Torn Apart • TWD

Chapter 6 - the triplets

"So what will it be today? Butterfly or rabbit?" Tessa asks the little baby who's sucking on her fist while staring at the girl that's holding a bottle in each hand, with new materials to draw on she has made use of the bottles by labelling them with pictures, drawing animals and their environment all over the cylinder, ranging from cats to dragons.

Lola giggles when Tessa gives her a better look at the bottles by waving them before her face, and she attempts to reach for the one with butterflies flapping around a flower drawn on it. "Always the butterfly," the girl mutters with a smile before preparing the formula for the baby's breakfast.

It has been twelve weeks since Tessa met Lori and ripped Dolores out of her, and in those three months the girl has made multiple trips back and forth to that mansion, bringing as many baby supplies as she could — including some toys for herself, as a reward — and the basement has been fully converted into Lola's room.

Firstly, she cleared the room of any dust so it wouldn't invade the newborn's senses, then she went for the crib that used to belong to baby Taylor, which she transported by setting it on top of a sledge and simply pulling it home, and she used the same method for stealing the changing table and the oversized giraffe, which gives the basement a much more homey vibe.

Tessa had also used the changing table to stand on so she could draw some nice baby-suited pictures for Lola, mainly just colourful rainbows and mermaids, but she had a good time making it.

Over half the powdered formula is gone, the girl keeps meaning to go to town to scavenge for more but it is almost impossible to do while looking after a baby, not that she hasn't tried to go. It's just too tricky since those trips would take a few days to complete, so one day she had the idea to try to take the baby with her on her trip. Bad idea. They made it half an hour before they had the dead on their assess and had to retreat.

So going to town didn't work, but Tessa did manage to find the house that she remembered had a baby's room and its corpse in it, there were many of the same items that there were in the mansion, nappies, onesies, bottles, but the one difference was that it had a baby rocker, a pale pink seat with stars dangling from a string over the baby's head, and Lola spends most of her time awake in it, she especially loves when Tessa swings it, though it can be tiring for the child. There was also a stroller for the taking, but since the two live in the forest which is very bumpy ground, she decided against it seeing as there wouldn't be any point in lugging it all the way home just for it to collect dust.

The infant doesn't spend all her time in the basement, once the girl had learnt the trick on how to keep her quiet, Tessa would plop her in the car seat and the two would spend time together in the clearing surrounded by flowers, and the way to shut the baby up lied in stories, any, could be from a book or a movie, but Tessa loves to tell Lola about her life and parents, not only does it make the baby sleepy but it reminds the girl of happy times before she had to live like this.

One day, while the girl was looking at the baby's sleeping face, she had a surge of protection go through her, which encouraged her to make another set of traps. Another few leg-holds have been set in the odd place around the woods, she has expanded the perimeter in which the traps are set, moving her warning signs along with them. Plus she's in the process of creating another net to trap their whole bodies, but it takes time with how large they need to be.

While Tessa was setting the traps, the little baby was chilling in her car seat, always staying in Tessa's sight. Since the traps were made and set with so little planning, she had to draw a map until the new traps were to be added to her mental map.

Food is not only slowly running low for the baby, but the child too. She's mostly eating animal meat, trying the save her canned and non-perishables for if an emergency occurs since she can no longer just go out and scavenge for more.