Chapter Text
Your fingers trembled as you fumbled with your last remaining matchstick, desperate for some warmth in the back of the old rotting office building you found to hole up in for the night.
You had cleared all the rooms on this floor, two infected you were able to take out quickly and quietly. The upper levels were quiet, still, and for the most part, blocked off by collapsed walls and stairwells. You figured you would be safe enough here for the next few hours, just enough time to catch your breath, find your bearings, and set back out again leaving this decaying building behind.
You could feel the tension in your neck from how much you were shivering in the cold, your breath clouding the air in front of you.
‘Come on… fuck’
You hands shaking too much to get a good strike on the match, defeated your head hit the wall behind your back and you let out a frustrated sigh.
It had only been a month, a month since you left home, a month since FEDRA came through the village you were living in and destroyed everything in a raid. You had made it out with your brother Dean and best friend Janie, barely. But now, you were alone, covered in dirt and blood and splatters from the infected you killed trying to stay alive.
One month, that was all it took to lose everything.
You reached for the match one more time, closing your eyes, you took as steady of a breath as your body allowed, and finally, the match lit.
———
You woke before the morning sun hit, shivering again, coughing from the smoke rising from what was left of the fire you got started.
‘Ugh… fuck’ you hissed stomping it out before grabbing your bag and heading to the front of the building.
As the light crept in you pulled out your map, Seattle was so close now, if you didn’t get sidetracked you’d make it there by tomorrow.
———
Back when you were still home, before the last month destroyed every last piece of humanity you had left in you, you and your brother Dean heard whispers of a group that took down FEDRA up north in Seattle. Traders and other people passing through would talk of encountering a rebel military group calling themselves the Washington Liberation Front.
Dean always talked about moving away, out of the cold isolation of the mountains, and the idea of a fortified rebel group that took down FEDRA was everything to him. It meant safety, security and a better shot at being able to protect his family, being able to protect you.
He would talk about running away to find them, even join them, all the time. if only you could go back and tell him what fate had planned when you did try to leave. Maybe you could’ve stopped it from happening.
‘Hey, come on’ he said holding out his hand to you.
‘No… it’s too high Dean’ you looked down over the edge of the mountain, you could see the bottom but, oh my god it was far. But, he continued forward, finding a grip along the side of the slope, attempting to climb down.
‘Dean. No!’ you tried to say with more authority hoping he’d listen. He let out a low chuckle, one that was always filled with such smug confidence. ‘Alma, it’s fine, we’ll just climb down it’ll be faster. Or else it’ll take us weeks to get to Seattle’
Janie would try to be the gentle voice of reason, she stood a few paces behind you watching, scared of the edge as you were. ‘Guys…’ she said with a shaken breath ‘maybe we can just rest for minute while we think of a plan’ but it was too late, Dean had already stepped down and was finding his footing on the rocks along the side of the cliff.
And then it all happened too quickly, the rock under his hand crumbling, the faint distant sound of his body hitting the ground at the bottom, the screeching sound of a distant horde of infected that was alerted to your screams as you watched the scene unfold, Janie’s hands and arms pulling you back from the ledge to stop you from falling over yourself.
You shut your eyes tight as you brought yourself back from the memory, your chest tight with the same panic from that moment but you let you feet continue to carry you the rest of the way, slowly coming back to the feeling of the earth beneath your feet as you let each step disperse the memory, for now.
———
By nightfall you had made it to the outskirts of the city. You caught a glimpse of yourself in the reflection of a window as you passed it and stopped in your tracks for a moment. You weren’t the same woman anymore, you couldn’t recognise yourself. Your hands were still shaking, you were covered in cuts and bruises, face hallowed out by the weeks of barley saving yourself from starvation, you were a ghost of yourself. Desperate and angry, oh so angry. Angry at the world, angry at yourself for what happened to your home, your brother, your friend.
Another memory found you.
The loud slam of the front door and Dean’s quiet anger pulsing from down the hallway. ‘Pack up your shit’
‘What?’
‘They’re coming Alma! We need to go, Now!’
He didn’t need to say anything else, you could see in his frantic movements as he pulled out all the drawers and tossed whatever he could into his pack, eyes burning.
You ran down the hallway to Janie’s room. You all lived together, the three of you were as close to a family as you could be in this world. Opening her door she was in bed, you tried to wake her calmly but she could feel the tremble of your hand on her as you shook her awake and your face was all too telling.
‘What’s happened?’ she breathed out in a whisper.
‘Dean said we need to go, now. To pack what we can’ you started to sob, and she held onto your shoulders, her hands warm tho shaking. Outside you hear distant commotion, gunfire, screams, the sound of trucks breaking through the villages defences.
You pack your things, frantic, messy, as the chaos outside grows closer and closer.
‘Come on, you two first’ Dean was waiting by the back window, which dropped out into the garden bed, enough foliage to cover our escape. You all crouched, keeping cover as Dean scans the area. ‘Ok, wait for my signal. Then I want you both to run for the trees over there’ he whispered back to us over his shoulder.
Then after a moment.
‘Go! Now!’ He shoved you and Janie out towards the tree line and you both ran as fast as your feet could take you.
Behind you, you heard gunfire. Dean held up his rifle aiming towards a group of heavily armed FEDRA soldiers that were heading towards us. He fired, dropping two of them before a bullet fired in your direction, clipping Janie’s leg.
She screamed as it tore through her, falling forward hitting the ground hard. Dean ran out from behind the shrubs and you pulled out your handgun to cover him now that he was exposed, your aim not as steady as his.
Out from your left, a force slammed against you pinning you to the ground causing you to fumble your weapon, the man now above you pressed his hands hard around your neck, the pain immediately stinging through your head, arms and legs helplessly thrashing to try to free yourself. Before Dean could reached you, he took aim and fired.
-BANG-
The heat of blood splatter hit against your face, ears ringing and eyes bulging wide. Then the force of being pulled upright. Dean is shouting but you only hear a mumbled voice and the feeling of him pushing you back towards that tree line, throwing Janie over his shoulders you stumbled into a run as you fled your home. The vision of that man above you still lingering, the bullet crashing through the centre of his head, the force of the impact throwing him off you to the ground. You looked at him before you turned your back, blood and brain matter from the bullet crashing through his skull surrounding the floor, his eyes still open tho now empty and haunting.
Your mind bought you back again, retching over a nearby railing at the memory.
You wiped at your face frantically hoping to pry the images away, not wanting to allow yourself to disappear into your mind again when you were so close now.
You took in your surroundings. It was dark, but you could make out the streets lined with what looked like apartment buildings, overgrown and reclaimed by the surrounding nature. As you walked through the streets, keeping off main roads you stumbled across a mural on a wall, of a woman. She was depicted almost like a religious figure with a peaceful expression and rays of light beaming from her figure. It perplexed you for just a moment too long when something nearby caught your attention.
A snap of a branch, then before you had time to turn your head around you felt a blunt force strike your head.
Then, darkness.