Aurei and I managed to get away from the roamers. My whole body ached every time I tried to fight a roamer, so I just move faster since they're really slow.

Aurei had been running for the past two hours, I guess adreline rush hit her before it hit me.

It's hard, and I'm running out of ammo. Part of me hates myself for leaving Cassie behind, but when she got bit in the leg, it sealed her fate.

"Okay...we'll walk now." I panted, Aurei  slows down, clutching her stomach.

"I could've saved her..." Aurei whispers, her voice harsh and raspy just like mine whenever I'm angry.

"Aurei, she froze. She got scared. That's not your fault." I said, walking closer to Aurei, she shrugs.

"You're right." Aurei said flatly, then her eyes shoot down to my bloody arm, she closes her eyes.

"No, I didn't get bit, it was just the glass." I said. Aurei looks me straight in the eye...she never gave up, always looked fear in the eye like I do. Not only you have to stay alive, you have to stay human.

"Thank God." She mutters, then she stares straight ahead, as we walk casually on the side of the road. I roll down my sleeve over my cut.

"We have to keep walking." I said as the sun beats down on us, this was the hottest week in autumn. But the whole road was faded and it had wrecked cars.

"Holy shit." Aurei said quietly, there were corpses inside cars, broken toys, and half-torn tents that were covered in dirt and blood. There were flies everywhere. This must've been one of the evactuation routes.

"I'm glad we didn't leave the house." Aurei said quietly, walking past wrecked cars.

I want to scream, shoot this whole place down, then my heart sank to my chest when I see a roamer under a car. It was Nina, my best friend that got caught beneath a car, her dark brown hair was halfway pulled off her scalp and her skin was rotting right off.

"I'm so sorry Avery." Aurei said quietly.

I knew I had to put her down. I couldn't let her roam around like this.

Aurei looks away, closing her eyes and arching her eyebrows as I hold the gun up to Nina's head, my best friend turns to face me, she snaps her teeth at me but she slowly tries to crawl her way from beneath the car. She was still trying to crawl even when her lower intestines were ripped from her body.

"You were like my sister....I'm sorry that I wasn't there....that this happened to you....audios Nina." I said, pulling the trigger, then I look away.

"Come on, we'll hide out in the woods." I said bitterly, Aurei walks slowly, with a venomous glare on her face. I could tell she wasn't mad at me.

"Don't put this on yourself." I warn, turning to look her in the eye.

"I'm not. I'm not a baby." Aurei shot back but she looks down at the ground.

"I'm not saying that you are." I snapped, but I relax my shoulders and turned around to face her.

"I get it. You need time to yourself." Aurei said before walking past me and into the woods.

"That's not it. I can't just do that. But I just need to get together for a second." I said, taking my hair loose.

Aurei walks further into the woods, trying not to cause to much noise by stepping on leaves and branches. We stop at a tree stump, I put my revolver down, sitting on a old tree log.

"We need wood for a fire, it will get cold soon." I said, rubbing my swollen foot.

"We need to search for food." Aurei said, pulling out a small lighter from her pocket.

"I didn't know you had that." I muttered, Aurei shrugs.

"Dad gave it to me." Aurei said noncholantly.

I force myself onto my feet, the pain in the heel of my left foot spreads like wildfire, I grit my teeth as I clutch the cut on my arm.

"Find something to burn, I'll be right back." I said, walking down the woods.

I look down to see snakeskin on the ground, I hated snakes with a passion, because one poisonous snake bit our dog and I had no choice but to put it down myself.

I crept along the woods, then I hear something, like some sort of corpse or animal being eaten. I peer from behind a bush, making sure that I didn't touch any poison oak. A roamer was eating a viper.

I walk up towards the roamer, before it could get up and try to attack I kicked him by it's chest, forcing him on the ground and use my foot to stomp it's head in.

The blood oozes from it's head as it's whole face is stomped inside it's skull. Next, I dig inside it's pockets. Nothing.

I kick the roamer to the side, then turned to the right to see a campsite, three sleeping bags, a huge can of beans, and a bag full of water, I turn to see a fresh corpse, laid over in the tree, his chest ripped open and part of his neck looked like a roamer bit it off. I grab the bag and the unopened can of beans then hurried out. Yeah, we could've slept at that campsite but who knows if there were people who ran away and came back to find their stuff taken? It's best to just grab the stuff and hurry back to the regular spot we chosen.

