A light sob awoke Elyza in the late night darkness. At first she was confused by the sound, and then she was reminded of the girl that was lying beside her. Alicia. As if on queue, the brunette cried out again softly. She was obviously having a nightmare, and Elyza quickly took her friend into her arms in an attempt to comfort her. This had become a nightly occurrence. The Australian tightly held the younger girl to her chest, tucking her head underneath her chin. She lightly stroked Alicia’s hair and rubbed circles on the green-eyed teen’s back waiting for her to wake up.
In the beginning, Elyza would attempt to wake up her friend to no avail. She knew now that she just had to ride it out and wait for the brunette to wake herself up with her own cries and violent memories. The first time it happened Alicia woke up and angrily wiped away the tears streaming down her face, then scooted over to the other side of the bed. Elyza understood that her friend didn’t enjoy feeling vulnerable. In the morning, she pretended it never happened, and the blonde played along. She would do anything to help Alicia. If the teen had asked Elyza why she had hugged her, she would have brushed it off and said that she was worried that the noise would draw the walkers that were around the house. In reality, she would do anything to take the pain away, and holding her seemed to be a little gesture that could possibly help.
Now that it was apparent that the dreams wouldn’t go away, and came more frequently, they had fallen into a saddening routine. Alicia wouldn’t pull away now, trying to cover up her obvious distress. Rather, she would climb further into her friend’s arms and hold on a little tighter letting the tears fall as long as they needed to. Every night was the same, and she was exhausted by the reliability of the terrors that haunted her. She only hoped that Elyza wasn’t becoming tired of her struggles as well.
After a few more laboured breaths, Alicia had calmed down significantly. Elyza pulled back to look into her friend’s green eyes and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her left ear. Tragically beautiful. That’s what she was.
“Same dream?” She whispered sympathetically.
“Would it change?” Alicia answered, defeated.
In short, Alicia was haunted by the deaths of her family and friends. They all died rather gruesomely not long after the apocalypse occurred. She lost her drug addict brother first and the rest followed in quick succession.
Her childhood had been full of her parents fondling over her screw-up older brother while he struggled with illicit substances. In truth, she had never really hated him. He was the reason she was given the independence and freedom she had so enjoyed most of her life. But it came with a heavy price. When their father died in her early teens, their mother had taken to obsessing over Nick. Unfair responsibility and lack of acknowledgement for her achievements was a regular thing for her. She was expected to know how to care for her brother when he came crawling back home or ended up in the hospital. She was the one who had to be understanding of his troubles and push aside what she was going through to help with him. She was suffocated by the lack of love thrown her way, by the abundance that was dumped on him. The spotlight was constantly on Nick. Alicia hated him, but God did she love him too.
He died being consumed by a hoard of walkers during a supply run about three month into the breakout. Having to deal with recovery in a world that was overrun with the walking dead, and little medicine to go around, was a feat. Nick’s body wasn’t in great shape before everything went to shit, and it wasn’t getting any better. That’s most likely the reason why he fell behind the rest of them as they were fleeing from a cluster of rotting bodies.
Her mother was an amazing, but flawed person; naïve in the face of tragedy. She allowed her son’s sickness to consume her and her daughter’s life. It was never her intention to forget that Alicia was just a teenager who wanted to have a balanced family though. While Madison was busy worrying about Nick, she missed her youngest grow up angry and neglected. Sacrificing being a mother to her daughter for her son to get better, only to have him throw it all away again. When the breakout became more apparent, she was still focused on saving her son. When the breakout became more apparent, she was still thrusting adult responsibilities onto her seventeen-year-old daughter.
Madison had reacted solely on instinct. She heard Nick’s terrified cries and ran straight into the mass of corpses to try and save him. In her futile attempt she was grabbed too and the swarm devoured her along with him. Again, their mother sacrificed herself for Nick. This time was the last. All while Alicia was watching, helpless. The scene that had unfolded paralyzed her. Her family had been killed in less time than it took to say ‘Zombie’.
Her first reaction was to scream in agony, hot tears stinging her forest green eyes. Travis, her stepfather (or whatever he was now), grabbed her and tugged her away as she kicked and screamed. He prayed that the scuffle wouldn’t draw too many un-dead toward them. She prayed that they would take her too. I’m alone now.
After she had been dragged back to the nearly empty house that her group was hold up in, she became dangerously silent. Solemn did she move from her sitting position, doing the bare minimum to keep herself alive. The others, Ofelia, Daniel, Chris, and Travis accepted that she needed time to process the death of her mother and brother. She didn’t really care either way, because she didn’t plan on leaving her spot on the couch in the living room anytime soon. I should have tried to do something.
