if we survive

t h r e e

a s h

Waking up from a bad dream is one type of terrifying, but waking up from a bad dream to someone screaming beside you is much, much worse. Every lurker in a ten mile radius could've heard Colman screaming, meaning whatever was wrong with her could quite possibly kill us. I jumped up and turned to where Colman was. She'd stopped screaming but now she had her arms wrapped around her head as if she was protecting herself from an unseen enemy.

"Colman! What the hell is wrong with you?" I whispered, hoping not to be heard by the lurkers searching for the source of the scream. Colman looked at me and quickly wiped her eyes. She stood up, grabbed her bag and quilt, and started walking away. I was so confused I just watched her. I wasn't sure if she wanted to be alone or not until she turned back to me.

"Are you coming?" She sniffed and wiped her nose. "You really need to wash that blood from your face, you look disgusting." She wiped her nose again as I fiddled with my belongings. I didn't know what happened and I was still half asleep. Groggily, I followed Colman out of the woods at high alert. I prayed no lurkers would find us, I wasn't in the mood to have more lurker blood on me. I shouldered my backpack and attempted to wipe the sleepiness from my eyes. The sun was peeking out from behind the trees, slowly rising and lighting the green sky.

"What is wrong with you? Why are you acting so weird all of the sudden?" I asked and jogged to catch up to her. I didn't have a clue of where we were going but I followed anyways. None of my questions were being answered and I was pretty aggravated. I wanted to know what happened, and honestly I had no clue why she was acting so weird. If this was just a bad dream then she shouldn't be ashamed. I mean, people have bad dreams all the time, especially now. It was a stupid thing to be ashamed about. Suddenly, Colman stopped in her tracks and held out an arm to stop me. I ceased wracking my brain for an explanation and stopped walking.

"Shut up." She mumbled. I could see her straining to hear something, personally, I was slowly coming to the conclusion that she'd lost it. Her mind could've been scrambled to bits for all I know. I heard nothing, literally nothing. There was silence all around us.

"Look, if you're crazy I'd really like to know. I won't kill you if you don't kill me." I shrugged and back away with my hands up in surrender. She placed a hand on my chest as a gesture to stop moving. "I'd love it if you told me if I'm going to die, I'd really enjoy knowing so I can ignore my survival instinct—"

"Shut up!" She hissed more harsh this time. She grabbed my wrist, dragging me towards a nearby abandoned car. I strained to hear whatever she was panicking over but nothing struck the unusual. "There's a baby."

"A what?" I whisper-yelled. "There's no way a baby has survived in this car for two years. You're insane."

She ignored me and tugged on the handle of the car door. I sighed and ran a hand through my knotted hair. There were two things I had to think over. 1) Colman had lost her mind during whatever freaky dream she'd experience, or 2) she was some type of superhuman who could hear things that I couldn't, like a baby crying.

Something clicked in my mind. I pushed Colman away from the car and stepped in front of her so she couldn't open the car door. "This has to be a trap. It's physically impossible for a baby to survive two years in a car by itself with nobody to take care of it, I'd be surprised if a baby has survived even if it had a caretaker. Don't be stupid, Colman." She looked me up and down before pulling her backpack off her shoulders and dropping it on the ground.

"I'm not crazy, Ashton." She mumbled.

"Yeah, I know. Look, I think you need some actual rest, nightmare free sleep. Okay? I'll keep watch, just go to sleep. You're delusional and you're endangering us both." I said placing my hands on Colman's shoulders to hold her still. Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of something moving behind a row of old abandoned vehicles. I let Colman go and unsheathed my knife. I pushed her behind me and approached the movement. The closer I got the more I could place the exact vehicle the movement had ducked behind. Then, I heard it. The faint cries of a child. I didn't know how I hadn't heard it before, Colman wasn't crazy, I was oblivious.

"Holy shit." I mumbled and as I walked around a mini van. Behind it, sat a young boy cradling a crying child while he desperately tried to shush her. I put my knife back in its holster and approached the boy. As soon as he saw me he started scooting his body backwards and wrapping his arms tighter around the baby. The boy's hair was clean, blond, his face was covered in freckles and a pair of black glasses sat on his nose. His clothes were even clean. He definitely didn't look like he'd survived two years in an apocalypse.

"I'm not going to hurt you." I held up my hands to show him my weapons were away. "My name is Ashton, that's Nathalia. We aren't here to hurt you."

"Ashton...Fitzgerald?" The boy mumbled under his breath. He grabbed my hand and started examining my loss of a pinky finger. I saw the edges of his mouth curl into a smile. "You're boy from the stories, you look exactly like he said you did."

I froze. I hadn't told anyone my last name, not even Colman. He knew my name but I wasn't sure what stories he'd thought of. There weren't any stories I'd ever heard about a boy named Ashton Fitzgerald with four fingers on one hand. "Stories?"

The boy nodded and the baby in his arms started crying louder. He quickly shushed it and hugged it against his chest. The baby obviously wasn't a newborn, but it also hadn't reached the age of one. It was young, far too young to have survived birth without someone to watch over. This baby had been born during the apocalypse and I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't think a miracle like that was possible.

"Please, can you make her stop crying?" The boy mumbled under his breath and looked up at me hopefully.

I didn't know how to handle a baby. Instinctively, I looked back at Colman. She shrugged and panic filled her eyes but she stepped up to the boy. He carefully handed her the child, Colman shushed it and rocked it in her arms. My attention focused on the boy. "How did you know my name?"

"I've heard the stories about you. You fought off a lion to save your mother, I think I remembered hearing something about you hiding from someone in a cave for hours." The boy smiled and giggled a bit. "Oh but my favorite was the one where you thought eating a handful of ash would give you special powers, that one was funny."

My brain was running miles an hour. I couldn't fathom what this boy was telling me, I knew these 'stories'. I kneeled down and leaned against the side of the mini van. I was so flustered I could barely catch my breath. I dropped my head in my hands and took a long deep breath in.

"Ashton? What's the matter?" Colman asked still bouncing the baby in her arms. Before I could reply the boy perked up once again.

"Do you want to come back to camp? I think Mr. Holden will want to meet you. This is so cool!" He exclaimed. I looked at the boy and forced a smile.

I nodded. "Yeah, yeah I want to meet Mr. Holden too."

And with that, the young boy grabbed my hand and dragged me down the road with Colman following with the baby in her arms. I leaned down to scoop up Colman's bag. I couldn't speak I was so overwhelmed with what was happening. It was like I'd just been given back my entire will to live in a flash.

I didn't want to die anymore.

My brother was alive.