Beside the Dying Fire

Leo's POV

The next day came quicker than I could imagine. We found a tree in the base that was strong enough to hold the body. Sarah climbed up and found a high enough branch, and tied the noose onto it. Kai brought her out, bag over her head and hands tied behind her back. he removed Swetha's bag, but kept her bindings on. Sarah helped her into the tree. Swetha stood on one branch, tears in her eyes, as Sarah lowered the rope around her neck.

"No! Don't do this, I can change!" she begged for her life.

"You can't change that Mark is dead," Danny replied.

"Leo," she looked at me. "You won't let them do this, would you? I have saved you countless amounts of times! I was there for you when you needed me! Now, I need you."

I looked away from her gaze.

"YOU BASTARD! I TRUSTED YOU!" Swetha yelled. "YOU WILL BURN FOR THIS! I WOULD SAY YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, BUT THIS ENTIRE WORLD IS HELL!"

"I'd say that's enough," Kai stopped her.

Swetha took a deep breath in, and slowly exhaled. Cameron had his axe with him. He lined it up with the branch that Swetha stood on. Cam lifted the axe above his head and sliced it through the branch. Swetha fell with the tree limb, but her descent was caught by the noose around her neck. Several cracking noises came from her throat. Justice had been served here.

"Kai," I said. "Give me your gun."

"Why?" he asked.

"Someone's got to shoot her walker," I responded.

He handed me his 1911. I poised the weapon at the body's head. I inhaled quickly and held my breath.

Bang!

After the hanging, I went back to the infirmary to take stock on the medicine. Savannah knocked on my door and came right in.

'Why did you do it?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" I was confused.

"Shoot her," she clarified.

"Oh. Swetha trusted me with her life, so I figured that she also trusted me with her death."

"Who are you, Leo? How did you end up here?"

I sighed before answering, "I spent the first 5 or so years locked away here by the military personnel. And every single day, I'd study my medicine book. That's all that they'd let me do. I was depressed, I couldn't do anything. The only one who spoke to me was my cellmate, Ivan. Then Kai, Sarah, and Payson were captured and they gave me hope. After they freed us all, we constructed the walls. I still stayed in the infirmary while everyone else bettered this place. One day, Ivan was bitten on the leg while making the walls. I had never actually done anything on a patient, I was scared. I was so afraid that I'd mess something up and he'd die. By the time that I had pumped myself up enough to amputate his leg, the infection had already set in. I ended up having to kill his walker, just like I did my dad on our way out here. He was taking me to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona for my Strep Throat while my mom and sister stayed back in Iowa."

"Iowa? That's where we came from," Savannah responded.

"Really? Mom and Dad raised little Paige and I in this little town called Waukee."

She looked at me with the widest eyes I had ever seen.

"Y-you are related t-to Paige Kirschner?"

"Yes, why?" I was so confused.

"She was one of my best friends, we survived so long together," Savannah said. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The only other people who knew my sister have been right in front of me this entire time.

I sighed again, "Seeing as she isn't with you, I can only assume that she didn't make it. How did you end up here?"

"I guess I should start from the beginning," Savannah told me her story. "One day in school, we all sat in class, waiting for the lunch bell to free us from that hell. When the bell rung, Sam, Taylor, Katie, Carly, Macie, Gabe, Hailey, Sarah, your sister, and I raced down the hall. We saw our friend, Jacob about to be grabbed by our school nurse when this weak, nerdy kid tackled our nurse and shoved his pencil into her eye. That was the first time that any of us had ever seen a walker. Jacob's savior ran out the front door. 'Come on, we have to follow him,' Jacob told us. We all trusted him, so we obliged. We all ran out of the school, leaving the rest of the students and teachers to die. That boy who saved Jacob? That was Kai. We survived for 5 years in peace. Hardly any walkers, no other survivors, nothing. Then one day when we wen on a run, we came back to our house, overrun by a herd. None of us had ever seen a group of marauders that big. The others had escaped, luckily. That's when we came across this group. They invited us in, but they were bad. They locked us up, nearly killed Paige. One girl in our cell, her name was Kate. When we escaped, she joined our group. After that day, we lost our first person, Sam. he sacrificed himself to save Gabe. When another herd had found us days later, Kate was bitten on the hand. Kai chopped it off, and she ran away in horror. We all thought she was dead. Later on, not only did we find out that she survived, we found out that she joined the bad guys. These people killed Taylor and Jacob. After we had defeated them, we had all assumed that Kate was dead. When we moved on to Colorado in search of sanctuary, Katie died to the dead. One night when everyone was asleep, Kate had found us. She took an overdose of morphine into a needle and injected your sister with it. She reanimated after Kate left, leaving Kai to kill her corpse. This was about 11 months ago. That night, Carly took her own life after seeing Paige die. After that, Macie died trying to rid this place of the military. Next was Gabe. You know how he died, though. Of those people that I knew from day 1, 4 of those 11 still walk today. Well, that was a wrong choice of words. Since Hailey suffered spinal damage, she isn't going to walk for a loooooong time, if at all."

"Damn," I looked down. "Paige, was she a good person?"

"The best, she put others before herself. She didn't even beg for mercy, like Swetha. She just let Kate do it, which in my opinion was pretty savage."

Savannah got up and walked for the door.

"I still can't believe that you were siblings!" she exclaimed. "I'm gonna go tell Kai and Sarah! It was nice talking to you."

She left without closing my door. I lay down on a hospital bed. I shut my eyes. I was exhausted. While my eyes took a break from remaining open, I thought about how nice it was knowing that my own sister survived for so long. And at that moment, I drifted off into sleep.