Wild Desperation

Chapter 32

                                             Sang

I decided to go exploring some since the boys were still showering off in their locker room, Arrow seemed just as eager to check out the new territory. I couldn't help wondering what he thought of all this, I'd never really brought him into buildings for long periods of time and never made him camp inside one like this. I watched him check out classrooms as we passed, I was glad to see he didn't seem to mind much with his curiosity and a wagging tail. I focused more on the pictures and decorations on the walls, finding that I couldn't help but feel sad at all the smiling faces we passed. 

I paused outside one classroom where there was a large framed picture of what appeared to be a middle aged teacher with all of her highschool class, every face bright with a smile. "Hey, there you are, Cupcake why the long face?" Luke's cheerful tone turned to one of concern as he strolled to my side. "They look so happy, don't they?" I whispered sadly as I let my finger trail along the dusty frame. "Yeah, I guess they do, but why are you so sad when they're smiling out at you?" Luke pouted slightly as he puzzled over my emotions. 

"It's just... I can't help thinking that most if not all of them are dead and gone, it makes me wonder how quickly those smiles turned to despair. What their lives were like before and after the virus broke out and how long was it before the disease or the fear took them too?" I whisper as I shut my eyes at the unwanted images flooding my mind, an onslaught of pain and suffering, that I forced back down. "Oh, Cupcake." Luke whispered at my side, I still couldn't look away from the frame of smiling faces. 

"I know that the schools closed a month after the initial outbreaks, I remember hearing it on the radio. Seeing all of this and knowing that so many of them are dead, it makes me wonder the exact moment our humanity died with them. When was it we all became so desperate to survive that we turned on each other? When was it that our loss of humanity became our strongest enemy alongside the virus itself?" I choked out, knowing that my father played a part in this made me feel somehow responsible for all of their deaths in a way, a truly crushing weight upon me. 

"Cupcake, you can't blame yourself for all of this." Luke pleads at me as he places a gentle hand on my shoulder but I shrug it off. "Can't I though? Luke you don't know me, you don't know what I've done to survive, how many people I've killed! I used to cry when I had to take a shot I didn't want to make, now I don't even hesitate to shoot first. I'm just as bad as the rest of them, so when did I get so desperate that I lost my humanity too?" tears are rolling down my cheeks now and it's taking everything I have not to crumple into a ball and have a meltdown.

 "No. Don't you even think like that. Cupcake you have more humanity in you than the lot of us combined! The way you care for and protect everyone, the way you are with Arrow when most people would have gotten rid of an extra mouth to feed. So you've killed people, all of us have for some reason or another but that doesn't make us entirely evil. You did what you had to just to stay alive, that doesn't mean you've lost your humanity." His tone is firm and unyielding, part of me wants to believe what he's saying when really he hardly knows anything about me. "But, I..." I choke out as I search for an objection only to have him pull me into a hug. 

I freeze at the action, my body stiffening at the unfamiliar comfort, it's been so long since anyone's hugged me that I can't even remember a time like this. "Cupcake Kota wasn't the only one who saw the way you shook after killing those men that ambushed us, you might not hesitate but you feel regret and remorse after the fact even when those men wanted to kill us. You are so kind, gentle, and sweet that no one could ever question it, no one could ever question the humanity that pours out of you. You could have left the Doc and me with that boar but you didn't, that's just one thing of many that shows me the entire planet is better off with you in it." Luke murmurs into the top of my head and then I can't stop the sobs as I sink into his warmth and kindness.