I trudge through piles of old tree branches and fallen leaves, back to our old spot to see Aurei using her lighter to burn the extra wood she put in the center.

The fire slightly grows, as Aurei sits on the log, looking down.

"Hey, remember when you touched poison oak for the first time?" I ask, breaking the bitter silence as the fire grew.

"It took two weeks just for it to heal." Aurei adds, but kept looking down at something.

"What's that Aurei?" I ask, tilting my head to the side away from the fire.

"Just a switchblade." Aurei said, gesturing her hand for me to pass the unopened can of beans.

"I got this Avery." Aurei said, stabbing into the top of the can and opening it, she slightly smiles but her face becomes hardened when she starts to shovel food into her mouth.

"Hey, save some for me." I chuckled, opening my hand. Aurei nods, passing the can towards me, she didn't eat much, and she's already as skinny as she is.

"A penny for your thoughts?" I ask, eating some beans. They tasted bland but I keep eating, it's the best we've got so far.

"I feel like shit." Aurei said flatly, she looks up at me, her eyes were full of grief mixed with complete anger.

"If this is about Cassie, you did what you could, people are going to die." I said, walking over to the log where she's sitting and sat down beside her.

"I know, a lot of people are going to die." Aurei said, looking down but she closes her eyes, arching her eyebrows.

"But don't let this world overpower you because of that, people die, regardless." I add, putting my arm around her shoulder and giving a small grin.

"Just like people who lose theirselves." Aurei finishes as she looks up at me.

"That will never happen to you." I reassure her, but Aurei shoots me a look. The same look she gave me when I started smoking and she found out.

"You don't know that." She said as she shook her head.

That felt like a stab in the gut. The thought of Aurei going insane haunts me. I'm afraid of losing Aurei than my own death in general, which is supposed to be right. But what if she goes rogue and runs off? What if she goes insane?

Aurei walks up towards the fire.

"Cassie told me more about herself." Aurei said as she adds more wood to the slowly growing fire.

I raise my eyebrows, but she turns to me, then she quickly steps away from the smoke.

"Cassie and her brother were running away from this sort of group, The Vipers." Aurei said before sitting back on the log.

"Vipers?" I repeat.

"They would carve their symbol on your arm, and once they do...you become one of them, but to me it's nowhere worser than becoming one of the undead." Aurei said, looking out into the woods.

"For now, we're safe so we'll be on the move tomorrow." I said, pulling out a sleeping bag.

"Where'd you get those?" Aurei asks, peering over my shoulder to see what I'm doing.

"From a abandoned campsite...the people..." I begun, closing my eyes.

"They're all dead." Aurei finishes, balling up her fists and staring down at  the bag. I slowly nod my head then reached out to hug Aurei, she shakes her head.

"No, I'm fine." Aurei said flatly, she sits down on the small sleeping bag then she just lays there with her eyes open.

"What about you Avery? You'll need to sleep eventually." Aurei said, staring at me with her cold eyes.

"There's still roamers wandering around here, I'll keep guard while you sleep, once we find a place, I'll get all the rest I can get." I piped, Aurei gives me a gentle smile then turns around.

At least she wasn't worser than she was when she was at school, she would get into fights, only because someone was talking about Dad or how they all believed that Dad left us to be with another woman. I used to be just like that until Dad taught me otherwise.

People will say things they'll soon regret in the future, so why hurt them now?

I would tell him what they said or did then he would sigh and move a strand of hair from my eyes.

I pull my hair into a low ponytail, then stared back at the fire. I could tell that Aurei lost all hope in believing that there was some sort of cure for this post-apocalyptic world.

But if there was a cure, we wouldn't be here now, Mom and Nina would still be alive and we wouldn't be in this position right now.

But it's too late to cry now, or become a vulnerable, crying liability. Cassie....was nothing but a liabilty, as much as I hate saying it, she froze and she had the chance to run, she was scared stiff.

That's not gonna be me, I won't be. And neither will I let Aurei become someone like that. We need to find some sort of shelter that can last but not too long before it gets corrupted by roamers.

And more importantly...I need to teach Aurei how to defend herself....