Gift: A Story Of Love, Hope And Zombies (Work In Progress)

10. in which the plot moves along very quickly

What a sight they were. A group of dirty teenagers, dressed in blood stained clothes, scars adding to their look, trudging through the disastrous scene of a once respected city now in ruin.

Hannah leads, tightly clutching onto the bag strung to her back holding the precious book of spells.  Ben walks beside her, staring straight ahead of him, avoiding looking at her. He loved her, and he was going to help in whatever way he could, but he needed time to adjust. Who wouldn't?
The rest of the group follows at a slight distance.

The day is long and hot. Hannah says that the mountain in which they are traveling to is about a 3 day journey. The promise of a short journey gives that extra push of motivation when they feel they are too tired to continue. Fortunately, they don't run into too many problems. Most of the zombies had long since migrated towards Denver, where the food and noises were more prosperous. The zombie population around them wasn't too unfortunate in thier situation.

After 13 hours of walking, they find another hotel, and after cleaning up and setting up what safety precautions they could, they settled in for the night. Nearly everyone is immediately asleep.

The next day, the morning is cool. Ben doesn't walk along side Hannah. He must have become more distanced in his thoughts. Aravis makes her way up.

"So what's this whole apocalypse ending spell about anyways?"

"Huh?" Hannah is bewildered to have someone speak to her.

"You said this spell could end the world and that everything would make sense when it did. What do you mean? How does that work?"

"I don't know... I've been doing a lot of preparation."

"What kind of preparation?"

"I, uh... don't want to talk about it."

"Okay... what's the process?"

Hannah turns to give a pointed look at Aravis and gives out a guttural sigh. Aravis shrugs apologetically.

"You uh, take a soul, extracted from a pure vessel and you take it to the mountains, somewhere high up, do the whole magic mumbo jumo: practiced chants and spells and stuff, and then this uh, thing is supposed to come out and end everything. It sounds really simple, but it's actually really difficult. Takes lots of skill and practice. It was three months before I could even-"

Aravis slows down. "Before you could even what?"

Hannah shakes her head, throat clenching as her head starts to ache.

Aravis picks up her pace up again upon noticing Hannah's distress.

"You said you needed a soul. Where are you going to get that? You don't have to um..."

Hannah gives a stiff nod, looking deeply at her feet as she fights the pain welling up once again in her chest. "I-" she chokes up and coughs in distraction. "I already have one."

Aravis looks straight ahead. "What? You already have- Kelby!"

Hannah shakes her head. "Oof. Nope, that was an accident. A terrible accident." She whispers.

Aravis completely stops in her tracks. "Oh no..." she stares at Hannah in her deep pain of realization. "Oli."

Hannah keeps on walking.

It's hours before Aravis confronts Hannah.
"Hey. I just want to to know that I understand. I really do. I am so sorry."

Hannah gives a stiff nod. "Yeah. Thanks."

She stops in her attitude and spins on her heel, facing the group staggering behind her and calls out in a shaky voice.
"Alright! Let's make camp!"

"Perfect, I'll get dinner." Hannah doesn't have time to spin around to see who spoke when she hears Jessie scream.