For a while, they coped well without Madison, Nick, and Alicia. There was a time of adjustment for Travis, having lost his ex-wife in the beginning of the infection, and now Madison. There were days filled with the flood of his salt tears, nights without sleep. The middle-aged man had lost so much already. He forced himself to process it quickly despite this, if only for the sake of his son. Chris was his priority.
Ofelia was the only one who consistently tried to take care of Alicia. She would encourage her to at least take a few bites of their shared breakfast/lunch/dinner of canned something or other. The older woman also attempted to keep her hydrated and well slept. On nights that she would wake from a bad dream, or was disturbed by a need for water, she would see the young brunette in the same place she had left her hours ago. Still awake. So, she would grab her bottle of water, as well as one for Alicia, and she would sway over to the couch to her friend.
“Hey there stranger, mind if I keep you company?” The teen would hardly ever answer; just shuffle over slightly so that Ofelia would have enough space to join her. After a while, and a handful of drinks of water, the older woman would coax Alicia into resting her head in her lap and stroked her hair until she fell into a restless slumber. She was the only other woman left in the group, and she took it upon herself to become a motherly figure to her friend. The only one who didn’t begrudge Alicia her coping, or lack thereof. I should have done something.
A few weeks after the death of two in their group, while on a supply run, Ofelia was bitten. Her death was quick once her father had realized what had happened. He looked away for a second, and she was pulled into a group of walkers. With little hesitation, he aimed his gun at her head and fired, not able to look when he pulled the trigger. The thought of having nothing left twisted a dagger deep in his soul. He spent his life trying to give his sunshine a better life than what he had had.
When he made it back to their hideout, along with Travis, he lost it. It was a psychotic break full of uninhibited rage and grief. Witnessing a man like him cry was unforgettable, unexplainable. He had cried for no one, not even his wife, since he was a boy. Now Daniel had no family left either.
The Salvadorian veteran lasted a few days in his depression, taking on many of the same habits as Alicia had. He gave up his battle in the end. No one had really expected different. One night he arose from his bed and picked up his shotgun making sure not wake anyone else in the shrinking house. He stuffed both pockets full of casings and stormed out the front door yelling for the corpses to “Fucking try and take a bite of me too.” Alicia elected to think that the tough man had gone down fighting, having ended as many of the deadly creatures as he could in the name of his beloved daughter. She chose to believe that it brought him peace in spite of his tumulus past.
When Travis and Chris had woken the next morning they weren’t surprised by his absence. Alicia had been awake when the older man left. She knew what he was doing, and she understood that he wouldn’t want to be stopped. She also understood his anger, though she would never be driven to do what he did. The remaining men took a moment to remember their companion. Loss was becoming a constant reminder of the perilous world they were living in now. I should have done something.
In the days following, there were more walkers wandering around their house, which made it impossible to go out for food. Travis had long since assumed that there was no point in trying to get Alicia to get up off the couch, accepting that her grief had crippled her. Chris stopped attempting to get her to eat or drink shortly after his father lost hope.
It wasn’t that she wanted to die; she just didn’t see the point in doing anything anymore. Sure, she was hungry, starving really, but the thought of moving to get some food didn’t make sense to her. For days her mouth had been dried out, lips chapped, and tongue uncomfortably lacking moisture. Still she didn’t try and quench her extreme thirst. Why expend the energy if she was going to die like the rest of them anyway?
Eventually, the two remaining mobile members of their dying-out group had to go out for much needed supplies. They armed themselves with the few weapons they still had, painfully aware that ammunition was running out, as was everything else. Before leaving the relative safety of the house, the older man made his son promise something. It was a responsibility he didn’t want to place on his son’s shoulders, but it felt necessary. Travis knew that he wouldn’t have the strength to do the same.
“If I get bitten, you point that gun at my head and shoot me. Do you understand? I’m not going to come back as one of them. You are not going to see me turn into one of them. And once you do that, run as fast as you can back here. Take care of Alicia and yourself. Only go out during the day, and never leave here unarmed. Promise me.” Chris looked his father in the eyes and swore that he would do just that. I should have done something.
They almost made it back. Almost. The two men were rounding the final corner to their house when they encountered a rather large mob of walkers blocking the only path back home. It was a difficult fight, but they looked to be making it though. Chris was running full-tilt assuming that his father was close behind. Not hearing him caused the young teen to turn around and make sure that Travis was indeed still behind him. That’s when he was assaulted by the image of three walkers feasting on his father’s upper body. Travis was still struggling, crying out in pain.
