ELBINA 2

Chapter 1

I remember somebody told me once, probably June if it were someone, that nothing is as scary as you imagine it will be. It was probably something she'd told me after a night terror, to remind me that that's all it was, a dream, a trick of the mind. I held onto that, for so long, as a mantra in my head to at least reduce some of the fear I had.

But that doesn't work.

Not now.

I'm too scared now, more scared than I've ever felt. So scared, I'm frozen.

And it's still hard to breathe, my knees still feel weak.

Am I supposed to be able to handle this? Would someone else be better at this then me?

Should I be ashamed that I'm stuck frozen to the floor in a heap, just staring at the blood on my hands.

It stains my jacket too, smearings of it colouring the white toilet. The stark difference in colour almost mesmerising, intoxicating but then I remember whose blood it is.

Fallen had gone out to deal with it - the body that is.

I remember the grunt he made when he'd pushed him off the road into the bushes, the sounds of the heavy thump as the corpse settled into the mud. He'd wanted me to help at first - push him that is- except I couldn't, not when my hand made contact with the dead weight of his arm. How his skin was still a little warm but the limpness of it all, his face staring blankly at me and those stupid pupils... Those stupid pupils transfixed into nothing and that bullet lodged in his skull.

My hands gripped onto the edge of the toilet seat whilst I leaned over it, still wheezing slightly through my throat.

The cold had long since seeped into every bone in my body, freezing me to my core, my face just a collection of bruises and blood.

The blood is drying, starting to make it feel like a mask more than anything, cracking at every movement of my expression.

That gunshot. I breathed out shakily when I remembered it.

It echoes through my head on repeat. Over and OVER again.

His risen boot slipping to the floor after and the silence that followed... Nothing can prepare you for that, and June was wrong, I would never be as scared as I was then. And life, it's more scary than any dream or nightmare I can conjure up, it's unrelenting, gruesome and what's worse is that you don't wake up because it's real, and there's an after to those horrible moments that don't make it any better, it makes everything even worse than before. So much worse that I'm not sure it will ever get better, which makes wanting to sit here a little longer more tempting because at least here. I don't have to face reality for a moment.

Maybe this is what a mental breakdown looks and feels like?

I can't control my emotions, they range from stoic to crying my eyes out and vomiting acidic bile into the toilet below. The burn of the acid in my throat doesn't help the pain, it doesn't stop me doing it though.

He'd sent me in here to get ready to leave.

We had to start running again. He didn't know when the others would find us and neither of us wanted to be here when they did.

The only place we could think to head towards was the pharmacy. To talk to the doctor who supposedly did the vaccination.

But I couldn't move from this spot. And it's not from lack of trying, it's because every time I try to stand, another wave of nausea and dizziness hits me, my knees buckling under me each time. I let my cheek sting against the cold toilet seat, staring off at the door, firmly shut and I close my eyes for a moment or two to focus on the cold seeping into my skin.