Mania

Chapter 11

After
Easton

     There was one night, the first night she was here, where I was sorting through her belongings to see if they were drying off. They were, slowly but surely. But that wasn't the important thing. I came across a notebook with various journal entries dating back days before The Mania took over. I knew I shouldn't read them, being an invasion of privacy and everything, so I didn't because I thought it wasn't that important
Up until now.
     Up until she was clawing at my arms and sobbing hysterically over a lighter.
Up until she sleeps in the bed as I lay on the ground, my mind wondering how her story meshes together.
     I get up from my little corner in my room and I fumble around for her bag. I find it eventually and I pull out the water damaged notebooks. I sit by the stove and I open the notebook to a random date.

     "October, 2017
    
   I killed a man today. He had blue eyes; he also had the plague. I shot him in the back of his head and he fell into the fire.
     I am no better than The Mania and The Mania deserves to die. Does that mean that I have to die too?
     Sometimes, I do think about that. When the forest is quiet, the stars are like a call home. Would it really be bad if I were to die? When my family's all dead, why am I the only one here to suffer these things? Nobody would notice my death because they're all dead, too.
     I realize how easy it would to be kill myself. I remember when they just took over and our neighbor, Mr. Zelger, killed himself. He was a veteran of the Korean War, so when mom and dad found him, we wrapped his body in our American flag and buried him in his backyard. That was the last time I saw the flag.
   Would there have been anything we could've done to save us from The Mania? Did we get any warnings? Did we fight back?
     What I would do for things to be back to normal. I don't even know what normal feels like. Sitting at the dinner table is like a distant memory. I even forgot what a piano sounds like.
      It is possible to kill yourself without dying.
     Claire died with her mom and was buried in the backyard with her.
     Claire died with her father in the puddle of blood in the cold garage.
     As her house burned down, Claire died with the memories in it. Someone did escape through a window. Taking flight as if she was a Phoenix born from the ashes momentarily, but then falling back to the ground and landed on the snow. The survivor saw the girl inside it die and took form of her, but now she's meaner and heartless. She's now fully aware of what these people are capable of.
     I do miss the old Claire, but this Claire knows how to survive and she will claw her way to the top. "
     I close the notebook and I stare at the sleeping figure in my bed in awe of how someone so young can be so sad. Then I realize she's the the same age as me, maybe slightly younger. I don't know why she seems younger to me. Maybe it's her small height or her wide blue eyes. Eyes that have seen monstrosities.
     Sensing my eyes on her she wakes up and I hide the journal behind my back. I didn't know she was such a light sleeper. "Easton? What are you doing?" She asks tiredly. Her hair is flattened to one side of her head and the other side is wild with blond curls.
     "Thinking." I reply.
     She sits up and rubs her eyes. "'bout what?" She yawns.
     "When we should leave." I answer.
     Her eyes widen and look more awake than they did moments ago. "Are you serious?" She asks in disbelief.
     I nod and she blurts, "Let's leave right now."
     Now it's my turn to be surprised. "Right now?"
She nods. "I'll start packing clothes and you can get the food."