Beside the Dying Fire

Kai's POV

After Sarah left with Henry I locked up the museum, shut off all of the lights, and left the building in a painful silence. Since I spend almost every second of every day sitting in that office with her, I was hardly ever alone with my thoughts. I scared myself with what goes on in my lonely mind, thinking about every death I've seen. Thinking about how I could have stopped it all. Everything rushed through my mind, giving me a headache. The pain grew and grew until I was clenching my forehead in the cold streets.

"Kai, are you okay?" Savannah rolled up in the passenger's seat of Danny's golf cart with Danny having a concerned look on his face.

All of a sudden, my head stopped hurting.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I told her.

"We're going back to the house. Need a ride?" Danny offered.

"Sure," I hopped on. I just figured that Sarah would figure out that I went home, even if that meant that she had to walk all the way back to the museum.

Danny took off through the snow, compressing the delicate snowflake beneath the tires in a soft screeching sound.

"Guess what, Kai," Danny smiled at me.

"What?" I ignored his request.

"Tonight's the night that we put up the Christmas tree at the house."

"Really? We haven't celebrated it in 7 years."

"Well these people have done it since year 1, so let's hop aboard the bandwagon."

"I remember the first year of the walkers when we all were like 8 or 9," Savannah reminisced. "The 12 of us had made Christmas letters to Santa. Well, 11 of us. Paige was Jewish, so yeah. Anyways, Jacob and Kai asked for ammo. Sam, Hailey, Katie, and Taylor all asked for guns. Gabe and Macie wanted better melee weapons. Carly wanted explosives. I wanted a horse. And then there was Sarah who just wanted a ukulele. When we all woke up on Christmas morning, the 11 of us were bawling because Paige told us that Santa wasn't real and we didn't get out presents."

"I REMEMBER THAT!" I laughed. "CARLY WAS SO PISSED OFF THAT SHE SOCKED GABE IN THE GUT, MAKING HIM CRY MORE!"

The golf cart pulled into the driveway of our home. We all ran to the house to escape the dreadful cold. Once inside, Danny pulled a fake tree out of a closet and began to un-box it.

"Aren't we going to wait for-" I started.

"NO!" Savannah interrupted. "I'VE WAITED 7 YEARS! WE'RE DOING THIS NOW!"

"Fine," I figured that she'd be sad that she missed it, so I'd just take it down later and put it up with her to avoid her confrontation with Savannah.

After Danny put all of the pieces together, it stood taller than any of us. It was a fancy tree with lights already put on. Danny plugged everything in.

"Alright, turn off the lights. We always want to get the first look of the tree in all of it's glory," Danny instructed.

I took one step towards the light switch, but Savannah punched me in the stomach so that she could turn off the lights. She brought pitch black lighting among us and Danny made a countdown.

"3...2...1...Here we go!" Danny yelled as he plug the cable into the electrical outlet.

The tree illuminated beautifully and changed color each time the lights flickered on and off.

"Oh, cool!" I exclaimed. "I didn't realize that these were strobe lights!"

"Uhh..." Danny was confused.

"What?" Savannah asked.

"They aren't supposed to be strobe lights," he gulped.

I stood still to think about what could be causing the lights to be on the fritz until I figured it out. I ran over to the light switch and pushed Savannah out of the way.

"What the Hell?! Why did you-"

I flipped the switch. The lights stayed on for a few seconds before shutting off. Then back on. Then off. On, off, on, off until the last time when they didn't turn back on, dooming us to the darkness.

"God. Damn," Savannah gasped out.

Savannah was still in shock, but Danny approached me.

"What do we do?" he whispered to me.

"I know where their camp is," I told him. "I'm going after them. Make sure that Savannah doesn't follow me."

"I can't let you go out alone!" he still was quiet, not to alert Savannah.

"I'm not asking for your permission, Danny," I sneered at him. "I'm asking you to keep Savannah here."

But before Danny could respond, I rushed into the entryway. I yanked open the drawer of an end table with a lamp on it so forcefully that the lights fell off and broke. Inside of the drawer, I snatched the Glock 18 that I had killed Hailey with. I rushed out the door and ran into the blizzard.

I trudged through the deep snow in the streets of San Diego, making my way through the blowing snow to the front gate. As I slowly moved, I noticed something up ahead. A very large red stain was in the snow with the imprint of a body within the blotch. Just a few feet away from the presumed-to-be-blood liquid was a pair of glasses. I picked them up and recognized them as Sarah's. The Flickers had gotten her, too. I tucked the spectacles into my pocket and walked over to the blood. I dipped my index and middle fingers into the blood and made 2 red stripes on my face beneath my eyes as if I were in the movie Platoon.

I finally reached the front gate of the community.

"Where do you think you're going?!" a voice yelled from the gate.

"Cameron, I'm going after the Flickers," I informed him.

"I'm not Cameron," the boy stepped into my short line of sight. He was tall with short black hair and glasses. "My name is Nate and I cannot let you go through this gate."

"I need to!" I yelled at him. "They all must die!"

"I'm not letting you out! If you aren't here, people will riot and some will die!"

"THEY HAVE SARAH! I HAVE TO SAVE HER!"

"ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS ISN'T AS IMPORTANT AS 500 PEOPLE, KAI!"

I pulled out my gun and aimed it right between his eyes.

"SHE IS TO ME!" I had tears in my eyes.

Nate got out of the way and finally let me through. I holstered the pistol and proceeded on.

"What makes you think she's even still alive?" he asked as I kept walking.

"She's strong, stronger than me. Trust me, she is okay."

"I bet you were saying the same about Hailey."

I stopped in my tracks. I could have spun around and screamed at him. I could have ran up and beat the tar out of him. Hell, I should've just shot him square between the eyes. However, I had other matters to attend to. I continued my stroll. I knew I would hold a grudge for him. I could've killed Nate right there, but there was something that I knew more than anything. I knew that he was pretty much dead already.