Our Red String Of Fate

The Beginning of the End

*Felix's POV*

The weight of the situation is starting to dawn on me. It's a crippling realization, one that truly makes it difficult to focus on anything else. My brain doesn't work properly, it's like a skipping record, jolting me back to the same painful train of thought each time I start to think that maybe I've escaped it. It's haunting me, a looming shadow of reality no matter where I turn.

All I want is to survive, is that too much to ask?

I look over at her on a whim, craving the comfort she manages to bring even in moments like these. She's beautiful, even under circumstances so dire. I can only play oblivious for so long though, because every moment I spend looking at her the limp gets more blatantly obvious. She's been having trouble walking, whether she wants to admit it or not. She hates to tell me I'm right, would rather collapse than admit it proves this world is too harsh for someone like her.

I want her to live, but I don't know if I'm gonna be able to protect her. I'd been so confident when this all started, unable to be shaken by even the most intimidating confrontations. It's not that I'd lost any of my determination, more that my energy to see it through had started to deplete. It's been so long since I've had a night's rest, it's everything I can do to keep myself upright. As much as I want to hold her above it all, I don't think I can hold myself up much longer.

We've been walking for hours now, I'm starting to think that we'll never find another living person again. It sounds dramatic, but things have never looked so bleak and I'm not sure how to look at the bright side anymore. Maybe we really are alone, maybe we're the only ones left. It's hard to think about, but not hard to believe. Even if there are others, I'm certain that there aren't all that many. There can't be. We would have found them by now.

It's been three weeks since the apocalypse started. It still doesn't sound real, not really, but all it takes is a quick look around yourself to make it feel real. I just can't get past the ridiculous notion that had always been applied to that word before now. When you hear the word "apocalypse" you imagine it as something sudden, an abrupt and destructive wave that wipes out the planet in the span of just one day. This isn't like that, though I've caught myself wishing more than once that it was.

It'd be easier that way, if we'd all just been squashed beneath the force of it from the get-go. At least then we wouldn't still be here, struggling to hold the weight of the world on our shoulders when really there's not a hope in hell of it being a lasting feat. So we survived this month, this year, this decade even, what was out there for us after it all? The only thing that's promised to us now is the present, and that's hardly something to treasure.

No, this definition is far worse. It's something that brewed with time, starting out with hushed whispers of disbelief and amounting to screaming in the streets. It had seemed so crazy back then, hearing people gossip about what all of the extra military around had been about. It wasn't the sort of thing you could just dismiss right away though, even though it sounded like a work of fiction you couldn't help but feel uneasy.

It's a subtle feeling in the back of your mind at first, a quiet acknowledgement that something is very much wrong, whether you can determine what it is or not. The rope snaps all at once one day, anxiety shifting to panic before you have a chance to wrap your head around the fact that all of this is really happening. Then you're running, with nowhere to go but nowhere to go back to either. You're alone, having left all you love behind in the rush to safety.

At least I still have Marzia, she's the only thing that keeps me grounded anymore. I probably would have gone insane on my own.

We're not really going anywhere, we don't have a purpose save for the will to survive. I would never tell her, but I've really started to question why we're so determined to in the first place. I couldn't bring myself to put anymore doubt in her mind though, not when she was likely already dealing with so much beneath the surface.