Complete Collapse

6

Lucille's POV:

My vision remained a steady mix of bright flashing lights, solid black waves, and bright bursts of color and scenery. My mind was far too clouded within its feverish state for me to find any true appreciation for the beauty of the land we were on. The barn loomed above where I was helpless within Benjamin's arms, each sway happening with his steps bringing waves of nausea through my entire system. Jeremiah had already escorted my sister into one of the pens towards the middle of the barn, the same location that Benjamin was taking me. This shocked me through my delirium, the risk of putting us together. I had thought Benjamin was smarter than to make such a vital mistake. Or perhaps this was a risk he had calculated and decided that in my current state, I wasn't much of a threat anymore. I found my body and my mind, both were far too spent to feel any semblance of anger at the idea that I had become so visibly ruined that I may as well be a child clinging to a stuffed bear shambling aimlessly through a supermarket searching for her mother. Benjamin dropped me onto a small pile of hay in the corner, the thud dulled by the sharp cushioning that was poking into my legs and back where my shirt had ridden up past my mid torso. Benjamin was swift in his movements as he dragged a pair of thick and heavy shackles over to me before securing the warm metal against my ankles. I didn't even bother trying to fight, to kick him away. I was barely able to move, my limbs feeling like heavy iron weights. My wrists throbbed beneath the ropes still tightly wound against my raw torn-up skin. I heard four clicks of locks singing together as both myself and my sister were secured into our new binds. My eyes drifted over the enclosed pen, glancing over Phoenix and Jeremiah as he smoothed down some of her hair and poured some water between her lips. Benjamin was crouched at my ankles staring at me again, an unreadable expression across his face as he seemed to inspect me. I was unsure what he was looking for because it was clear it wasn't for anything I could use to escape.

"Keep an eye on them." He said in a cold tone as he pushed up from the floor and stalked out of the pen. The door swung back and forth with loud creeks before it settled back into its closed position. With the absence of his presence, my eyes drifted shut and the world seemed to fade into black around me. Deep guilt, heavy panic, and overwhelming amounts of shame caused me to feel too large for my small frame. My body so badly wanted to shift uncomfortably but my bones felt like thin glass ready to shatter with a small gust of wind that would never arrive. I was trapped, stuck within the confines of a barn, tethered to the spot by chains that felt of my own making. My sister was trapped all the same, a person I worked so hard to shield from this reality and I ended her here all the same. My mind was a swirling mosaic of a million ideas on what I could have done differently, what I should have done differently. A loud screaming voice not allowing a minute of peace from my own failures, my own reckless stupidity. How avoidable had this situation been, how every choice I made brought us here, to this moment. If I had gone left rather than right when fleeing from the swarm, if I had chosen a different clearing to set up our old base to avoid the swarm altogether. I should have checked that store for the men's bodies rather than feeling such a false sense of confidence that I had outsmarted the only other survivors I had come across. I should have known they could have escaped. They made it this far, clearly they were at least at the same level of skill with the corpses as I was. How had they survived? How did they manage to escape so many of the dead when they were pinned down within that store? Two men were pinned down in that store, the sound of only three gunshots before silence befell the building. There had only been two exits, I had blocked one, and a massive swarm blocked the other. There was no sense to it. The mystery of it was driving me insane, my mind spinning with different visuals and different plans on what I would have done in their place. Each scenario resulted in the same, my sister and I dead. Yet Benjamin had survived. They both had. 

I felt a sharp tug on my wrists, white flashing through my vision at the blast of searing pain that wracked my body. I let my eyes fly open, the light flooding in as I struggled to adjust, frantically trying to get my bearings as I looked around for the source of the pain. Benjamin was once more crouched over me, Jeremiah at his side sorting something outside of my field of view.