Work Text:
-Quin POV-
“Ariaaaaaaaaaaa. Aria, where are you? I can hear you breathing.”
Quin slunked into the building, dragging her feet just enough to strike fear into her surroundings. Her 45 in her left hand and her right scraping along the wall as she trailed down the dark hall, clicking her teeth and snapping her fingers every so often. She knew she would find Aria, but the chase was always fun.
With each step she risked the chance of a biter catching her off guard, but it would all be worth it in the end.
“Ariaaaaaa, c’monnnn. Don’t you wanna lose? We both know how much you hate running.”
Her taunt echoed through the building as she closed in on the girl.
-Aria POV-
Aria did her best to hold her breath, trying to maneuver her way through the brick cage as quietly as possible.
“I don’t want to play this anymore”
She whispered, a fatal mistake.
As She turned the corner, she felt an arm brush against her own.
“Q-Quin?”
The figure turned slowly, neck snapping and bending in a way that was all too cleary wrong.
“Fuck..”
Aria ran, she ran as far as she could, ran as fast as her legs would take her, as long as her legs would let her.
She hated when Quin would play these games. She hated it
-Quin POV-
She heard yelling in the distance as well as shuffling, then a crash and a cry. She dove towards the noise, skidding her thighs are she slid against the tiles quickly. That was Aria’s voice,
The fear wasn’t instant, Quin didn’t doubt Aria’s ability to fire, but that never seemed to make Aria any more confident.
Aria clawed and dragged her body across the floor, Quin ripped her across the room, sliding her away from the biter before jumping up and chewing its throat out. Flesh tore and blood flew like fireflies in the dead of night. The biter fell limp as Quin ripped through soft cartilage and muscle. Her gun flew across the floor to Aria, clinking enough to get the whole room’s attention. Aria fired the gun into the air, deafening herself momentarily while simultaneously getting Quin’s attention.
Quin halted her meal before rushing to Aria.
-Aria POV-
Aria felt the familiar grasp of quin grabbing her by the forearm and hauling her out the front doors.
“ARIA- TO THE HOUSE-”
Was all she heard as she saw the feral girl holding the swinging doors closed as best as she could.
She ran. She ran so hard she swore her lungs began bleeding. She scaled the metal ladder to an open window, the place they called home.
It wasn’t unlike Quin to do something this reckless, she swore she was immortal after the incident. Aria knew she wasn’t, Quin just wasn’t vulnerable to the same things as her.
Looking down from the metal railing, she saw a bloody girl ripping at bricks and somehow hooking her fingers in the grooves of the almost perfectly kept bricks. She watched Quin weasel her way up the way and haul herself over the railing into her arms.
“Quin- hey- hey Quin-? Quin are you okay? Breathe-”
Quin coughed and spit a chunk of half chewed flesh off the balcony.
-Quin POV-
She looked up at those beautiful distraught eyes and giggled softly.
“Ariaaa”
Her voice was sickeningly sweet as she spoke
“I will be just fine as long as you have me”
“Jesus- Quin not now-”
She turned her head and feigned annoyance.
“You’re right, you’re right. Let's get you inside.”
Quin stood and swooped Aria up, basically making her fly as she brought her to the, almost, not entirely, disgusting couch.
Quin shuffled through a box on the floor, she brought a rag to Aria’s forehead and an inhaler she managed to scavenge from the building they were just at to her mouth.
“Deep breaths now, don’t freak out too much”
-Aria POV-
Aria tried to inhale from the device, trying to listen to the girl next to her. No matter how many times they went through this it would never be normal. Her whole life she’s had asthma, it’s not that she doesn’t know her limits, she just doesn’t have that option in today’s world.
Her eyes overflowed with tears, not from sadness but purely a reaction from her body being overwhelmed. She inhaled sharply and did her best to hold the puff of air in before coughing- still attempting to catch her breath.
“W- *cough* w-ait- I can’t-”
Aria felt the familiar sensation of her head being tilted back and her arms being raised. She managed a good gasp of air for a moment and was able to take a puff of the inhaler. Quin guided her posture to ease the pain.
“It's all gonna be just fine Aria, I’ve got you, I’ve got you and I'm not letting go.”
She slowly began to calm down, not without struggle but it was better than nothing.
“I’m sorry for making you play today, we can take a break. I know how hard it is for you”
Aria sighed and nodded, eyes still burning and threatening a blinding sob.
“My darling, I am so, so sorry”
-Quin POV-
Quin kissed the other girl’s forehead and ran to fetch a bottle of water.
It had been 16 whole years since the outbreak. Civilization had started to claw its way from the dirt, building villages, towns, some even managing small cities. Quin couldn’t remember how long it had truly been, but Aria never failed to remind her. They were both turning twenty-two this year. Quin in July and Aria in December. There was no real way of knowing what day of the month it was anymore so they both decided that the brightest, sweatiest day of summer would be a day to celebrate Quin, and the first snow fall would be to celebrate Aria.
They both understood what was happening in the world, they both understood the disaster that had fallen on their planet, but there was nothing much to do other than enjoy what they had.
Against their will, an issue had begun to present itself, they were running out of medicine for Aria. Quin knew better than to assume Aria could manage without it. She knew better than anyone just how severe her asthma was. The problem wasn’t the short supply, in fact, medicine was one of the first things humanity got their hands working on after the 3 year mark. It was the journey to the plantation where the medicine was made that was the problem.
This would be a matter of rationing, pacing, and worst of all- keeping Quin fed. Keeping the mutation fed.
-Aria POV-
To this raggedy ass book I found in that infested library, I need to explain what exactly Quin is. She’s something special, Something that could end this apocalypse. She’s a mutation. I’m not exactly sure what it is that makes her different, what changed, what part of her didn’t let her turn all the way, but it’s thanks to her that I have survived long enough to write this. She consumes. She eats biters. She can rip through their awful, disgusting bodies and bathe in their blood. There’s something in her that makes her crave it. There’s something that makes her hungry for the raw, rotted bodies of the dead.
Every time she eats, something about her changes. Only for a moment but I see the way her pupils dilate. The way her smile gets inhumanly wide, the way she drools when she smells them. She’s never looked at a human like that though, just the dead. It's not as terrifying as it used to be, I've grown accustomed to it by now, but anyone else seeing her like that would end with a bullet to her head, not that it would keep her down for long. She just can’t seem to die the way I expected. I don’t know if I want to find out how to kill her though. Without her I wouldn't even have a place to call home. At first it was absolutely appalling, watching her tear through meat like she hadn’t eaten in days, like she didn’t understand the concept of being full. But that doesn’t matter to me anymore. Every waking moment I feel my heart beat, it feels as if it’s beating for her. Even if she hadn’t saved my life, Even if the world hadn’t fallen to the pits of hell and below, I think I would still feel engrossed by her like I do now.
It’s not very often, but when she’s weak- it feels like i could rip limbs from torsos just to see if she would get back up and bring me back home. It only ever happened once, and I managed to convince her that I don’t remember any of it. I am a liar though. Always have been. She loves me, and for that I would lie to her again and again. If it meant she would only look at me, I would be as pitiful as a newborn lamb taken from its mother before managing its first meal. As long as she is mine, I will be as delicate as I would be naturally without the childhood I had. I will be as human as she is monster, and I will love her, and she will only love me.