Watching The World Burn by Abby Jean Sprouse

Chapter 4: Silence, then content...

I'm still not really sure how long we have been down here for...

Thinking back on it there was a term the teenagers were using before the fires, they called it 'bed rotting'. I feel like I relate to the term because for the past three weeks now that is what I have been doing. Zachariah just stopped talking completely again after out argument, I know he said he would stop talking about death and dying but I didn't want him to stop talking completely.

I left him alone though; I figure if he wanted to speak he would. He finally lay down on the bed and stopped slouching into that horrid looking position he had been in up against the wall. About scared me half to death as well when he did it to. I was dead asleep when it sounded as if he had just launched himself backwards into the rickety old twin bed. He didn't say a word, just plopped back with a loud fwoomf! I shot up out of bed worried the flames had found us, but we were safe, and he was laying down. So, I left him alone and the silence weaved the darkness in my mind. I had been fasting after seeing that our food supply would last us for at least another year and a half maybe if we ate one meal every day a piece like we had been doing but I wanted it to last longer so I fasted and evidently Zachariah had been following my lead because he hadn't made a move to eat either. 

I'm just on the bed now thinking about the dead. My parents, my daughter, my grandfather; all gone. Just like the many who perished in the flood for their disgraces, their foolish choices. My parents were non-believers, I don't like to think about where they might have ended up after death. My daughter was innocent, she will be with God I believed. My grandfather will probably get to hold her before I get to again, he's probably up there now, waiting on us. 

However, my work here isn't done. I don't want to leave this world with there being a chance Zachariah might not believe. I couldn't help God save my parents, but maybe I can convince Zach before it's too late. It's not the dying part that scares me. It's the thought that I might go, and he will be left behind. I want us to all be together again. Maybe if I pray for my parent's souls, God might forgive them and allow them to join us as well. That way they don't have to burn forever. 

I think that's what I'll do. I'll pray for my parents and Zachariah. That way at least if I don't make it and he still doesn't believe, maybe he will still have a chance to get into heaven. 

.......

"Where am I," Addy asked herself out loud.

"You're not dreaming so don't worry," Zachariah chimed in from the foot of the bunk bed, not too far from where she lay.

"You're up..." Addison was surprised, she hadn't expected to find him moving around. "You sound better to."

"Yeh, you were right I needed to move around. Everything is sore and I couldn't stand it anymore."

"Well good... are you hungry?"

She didn't need to see in the darkness to know that he was shaking his head, "no, I think I'll be ok for another day or two. Grandpa used to fast for a few weeks at a time and I'd feel bad eating in front of him, so I used to just join him. I should be ok, what about you?"

Addison let a few tears trail down the side of her face as she was still laying there on the bed. She smiled, this was the first time he was up and actually showing concern for her again. "I should be ok too; I was used to not eating after our parents died and after Carter. It's nothing new to me to miss a couple of meals."