Don't Get Eaten

Fifty Seven

I didn't know what happened after that.

I just remember vaguely being pulled away from Rissa's body and watching her drift further and further away from me. Zared was saying something to me, but I couldn't remember what it was. My heart was broken with the knowledge that I wasn't going to see her anymore. Wasn't going to hear her voice or see her smile ever again.

She was gone and I wasn't here to prevent it from happening.

He must have found a place because we were holed up in a small rec room at a park that was nearby. It held one window that had a cage over it to prevent dumb kids from destroying the window. The walls were solid stone, and the door was completely iron.

It was dark and cold, but I could care less as my head was laid in his lap, the sun setting in the distance. I stopped crying, my gaze staring blankly at the wall. His fingers graze through my damp hair where my sobs drenched it.

He managed to grab our belongings that we had dropped along the way, and I didn't even notice that he did. All I could think about was Rissa and the fact that more of our friends were buried underneath there as well.

"I know...you're going to want to burn her body. We can do it as soon as light hits in the morning." He whispers gently to me.

I slowly blink. "No." My voice slowly sighs out.

He stops the grazing and peers down at me. "What do you mean? You were hell bent on doing that before."

A set of tears slips down the side of my nose and I let it. "What's the point? She'll be gone by the time we go back anyways." My throat was raw and throbbing from all the crying I did, making me sound nasally and weird.

He doesn't say anything as he understands my meaning. "She's under the slabs, so she might still-"

"Zared, please stop." I beg, burying my face in his lap.

He stops talking and hugs me to him even tighter. Other than Zared, Rissa had been the oldest friend I had. The three of us grew up together, went to the same schools and everything. She was my closest friend. She may have been irritating with her constant obsession with my hair and looks, but she always did it out of love for me.

Now, I'll never hear her tell me that with her guidance I could look a thousand times hotter than I normally did with my own hair and clothes. Never hear her squeal of happiness when I finally give in to her demands. Never be able to stare at her when she's damn bossy with the makeup she puts on me. I'll never get that soft comforting feeling of her fingers braiding my hair like she always did every morning before school started.

Or hear her calling out my name like I was miles away from her, with that huge, beautiful smile of hers.

The tears started up again as memory after memory slams into me. I don't let the sounds out though, but Zared holds me even closer and whispers in my ear,

"You're not alone. I'm right here with you."

***

I was surprised I was able to sleep at all last night. The lull of Zared's voice kept me sane as he laid with me, holding me tightly. The sound of his breathing and the beating of his heart gave me a peace of mind that I really wasn't alone.

But now with the new day and back at the hotel...there was nothing that was left behind. New fresh tears appeared as the spot that Rissa had been before was scraped and demolished. The blood that was left behind smeared through the ground and out into the side of the torn down fortress.

At this point I couldn't feel anymore. I knew it was going to happen and there was nothing I could do about it. The way I never wanted anyone's body to be left victimized by these monsters and yet I had no choice but to have my best friend be one.

It made me sick to my stomach to the point I actually threw up on the side. There wasn't anything left in me to even throw up. But I still heaved anyways. Zared rubbed my back as he hands me a bottle of water.

"So much for breakfast." He states as he pushes my hair back from my face.

"What breakfast? If you call a stale block of grains breakfast then you and I view food very differently." I mumble, my stomach quivering from the traumatic convulsing it just did.

After that we tried to find what we could take with us. But while at it I still searched for the others. If Rissa was here then it was highly possible for the others to be here too. Unless she was such in bad shape that the others weren't able to take her with them.

Which meant they left her behind.

Anger had flashed through me when Zared had suggested it. But then he quickly calmed me down when he also stated that knowing Rissa she had to have begged them to leave her behind. To not risk their own lives for her sake.

It was something that she would have done too.

It may not be a known fact, but it was all I had to work with to keep me from boiling over the edge at any given moment. Besides, none of them may have made it out at all. Which was even more a downer.

We were only able to find a few things that could be useful. But with the water still running in the city, the pipes had blown out and was gushing water in certain areas completely destroying most of the food supply, the weaponry that we were able to pull out, and all the clothes that we were able to manage to find.

It wasn't much, but it was something.

But thankfully, we didn't encounter another body as we did. It was like Rissa truly was the only person who got caught up in the mess. Then another thought struck me. Looking to Zared as I carefully headed back in his direction, I ask,

"You know about how you were thinking an explosion caused this?"

He takes the bag I was holding that held a few canned goods I was able to dig up. "Yeah."

"I was thinking, what if you're right and Rissa did force them to leave her."

He frowns as we both begin to leave the grounds of the hotel. Shoving the bag into his much bigger one, he swings it over his shoulder as I did with my own and takes my hand into his.

"What are you trying to say here Jinsen?"

I lick my dry lips as I really think about it. "If an explosion went off then someone had to have stayed behind to make it happen. Otherwise they would have never made it out."

I see him thinking for a moment. Then he looks back to me with a somber face. "So, you think she sacrificed herself to save everyone else."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. "Yeah, yeah I really do. It's Rissa you know. She was badly hurt, enough to where we knew she wasn't going to make it. I know...the antibiotics wasn't going to save her, nor doing the surgery. You were just protecting me from getting hurt on knowing the true extent of her injuries."

His cheeks flush with the truth and while he was adorable looking like that I couldn't help but feel a tad hurt that he would hide the truth of it from me. But I get it. And it made me love him even more.

"Rissa would have known it too." I finish.

He gives me a sad smile. "I hope your right."

I see the words he wanted to say but refuse to say them. Because once again he was hiding the full truth to keep me from hurting. Rissa had been unconscious when we left, and it was more than likely that she never even woke up in the first place.