Chapter Text
Another night is passing you by.
You stare at the ceiling of your room, eyes heavy with a tiredness that you were sure wouldn’t be eased just with sleep. It was hard to sleep in times like these anyway. Even on the now uncommon occasion that it came to you easily, you were soon awakened again by gunshots, screaming, or an incessant knocking on the door. All of which still scared you awake with a pumping heart and heaving breath, even though you’ve heard them many times at this point.
But again, as much as you wished for the blissful unconsciousness of slumber to overtake you, it’s getting harder for you to believe that it’ll come. And that leaves you alone with nothing but your own inner monologue; something that you very much wished to avoid.
You had never had any sort of interest in guns before. In fact, you’d say you were even scared of them. You had learned to shoot as a child, but after an experience that you’d rather push to the back of your mind right now, you tried to steer clear of them. You hadn’t shot one since, and planned to keep it that way.
But such is the way of the world, it makes you do exactly what you intend to avoid.
You had only let in two people, as your neighbor had warned you to do the night before. One was a freakishly tall, lanky beanpole of a man, who had explained he had been kicked out of his shelter at a bar. You reluctantly let him in. Alcohol was yet another thing you were averse to, again due to bad memories, and he was obviously a man who dabbled heavily in it. However, he didn’t seem very aggressive, and you figured this would be your only chance to let someone in due to how far out you live, so you let him enter.
The second guest you invited into your home was a crooked-shouldered, red haired woman. She seemed frantic and anxious, which you couldn’t blame her for. She mentioned being a cashier, which you instantly felt some kinship with her for, since you had worked in retail for a number of years before the cataclysm. She seemed rather high-strung, which freaked you out a bit, but you opened the door and let her step inside.
All was well for about two nights. Or, as well as having complete strangers in your house during the apocalypse with pseudo-humans walking among regular people could be. The bar guy was actually rather tolerable. He snapped at you a few times when you were checking him, which startled you as any sort of harsh interaction would, but you took a strange comfort in how he spoke when he wasn’t snapping at you. You simply listened the majority of the time, with him doing most of the talking.
After a few days you discovered that he enjoyed poetry, which put you at ease. You had walked into the living room to find him reading one of your old books on the shelf that you had nearly forgotten about. He had asked if you’d like him to read an excerpt from it, and of course you had accepted his offer. You used to write poetry yourself. You had thought about telling him that, but decided against it. You were sure he wouldn’t care too much about something like that.
In hindsight, you wish you had.
Oh, but what difference would it have made anyway?
You huff out a sigh and roll over in your bed, the sudden answer to yourself making you uneasy and unable to lay still for a moment.
The other guest… you were starting to think of her almost as a friend, though you pretend like you don’t remember that feeling now. Your chest tightens and you swallow back tears, already forming at just the thought of her.
Of what you did.
You can recall how cramped the closet she was sleeping in felt. You had offered for her to stay in another room on a couch, but she had declined. You decided to pay no mind to her decision.
You had asked her what happened to her house, and she recounted events that… Well, you were glad she didn’t go into much detail. You remembered her saying she felt like she needed to lay down, and to be honest, you did too. You sat next to her in that compact storage room in a silence that you both used to just breathe. Her presence felt like a welcome one, one that you came to find a momentary solace in. You and her were a bit similar.
You noticed the way she fidgeted with her hands. She was always so on edge…
You recount talking more with her that day, but the subject of the conversation has escaped your memory now. Mostly.
The parts of that memory that do remain begin to kindle a painful flame in your mind. Your stomach lurching, tears blurring your vision, the crack in your voice as you pushed words out of your throat that you had been dwelling on for years… It’s the beginning of two horrible days and nights that are still too fresh of wounds for you to process properly.
The sound of her hammering heartbeat as you leaned into her out of nowhere, overcome with emotion, your head landing on her chest, a gasp escaping her from the sudden contact. The feeling of her shaking arms cautiously wrapped around you as you spilled your guts out to this neurotic woman you had known for a day. You could tell she didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what the hell was happening. But she stayed. She didn’t push you away when you were desperate for comfort.
Desperate.
A gun is the heavy weight that your trembling hands bore. One that you had prayed never to use.
You had found the bar guy’s body lying crumpled on the floor, his tall frame crushed by the will of Death. You stumbled out of the room, grabbing at the wall to steady yourself. This couldn’t be happening.
Violence had once again crept its way into your home after years of quiet, and this time, you would be one to inflict it.
You staggered over to the closet door, leaning on it for a moment to catch your breath. You had only two guests in your home, and one of them had been gutted of life in your own living room.
It won't happen again. It can't.
You had to do this.
You swung the door open, the startled face of the red-haired woman being the first thing you see. She jumped in surprise at the intrusion, and then jumped again at the sight of the metal in your hands.
“I know what you did.”
The words come out in a rasp. You didn’t want to say them.
“I.. I…”
She was trembling, and you could see it. Her eyes darted around the room, falling on you for a split second.
“I don't know what happened, really! I…”
Her voice fell as her gaze finally focused on you, wide and unnerving.
“I'm.. I'M ONE OF THEM! Oh…”
She perked up, her face twisted in horrid realization. Her eyes landed on your gun.
“Shoot! SHOOT! What are you waiting for?!”
Your jaw was clenched shut as you raised your trembling hands to aim the gun directly at her. It was hard to miss the shot in this small space.
“Will you kill me without even a crumb of remorse?”
Your finger graced the trigger.
You pulled.
You always hated loud noises. This one might as well have been the loudest one you've heard in your life. It still rings in your ears even days after. It vibrated into your body, the recoil making you lose your balance and fall back.
You hated violence too. Never understood those who used the cataclysm as an excuse to let them tear others apart. The sight of blood splattered all over the plain white walls of your closet fractured you into pleading over and over that you were having one of those bad dreams again.
You're sensitive, and sensitive people don't seem to make it anymore, let alone in the pre-apocalyptic world.
You didn’t realize you had been crying until the memory subsided and made way for the real world again. You felt your cheeks wet with tears as you came out of the trance.
You shuffled in your bed again. Those memories never failed to leave you sick and drained. Another one to add to the pile. You wondered if this would be the last horrifying experience you'd have to put up with in your life.
You buried your face in your pillow.
Probably not.
You just laid there sobbing for what felt like an eternity, flashes of different memories appearing in your mind's eye, some sickening and some sweet. You just let them fly by. You couldn't control them right now.
A pleasant one made its way to the front of your mind. It was you and two of your friends at a sleepover for one of their birthdays. You sighed in relief. It was finally something nice and calm…
A sudden sharp rapping made you jump and broke you out of your reverie.
Someone was knocking on the door.