Chris knew what he had promised, what he had to do. The thought of his last family member coming back as a corpse is what made him pull out his gun from the waistband of his jeans. Remembering his mother’s lifeless body permanently resting by the coast is what made him aim at his father’s head. Realizing that Travis was trying to make as much noise as possible to draw the walkers to himself, rather than Chris, is what caused him to squeeze the trigger. He closed his eyes briefly, not wanting to see the bullet burry itself into his father’s skull. The gunshot had drawn a few of the creatures towards the teen, but none that he wasn’t able to outrun.
He stumbled clumsily into the nearly vacant house minutes later, crying hysterically. His sobs and ensuing hiccups caused him to collapse onto the ground. Alicia knew what had happened based on the sound of his cries. She knew that pain, that loss. Now there were two. But she was sure that they would both be dead soon enough.
Chris spent the night yelling at the top of his lungs at Alicia, blaming her for everyone’s deaths. “They’re all dead because of you! Don’t you get that? You killed them because you couldn’t handle losing your brother and your mother. Guess what? I’m just like you now because you’re so selfish. We all have dead people Alicia. Ofelia, Daniel, my Dad, they didn’t have to die, but they did.” He drew an indignant breath. “Screw you. I’m gone.” The dark-haired boy packed up all the food and water he could find. Once he left, he would never come back. Promise be damned. “I’m sorry Dad, but she’s not worth it.” He muttered before he went out on his own.
She didn’t flinch the entire time. Chris was right.
Now Alicia was ready to die. She really was. By the time everyone in her group had died (she assumed that Chris would be dead soon if he wasn’t already) she had given up. It was days of stillness and no sustenance that consumed her. If the brunette had to guess, she would assume that it had been about a month since Madison and Nick had died. Four months. That’s all it took to have everything she loved and care for be ripped out of her precarious grasp. I should have done something.
Who would have guessed that Elyza Lex would stumble upon her a few days later? The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aussie was expecting to just scavenge whatever was left in the house and move to the next on her way to a new city when she barged in. When she noticed that the place was inhabited she assumed, due to the lack of movement during her rather loud entrance, that Alicia was either a damn slow walker or dead. The Australian pointed her gun at the girl and called out to make sure.
“Hey there cupcake, you still living, or am I going to have to shoot you?”
At this, Alicia laughed. It was a short and humourless huff. The green-eyed beauty was convinced that she was now hallucinating due to the lack of sleep and not having eaten or drank anything in just about a week.
Elyza lowered her gun at this. She was slightly confused by the other girl’s response but went with it. Who am I to judge? The blonde made her way into the living room and knelt in front of her newfound companion wanting to introduce herself at least.
“Well, it’s nice to encounter another living person. I’m Elyza Lex: at your service sweets. What shall I call you?” She kindly asked.
Silence was all that followed. But the Aussie was determined to as least get something out of the brunette. She desperately didn’t want to be traveling alone if she didn’t have to be. Not that she would admit to that.
“Anyone in there?” She whispered while waving her hand in front of Alicia’s face.
The younger girl shifted her gaze to the blue-eyed woman’s face at this. Confused as to if she was indeed real. “Are you actually here, or am I finally losing it?” It came out quieter than she wanted, and it was easy to tell that her body was weak from malnutrition. The sound of her own voice, so strangled and raspy from not being used, disturbed her.
“I hope not. I mean, I don’t think it’s possible for a hallucination to have a consciousness, however that is an interesting thought. We’ll have to explore it in further depth some other time, mate. Kinda like inception, but not with dreams… Anywho, you still haven’t answered my question, gumdrop. Though, I guess I could just keep using pet names for you if you’d prefer that.” Elyza smirked at this, light filling her eyes.
Alicia fought the strange urge to smile at the woman in front of her. She wasn’t sure why it felt right to be around her even though she had only just met her a moment ago. “It’s,” her breath caught in her lungs not allowing her to finish her sentence.
Seeing that the young girl was struggling to speak, Elyza reached into her backpack and pulled out a bottle of water and handed it over. Alicia reached for the liquid, suddenly desperate for it to run over her raw throat.
Lesson number one in not moving for days; you lose a lot of strength. When she took hold of the bottle it nearly fell out of her grasp, but the blonde caught it before it went too far. “Woah there, don’t want to make a mess now. I know that I give girls the shakes, but I’d prefer you didn’t spill the rest of my water.” It was a playful jab. The woman was trying to play off the seriousness of Alicia’s condition, and for that the brunette was thankful.
Once she had taken a few slow sips from the bottle, with the guidance of Elyza, the young girl smiled hollowly. “Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve moved. And it’s Alicia.” It was a sheepish explanation, the only one she was willing to offer at this point. The stranger in front of her didn’t mind the shortness of it.
