Eli was barely staying afloat before the apocalypse. Working long shifts, taking care of his younger brother, and just trying to figure out what to do with his life.
When he finds his mom trying to take a chunk out of her youngest son though, Eli...
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We knew traveling for days on end would be hard, especially with a baby and the injuries we all had. But I don't think we thought it would be this hard.
I constantly had Red snacking on berries or from the bark of trees, that Wolfe had shown us how to peel, as she breastfed Ember as we walked.
The child seemed to constantly want to eat, and we gave it to her as we had to keep moving for the sake of our safety as we can't have her crying and putting Mason at risk, any of them.
And when she wasn't eating, she was being passed around to everyone else, the lot of us having our fair share at carrying the small baby, as well as the two boys who would grow weary the father we walked into no man's land.
Stores and buildings became scarce as wildlife became more seen, the animals bold as they were deprived of the humans who used to hunt them.
Now they just have run from the dead, that wish to rip their flesh apart with their teeth.
The farther we walked, the colder it got. While we had the means to hunt the abundance of animals, we weren't as well equipped as we should be for the weather or the abundance of the dead that seemed to accumulate.
This wasn't as bad as when we were going and walking through the last burst of summer, dragging with no food or water. This was bad in a way that had the cold soaking into our bones and making us weary.
A week or so prior, we were all shocked by Amelia.
Ember was fussy, she wouldn't settle down no matter how many times anyone rocked her or Red tried to feed her. She was giving us all the signs that she was about to start screaming, something we have only had to deal with twice.
She was about to have a full out meltdown, and that is when Amelia began to sing, her soft voice quiet as she sung the words so soft it sounded as if she were whispering.
"I felt the earth shake inside of me. Ill run forever but I won't get far. Cause if I don't have you, I will starve." Her words wavered in and out as if she were trying to remember the lyrics herself.
Everyone was stunned, as the baby still fussed.
"There's a wolf in my heart for you. Oh, was it cold desperation, that let it burn for miles. There's a wolf in my heart, you are the wilderness, you are the one." She repeated the short few times until Embers eyes fluttered shut and the rest of us were stunned in silence.
Even now, a week later, Ember could only fall asleep as Amelia sung to her, Mason picking up the words quick as he shyly sung with her.
Sitting with Red as we quickly rested, I couldn't help but smile as Mason was singing the words lowly under his breath as he fed the dogs, Jasper on the other side of him collecting the snow we've been melting into water.
The baby was tightly bound to Reds chest with a sheet we had taken from the house we stayed in, the fabric acting as a carrier as we tried to keep the two-week-old girl as warm as possible.
