Meltdown ☿ Shaun Mason

one: mia

The worst feeling in the world is not knowing that you have no more bullets or no more weapons to use, it's the feeling that you know that your time is up, and you have to make peace with your dead in those last few seconds. At least, that's what people who have been through that have told me. I don't know what that really feels like and perhaps I never will. Perhaps I'll be one of the lucky ones to not have to face that problem of almost dying. If my reputation of being "the girl who never misses" is any indication of my future, we may never see me in that position.

--- Taken from We Are Not What You Think We Are,

the blog of Mia Fernandez, April 14, 2039

I lounged on the roof of my trusty jeep, a lukewarm beer in one hand and my pistol in the other, my stereo blasting Daft Punk as loud as my jeep's stereo would go. Hey, if people were watching, they might as well be entertained with some decent before the rising music. Drinking on the job wasn't usually allowed but that was a conversation I would be having after I returned to the office. Besides, the viewers loved me, don't really know why since I considered myself rather boring to watch but they tuned in in their thousands every time I went out.

They would get what they wanted; a teenage girl in a vest and shorts with a beer or two, kicking some zombie ass. What wasn't to love? Girls loved it because fuck yeah; girl power. Guys loved it for well, you know. Tits and ass was all they cared about and boy, did I deliver.

From the horizon, I saw a group of zombies shuffling towards me; from what I could see, I guessed there was around fifteen of them. Finally, I might get some action today. I wasn't in any rush, so I finished my beer, throwing the bottle in front of me and watched it smash into a million tiny pieces on the road in front of me. I slid off the roof of my jeep, my feet landing on the uneven pathway.

The song changed to the most ironic song that could play, an old classic of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. An obvious choice to go with while killing the undead but the real ironic side comes with my age – being in my late teens meant playing a lot of music that revolved around songs about teenagers or had teenagers in the title.

I'm sure a lot of the older generation of men who watched appreciated the grunge music that frequently popped up in my stereo. The idea that men who were old enough to be my father watched me was unsettling at first, but it was one of the things I had to get used to. Being an Irwin; you had to be the face of your brand and give people something to root for. It was like one of those books I read when I was still in training; The Hunger Games, it was called. I won't go into detail about what the book was about but being an Irwin sometimes reminded me that my life was sort of a Hunger Game. I played a dangerous game every time I stepped out onto the field and if I made one small mistake, I would quench someone's hunger.

"Mia, turn that damn music off and focus! It's bad enough you've been drinking!" the voice in my ear sounded irritated and slightly panicked – a stark contrast to my calm and collected self.

I bit back a laugh as I stretched out my muscles and cracked my knuckles – a bad habit I'd picked up over the years, but it helped me get into the zone. "That would be a negative, Sparky. Gotta keep those viewers happy, plus, this song is a classic – don't know why you're complaining."

Sparky was my technical boss, but he acted more like my dad rather than my boss most of the time; always making sure I was eating properly, I got a decent amount of sleep and heavily opposed of my drinking – while I was out in the field and in general.

I never really got to know my real parents; both of them died when I was two and I was placed in foster care soon after. Funnily enough, the zombies didn't get them – it was a car accident. I was in the backseat and asleep when my parent's car collided with another head-on. Funnily enough, the car seat my mom had placed me in – the one that I hated and threw tantrums about whenever I was placed in – was the only thing that saved my life. Memories of them and that night are fuzzy, like a dream, sometimes I'm convinced they were just a dream. But the only things that reminded me that they were real were a couple of photographs and a necklace that once belonged to my mother which I wore almost every day.