Beside the Dying Fire

Carrie's POV

"She's been on that run forever," Mary told me. She was right. I began to worry.

"Maybe she ran into someone who needs help. You know how Alex gets, just because she started medical school, she thinks she is a doctor that can save anyone."

"That can't be what happened. She's probably dead."

"Mary, what the Hell? Don't say that. What makes you so sure she isn't being a good person out there?"

"If someone needed medical assistance, Alex would bring them here! We live in a hospital!"

Mary wasn't wrong there.

"Well, don't just assume that she is dead."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm a realist. I just-"

Alex burst in through the double doors in the lobby, carrying an unconscious teenage boy in her arms.

"PREP A ROOM, HE'S VERY INJURED!" Alex yelled.

Mary and I jumped to our feet and ran upstairs to the nearest patient room. While Mary held the door open for Dr. Alex, I pulled out the IV bags and a heartbeat monitor for the boy. Alex quickly came in and set the boy down on the bed. She hooked up every medical plug and sensor that she could to him.

"What else do you need?" I asked.

Alex just stared at the boy for a moment.

"Umm, uhh... y-yes! I found him in a freezing river! He needs blankets before he freezes to death!" Alex commanded.

Mary pulled out a bundle of blankets and put them over the boy's body. I walked over to him. He had the sides of his head shaved to a buzz cut while a strip on the very top of his scalp was a lot longer to make a mohawk.

I looked at Alex. She had a long katana sheathe on her back.

"Where did you find that?" I asked her.

She spun around and looked at me through her thin framed glasses.

"Oh, umm... I found this on his body. I put it on my back so that I could carry him easier."

She plugged the heartbeat monitor into the wall. For a second, all I saw was a flatline. I looked down so that I didn't have to see the boy's corpse.

Alex began crying. The one thing she hated more than the walkers was losing patients. All of a sudden, the silence was broken by the loud beeps from the monitor. They were very separated, but nonetheless, his heart was beating. Alex ran over to Mary and I and she hugged us.

"I did it," she whispered to us. "I saved him."

3 months later...

I dug around the drawers. Among every empty can, I found one that was unopened. The label said "Sliced Pineapples". I took a second look at the drawer. This was the last can we had left.

"Carrie, are you in here?" Mary walked through the door somberly.

"Yeah," I turned around with the can in hand.

She looked at the pineapples, "That's the last can, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"So we'll starve soon?"

"We've been starving ever since it happened. Everything has been different since-"

"NO SHIT, IT'S BEEN DIFFERENT! A WOMAN IN A MASK INVADED THIS PLACE AND CUT ALEX'S THROAT OUT FOR NO REASON! THIS IS WHAT SHE GETS FOR SETTING US UP IN A HOSPITAL: PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE COMING HERE FOR MEDICINE! AND NEITHER OF US WILL GO OUT AND GET MORE FOOD AND YOUR PRINCE CHARMING WON'T WAKE UP FOR YOU AND GO OUT THERE FOR HIMSELF!"