Survivor (ON HOLD)

Chapter Two: Sister

I had buried Casey by the tree I hid in and covered his grave with trash that I crafted into flowers. Casey may not have been exactly on my side, but "every death should be respected," as Gamma Hailey always told me. I sat near his grave for hours, thinking of my mother and sister and how they died so quickly. But I stood eventually and secretly made my way back to my home.

It wasn't a very comfortable place, but it was well hidden and large enough for me. It was in an old building on a hill that only had a lobby now. It was surrounded by trees, bushes, and garbage so you can't even see the building anymore. You first had to crawl on your hands and knees through an underground tunnel and you'd end up in a "hallway" of parts of walls, bushes, and trees. If you're under six feet tall, you can stand perfectly fine. You have to walk for a while before you find a hardly noticeable gap between bushes. But you have to be careful, make a wrong turn and you can end up tumbling down the hill or with a face full of branches.

My living space was a clearing with a spinny chair, a tent, a sleeping bag, and a cart with only three wheels full of clothes, food, and other things that I stole. I carried my dagger with me everywhere. Even though it protected me, I still hurt deep down inside when I looked at it, remembering each and every person I killed with the blade. But you can't be able to feel emotional pain in a place like this. You'd die easily.

I slipped my shirt over my head, throwing it in a pile of dirty laundry. I dunked a cracked glass bowl into a gray trashcan filled with rainwater that I stored and let it fall over me like walking into a small waterfall. It washed away the blood that hadn't stuck to my skin already and flushed the dirt away, off of me into the hole I had dug to make a pathetic shower. It was just a hole in the ground that I stood in to pour icy cold water over my body. Sometimes I'd use the excess water as a bath the next day if it hadn't already soaked into the ground. Either that or I'd tie a rope to part of the foliage that makes some parts of the ceiling to let the sun in and let evaporation take care of the rest.

I grabbed another shirt, a burgundy tee, and yanked it quickly past my neck and let it fall over my drying torso. I added my bloody, ripped, and now sopping wet jeans to the dirty laundry pile and pulled on leggings with a scratched off, dirty logo. It kind of looked like an exploding firework, a pointy flower, or maybe a spinning wheel. Maybe it was Athleta, but I didn't really care. As long as I had clothes.

As the blackness of the sky seemed to fall among us, darkening our world even more, I crawled into my poorly set up tent and laid in my ripped and bloody sleeping bag. I had no pillow, so I wrapped up my jacket in a ball and used that to support my head. It was much better than laying on broken wood and dirt, honestly.

I thought of Casey and Adam and their pack, how they abandoned Casey and how I betrayed him. Images of blood seeping from his heart and his mouth burned into my mind, making me sit up and gasp. I flopped back down and thought of my sister and mother, their kind faces full of hope, soon uncontrollably replaced by their terrified faces covered in blood. It took me an eternity, but my eyes found darkness and I fell asleep.

***

I woke up to someone violently shaking me. I screamed, shooting up and slapping whoever it was across the face. A familiar groan was my response, and I turned to find Brandon with one hand over his red cheek. "What the hell, Bailes?" he laughed, shoving me down into the dirt playfully. I giggled, "Sorry." "Get up, we've run out of food," he explained, standing and grabbing his dagger he hung on the side of the tent. I leaned back out of the tent and raised an eyebrow. "Brandon, half of that cart was full of food last night," I told him, trying to keep myself from laughing. He burped. "A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do," he responded simply, tossing me a couple of throwing knives. I gripped each one as they came flying over my head easily and laughed at Brandon who was getting the hiccups. We walked down the hallway of trees and I just laughed harder. "Can you not be a guy for five seconds?" I joked as I remembered the empty shopping cart.

Brandon, being the guy he was, battered his eyes and wore a pout on his lips. He acted like he was wearing a dress, curtseying and twirling his imaginary long hair. After five obnoxious seconds, he smirked and replied, "Of course."

