𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒍𝒇 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 ➪ «𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑙 𝑑𝑖𝑥𝑜𝑛»

ch. XVII pt. II

oOo

Alice looked up as Felix entered the tent and lied face down on his sleeping bag.

"Same," she mumbled to herself and sharpened the pencil she'd been drawing with. She'd been lying there, drawing, since breakfast. She was both grateful for the escape and wishing she was dead.

It wasn't even anything in particular that powered the feeling. She just thought she'd be better off dead. No one cared about her, probably more than half the world's population was already gone, so who would notice just another corpse? Who cared?

To be honest, the logical part of her knew there were people who did care. But then again, did they really? Or were they just pretending to love her?

Knowing the doubt was something her mind was making up was different from feeling it that way. She told herself, again and again, it wasn't real, that she was loved, that she would be missed. But there was always this little voice in the back of her mind that told her it was all lies. That voice became stronger and stronger until it was the only thing she heard.

So to occupy her mind, Alice drew.

Her drawings were polar opposites of what she was feeling. She drew happy faces full of love and joy in hopes of drowning out the negativity she felt.

The last depressive phase she'd experienced hadn't been so low. She hadn't been so unwilling to do nothing other than lie in her tent. She'd been angry at everything and everyone, that was how she coped. She'd hid it all under a thick coat of anger but still had cooperated in the goings on of nowadays society nonetheless. She had worked together with her family to ensure their survival and had found enough motivation to go through daily life without wanting to die.

She'd had thoughts of suicide in the past. She'd pass by a car on the street and consider throwing herself in front of it, same with trains. She'd thought of jumping from a high building, feel the wind rush by her as she plunged to her death. But she'd never been so bold as to try anything. She wanted to be dead without the hassle of killing herself.

Mostly because of her religious upbringing. Her family wasn't extremely religious but Alice had always been scared of the Hell her grandma used to tell her about. She joked about belonging there many times but she knew how terrified she was of the concept.

Something that also made her want to stay alive a little longer was little things. If she died, she wouldn't know how her favorite show would end. She wouldn't hear new songs from her favorite band. But now the world was dead and none of those things mattered anyway.

Still, she didn't let it deter her. She wished she was dead, but she would never kill herself.

To her, killing herself now would be giving in, giving up. It would be seen as an act of cowardice. And if there's something Alice was not, was a coward.

"Something you want?" she asked Felix. "I'm tryna concentrate here and your stinky feet are right up in my face."

Felix pressed his sneakered foot against her cheek. She yelled out in disgust and slapped it away. She punched him on the hip afterward but ended up hurting herself on his sharp bones. "Go away, you skinny stupid-ass. Get out of here and leave me the fuck alone."

"The tent ain't yours," Felix countered after sitting upright. He seemed too lethargic to fight back. "Hey, whatcha drawing?"

Alice widened her eyes and covered the sketchbook with her arms. "Nothing!"

"Was that-"

"It was nothing. I'm drawing skulls and dead flowers. Leave, now!" Alice bellowed and lowered her head, letting her hair help with hiding.

"Bitch, I live here. I'm not leaving." Felix plopped himself back on his sleeping bag, crossed his arms under his head and crossed his legs at the ankle.

Alice dragged out an annoyed groan. "Fine, do whatever the fuck you want. Just stay over on your side." And that's mainly the reason why Diana always slept in the middle of them; natural barrier, neutral as they came.

Alice scooched away to the very end of the tent, as far away from Felix as possible. She uncovered her book after checking over her shoulder that he wasn't looking. His eyes were closed and mouth slightly apart, probably on the verge of falling asleep.

She looked back down. She'd drawn herself, in her cartoonish style, hair extra big and poofy and an unnaturally big smile on her lips, throwing a peace sign.

The lines were sketchy, just as she liked them but she was considering cleaning them up for a smoother effect.

Around her, she'd done her best to draw renditions of her family. Diana was to her right, giving her bunny ears with a flower stuck in her hair like Alice had seen her the day before. Felix had his arms crossed and had a confident smirk on his lips, locs flopping over his forehead, covering one eye - only because it had been a pain to get the other one right.

Mom and dad stood behind their children, looking down at them with pride. She'd accidentally drawn them too tall and floaty as if angels from a cloud, but she liked the effect and let it be.

Alice flipped over the past attempts, all goofy looking and with beginner mistakes that she hadn't been able to tolerate and had forced herself to start over.

She started drawing intricate flower designs around the five people. Her tongue poked slightly out of her mouth in focused genius. When she was done, she peeked again over her shoulder, but Felix appeared to really have fallen asleep.

She smiled softly at the drawing. It was cheesy as all hell and she'd never let another set of eyes see it, but it was something she would treasure. Not only because it was one of her best works until now, but because it would be something that she could look at when she had her next low. Something to remind her that she was loved and she had something to live for.