Bruised Not Broken

Chapter 1

I see the moon, the moon sees me

shining through the leaves of the old oak tree

Oh, let the light that shines on me

shine on the one I love.

 She thought about the first day. The words of the lullaby filling her head in her mother's voice, though her mother was long gone now. The first day, not of the end of the world, but of the beginning of her's.

Her life before the end had been a string of endless nothings. Nothing to see except hate. Nothing to do but hide. She was small so she could crawl away when her father came home perfuming the air with whiskey and cigarettes. She was conditioned to that smell, so almost instantly she would hide. Hide physically, under the bed or in a closet, hide mentally in her thoughts. She never needed a ticket to get away in her head, she could go wherever she wanted just by closing her eyes. She'd travel to a million different places and done a million different things: rode an elephant in India, married a prince in Camelot, gone to the moon... all while hiding. Hiding from the screams, from the cries, from the slaps and the blows, and from the occasional visit from her father after her mother had gone to sleep.

That's where he found her on the first day. Hiding. She was hidden behind the counter of an abandonded gas station, for how long she couldn't say. A day? Two? All she knew was that they were dead, all of them. She knew. She hid her eyes from as much of it as she could, especially the ones that were feasting upon her mother, her sister. Her mother, whose golden hair reflected the Georgia sunrays and seemed to light up her face. Her sister, fierce as anything, with hair that matched their mother's but with a flame behind her eyes that her mother never had. She didn't have hair like her mother's or her sister's. Her hair was chestnut brown like her father's, her eyes brown as well. They had no flame behind them, and there was nothing extraordinary about her. She was a simple Southern girl who looked like her simple Southern father. Every day she wished for her mother's hair, for something to separate her from any likeness to her father, the monster that he was.

She remembered being startled by a sound that woke her up. Nothing loud, just the presence of another being close to her. She sat still behind the counter, the knife her sister, Vera, had given her shaking in her clenched fist. She had to decide if she was going to continue to hide or put up a fight like her sister... or give in like her mother. She didn't have to think about it for long because a man's voice made that decision for her. 

"Jesus." His gun was up, but he lowered it at the sight of her. She could have only imagined how she looked, probably pathetic, as she sat curled up behind the counter shaking like a newborn pup. Her knife was still tight in her grasp, her knuckles white. 

"I'm not gonna hurt you. You can put that knife down."  

She finally looked up to put a face to the slow, Southern drawl that had addressed her. He was about thirty or so, with dark hair, dark brown eyes. His eyes. Most red blooded American women would probably be focused on his muscular build that showed through his tight t-shirt; his broad chest and his strong looking arms, but there was something about his eyes that caught her from the start. 

"Shane?! What is it? Are you okay? Shane?!" A woman's voice came from behind him, shrill with worry. 

"I'm fine. It's fine in here. Bring Carl in, grab what you can get." He answered the woman, but never took his eyes off her. 

The woman came up next to him, "What are you--" Her eyes met the woman's whose expression changed almost at once. "Oh my god, look at you." She had concern in her voice, a maternal concern. "Come on outta there, it's okay." She extended her hand as a kind gesture, beckoning for her to come out from behind the counter. Under normal circumstances, she probably would have just stayed in hiding, but she needed someone. She needed people. She had no one and it had been a few days since she saw anyone. Well, anyone that was alive. 

As she slowly picked herself up, the woman spoke again as she brushed the hair out of her face. "What's your name? How long have you been here? Are you alone?" She must've looked bewildered at all the questions, but tried to keep up just the same. 

"Mia. I-I'm Mia." Her voice must've sounded broken, weak. Her voice must've reflected who she was then. 

The man named Shane slowly took the knife from her hand. He must've seen the terror in her eyes at being stripped of her only physical defense, "It's okay, I just want to make sure you don't try to swipe at one of us, understand? We won't hurt you. It's just us. Well, and Carl." 

It was only then that she noticed the boy behind the two strangers. His hair was brown, like the woman's, but not as dark as Shane's. He had blue eyes, they weren't like Shane's either. Carl gave a small, cautious wave and she reciprocated with the same.

"I'm Lori, this is Shane. How long have you been here?" The woman spoke to her carefully, as if she didn't know what to expect. 

It took a moment for her to speak again. She was terrified, uncertain, hungry, drained. Weak. "I, um... I'm not sure. I--" Her sentence broke as she looked down. There were corpses everywhere, she knew that. None of the ones in the gas station market were abominations, but ones they had left. Ones they had eaten. The a small ray of sunlight shone through the room and reflected onto one of the corpses' golden hair.