the wretched and joyful [ e. williams ]

one.

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you had almost died before you had made it to jackson.

you didn't really know why you weren't dead. you weren't really sure why the man with the gun took pity on you that day. maybe it really was your weakness that had saved you.

weakness, or plain stupidity. it didn't matter anyway.

when you were surrounded by a group of people on horses, you were fighting for sensibility. the lower halves of their faces had been covered with scarves acting as masks, and you didn't know if they were the bandits that assumably slaughtered your previous group or members of a rumored safe haven.

you had been scared and exhausted, fighting for your life even though you weren't even sure if that was what you wanted anymore. you yelled and spat out threats to spite the tears in your eyes, anything to defend yourself before your lungs would surely give out. driven purely by nerves, you continued waving your weapon around even when the man leading the group ordered you to drop it.

it was practically a death sentence. it should've been a death sentence, but it wasn't.

their promises of safety fell on deaf ears until you actually saw the place. even then, it was months until you got a decent night of sleep.

the man who was the first to point his gun at you, tommy, was also the first to lower it. you don't know what made him save you that day, but when you arrived at jackson he almost seemed amused.

in passing, he spoke to another man that you later learned to be joel.

"get ready for a case of deja fucking vu," tommy had muttered.

you didn't know what it meant, and you didn't know how to decipher the look that plastered itself onto joel's face.

you were the last surviving member of your group before jackson, or at least that's what you had to assume. nobody really believed that you had made it that far on your own, especially considering the state that you were in. you knew that they were weary about another group coming and looking for you, despite your honest confessions.

before jackson, before you were alone, you had been taken in by a group. the QZ was threatening to fall any day, and they had heard whispers. talk of safe communities throughout the states. with the information they had compiled across time, one of the rumors was bound to be true. you weren't admittedly close with any of the adults but on the night of chaos, they convinced you to join them.

you wanted to believe that they cared for you, but the truth lingered in the back of your mind. you knew that they knew that you wouldn't make it out. you wanted to believe that they were truly good, but when you shared your story with tommy, maria, and joel, you noticed the glances. the looks they shared. you didn't understand it until you were older, and even then it took awhile to come to terms with the truth.

your group wasn't saving you. they weren't looking out for you. they were using you. you were bait.

on the day that you had lost them, they told you to stay put in the woods. they told you that you would be safe there, because they weren't sure about what was up ahead. if the coast was clear, they would come back for you.

it wasn't true.

they had thought that they were heading into safety, and leaving you behind was a distraction to the bandits that had been hot on your trail. they had been wrong. they walked straight into trouble, and you went undetected.