Beside the Dying Fire

Savannah's POV

Everyone in this world has their weakness. For me, it's my line of sight to the left. Danny's is that he wants to try to be reasonable with unreasonable people. Whenever Cameron is about to kill someone, he will occasionally hesitate to think about his sister. Sarah will let revenge consume her, which is more often than not a good thing. However, Kai has the worst. His weakness is us. His group. Kai puts us all before himself. Some might say that is a good thing, that it is caring and sweet, which it is. Kai would die for us, and that is what is weak about that trait. He would die for Sarah or I any day. That day might even be today.

It couldn't be passed 2 in the morning at the time. It immediately began to pour on us, lightning in the distance. We were soaked, but the Jeep had no roof so we fought through it. We couldn't be more than 50 miles away from the base. We all shivered in the rain that fell like little knives with the frigid temperature that was about.

A rotted-wood bridge was up ahead, traveling over an overflowing river. A van on the bridge blocked both lanes, but the very front had broken through the barrier and hung over the river. Cameron pulled the car to a stop.

"We can't go back," he said. "Danny needs medical attention now."

"I'll go push it into the river," Kai volunteered.

"I'll go, too," Sarah offered.

Kai handed me his sword, and both gave me their guns.

"Shoot anything that comes near us," Kai told me.

Sarah got into the cab and put the car into neutral without any issues. She climbed out and joined Kai behind the car to push. After the van was halfway off of the bridge, the bridge began to creak loudly. Then the creaks turned into cracks of something breaking. The wood beneath the van began to break away, causing the van to fall into the very rapid stream. But the cracks didn't stop there. Beneath the feet of Sarah and Kai, the wood bridge began to fall apart as well. Kai leaped to safety, but Sarah was a millisecond too slow. The plank that she was jumping from disappeared into the water, interrupting her movement. She plummeted, but Kai dove to grab her hand, stopping her from reaching the water.

I tried to get out of the Jeep to help them, but Cameron lay his hand on my shoulder, "The last thing we need is more weight on this bridge."

All I could do is watch and hope for the best.

The bridge beneath Kai could break away at any moment, but with his hand injury, he wasn't going to be able to hoist Sarah up. I also knew that he would never let go, going back to his weakness.

"JUST LET GO!" Sarah yelled. "YOU DON'T NEED TO DIE WITH ME!"

"NEVER!" Kai screamed back, trying to yell over the rain and the river. "IF YOU DIE, I DIE WITH YOU!"

"KAI! WE NEED TO GET DANNY TO THE BASE!" Cameron yelled out.

"I'M NOT LEAVING HER!" Kai screeched.

I was hoping that this would be one of those movies where the hero gets inhuman strength at last second and saves the day...

...but life isn't one of those movies.

The entire bridge collapsed from beneath them. The rapids carried them away, drowning out their screams until they weren't to be heard.

"I'm going after them, Cam," I said as I opened the door.

"You can't, I need you," he responded.

"Why?" I asked.

Cameron whispered so Danny wouldn't hear, "If things go downhill and Danny loses too much blood, his walker could bite me while I'm driving him back. I need you to make sure that does not happen."

I closed the door with sadness. I looked down at Kai's cane, hoping that they were okay.

We found another route around the river and reached the base without Danny turning. Cameron carried Danny to the infirmary while I ran to get Dr. Kirschner. He awoke with a startled and was mad that I had woke him up at such an unholy hour, but he rushed to the infirmary when I told him that Danny was shot.

Gavin found me not 10 minutes later.

"What happened to him?" he asked.

"He was shot by a rebel group, but they all were killed," I responded with a hint of guilt in my voice for leaving my friends.

"What's wrong?"

I shed a single tear from my eye.

Gavin looked around.

"Where's Kai and Sarah? Are they alive?"

"I'm not sure," I responded.

"What happened to them?"

I didn't respond. Gavin left to find Swetha to tell her what I told him. I thought that it would be rude for him to wake her up, but I wasn't going to stop him. I didn't stop him like I didn't stop Sarah and Kai from going onto that bridge.

I wiped my tear away and stood up. I ran to the armory and collected a few guns. I loaded them into a duffle bag and chose some food items from the cafeteria to put in there as well. I rushed to the hospital. Leo and Cameron were working on healing Danny who was now awake.

"I'm going back after them," I told them all.

"I can't go with you, Leo needs my help," Cameron told me.

"I wasn't asking for your help, I was just informing you," I said.

"So you're going alone?" Leo asked as if I were crazy, which I very well might be.

"Perhaps we aren't seeing eye to eye on this," I made a pun, "but I have known them for 6 years, survived with them for 6 years. I'm making sure that they are alive and I won't come back until I do just that."

Danny looked at me with his pale face and attempted to smile through all of his pain. I smiled back before running out of the infirmary back to the Jeep and took off out of the base again.