"I've done things," Charlie said, looking up into his eyes full of disappointment. "Things that I am not proud of. But everything I've done, I've done to survive...And I did. I survived."
"And are you happy?" Daryl asked, using all his power to stop...
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It was different.
Something at least felt different.
She was going to work, smiling brightly to the camera, and then quickly coming back home. Going out was challenging and she felt paranoid that from around the corner, she might get attacked. So obviously there was no walking around after dark.
Ever since her visit to the safe zone, she couldn't sleep - it's been three days.
Every time she was lying in her bed and the slightest shadow of sleep was approaching, her sense of hearing sharpened. It was enough that she heard her neighbors, some screaming on the street, little noises that normally wouldn't matter, and she was up. Not to mention that as soon as it was getting dark, she was lighting every light in her house.
Sometimes she got a little bit of sleep. Usually, it was on the couch while she was watching something, sometimes she was waking up on a windowsill with her head leaning on a glass.
That was another thing.
She was sitting late at night on her windowsill, watching the city. It was her habit before the virus, made her mind wander to different places, turning itself off. All the lights and cars or planes noises. She couldn't believe how lucky she was. But now she was also feeling lucky, but only because her flat was high above the ground - high enough to protect her.
With fear, she could watch the streets now.
When the epidemic had just started, people lived their normal lives. They were walking at night, hanging out and just living. Now, it was quiet. People still had to live or go to work, but after sunset, there was no one outside. And when she did see someone in the dark it was obvious that it wasn't a living person.
Atlanta looked dead.
One night Charlie saw one of those things from her window and she lost her mind. It couldn't see her from the ground, but from that moment she felt like a desert on a plate. Ready to be eaten.
She was getting ready to work that morning. Her insides were already up in her throat, her hand shaking with fear. Charlie opened her bag and without hesitation put a knife inside of it and chuckled humorlessly. In the past her necessity was Dior lipstick or Chanel's perfumes, now she would love to have one of her dad's guns.
The most stressful moments of leaving her house were going down or up the elevator. It was claustrophobic and there was no way out if something went wrong. She was going down the corridor to the elevator with her heart on her shoulder. It was stressful waiting for it and even more stressful when it opened.
During waiting time she was looking out the window. She could jump out of the window because right next to her building was a lower building with a flat roof, and then next to this one was another and another. At the end of this sequence of buildings was a ladder, so she could go down.
