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Sitting down at the log causes goosebumps to immediately spread over my skin like a wildfire. And the actual fire -if you could even call it that-ironically enough, does hardly anything to keep us warm. With the wind blowing as hard as it is, and the chill that accompanies? It nips at my fingertips and nose with a burn almost as sharp as the fire before us.
I roll the berries around in my hand, and clear my throat to get Clementine's attention. My throat was scratchy, it'd been a while since any of us had spoken.
"Here, you need to eat more." I offer. She reaches over, and grabs around 3 out of the 7 in my hand. We were lucky enough to have found them in the first place with how cold the weather had been lately.
She pops the berries into her mouth. I don't argue with the small number, all of us had been dancing around each other trying to avoid taking what little food we had.
"Christa, please, talk to us." Clementine sighs. Christa, after a moment, opens her mouth to speak. But she shuts it and lets a quiet breath out instead.
As if Clem had never spoke, "This'll never work." Christa mumbles, poking at the flame. "Look at this... It's pathetic." The words slip gently past her lips, almost as if she's talking more to herself than either of us as she continues to prod the log. "The wood's too wet to burn. There's more smoke than flame." She continues. "It's alright, we can wait. We have a few berries left, and the wind should mellow out by the morning. We can try the fire again then." I say in an attempt to comfort her.
Christa shakes her head and sighs. "All we do is wait. And for what? One of you should be doing this. Not me. Tending a fire so you can cook and stay warm. It's something you have to be able to do. Otherwise-" She stops, but she doesn't need to finish her statement anyways. It's clear where it was going.
"I uh-" I pause, and Clem looks over at me. "I used to go camping, with my family every summer. I know how to tend to a fire. Focus on Clementine, not me." I look down at my dirty hands, clearing my throat in an attempt to clear the raspiness. It doesn't work. Seasonal allergies are a bitch.
"We can't build a big fire at night. It attracts too much attention. It's too dangerous when we're out here by ourselves." Clementine says, as if in a warning. But also to express that she knows something at least. Christa looks down at the fire.
"We need to eat." She argues. "Berries can only take us so far. We need to cook this meat. We can't survive very long off of berries and picking at the bark of a couple of trees."
Nobody says anything for a few moments.
"I'm freezing." Clementine shivers, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to try and warm herself up. I bite my cheek, and peel the jacket off of my shoulders.
We're a family.
We're all cold, but this is Clementine. I couldn't live with myself if I let her get hypothermia because I've got more layers on than her. Layers I can easily share.
