Dawn - 5/23

I wake up to the sound of the final packing before the group heads out. Jasper rolls up his ragged bedsheet and lashes it onto his pack. Under the circumstances, he looks remarkably well prepared. Marcos and Samantha are helping the others to finish putting their bags on. Josh looks a little unstable under the weight.

“Last chance, man, I really don’t want to lose my best friend,” Jasper says while hugging Marcos goodbye.

“After I tried to act all cool yesterday, no way,” Macros replies. His voice was calm and collected.

“We’ll send anything we can find your way as soon as we reach the bridge,” Jasper promises.

The last group had promised that as well, and we never heard from them. They probably both knew the odds weren’t in our favor, but Marcos just responds with a, “Counting on it.”

Samantha hugs Marcos as well, and they both leave the tent for the final time. They never said goodbye to the rest of us who were staying behind. I can only assume it was too hard on them.

Josh and Uma, on the other hand, come over to my bed, placing another book Josh had been reading onto my lap. Uma wordlessly hugs me. Josh gives me a pat on the shoulder.

“Did you finish it? I ask.

“Nah, need you to catch up so I can talk about it anyway,” he says.

“It’s a good ending too, so better read it quickly before we see you again,” Uma adds, choking back some tears.

I won’t see you again.

“Will do,” I reassure them anyway.

There are some additional goodbyes or hugs as the two leave the tent, with Marcos staying behind in the doorway to wave them off. A hint of the morning light just kisses him through the opening, illuminating his figure against the otherwise dimly lit scene.

I have to convince him to leave.

He watches for what feels like an hour, but was probably only a couple of minutes, before turning back inside and looking at the three of us that remained.

Without being able to walk to each other's beds, I hadn’t interacted with coma girl or Lan at all, not that there was much to interact with. Josh had read out loud to Lan a couple of times, but he did not seem very interested in listening too long. Coma girl could be the poster child for eat, sleep, repeat. Samantha told me it was more of a catatonic state than a coma, but it didn’t matter to me. I had functionally ignored them the whole time we had been here. They are too much of a reminder of how useless I am. Now, they are all I have left.

We aren’t worth his life. Whatever he says.

“Right, you’ll be seeing a lot more of me now, but I still need to get us some replacement supplies,” he starts, addressing me in particular.

I wasn’t sure if he had thought this far ahead in his plan. We now had nothing outside of our clothes and a couple of books. He had somehow convinced the others this was the best plan, but they were right to be worried about him. They had essentially just let their friend commit suicide under the guise of heroics.

“Uh, yeah. Guess I’ll hold down the fort,” I say to him. It was easier talking to him than the others. Maybe because it was about survival and not a book, but it still felt different. I wanted to hear him, to talk to him.

What is wrong with me?

“You don’t need to worry. And you don’t need to do anything but stay alive. I got this handled,” he says, convincing me once again despite seeming unconvinced himself.

“I should have had them help me move you closer to the others. Hmmm,” Marcos ponders for a second, then continues.

“Eh, I’ll figure that out later. I’ve got to start hunting for more food. I’ll be back before it’s dark. If anyone comes, just tell them we are out of supplies as well, and they shouldn’t bother you.”

“Ok, will do,” I respond.

So began the new normal.

For the following three days, I sat in a tent with only the starving moans of Lan to keep me company while Marcos was out. I read the three books Josh and Uma gave me, my eyes straining from the incessant effort of staving off the boredom.

Whenever I wasn’t reading, all I could think of was Julie dying, the screaming of the crowd as they looted the tent, bodies of others being removed after the medicine was stolen. My eyes hurt more than the rest of my body at this point, but reading was all I had.

Though now even reading was taking a toll on the rest of my body.

My left arm was becoming less mobile for some reason, curling inward to my chest, looking like I was wearing an invisible sling. It had started when Samantha was still here, but it was getting harder and harder to move back into a normal position each day without her coaching. She called it Hyperflexia, a symptom of the neck injury. I was instructed to keep using it as best I can and that it may resolve on it’s own. I used that arm to hold the book up, trying not to think about it too much, but the notion that I may be stuck like this forever remained if I somehow survive this.

Just read and don’t think about it.

Whenever Marcos was in, he would give me whatever paltry amount of food he had found, then would focus on feeding the other two. He was doing a good job keeping us fed, even if it was only two meals a day, but you could see the desperation in the diminishing quality of food he brought us.

Before, the packaging of everything was intact, outside of the occasional dent. Now, packages were ripped and pieces of food were missing, removed either from being dirty or a rodent chewing on it. If I complained, maybe he would get fed up and leave me alone, freeing himself from the burden after seeing how much of a jerk I was.

I’d thought to myself over and over throughout the days that his leaving me would be the best option, that I would convince him.

I never brought myself to say anything. I couldn’t ask him to leave me, to see him mad at me again. All I could do was sit around and wait for him, thanking him for the food.

You are killing him.

I started to understand how Josh had felt, wanting to be able to do more to help, even if that just meant finding a way to remove myself from the situation, giving him one less reason to stay. If I could only move better, I could leave like the others. After the swelling had gone down, I’d already been able to sit up with some extreme effort, and my legs could wiggle. Just a bit more time, and I would get out of these, even if I had to crawl.

Maybe I couldn’t ask him to leave me, but I could leave him.

After Marcos left on the fourth day, I got to work. While still lying in my bed, I try to mimic the process I had seen Josh and Uma go through with Samantha. All my focus went to moving my legs slightly, one step in front of the other, no matter how small, walking an imaginary line at the foot of my bed.

My arms had already gotten practice from eating and reading, so I could use them to roll side to side, slightly propping up onto my left elbow. It doesn’t want to move out of that position easily, so I flop onto my back. It felt like the worst exercise routine in human history, but I had to try.

It was only a few minutes before I was exhausted.

Lying in a pool of sweat, I stared at the tent ceiling I knew so well, wondering how many days it would take for me to be able to stand, let alone walk.

I should have tried more before the others left, when Samantha was around to help me. She let me take the lazy approach after I complained, and now I was behind. Marcos was far too tired each day to do anything when he was back, let alone give me physical therapy, and I definitely couldn’t explain why I suddenly was determined to walk.

My pondering is interrupted by Marcos returning, well before his normal time.

“Lance, we've got a problem.”

He proceeds to explain to me that he had run into another group of survivors earlier in the day. A normal interaction for the most part, until they mentioned a group of people that had been roaming around the area, stealing from others. More worrying for us, the survivors heard that this group tended to put those who couldn’t contribute out of their misery.

They were only about a day away from our park.