Bad feelings are one part of what sucks about this world. Good feelings are the other. Because the good stuff is what can get taken from you, the rug that gets pulled out from under you. A warming feeling that, once it's gone, leaves you out in the...
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C A R L
With the slam of the creaky screen to the back door, Megan and I finally make it back inside the house. We managed to lose the small herd of accumulating walkers a decent way's back. Cutting through the woods allowed us to confuse them.
"That was too close for comfort." The girl says swinging her bag off of her shoulder, then dropping it to the floor by the stairs.
She then turns around to me. "I'm going upstairs to check on the stuff." I subtly nod my head before I hear her soft footsteps distantly echo up the staircase.
Neither of us have acknowledged what happened back there. I put the both of us in serious danger, and the girl is well aware of it.
Seeing my childhood home burned down to nothing just solidifies the fact that I now have nothing tangible left from the world before. Everything to me is just an old memory that ended in sudden tragedy.
"All there." The girl interrupts my brief thoughts as her footsteps thud down the last few steps.
The entire way back to the house, Megan has been trying to give me a way out of my thoughts. She's been dancing around what happened back at my old neighborhood, knowing that I don't want to talk about it. She avoids it and acts like it didn't happen, for my sake. She's right to do so.
I can't help the sour look on my face as the girl speaks to me.
"I'm going to try and heat up some food." I shake my head, avoiding the cloud of discomfort that the girl and I are both actively trying to ignore.
I don't give Megan time to respond or even react before heading toward the stairs, leaving her down in the living room. Grabbing the end of the railing on the second floor, I swing around it and make my way toward our supplies. I crouch down, placing my elbow on my thigh as I investigate our selection of several different canned foods.
Picking up each can one by one, I try to decide on what to heat up. Beans, spinach, tomato soup. None of the labels peak my interest until my eyes land on our only can of sweet peas. The large size of the can would make for two decent portions of the food. I weigh the can and its contents in the palm of my hand. I could go for some peas.
My eyes search the hallway for something to light a fire on. They land on a large metal bowl on a small table at the corner of the hallway. I step over Megan's blanket and go over to the bowl. I see a variety of decorative fruit inside of it. Then, I grab it and dump its contents out onto the wooden floor. The waxy fruit bounces around before rolling to a stop.