“No need to tell me anything ‘Lica. Pretty girls usually have their fair share of secrets.” Another playful smirk.
Alicia blushed at the Australian’s words. It was such a relief to be around another human being again. Following another couple of sips of water, the teen ventured to stand and she swiftly fell back onto the couch with a pained grunt. I’m so stupid for not moving.
“You weren’t kidding were you sweets? Oh well, we’ll work up to it. How about I put my stuff down and we’ll try and move your legs a bit before standing again, sound good?” With that, Elyza dropped her bag to the ground beside her. Then she continued to pull off the gun that was strapped to her back that Alicia had not noticed before, reached into the waistband of her cargo pants and pulled out two handguns and a knife, and detached a hammer that was tied to her belt. The girl seemed to have an abundance of weapons to choose from to kill the roaming dead. “Can never have too many.” She chuckled, observing the stunned look on the green-eyed woman’s face. “Call it a habit that didn’t die with the apocalypse. Instead of being surrounded by women, I’m surrounded by deadly weapons.”
The older woman’s attempt at light-hearted flirting was hard not to enjoy. Alicia managed a classic eye roll and grimace, only partially impeded by an amused breath of air the escaped her lungs. What fresh air this woman was.
It took the better part of an hour to get Alicia onto her feet again. You can’t rush your body apparently. Both girls tried to take their time, not wanting to strain anything in the process. After another half hour or so the brunette was walking around without much trouble. Once Elyza was convinced that the other girl was able to manoeuvre without any assistance she spoke up again. “Want to accompany me on a supply run? I’m on my last bag of crisps, and by the looks of it, you haven’t eaten in a while.”
Bad idea.
The brunette’s head shot up, and her eyes filled with tears. She was well and truly terrified at the thought of going on another supply run, considering how well the last one went. “Uh, I, um…” She sobbed. And her chest started to constrict.
“Easy there, it’s okay. You don’t have to come, I’ll go on my own and be back in a jiff.” Elyza mistook her breakdown for fear, rather than grief. She assumed the taller girl was too scared to go out and face the walkers. It was a fair assumption.
“No,” Alicia hiccupped, “I want to go with you.” Again, a hiccup. Desperately she muttered, “Please don’t leave me alone.” She took a moment to catch her breath and calm down. This wasn’t a time to be weak. Don’t let this stranger think that you can’t take care of yourself. “I’m okay, I’m coming.”
Her statement lacked confidence, but the Australian saw how much she didn’t want to be left alone. That was fine by her. She didn’t mind if she needed to look out for one more person for a measly supply run. “No problem. Best be getting a move on sweet cheeks.”
Their companionship only developed further in the weeks that proceeded. Elyza’s sweet humming anchored Alicia back to the present. To say that the past six months have taken a toll on her wouldn’t quite cover it. Anyone who had survived the chaos that ensued following the discovery of the dead literally getting up and walking again, had endured some form of loss. Some more than others. Her Australian friend had been alone to begin with though, so she had experienced the barest of it.
All that the brunette wanted to do was stay in her blue-eyed friend’s arms forever. It wasn’t possible, she was aware of that, but the childish part of her wished to hold onto this quiet moment for as long as she could. The stillness consuming them in the late night (or early morning she wasn’t sure) brought calmness to the teen. Something that was a rarity nowadays.
The older girl’s accented voice broke Alicia’s revere. “I wish I could take it all away. You know that I would bare it for you if I could, right?” They were holding eye contact again, chock full of heavy emotions and unspoken promises. “It hurts me to see you suffer from their deaths.” It was a sentiment that Elyza had shared before, and was still as true as when she first uttered the words.
Time doesn’t exist now. It never did. But during the apocalypse Alicia had come to appreciate that fact more fully. If they didn’t feel like using a day, they had no need to. There are no obligations barring sustenance and safety. As long as they were together, and they had some semblance of happiness, Alicia would be content to continue with life. Regardless of the memories that plagued her.
“This isn’t something I would want you to have to feel Elyza.” She forced herself to leave her friend’s stormy blue eyes. “I just wish they would go away, I don’t want to see it anymore.” Their deaths were on an eternal loop in her mind. Asleep or awake, they never truly left. True, she hadn’t witnessed the deaths of the rest of her group, following her catatonic state, but she was very capable of imagining them in vivid detail. Damn you overactive brain.
Elyza started to hum again, hoping that it would make a difference. Hotline Bling by Drake wasn’t a chill song par se, but it was better than nothing. She continued until her ‘lollipop’ fell back into slumber. “Love does not make you weak ‘Lica, please remember that.” The blonde knew she was only speaking to the stuffy air around her. Still, she felt the need to say it.