept him breathing though. He never let his guard down, not even for a second. Not when he was with his mom, not when he ran away to live in the Boston QZ, and not when he accepted the job to smuggle a teenage girl out of the city alongside his own mom. And when he thought he could finally let his guard down again, fear found its way back into his life, seeping into his bloodstream like poison.
