Headless

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Match had expected to be brought back to her apartment after she had died. She should've been back by now, but an ominous silence had filled her space. Feeling was coming back to her joints, as if whatever her body needed was filling them again. 

She moved her arm around and panicked. This wasn't right! She couldn't hear or see anything. She was absolutely deaf and blind.

She couldn't be like this forever right? This wasn't how her recovery center saw her? Missing arms was one thing but two of Match's senses were gone. She didn't know if she wanted to keep living if this was the case.
It was almost like being underwater while everyone else was on dry land and invisible. She imagined herself in that space at the bottom of the ocean. It was eerily similar to how she was now. Silent, cold, dark, with an inability to breathe. 

She sat herself up. By using her hands to prop herself she realized that she wasn't in her apartment but on the ground outside. Probably still the sidewalk that she had collapsed on earlier. It was hard and flat, and peppered with tiny pebbles. Although she could never be too sure of where she was or what time it was either. She just kept imagining herself at the bottom of the ocean. At least she knew that was wrong. It was too dry for that to be the case. 

Match looked her body over with her hands to check her condition. Going up her body she found a bunch of splintery remains instead of her face and match head. They were sharp and jagged so she didn't touch them too much to keep from hurting herself.

She wondered if other people could see her. A headless husk just trying to get their bearings. She was completely helpless to anyone in the area. Match didn't like feeling so out of place and alone. She didn't want to be stuck underwater, endlessly drowning, unable to die or gasp for a breath. She just wanted someone to tell her what was going on and that she'd be alright. 

Match got on her knees and began to use her hands to feel for what was in front of her. It was mostly pebbles and what she assumed was a groove in the sidewalk, but eventually she got to something large and smooth also lying on the ground. She moved her hand across the smooth thing until her hand reached an exploded splintery part. It was made of wood.

Match dipped her hand into the splintery thing's center. Sure enough there was a softer, separate stone, shaped like a circle in the center. It was Pencil's spine of graphite. 

Match wanted to sign with relief but she had no mouth to do it. Pencil had killed herself to get back to Haha healthy and free, but now that Match had sacrificed her freedom she didn't know what to do with herself. Maybe she would just sit there and wait for something to happen to her. Maybe even if it was bad she'd appreciate something happening that she could understand. 

She went back to Pencil's corpse and picked it up. She held it close like a comfort item. There wasn't much she could do now. 
She just wished she could see or hear anything. She didn't want to be this way forever, but she didn't see any way to start not being deaf and blind.

After a bit Match realized that she could still feel the other infected walking around her. All of them tended to avoid a certain space, except for the infected that moved very quickly. That space must've been the road, and the quick moving infected were just in cars.
There was a chance that she would be able to walk around the sidewalk by following other people, but the fear of getting turned around or even lost scared her more. Not to mention the fact that objects would notice her more and possibly interrupt her.

Just when Match thought she was going to sit forever she felt an even greater pull start to beckon her. She didn't know why but it was definitely calling her over. She couldn't resist, so almost involuntarily she got up, dropping Pencil. Using her hands and feet as antennae she hobbled around trying to find a way to get to the signal.

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