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I blinked my eyes roughly, leaning a hand against the closest tree to keep myself upright, for I feared I would collapse if I had to keep myself up without any help. The world seemed to spin, nauseous feelings filling my senses, but I pushed them down. I was hungry, starved. The symptoms happened a lot. I gasped in air, looking behind me. It was safe, as far as I could tell. The walkers that had been following me seemed to have lost me.
Slowly, I slipped down the tree, shrugging the heavy bag off of my shoulders onto the ground. Maybe there was left over kitkat? Sure, they were stale and had lost their brilliant taste ages ago, but I would eat anything at this point to stay alive. Even bark from a tree, if it got to that point. I poured the contents of the almost empty bag onto the grassy surface, eyes eagerly flickering over the items that fell out the rucksack, my back slouching in disappointment. Despite the bag being nearly completely empty, it hung on my shoulders like a ton of bricks, skyscrapers weighing me down, causing my back to burn hotter than the brightest flame.
A knife that was almost blunt, a few lone matches, some ripped clothes, and the dreaded empty wrapper than almost made me want to eat it just to get the small pieces left in the foiling. I placed my knife back into the sheath on my hip, the hope I had seeped out of my fingertips into the ground as I lifted my knees to my chest, resting my head on them gently, closing my eyes. The small strength I had been running on left my bones until they felt as fragile as glass, threatening to cave in with every movement.
The past few months had been the same. Wake up, scavenge, kill any walkers, sleep with a knife in my hand. I had a revolver in the holster strapped to my bony waist, but there was only one bullet left. That was for drastic situations, if I couldn't save myself. My dad had told me to keep one left, just for that event.
The pain washed over me in waves consistently, causing me to scrunch my eyes shut and wait for them to pass. They were threatening whirlpools that wanted nothing more than to suck me in and keep me there. I moved my fingers towards my right wrist, pulling against the hair tie that had been situated there for ages, pinging it again and again and again, but still, I could see the stubbly face of my father, the cologne he was always wearing drifting into my senses. It sometimes worked, snapping the hair tie against my wrist until the pain made me forget about him, but today it didn't seem to work.
I glanced down at my wrist, looking at the skin become an enflamed red colour through the rare patches that weren't speckled in dirt or scratches from falling over, but I almost couldn't feel it. It would fade in a few minutes back to the original light olive colour.
I shakily unhooked the revolver from the holster, holding it delicately between my fingers. It had been my dad's. He'd passed it down to me when this all had started. The steel glimmered in the moonlight at me, almost calling me.
'It's over.' It seemed to say, daunting me.
'You have one more left, just end it. You'll leave this all behind. You'll be back with dad.'
I exhaled through my chapped lips quietly, my thumb moving up to brush against the safety, before pushing it down.
The world was a sick place, full of death and despair and horror. You woke up, survived, and went to sleep, hoping you wouldn't be eaten alive or killed by other groups throughout the night. It was a constant loop, a constant loop of struggle, and there always came a point when struggling just couldn't be an option anymore. This was my point.
