Author's Note: Videos for characters canon and original, can be found on my YouTube channel via the link on my profile.

story cover credit: jemmalynette

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Everything Has Changed

Reyhan gently ran her fingers through Clara's smooth ebony waves, before parting them to the side and sliding in a pink hairslide to hold it in place. Clara was attending her first playdate that afternoon, but the prospect only served to make Reyhan's palms sweat, imagining everything that could go wrong. Reyhan then straightened up, forcing a smile on her face, not wanting to unnerve Clara even further. "Harika," she declared, clapping her hands together. "Like a little princess."

Clara just stared up at her with old eyes, small face solemn. She took after Reyhan in appearance, being dark and delicate, but she possessed her father's disconcertingly bright blue gaze. She had been born outwith the Commonwealth, Reyhan and her husband Tom, weathering the end of the world in a small but bustling community called the Shield. But in the space of one glorious summer afternoon, it was gone, the Shield unexpectedly coming under attack from the outside, not from the dead, but the living. The strangers had slaughtered all those in their path, before stealing the Shield's supplies and burning its buildings and defences down.

Reyhan and her family had fled, but Tom had been badly injured during their wild flight, whilst the other survivors, their friends, colleagues and neighbours, were scattered like leaves in the wind, never to be seen again. They had been utterly on their own, Reyhan forced to fight to keep her husband and child alive, battling tooth and claw to keep body and soul together. Looking back, Reyhan couldn't or wouldn't remember that time; what had happened and what she had done in the days afterwards. All she could conjure up was flashes of blood-splattered walls and the sound of screams; the heavy heft of the knife in her hand.

They had been walking the road, Tom barely able to put one foot in front of the other, their car having run out of fuel, Reyhan unable to find anymore. Every vehicle they'd passed had been stripped bare, Reyhan's desperation increasing with every dragging mile. The car had offered a means of meagre protection as well as transportation, and without it, the last of Tom's strength was being swiftly drained with each staggering step he took. It had been then that a military patrol from the Commonwealth had unexpectedly come across them, taking over and taking the family back to be processed.

But salvation had arrived too late, Tom dying during their wait to be registered and housed, leaving Reyhan and Clara alone in an alien environment. Those days Reyhan did remember, that jarring sense of dislocation that still persisted even now; once again having to worry about bills and the leak in the roof, her nights long and dark. Traumatized, the three year old Clara had stopped talking altogether, throwing hideous fits whenever Reyhan had to leave for work. If it hadn't been for the intricate network of neighbours and acquaintances that had slowly intertwined itself around them during the early days of their new life, Reyhan didn't know how they would have survived.

A muted hello on the stairs had become a casserole on the doorstep, which had led to a chat in the line at the kitchen, then a word in the ear of a friend of a friend. Zoya from 334 had found out this way that Reyhan had taught kindergarten before the Fall, and then a full-time housewife back at the Shield. Soon the knowledge had spread through their small community, leading to Cailleigh Hornby, who had once been Pamela Milton's PA and was now on the PTA, cornering Reyhan in the playpark after her sister-in-law had mentioned it over brunch. A teaching post had become vacant after its predecessor had abruptly announced her exit at the last second and Cailleigh was prepared to pull strings if Reyhan wanted to apply. Normally only their officially authorized pool of candidates could apply, but she was willing to bend the rules, Reyhan's quiet strength secretly impressing her. Reyhan had originally been assigned a waitressing job, something she had done to pay her way through college, but the hours and the harassment weren't worth the pay cheque. But she had no real desire to teach again. Yet the lure of earning more money was too strong, so she had applied with misgivings, not expecting anything to come of it.

Two years on, Reyhan had a permanent job she had surprisingly come to love again and that paid enough to put a little extra on their table from time to time, as well as allowing her to be around Clara, who was worryingly still not talking. Clara had seen a child therapist a few times but Reyhan had to save up for each session, rendering any real progress slow. One of the other teachers had suggested an informal form of art therapy that Reyhan could oversee on her own, resulting in Clara capturing her pain on paper, creating picture after picture that made Reyhan weep when nobody was around, containing her grief until behind closed doors. The paintings depicted an eternal hell of the wandering dead surrounded by blood and fire; a little girl always in their midst, her lopsided mouth a circle of endless screaming. Or sometimes they were of Tom; Tom laughing, Tom lying dead. Others revealed Reyhan; Reyhan teaching class or baking a cake; Reyhan stabbing a man in the stomach.

As Clara then ran to her room, her long curls swinging out behind her, Reyhan suddenly collapsed down onto one of the spindly kitchen chairs she'd saved from becoming kindling. She leant back against the fragile wooden frame, ignoring its threatening creak as she ran agitated fingers through her tumbled dark hair. The future was something she didn't care to think about, Reyhan only existing from day to day, but now it unfurled before her like a rolling black wave, threatening to drag her under.

All I know since yesterday

Everything has changed...