FIGHTING TO LIVE [H.S]

CHAPTER TWO

song: nightmare by halsey

VICTORIA'S POV: 

Today, the patrol leaned on the shorter side and judging by my watch, lasted only about six and a half hours.

Sam, the boys, and I filled the time with debates about the endless camp rumors Daniel and Matt seemed to be privy to and other meaningless conversations. About halfway through the shift we also started to let each other take quick little naps one at a time, since more than six hours of sleep a night is a luxury for anyone on base.

After checking back into the gym and clocking out of our daily shift, the four of us decided to stick together and head to the camp mess hall together to get dinner, even though it was only about four in the afternoon.

Needless to say, the schedule involving food and meal times on the camp was anything but normal. For the first few months I lived in the camp, we were given at least three basic meals a day to eat at normal times with every person on base but recently, that had changed.

Now, specific times for dinner varied on what kind of job you held during the day, and dinner was served anywhere from 4:30 to 6:30. While some believed dinner was often served too early for their liking, I was always starving come four, since breakfast happened between 8 and 10 in the morning.

Regardless of the weird times, at the beginning of my first year in the camp, the food started out pretty good. We occasionally got fresh fruits and veggies grown in the nearby gardens, decent meat from animals like deer and rabbits, and even sometimes packaged foods that were found on bi-weekly raids off base.

But now, eating the food given to us has become more of a chore. Freshly grown produce had become scarce with overworking the soil to sustain all of us, we had exhausted most of the animal populations right outside the camp walls, and raids were happening less and less.

Now, the food we were given was oftentimes some kind of odd-tasting soup with various unknown things thrown in or a weird form of oats and grains mixed with whatever meat the hunting groups did manage to scrounge up, if any.

It seemed that the entire camp had now adapted its idea of only focusing on survival to the next day to even the food we ate.

I used to be a vegan before the zombies were created. I think to myself. Seems so silly now.

Once we arrived at the mess hall, Sam, Daniel, Matt, and I joined the small line that had started to gather outside the building, waiting to be let in to see what mysterious item the cooks would serve tonight.

"What do you think it will be today?" I hear Matt ask us as I snap my head from my thoughts, focusing back on the conversation.

"God only knows." Sam groans in response as she leans her head back and closes her eyes. "Butttttt..." She trails on, popping her head back up as she gets a familiar glint in her eyes I've seen far too many times. "I'd be willing to bet ya five bucks it's soup over some nasty gruel."

A smile creeps on to Matt's face and he nods. "I'll take that bet." He says as he reaches his hand out to shake hers before the two of them launch into explaining the reasoning behind their dinner predictions to each other.

Even though dinner is probably about to be pretty disgusting, after all this talk of food, I can feel my stomach start to growl and I stand up on my tiptoes, trying to peer over the people in front of me and see if the line has started to move yet.

"You've been awfully quiet today." I hear Daniel say as he lightly taps me on my back from where he's standing behind me.

I whirl my head back around to face him and flash him a forced smile, his intense words from earlier still ringing in my ears.