We walked for hours in silence. I do like to talk but I knew the consequences. But sometimes, people like me just can't help themselves. "So where are we going?" I asked as we turned a corner. "Some abandoned fast food place, just a few minutes away," he replied quietly. He came abruptly back around and put a finger to his lips. Slowly, he forced his head around the corner. "There's a group up ahead," he warned finally as he pulled his head back from around the corner. "Can we take them?" I asked him hopefully. He looked down at me and bit his lip. "I've gotten really good with knives, Brandon!"

"Bailes, you... you aren't ready."

"Oh, my bad. And you are?"

He peeked his head around the corner and put his arm out to block me. "There's seven of them; three women, three men, and a child hostage. Do you think you can get one from here without harming the hostage?" He turned back to look at me and I nodded my head vigorously. I gripped one of my throwing knives, breathing softly as I closed my eyes and concentrated. I opened my eyes and stared at one of the men, jeering at the hostage. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I got mad every time his mouth opened. "Concentrate, Bailes," my brother advised, "you've got one shot." Our matching blue eyes locked and I nodded again.

Everything slowed down, as if time itself were being relentlessly dragged through syrup. I felt the cold metal of the blade in my hand, then I felt my arm being pulled back behind my head. My arm swung forward, resisting against the syrup that seemed to be placed over time. The cold metal was there one second, but it was gone the next. The knife was pulled through the syrup, twisting and turning to gain speed. My heart raced as Brandon's eyes widened. "Bailes!" he shouted, his voice was deep and slow. I turned my head to see bullets flying at me, one man dead on the floor with a knife in his neck, and a child with a bullet hole in his head.

"Run!" he shouted in that same, slow voice. I found myself running through the syrup, as slow as a snail. "Brandon!" I shouted slowly, each syllable stretched widely. A bullet flew right passed his ear. I think it hit a leaking car engine, I don't know. It hit something that caught fire then exploded into a bright, big burst of orange and red and yellow. It blew us all back, everything was still slow. As I was blown back, I saw one man get blasted into a broken light and it went right into his skull. A woman had been flown into a building window, then the entire building fell straight down. I caught a glimpse of the child hostage, dead, being flown into a tree. Then, it was my turn. The syrup couldn't hold me back any longer.

I was blasted into a wall with such force, the layer of the bricks crumbled. There was another layer of bricks behind the first layer and I slid down that, laying in a limp pile on the ground. "B-B-Brand..." I tried, but I couldn't speak. Blood seeped out of my head and I felt my face swell up. I fought hard for consciousness, but I lost and my breaths shortened until I couldn't hear them anymore.

---

My eyes fluttered open, I was still dazed. It was daylight now, and someone had found me and raided my pockets. I had no knives or food, and they took my jacket. I shivered from the cold morning air. "BRANDON!" I screamed as loud as I could. I shakily stood, falling over several times. I called his name again, but the only response was my echo. I felt hot tears begin to run down my cheeks and I couldn't control them. "THIS ISN'T FUNNY!" I called out to him, sniffling. I saw a hand and a lower arm laying out from an alleyway, smothered in blood. I couldn't see the body, but I ran to it. I turned the corner and smiled, only to have it replaced with tears again.

It was a woman, her neck had been cracked. She lay on the floor with blood splattered on her white shirt. "This isn't even your blood," I noted as I searched her for any cuts. I looked into her foggy eyes, trying hard and finding she'd been looking at something behind me. I turned around, seeing the glint of metal. "Brandon?" I asked quietly. It was too dark to see in the far end of the alley, so I searched the woman's pockets and found a small flashlight no bigger than my hand.

The flashlight was not much help, but I managed to find blood splattered all over the walls. Something was sprouting from a split the wall, straight and sharp. I pulled it out and it sent me somersaulting backward. When I stilled, I was holding Brandon's lucky dagger, the one he never left behind no matter what. I looked up, aiming the flashlight at the wall where it was stuck.

There, written in crimson blood, was one, single word...

Sister.

***