DONE ✔️ (UNDER EDIT)

Chapter One.

Chapter One.
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'... Today marks ten months of being here. Ten whole months since they all left and probably moved on with their lives while we were left here—left here to try and survive. We've managed to do so thus far, but how much more could we realistically take?...'

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I don't know why I kept it up. I don't know why I continued to document every moment of my miserable life, but I did.

I don't understand why I do this to myself. I don't know why I still keep a journal of my own, or why I can't resist reading his over and over. As if I were hoping to find something new, something I hadn't already read, or that it might somehow lessen the pain of reliving the memories of them and our time together.

But his journal was all the same. The words were all the same; only the ink was no longer as dark as it once had been. Despite how well I've tried to keep both his and my journals safe and in pristine condition, they were no longer perfect. How could they be in the world I live in?

The edges were torn or ripped in all of them, the front of my second journal has a coffee stain on it, the third had fallen into a puddle and had gotten wet, and I'm not positive on who's blood is on the back of the first one.

My backpack had grown unbearably heavy, weighed down by all these books. As I became increasingly weak, it was harder to support myself, let alone carry the backpack. Yet, somehow, I still managed.

"Sydney!" Savannah's voice echoed sharply through the main room of the cabin, making me flinch, "Put that stupid thing down and come help me light this damn fire." I rolled my eyes in response.

I set the pen I'd been using to write inside the journal, closed it, and placed it on the table in front of me.

"Hmm." I hummed in response.

I hadn't missed the first three times she'd called my name sharply, trying to get my attention. I'd simply chosen to ignore her, hoping she might leave me alone.

I was facing her, seated at the dining table with the kitchen and hallway to the bedrooms behind me, and the living room and fire directly in front.

My patience had worn incredibly thin over these past few months, and so had my ability to talk. I found myself speaking less and less each day, as there seemed to be less and less to say.

She let out a frustrated sigh, and the loud thwack of sticks hitting the floor made me sigh in response. I was so absorbed in writing in my diary that I hadn't realized everyone else had left the room hence why she was calling upon me for help.

I pushed the chair back and stood up, grabbing the journal and tossing it onto the couch where I'd spread out my sleeping bag. I then limped over to Savannah's side with a small grunt and knelt beside her, helping arrange the sticks in the fire to ensure optimal airflow. We'd done this often enough that she should have it down by now, but clearly, she didn't. She handed me the lighter, and I took over, lighting the fire and adding some good-sized logs to it.