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NATALIA AWOKE ALONE THAT MORNING.
She was normally the first of the pair to stir, leaving Archie to sleep a tad bit longer while she would begin to gather their things and prepare herself to go scavenge for much-needed supplies. Every day passing was the same ─ rummage for food, water, weapons: like vultures for prey, but that day was different.
The girl sat up with an empty space beside her, a cold ghost all that was left. Her eyes first were met with the young man's backpack, which was still there, sitting tattered and stuffed to the brim at her feet as it always was, just beside hers. She then snapped her head to the side, reaching her hands over almost blindly due to how tired and heavy her gaze had become. All she felt was emptiness.
It was gone.
Archie always kept a knife nuzzled between their heads every night, his knife, in fact, the only thing left of his family he had. It was precious to him, and it and its leather sheathe were nowhere to be found. He would never leave without it, that meant just one thing.
A cold panic arose in her, vomit crawling up her throat as it had the night before. What if it was happening, what if her nightmares finally escaped into reality, tearing at the seams of her brain and releasing havoc on the world. Archie was gone, perhaps he left only to be torn limb from limb as screams ripped from his mouth, begging for her to save him in a cry that she couldn't hear.
What if he was dead, and she, Natalia, had done nothing to save him.
Springing from the tent in a hurry, the woman nearly ripped the zipper off clean while stumbling out from within. The campsite she frantically searched around was vacant to any other human life, the only moving thing being the light smoke from the charred wood of a dead fire. It was safe, she had been so sure of it. Every camp the two constructed was lined with string, pots and tin can lids collected over weeks strung on them, so if any walker were to pass through, the pair would be alerted at once.
And the frantic girl, having not heard a single thing all night, did all she could think to do, cry out for the lost boy.
"ARCHIE!" she called, her voice strained and desperate.
It echoed without a reply. She bit back the tears prickling the corners of her dark eyes, a pounding headache coming over her while her heart fell. Natalia decided then (even though there was really not a choice to her) that she would not rest until he was found.
She prepared to return to the tent and gather her supplies, biting back the rising sobs and trying to focus on staying as strong as she could in a dying world. But just as she turned, the leaves rustled.
