Kenopsia - Chapter 98: Chapter 98

December.
Winter of the fourth year.
After this month the fifth year starts.
"Jass hurry up." I called after her.
"I hurry as much as I can!" She yelled back.
I scoffed to myself.
"You'll get used to this." I told her.
"Well I still haven't so don't judge me."
It had snowed and had stopped after three days but there was a freeze and much of the snow hid ice under it.
I might be careless but I was just marching my way towards home, as long as I step on snow I'll slip less, Jasmine was being much more careful then I am, today we had gone to feed the chickens the both of us, it was too cold so the sewers was frozen and I didn't want her to risk it for traps set there.
There old thermostats, ones that used liquid and not electronics part had been glued and nailed in the sides of the places we'd go often and the temperature was dropping every day, even with many layers the cold was biting and it is just the first week of real snowy winter... I hope it won't last into the start of next year, it is always hard to deal with winter... Much more with the hell it brought on....
"Be sure to tell me if you feel sick okay?" I told Jasmine who was almost tiptoeing she was so careful with the icy road.
"Yeah yeah."
Medicine unfortunately seems to be the most limited resource out of all limited ones. No bullets? We'll be forced to look for them in another town. No food? Already growing it, trapping it and fishing it. No clothes? We can already learn to make sheets into them or take those actually on the husks and wash them like our life depends on it and it would be fine. But medicine? It will all go bad and we can't create more so all we can do is risk it for the biscuit.... Take even the expired ones in hope the effects still work enough to help.
"Alright."
"Hey!" I looked up seeing Lucy waving at us as I stepped off the bridge, Adar nowhere in sight.
"Hey." I said back with a lazy wave. "How's today?"
"Cold but well yeah, expected that much."
"Where's Adar? Jasmine says he promised her something yesterday."
"A snowball fight but he has gone to clean the snow off the solar panel, the days are getting really short so we need light."
"Jass! A snowball fight can be dangerous!" I called to her, still shuffling on the bridge.
"You no fun! Come on!"
"We have no radiators or anything to really warm ourselves yet, even with fire it would be outside."
"I will do what I want!"
"Come on Andie, let her have fun." She pat my shoulder.
"I can't have her get sick and die on me, I am not losing someone else like that." I felt a squeeze on my shoulder as I crossed my arms.
"I lost many people to the first winter you know? We were not ready at all." She said.
"I lost everyone I knew to winter Lucy." I looked at her. "My father to a coward's death, Hope to a sickness because we weren't careful and Victoria to grief, I don't want winter to take another, sorry if I am insensitive but you die before her."
"I can understand, you've known her for longer, heck you behave like you are her mother."
"I am all she has left, the idiot glued feathers on her head and skin because I didn't want to let her stay but seemed to keep the chickens. It is my role to teach her what I can."
"I guess you are right, I joined my group first with my mother you know.... Unlike me who is a worthless tattoo artist apprentice, she was a car mechanic so we could use cars for a while."
"Dad was an engineer after being a military guy, I don't remember if I told you but he set up the electrical system and taught me how to maintain it and add on to it and also how to shoot. Now what I must do is prepare Jasmine for the day when my story will end and she'll need to live on on her own, teaching her all I know to give her the best chances."
"You don't believe you'll live?"
I sighed.
"Walk with me." I told her. "Jasmine, stay in Lucy and Adar's home for now, if Cody bothers you, you can hit him." I said, knowing she was not strong enough to hurt a living man lethally since what I am holding out to her is my bat and not a spiked one.
"Sweet." She giggled like the gremlin she is.
"So...." I looked over my shoulder, having walked us back over the bridge and to the soccer field but stood outside the stadium. I wanted to be sure no one I didn't want to hear this wouldn't hear it. "No, I don't think I'll live for long."
"Why?" Lucy asked.
"I've done some things, lived through some things, witnessed some things that just made me think humanity deserved what happened to it, it deserved to die and perish at the hands of husks that come from our corpses."
"But why do you feel like that? I don't understand." She crossed her arms. "Why save us then?"
"I already told you once about that, Jasmine wanted to not me tho I am not regretting it.... But at the start I did some things."
"Can't be that bad."
"Lucy!" I exclaimed. "I killed a guy before I even knew what was going on, I screamed and made the husks notice him."
"It was not yo--" "I barricaded the door to a restaurant, only hearing the frantic banging and screams of another person that died because of me."
"Andi--" "I watched a woman die moments after I thought I would die too, to a scratch. I watched a child, no two children, suffer being transformed into husks because I was interested to see how that would happen. I shot one after he changed and watched his brother just suffer in agony until I could tell he was basically living his last moments. I tried to put a bullet through my brain at that point but that was not enough for the world!"
I was walking in circles, ranting to the world.
"No it wasn't enough! I was almost raped but shot up that guy, Adam, his the drop that made the glass not only overflow but shatter, humanity should die, I drank myself to a drunken stupor and survived, I pulled the trigger a second time but noooo I am still here! Vic and dad were met the same day, with her son Hope, all three died in winter. While they were still alive I killed a woman without an excuse because she reacted shocked and hostile to me sneaking up on her. But oooooh after the three died I thought I could go on but nooooo the third attempt failed again! I chased away Cody and his friends causing them to die! I tried trust again but an old man almost fed me to his husk of a wife! Then you show up almost right after Jasmine and cause me to kill two man and before that, your friend! You realize just how numb I am?!"
I took a deep breath, rubbing my face.
"And--" "I only live because I need to live on, to be sure all those that died, all those names on the wall, are not forgotten, so that Jasmine isn't alone but one day survival will become a chore, something I will just want to stop, no one can survive for all their life, that will be my ending point, my stop."
This time she didn't try to say anything.
I turned away with a sigh, stupid mouth, spilling it all out like that, I wanted to tell them the truth of what I did yes but not like thi--
I felt two arms wrap around me and squeeze.
"Everyone makes good and bad choices, doesn't make you a bad person automatically tho."
It had been some time since I felt this, but the first of many tears broke the dam.