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Zora has never been a crier.
Yes, she'd had moments where tears welled up in her eyes and her face flushed, but she'd never really let herself cry. At least, not after she had turned 10.
By 10, Zora already knew how harsh the world was— it had already broken her down, time and time again, and she knew that it would never stop, at least until the stupid apocalypse was over.
Now, Zora was 21, and she had long lost her hope of the apocalypse ending. She'd lost other things as well— Elizabeth, her family, Salvation, Squiddo— she could go on for hours. To make things even worse, she was stuck in this stupid city.
She wasn't even meant to be in this place for this long. She came to this city to die, not fuck around.
... Like what she was currently doing.
When she had first gotten infected, that terrible sensation of pain and burning rushing through her body, she felt like she had to hurry. Her time was nearly up now, and she had only killed one person out of this bunch of bus-people.
She had avenged barely a fraction of what she had lost in Salvation.
However, her sudden spike in motivation was quickly, and quite literally, shot down by Flux, who had turned his gun upon her when Zora (foolishly) attacked Magic. Really, what was she thinking? Flux had a gun, and all she had was some flimsy diamond sword.
Now she was here.
Pacing the floor of the giant church in some random location of the city, worrying about some silly man who she had gotten attached to, just like what she'd constantly told herself not to do.
The worst part wasn't even that she had gotten attached, really— it was that she had to sit there while Jawhn was possibly in danger, since her arms now barely worked because of "Mr. Flux". She felt hopelessly weak, pathetic even, like a leech that clung onto its host and slowly sucked the life out of it, giving nothing in return.
Jawhn had— unfortunately— given her so, so much of himself, and now she could barely even protect him in return, which was arguably the only worthwhile thing she could offer him in this hellish excuse of a world. Zora had always been strong, she never had to rely on anything else to get her through the apocalypse, and now her saving grace was just gone with the simple pull of a trigger.
So she did the least she could and listened to what Jawhn had asked of her: wait for five minutes and go down into the machine if he'd not come back up for her.
He'd asked her— trusted her, even — to possibly save him from Woogie, who had a gun, if it came down to it, and she really hoped it didn't, considering she could barely hold up her axe right now. The fact that she had kinda-maybe-possibly gotten attached to Woogie and Jawhn as a group definitely didn't make a difference in her feelings towards the situation either, by the way!
Anyways— Zora didn't really want to go down there, not alone, at least. She was afraid of heights, after all.
She'd been afraid of heights ever since she had a... bad experience on the edge of a high cliff, all the way back in Salvation. (She still remembers how it felt, the tears falling from her eyes and being soaked into her girlfriend's sweatshirt.)
As she passed by the little entrance that led down into the pit of the machine for the seventeenth time, she paused, leaning into the opening as a weird knot started to slowly twist itself together inside her stomach, quickly pulled tight by a shout that echoed from the small cave. A shout that Zora knew belonged to Jawhn.
Before she could even think, she was climbing down the stupidly rough ropes, then promptly throwing herself down those creaky, metal platforms, uncaring of the bright pain that it caused her entire body.
As she sped downwards to where she thought Jawhn and Woogie were— she didn't even know where she was going for sure— her voice, weak from the infection, most likely, escaped her mouth in a quiet, nervous hum, "I don't think Woogie would try to kill Jawhn, right?"
...
Despite herself, Zora quickened her pace, jumping onto the outside shell of the machine before dropping down onto a lower platform, yelping in pain as her legs nearly gave out on her.
It was then that Zora realized that the grin that grew on her face was not formed out of any form of satisfaction.
It was formed out of fear.
The very same fear that had her heartbeat picking up and her lungs letting out exclusively short, panicked bursts of air.
And as Zora came to a stop at the entrance of the round structure, she promptly knew that her fear wasn't unfounded, her eyes finding their way to the gun in Woogie's hands, pointed directly at Jawhn.
"What's happening— hello?"
The voices she had heard just moments before cut themselves short with the addition of her own, uncannily distressed, voice.
It felt as if the room had dropped 10 degrees, even though sweat still dripped down her face and the haziness in her mind— a direct consequence of the heat that enveloped the entire underneath of the church— still remained.
She stumbled down towards where her two friends colleagues stood, still silent. The bubbling, painful emotion she felt when Woogie had only glanced at her, hands unwavering in their strong hold on the gun he still had aimed towards Jawhn's chest— who didn't even seem that afraid— was unbeknownst to her.
Desperation and helplessness mixed together into a disgusting ball inside her, sitting heavy in her body, and so she defaulted to what she usually does. What she was made to do.
Instinctually, Zora swung clumsily towards Woogie with her axe, ignoring the pain that shot through her nerves, even as her, now trembling, hands reached for her lava bucket.
She had gotten lucky, successfully dropping the pale hybrid to the ground. However, before she could kill him, Jawhn stopped her, gripping onto her uninjured shoulder and frantically pleading with her to just let them talk.
As she watched the taller man help the injured off the ground, she knew she couldn't let this happen— couldn't let Woogie kill Jawhn— but realistically, what could she even do?
Her stupid fucking arms didn't work, she wasn't in the headspace to come up with any strategy of value that wasn't in the same realm as the failed plan she had tried just moments before, and she barely knew the polar bear hybrid even half as well as the man that stood in front of him, who was trying— and probably failing— to convince Woogie to not shoot him. What could she do?
It was stupid— it was all so stupid and cruel and wrong.
It had always been this way, but now, as her friends stood in front of her, arguing over who to let live, who to sacrifice, she found that a dull, persistent heat was starting to settle beneath the skin of her face. Her vision glazed over, and the tears that she never thought would escape started to slowly slide down her cheeks and onto the stone floor below, breaking the streak of stoicism that she'd held onto for eleven years.
Her hand twitched at her side, wanting to reach toward her face and wipe the vulnerability away, but as she watched the two older men in front of her slowly break down in the way that she was, the shield that covered her emotions broke, and she let the hand tremble lightly at her side, no longer struggling to reach her hand up and wipe away the tears.
She let herself cry.
She let herself cry, even as the men turned towards her with similar, teary expressions.
Even as Woogie grabbed her by the shoulders, hands shaking yet unwavering at the same time, and made her promise to him that she would protect Jawhn.
Even as she made a promise to the man that she would try her hardest to find his lost daughter.
Even as she walked into the chamber that Jawhn had directed her too, her breaths quickening as she sat down, awaiting her possible fate of death.
Even as the loud, frantic screams of Johnathan rang out throughout the room. (Im the back of her mind, she noted that he had somehow sounded cruel and worried at the same time.)
Even as she listened to the despairing wails of her friend, realizing that Woogie was now dead.
The sounds from outside the chamber in which she was trapped (identical to where Woogie now lay, permanently limp) became the harmony to her own heavy breathing and quiet sobs. They felt like some kind of morbid melody, the finishing touch to the sickening song it all created.
Zora is 21, and she, before today, thought that she’d suffered through the worst of what the world had to offer.
She couldn't have been more wrong.