𝒑𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒓 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ 𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖𝚜

chapter thirty one : twelve feet of earth

[XXXI]

"What did you say?" I ask, thinking I heard gibberish.

Her freckles move gently with her face as a brief smile flashes across her lips.

"I said 'petrichor', Crumpets. You never heard of it?"

I shake my head. She scoffs proudly,

"Ah, well. Allow yours truly to enlighten you."

-

IF YOU THINK you have the coolest mother on earth, you don't.

That title, I can proudly say, goes to mine.

Kiara Mikos. Zombie-killer, man-eater, leader, mother, and a stickler for the right kind of weapon.

We had headed down from the hallway, following my mum blindly as she took us where she wanted to go.

"First of all, since it's chaos down there, we don't have to worry about stealth. That means if you are most confident with a gun, use it."

We were heading down a small set of stairs as she said this, to a room with a dim light, flickering too often to make out anything. She flicked it on and off exactly four times before it stayed on, revealing with stark white fluorescence what was in the room.

The wall to our right was mounted with the widest array of weapons I had ever seen in a personal space. It was more impressive than the WLF's stash, as they provided you with a stack of AK's on the side and let you have at it.

No, this was a different league.

A sniper rifle with the most complex scope I had ever seen. Assault rifles, a shotgun, twin pistols. But it didn't stop at firearms.

A mechanical bow towered over the weapons, spread like an albatross over the wall. Next to it sat a similar sized crossbow. Around the sides were throwing knives, frag bombs, smoke bombs. It was a spread of the likes I had never imagined. And all under our feet every time I had been here.

I looked at my mum. In my head she had been like this angel, this infinite do-gooder, even when she had abandoned me. I hadn't thought much about what she must have had to do to survive, to protect me as she had. This was next level.

"Am?" Finn mumbled next to me, half dazed.

"Yeah, Smogs?"

"Your ma is a fucking beast."

I snorted quietly, entertained at his expression of awe.

Mum came back over from around the corner, wearing stiff combat boots and minus all the dangly jewellery I had characterised so fondly with her. She was holding a curved sword, before sliding it into a leather hilt at her left side.

"I'm sure you have some sort of grasp of what you can and can't use. But Amelia and I are the only immune ones, so we're the only ones who should use close range. Understand, boys?"

They were a little busy ogling all the weaponry, but turned and nodded profusely.

As they examined their options, mum came over to me.