After Death (Season 4)

Chapter 10 (...Is the Reason we're Homeless)

Chapter 10: ...Is the Reason we're Homeless

Ethan Warren

Estimated, June 2025

About 37 months after outbreak

California

Season 4

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We walked the streets of California with nothing but the clothes on our backs. There was hardly any of us, Leah, Khai, Evelyn, the new people, and a few others that I knew got out but besides them it wasn't much. I didn't bother to get to know the people who I've never spoken to before because I didn't think any of us would be living too much longer. What was the point of making friends if they'd just end up dying in front of you?

Leah told us about her pregnancy and it only destroyed me more. Not only did I let a good man die, I let a soon-to-be good father die. I could see in her eyes how much she wanted to cry, maybe even die but she tried to hold herself together for her own good. I wanted to be able to give these people some hope, hope that we'd find somewhere new and start over, but I just couldn't because I couldn't believe my own lie.

We walked in silence and the dead almost didn't even blink an eye as we passed. I wanted them to rip me apart, I think we all wanted that for ourselves at this point. We wanted it to be over, there was nothing for us anymore. We tried, I tried, but we failed. I failed.

A loaded gun had never looked so friendly before and I was holding back every urge to pull the trigger on myself. We had two but there weren't enough bullets for all of us, it wouldn't have been fair. I hated myself for even considering suicide after everything we've been through but it felt so right at the time.

I should have just fucking did it, it would have been worth it.

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Leah Souixer

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I watched as Ethan and Thomas stared at the gun in Ethan's hands. I knew what they were thinking and I wasn't going to stop them. I might have tried to stop Thomas but that's only because we needed him to make amends to Timothy. Ever since I met him I knew I would never save Ethan from death unless I really had to, now wasn't one of those times.

The morning sickness was the worst part of not being able to wake up with a roof over your head, or at least in a house you could call your own. I would become dizzy and tired whenever we walked. It was like torture and I just wanted it to be over. I was barley even showing and it had been five months but I blame that on our lack of food. I hated thinking about how it was Dallen's baby that I was carrying and then being forced to remember the image of his blood gushing out of his throat.

I had no idea what I was going to do one it was born, we had no where to go to and I didn't want to end up like Olivia when she gave birth to Juna. I know she had been bitten but even if she hadn't been there's so many other ways it could have gone wrong.

Piper tried to calm my nerves, she tried to act like she knew how I was feeling. She had twins, she knew about this more than I did, I should have taken her advice but she still had her children's father. She may have lost her son but that was different.

I wanted to go off on my own, like Rudi had done, but I couldn't in my condition. I couldn't do that to our son. I was in the mindset that I would once he was born but I also was coming to accept that I might not make it that long.

The dead stayed mostly in crowds now, it's like they evolved. There were rarely any singular ones roaming the streets. Usually if you saw one you saw 20. It was kinda nice for us, it made avoiding them a bit easier but the size of the hordes didn't ease our anxiety of being eaten alive. If we got caught up trying to get one our of our way it would have probably been game over.

I kinda forgot what these things were. I hadn't been so close to them in so long I felt weak as I looked them in the cold dead eyes. Before I would have been able to kill every one I saw without breaking a sweat but now I almost felt scared. Not scared of dying but scared of what I had become.