Forgotten Souls

001. 𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐄

CHAPTER ONE.
" alone "

WORD COUNT  :
2,292

IT HAD  taken me far longer than it should have for me to start a fire. I had remembered when I'd see men starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together on the television. That seemed to me like it was a hoax because when I tried to do that for at least half an hour, nothing happened. Not even a spark. Maybe I was doing it wrong, I don't know. My forehead was coated in a thin layer of sweat, and it surprised me that such a simple task had funneled such a large amount of fatigue into me.

Or was it just the heat?

Next to me laid a dead rabbit that I had realized too late that I had no idea how to skin. While I was hunting it, the rabbit had gotten much closer to me than I'd expected after I coaxed it towards me with the last of the canned carrots I had. Maybe that was dumb, considering those carrots were the last I had, and I wasn't even sure if rabbits actually liked carrots. Looking back to my lack of fire, I clearly couldn't believe everything I saw on TV. So, in this predicament I was currently in, I had bloody hands, no fire, and rabbit I didn't know what to do with.

It was a shame, honestly, that I had murdered an innocent rabbit for seemingly no reason. I remembered how graceful it looked, and when it had gotten within 5 feet of me, I was in awe. It was beautiful moment, one to be cherished, until I had ruined it by brutally bringing my knife into it's head. Charming, I know.

I had already began feeling guilty, but when I remembered the tales I'd been forced to read by my mother, I convinced myself that I had just killed Peter Rabbit.

I would've cried if I hadn't forgotten how.

Well, I don't think I've forgotten, but it was much harder than Before. When I tried to cry, nothing but dry sobs escaped my lips. No longer did my eyes fill with tears, but instead with the stinging sensation that was all too familiar to me. Typically, all it would take for tears to well up in my eyes were thoughts of my brothers and a secluded space - I could never cry with people watching. But now, even if I was alone, I couldn't cry. No matter how secluded the area I was in, no matter how many saddened memories my brain reminded me of, I just couldn't cry.

I tried. I did. To feel something, anything. It was impossible. The feeling of tears running down my cheeks was now a distant memory.

"Hello," A voice said from behind me, and I instantly jumped up, pulling my gun out of it's holster and pointing it at him. For a second I thought it had been one of the disembodied voiced I'd been conversing with more recently, but no, this was definitely a human. A man stood with a spotless face and clean clothes with no rips in them. His recently washed hands were already in the air, a signal that he wasn't going to hurt me. He adorned a blue flannel and a coat that was colored a darker shade of blue than the clothing under it. I could see brown straps around his shoulder, telling me that he had a backpack. Most people out here did, but it didn't look like he had been out here long.

I had only realized this now, but another man stood next to him, wearing a smile far too large for someone with a gun pointed at him.

He and the other man stood close to each other, as if to say, 'if this girl shoots, she'll have to kill both of us'. Then, it crossed my mind that I could kill them. They'd put up a fight, and it would probably end with me being horribly injured, but I could take their bags and live a little longer - assuming they have some food in there.