𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗘.ᵈᵃᵇⁱ

I. start

(TW: starvation, religious themes, a tiny bit of gore)

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

Although the memory was hazy, it was still there. 

Her parents dragging her, kicking and screaming, barely fluttering an eyelash at the fingernail scrapes etched into the doorways and the hardwood floors. 

What did they say? Hope you don’t starve... Have fun freezing to death?

She rattled, her bones were stuck to the shag carpet.

Something like that.

How long had it been since they kicked her out? 

Did it matter?

Her stomach heaved as she moved to sit up. Little bits of ice fell off her coat and jeans. The wrapper from her last energy bar lay across from her, a horrendous reminder that she hadn’t eaten in three days. The people that lived there before must’ve taken all the canned food.

She had already eaten all the spiders and other bugs that crawled inside her “home” for the promise of warmth, grabbing them with shaking hands and swallowing them without much thought. Her stomach growled miserably at the memory.

And she was out of matches. 

The puke-colored carpet was cut away to make space for a grimy brick fireplace, which she had practically slept inside when she had fire-lighting materials. And the last match was used up earlier that morning to boil snow.

Dim embers glimmered in the leftover pile of ash, and she almost wanted to pick one up.

Another wave of shivers hit her at the thought. She crawled a little closer, praying that they’d still be smoldering.

It was just as she made her treacherous journey to the ledge of the fireplace that the worst sound for the last person on earth to hear shattered through the icy air.

A scream. It splintered and cracked like an icicle hitting concrete.

And following that was the smell of cooking meat.

She grabbed her now slim face with frigid hands. 

Curiosity killed the cat.
Curiosity killed the cat.

Her gut wrenched in disagreement. 

She slowly stood up, readjusting her scarf and coat. She staggered  to the living room window on shaky legs, like a zombie. The tacky lace curtains had a small layer of frost, and it stuck to her gloves as she moved them back.

It was almost dark, but a small column of smoke was visible behind one of the houses that were lined up like gravestones along the abandoned street.

Cooking out? In the middle of the apocalypse?

The smell lingered, and she was reminded of summer air and watermelon and family cookouts. 

A simpler time where she could lay on the patio and soak up the sun. She could run about and see people and do things, and everything smelled like strawberries and chlorine.

Before the earth fled from the sun like a rabbit from a hunting dog. Spinning away like a top, plunging from the galaxy like a shooting star...

Without another thought, she unlocked the front door and crept out.

The pavement was slick under her worn boots. The sun, like a pumpkin head on the horizon, cast red and pink shadows on the piles and piles of snow that sloped from the front porch of the house to the area of investigation across the street.