Gonna type this on the computer because I'm snazzy like that.
SOTC: Radioactive by Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix
• Welcome to the new age •
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I rose from my bundle of blankets and pillows with a jolt, my fingers tingling and a thick, overwhelming feeling of panic surging though my veins. Nobody else was in the house, only me, sitting on the floor, with my bag sitting next to me. My family picture was propped up against it, fading and curling up as if it had been salvaged from a fire. I reached out for it, and when I repositioned my fingers, I screeched.
Where my fingers came away, there was blood. Pooling around the frame and then dripping down into the floor and curling like vines up my arm. I dropped the picture into my bag, hyperventilating, trying to scrape away the warm, burgundy soup that was surging up my arm like it had broken its dam. It frothed onto my shirt and stained it ruby, then I felt it coat my toes with a scorching heat. I squeaked and raked my fingers against my neck, trying to get it off, but my skin had been consumed by the now-lipsticky, half-dried liquid.
I felt it connect with my scalp and drip into my eyes, burning them with a fiery vengeance that made me want to claw them out. I screamed and felt my way into the bathroom, thick, blackish red consuming my eyesight.
I twisted the bathtub tap on, then felt my gaze grip onto the mirror frantically. I raked my fingers through my knarled hair as my tears came more profusely, plopping into the sink with silvery plinks.
I focused on my eyes, which were crimson and swelled, with the greenish of my iris clouded into a muddy brown. My teeth were yellowed and rotten, crooked, flattened and sore where there were cuts tracing my gums. I tasted blood gurgle down my throat and clutched my face, and the walker in the mirror did it too.
The walker who I would soon be.
•••
My eyes flew open with a flurry and I gasped, then covered my mouth. I was in my "bed", which was basically my blanket which I had wound about myself as if I were a mummy. Other people were splayed around the room, Rick in the kitchen next to Judith, the top of Daryl's head poking out through the window, Carl by the TV cabinet. He had fallen asleep with his hat still perched on his head, a Deadpool comic book still open in his hands.
Just a dream. Just a dream.
I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling a rush of paranoia impale me when I came in contact with a large patch of my hair matted with blood. Was that walker blood? My blood?
I shook my head and scampered over to the bathroom, turning the spigot to the hottest water setting. After grabbing some new clothes, I peeled off my dirty ones and hopped in. I undid my knotted braid, looped the hair tie around my wrist, closed my eyes and felt the warm water run through my hair and down my body.
When I opened my eyes again, the water at the bottom of the tub was brown and filled with dirt. I felt a smile tug on the corner of my mouth.
For a while I just stood there with my eyelids squeezed shut. It felt different than my dream. There was a tether to reality—the faint throbs of my bite. I had tried to ignore it for the past few days, but the bruises had spread to my lower back.
But the water also wasn't as scorching and syrupy as the blood, and whenever I opened my eyes, there was no red to be seen. The sound was like rain—
Like that rain from the day I got bit. A shiver ran up my spine as I stopped the shower. I just stood there for a while and tried to blink away the blurry tears, taking deep breaths. Crossing my arms and digging my fingernails into my arms.
Stop it Keira. Shove it away. Get your mind out of the damn gutter.
I tried, but it seemed like my mind was tethered to bad times. I was traumatized. A good shower couldn't even wash off all the dirt on my soul.
•••
By the time I was fully clothed and dried, everybody else was up too. It was about eight o'clock, and the only reason why I wasn't dead asleep was because of my built-in survival alarm clock.
I floated over to the kitchen and inhaled the first half of a bowl of Apple Jacks in front of the bay window. Carl joined me with his cereal. We just watched the trees move in the breeze, the only sound being the cereal crunching in our mouths.
"Ever had a weirdly terrible dream?" I asked him, taking a deep breath.
He looked over at me with a kind of dark expression, taking another spoonful of frosted flakes. "About my family, yeah."
"Well I had a weird one last night. It involved a lot of—" I paused, craning my gaze towards the window. "Is that Enid?"
Sure enough, it was. She was climbing the walls, with wooden slats that she'd stuck into niches behind the metal poles. I turned back to Carl. "Yah thinking what I'm thinking?"
He gave a mischievous smile before leaping off the bay window towards the porch door. "Let's go."
•••
I leapt from the top of the wall with the attitude of somebody who thought they could fly if they spread their arms wide enough. I felt the wind whistle through my fingertips before landing with a stumble on the ground. The ground with leaves on it. There weren't many trees that dropped leaves inside the city, and however small a detail, I still missed them.
Carl was already ahead, trying to be as quiet as he could by tip-toeing on the leaves. I laughed and tapped him on the shoulder. "She probably already knows we're here," I said as he jumped with surprise.
"Yeah, why are you guys here anyway?" Enid's voice came from behind me, and it was my turn to be frightened.
I wheeled around and she was there, walking towards us. "Well, there's nothing against me following you, right?" I smiled. "Why do you come out here anyway?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes I just need to get away. The people who've never left the walls don't understand." Then she dashed off into the woods, and before I noticed what I was doing, my legs carried themselves after her.
It was only me, and the sound of the wind running past me, and the sound of crinkling leaves, the roots that I jumped over, the trees that I dodged. I felt my lungs claw desperately for air, and I just kept going, kept pushing for one more tree, one more shrub, and then I spotted Enid curl into a hollow tree.
Before I noticed that I was doing it, rocketed up the tree, hauling my way through the canopy of branches. I caught a few breaths in my throat and then laughed, as jovially as I could with the state that I was in, and then I let my arms splay out on either side of me, and a smile played across my face.
Untethered. I am unleashed.
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A/N: oh that was a fun chappie to write 😅
Sorry for the loooooooong break. School is not treating me all that well haha :)
QOTD: What shoes are you wearing right now?
AOTD: Maroon converse 😉
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Word count:
1292
Created 2-2-16
Edited 3-7-16
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BITE ME ➼ C. G. 〖 #wattys2016 〗
FanfictionKeira is a survivor. She doesn't fall for tricks, she turns her back to the past and walks on. She carries secrets as her burdens. Guilt and sadness curdle inside her, but she's learned how to mask it. Cares and carelessness cause her to make mi...
