The Home Of The Dead (Book 2)

Chapter 4: Appreciated (Sashas POV)

I could see the sun rising through the window. We had wasted a fair amount of time, and Ashley's body was sitting right beside the window, it was the only place that I could look. I assumed that it was because Tanner was trying to push me, in hopes that I would say that I was ready, he knew I would be lying.
But every time I moved my head around, it felt like my brain was swelling. It hurt so much, and I just wanted it to go away, maybe if I slept it would... But every time I tried to lay down and get some rest, even sitting conpletely still the pain began slowly creeping in.
But the last hour or so had not been quite as bad, I was not tired anyways. At this point I was about ready to head out and help Tanner lay his daughters body down beside the daycare. I could not bare another moment of looking at the window, and seeing my best friends broken skull just standing beside it.
I looked over at Tanner, he was just staring at the ground, and I could not blame him for it. He was paying me no attention, it was in fact all my fault that we were in this predicament... If I had moved in any way then I would not have this concussion.
If I had not gone to go see Ashley today, she would not be dead... That is what hurt me the most out of all of this, knowing that my best friends death was all my fault, but that wasn't even the worst part about it.
I had been standing at the door, she was smiling... Happy to see me, but at the same time, she was scared at what was going on outside. Her, and Tanner, while they me father and daughter, they were very much different. She hated every time that her father left that door, to start another mission outside the walls.
I did me best, to teach her otherwise, to tell her that he was going out there for a good reason. It seemed that she never wanted to listen to what I said however. I would tell her so many different reasons as the why it was important for people in our community to go outside the walls, and her answer was always the same nearly every time.

I looked at my best friend, she watched through the window as her father went off to work. But work was different now, it wasn't just some normal job. What he did was much more important than something dumb like working at a Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart's, they did not exist anymore, the world had all but gone to shit at this point. His job, it was worth a lot more than me and Ashley's... We had a simple job, an easy job. Working at a daycare, taking care of the kids that were in the daycare, teaching them what life was like now.
I loved the group of kids, but I always felt like my role was worth a whole lot more than all of that. I just never got the chance to prove it to anyone... No, I was more of one of those useless types, at least in my eyes... People often told me that my role was more important than any.
"Sasha... You take care of the future of the world. The people out there, the take care of the past..." Ashley would always say to me. In a sort of sense, she was right with what she said. But sometimes, I like to think, that helping the past may bring the past into the future.
But maybe that was a long haul, a hope that would never be fulfilled, no... The world was done for, we didn't have phone's anymore, we didn't have games. We did not have friends that we could just easily text from long distances away.
That was all gone now, that was never coming back... And I knew it, but there were other things that could come back right? We could bring back governments, we had one in a very own community right now in fact. Some day, the last of the dead would die out there... And the world would come back, people knew how to kill them now.
No one knew what any of this was at first, cops would shoot at a person at least 20 times, and the thing would keep on going. That was always scary for me to see on the news. I was always afraid of stuff like that, my mom called them demons.
In a sort of sense, I suppose that they were. But they were normal people before all of this, it was not their fault what had happened to all of them. I shook my head, as Ashley turned back over to me. Looking at me a bit sadly, I already knew what she was about to say to me.
"I hope he comes back this time, it is useless to go out there... It is a fairy tell that things will come back, you can't just heal the dead." She said to me. I looked at her and nodded, I knew that it was true. In a sort of sense what she was saying, but the overall message that she was trying to push I did not agree with.
She sat down beside me at the couch, looking down at the ground a bit sadly, as she always did when her father left the house to go on a mission. I felt bad for her, she did not know what it was like out there, and neither did I, but she did know one thing... You could not just bring back the dead.
It was impossible, some of these things had missing limbs, and they just kept on moving. If they came back to normal, what would happen to them? Not to mention the missing intestines and all of the other things I had heard stories about from many other people.
I shivered, and then I lifted my head up, I could try to make my friend feel better. But I doubt that I would have much luck, she would always come in with a negative response. She was not a negative person, but when it cane to that she most certainly was.
"Ashley, if we dont go out there, and we don't scavenge... And we don't take out the dead... Then the dead will roam the world forever..." I said to her. She kept on staring at the ground, for a few moments I wondered if she was listening, and if she had heard a single word that I had just said to her.
Then finally she lifted her head up and looked at me. She looked at me dead in the eyes, which told me she was about to tell me something serious. She always had that sort of look when she was going to tell me something, sometimes it was not all that important to me, but I could tell that it was always important to her.
"The dead will always roam the earth... No matter if we kill every single 1, if a person dies, they'll come back as the dead, and it will start all over again. The watchers take care of us, they take down the dead if they get too close, our community is safe... There is nothing else that we need to do... Why risk lives over a useless pipe dream?" She responded to me. It took her quite some time to respond so clearly she had thought threw that one.
And to be completely honest, I was not all too sure how to respond to that. So I just looked down at the ground, maybe she was right. Maybe there was no point... We were safe here, and that is all we needed... No need to risk the lives of others to go after a hopeless dream that could never come true.
But at the same time, there was still a part of me that was telling me that she was wrong. Maybe it was my heart working over my brain right now. Or maybe it was my brain thinking to another level, but now I had thought of the perfect way to respond to her.
"Ashley, they bring back many things, they bring back books, food, ammo, weapons, and crops... It is not just some pipe dream. There is still hope for this world, you just have to not shut it down so fast." I said back to her. This time it was her that looked down at the ground.
I knew that she was going to have some sort of stupid response, to diminish the hope that I had given her. Maybe it was not a stupid response though, but it was always negative, and it always made me lose faith in saving the world... Bringing things back, letting people be happy again.
But this time, she looked up at me, and the look on her face surprised me a lot, she was smiling this time. Surely it was because she had already put her mind to another topic right? She was always happy besides when she thought about her father going outside of the walls.
"You know... Sasha, maybe you are right, maybe there is still hope... For me and you both..." She said to me. I looked at her, I then nodded. The smile that she had on her face made me smile back at her... This was the Ashley that I loved, the Ashley that always brought a smile to everyone's day.