A Day In September - BTS Zombie au

19: Muse

(((WARNING: graphic content ahead. )))

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Mara was running, running like her life depended on it.

It did.

Her breath was ragged and her lungs burned as she tried to run away from the equally as fast footsteps that rustled on the forest floor several feet behind her. The presence was terrifying, tears welling in her eyes as every imaginable fate came to mind from which every ending resulted in her death. Mara knew she was going to die, but not in a horrific way—not in the way the man following close behind her wanted to.

*THREE DAYS BEFORE*

Mara's dispirited figure stood slouched before the fruit tree, eyes scanning the massacre just feet in front of her. A deep sense of anger coursed through her, eyesight going blurry with frustration. She kneeled down to the soil, gently picking up a mango that had been crushed and had mingled with the dirt below it. Just beside it, several other mangos lay in an indistinguishable pile of irreversibly mushed fruit. Mara scanned every single one, hoping she could save the bare minimum of food, however not a single fruit was spared. The girl looked up at the tree that bore fruit, staring at the broken trunk and mangled branches, at the tree that had been pulled from the ground for every root to be visible. The main trunk, laying just at the center of the mess, had an odd symbol carved into the wood. The traces of sinister intent left Mara horrified, as she not only fed from the tree, but relied almost entirely on the fruits from it. Her first mistake was relying too much on the tree, and her second was expecting to be safe from the wrath of the unknown. Mara was aware that this couldn't have been done by nature, but rather a force equally as strong. The girl could do nothing but mourn the loss and move on, however now there was a problem bigger than the lack of food. Despite her having harvested a few fruits, it was not enough to keep her alive for too long.

She couldn't be to sure that the force behind this act was out to get here, but what else could have been the motive? She questioned why someone would simply destroy a source of food without at least fully taking advantage of it. If every fruit and part of the tree were destroyed completely, it came down to it being driven by malice. Whomever was behind it must've known she was relying on the fruit, thus giving them a reason to get rid of the tree.

Mara was surprised. She was surprised that despite the misfortune and obvious threat that, for all she knew, could be watching her at that very moment, she was not afraid. More than frustrated, the girl was furious. Mara had been through so much, experienced abuse and the unmentionable, experienced so much grief and loss, loneliness and abandonment, and it was taking a toll on her. She'd done nobody harm, she'd kept to herself, and now she was being dealt cards she knew in her heart she did not deserve.

Unable to do much else, Mara decided that the best thing to do was stay at home for a few days, considering it too dangerous to stay out here if the person behind this was still around. Mara would stay inside at least until she felt safer. However, even when Mara made her way home, she felt as if eyes were following her every move. Staying inside felt odd. Every room she entered felt invaded, even when fully aware that she was the only person to have entered the room. The girl would peek out the window, attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible in the off chance that someone were actually stalking her. Even when the world felt empty and deserted, it wasn't. There were plenty of threats out there, all with the same goal of survival, but all with different methods of achieving that.  The symbol never left Mara's mind, and the idea of a presence being so close stayed at the very forefront of her thoughts.

Mara looked to the window of her room, where the jar filled with the centers of countless mangos sat. There were many to spare, but the girl was unsure how long it would take for those seeds to grow as big as the tree they came from had. No doubt, it would take a while, and Mara was not sure if she had the time, or safety, to stay in one place for however long. She sighed, hands carding through her ever-growing hair.