𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 | 𝘨. 𝘳𝘩𝘦𝘦

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

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❝ for every dark day, there is a brighter morning . . . ❞ – Harriet Morgan

–     ꥟     –

Elizabeth Hardaway was not a runner. She had never found an interest in track when she was forced to do it in high school (not that she ever found an interest in school at all), nor did she partake in her mother's morning jogs. She liked staying still; she liked stability. It was simple, really. And it wasn't as though anyone could judge her for it. Hardly anyone liked running, she reasoned, huffing and puffing as she struggled to complete laps around the track of her old high school.

She really wished she had taken a greater interest now, with a small pack of Rotters after her. The world had pretty much ended two weeks ago; it had ended in all the ways that had mattered. And Elizabeth, who really hated being called that, really wished she'd taken her mother up on those morning jogs. It was a wonder she'd survived so long as it was, with her burning legs and screaming lungs. She feared she would collapse soon, her body unable to take in any more oxygen.

"Birdie, come on!"

It was alright because Gen was there. Genevieve Vasquez, who was good at pretty much anything that had to do with surviving apocalypses. She could handle a firearm just as well as Birdie's Marine father could. She could hunt, find water, and, most importantly, run.

Birdie gasped for breath, tripping over her feet as she ran after Gen. The older woman paused for just a moment, pulling out her pistol and firing off several rounds. The gunshot echoed through the Georgia pines, amplified by the growing night. They'd learned pretty quickly that the Rotters (those were the reanimated, rotting corpses that used to be regular folks) only went down with a shot to the head. Gen and Birdie had been forced to become good marks-women as fast as possible.