WHITE FLAG

chapter fifty-nine : realistic nightmares
{ season four - episode ten }

"WE NEED TO find some firewood," Vickie Parson spoke up after a few hours walking in silence. "Find somewhere safe for the night."

Kloe walked in front of her, her brown eyes staring dead ahead of her. She didn't want to stop, despite the fact that they could barely see anything. The sun had disappeared from the horizon around thirty minutes prior, countless stars formed in the indigo sky.

"I have to keep looking," she stated barely above a whisper, loud enough for the older woman to hear from behind her.

"Kloe, we've been walking for hours," Vickie tried to reason, trying her hardest to catch up with the young woman. "We should- you should take a rest. You can get up early in the morning and search for him all day."

The Rhee woman took Vickie's words into consideration. She knew she was right -- if she wanted to find her husband and brother, she had to be rested so she had enough energy.

"We can look in these woods." Vickie pointed over at the hundreds of dozen trees to the left of them. They were still on the road where they found the prison bus.

They stuck to Kloe's planning. She knew where she drew on the map on where to go in case of any emergencies, and she memorized it perfectly. She knew where she was going.

Swallowing thickly, Kloe forced her legs to stop walking, twisting her head to the side to view the dark cluster of trees. "Shouldn't we find a flashlight first? It's too dark to search for things if we can't even see--"

She was cut off by a loud thud behind her. Without hesitation, Kloe whipped her body around, looking down at the Parson woman who had collapsed to the ground.

"Oh my God, Vickie," she almost shrieked, kneeling down next to her. "Are you okay?"

Vickie adjusted herself, pushing herself up with the palms of her hands against the concrete. It was only then that Kloe fully paid attention to the woman, her eyes filling with confusion as she took in Vickie's state.

She had gone pale, sweat rolling down her head. It may have been dark, but from the faint light they still had, anyone could see that Vickie wasn't...okay.

The first thing to cross Kloe's mind was the fact that she had possibly caught the virus that was spreading across the prison. "Are you sick? Oh God..." Kloe panicked, brushing a strand of her raven hair behind her ear as she set a hand on Vickie's shoulder.

Except, Vickie swatted her hand away. Kloe stared at the woman who acted differently, taken aback. Vickie gulped, sending her an apologetic look. "Sorry... I just... I'm not sick."

"Then what's wrong? Why do you look sick?" Kloe asked as Vickie brought one knee up to her chest, taking a deep breath. "Vick?"

The Parson woman broke her gaze away from the younger woman, a few dirty blonde strands falling down the sides of her face as she looked down into her lap.

"Vickie," Kloe said more firmly, not liking the fact that she wasn't getting an answer. "What's wrong?"

The older woman swallowed a mouthful of saliva before lifting her chin to Kloe. She tried to smile at the young woman, looking at her as if everything was going to be okay.

A large pit formed in the deep end of Kloe's stomach, her jaw clenching slightly as she only continued to stare at the woman. "Vickie... Don't you dare..."

"This is my last stop, Klo," Vickie told her softly, sending her an assuring smile. Kloe felt her heart begin to break into two, a large lump forming in her throat that stopped her from swallowing.

"Vickie, stop... If this is some sort of prank, it's not funny," Kloe said, her voice shaking from the ball in her throat. "Please tell me this is a joke."

The Parson woman shook her head repeatedly, her hand raising to the edges of her red plaid flannel, revealing her white t-shirt underneath. As she pulled it away from her right shoulder, Kloe felt tears immediately thicken in her eyes as she saw the teeth marks in the middle of a patch of blood that seeped through the shirt.

"It's already happening, Kloe," she said. "I can barely move my legs. I'm debilitated... I'm dying, and I sure as hell don't wanna turn into one of them." Kloe's bottom lip began to tremble, and so did her hands as she shook her head, in denial. "And we have no bullets left--"

"No," Kloe interrupted, lifting a shaky finger to silence the woman from talking. "I am not leaving you here."

"I'm not asking you to," Vickie said hoarsely, the bite beginning to overtake her. "I'm asking you to stop me from becoming one of them."

Kloe's head shaking became more vivid than before. A tear slid down her cheek as she watched the frail woman, who's arm that held her up began to shake.

She was too weak to hold her own weight. Kloe immediately noticed, lunging forward the second Vickie's arm gave way. The younger woman caught the older one in her arms before her head landed on the ground.

"You have to," Vickie whispered, already feeling herself losing her life despite feeling alive only five minutes beforehand. "My time is done, Kloe. I just happened to be one of the unlucky ones to go faster than others..."

"Wh- When did this happen?" Kloe cried, positioning herself so she was sitting on her legs, her arms wrapped around the back of Vickie as she looked down at the woman.

"At the bus..." she replied barely above a whisper, a hint of sadness in her tone that she had to go so soon. "I want my daughter, Kloe. I wanna see Brianna," she sobbed, her face scrunching up with tears. "I want to know that she's alive. I want to know that she's safe..."

"She is safe, Vick... I can feel it. She's still alive, okay?" Kloe attempted to comfort not only herself but the woman who was quickly dying in her arms. "You're gonna be okay... You're gonna--" she cut herself off with a sniff as more tears fell out of her eyes.

"I'm gonna be okay..." Vickie finished, smiling sadly at her. "You're also going to be okay, you hear me? You find Glenn and Zayn. After you find them, I want you to find my Brianna."

Kloe nodded, barely being able to see the woman from all the water in her eyes. With her free hand, she wiped away tears that ran down her cheeks, only to be pointless since more fell afterward.

"I remember the day I made your bow," Vickie started, drifting her eyes up to the sky that illuminated several stars, blinking in the night sky. "Your dad had come to me exactly a month before, telling me how you'd been begging your father to take you to an archery club.

He told me how you'd always come home talking about how you managed to shoot the arrow right in the bullseye. While your teammates still had no idea how to. And I remember how I made the bow, making sure I made it breathtaking and spotless. I made sure I put your initials on it..."

Kloe nodded along while the woman brought back the memories she adored. "Getting that bow made the first half of that year the best year, Vick," Kloe sniffed again, her heart for sure being in two separate pieces.

"I also remember meeting you and Zayn for the first time. You were both the cutest kids I'd ever seen in my life. The way you'd babble to yourself in the backyard while your brother grabbed piles of rocks and named them all after his favorite characters from his favorite movie... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Kloe laughed quietly, full of somber, "He had- he had a thing for naming things after the things he loved."

"And- and he adored one name that he always named the flowers his father always brought home after work for Elisa..." Vickie's eyes began to lose their life, her breathing getting shorter and shorter as she spoke, "he always said how the flowers were his mother's favorite ones every time. He said- he said, if those flowers were a person, they would definitely be a Brianna."

Kloe felt her face scrunch up with tears, whimpers escaping her lips while she listened intently.

"When I gave birth to Brianna, the hospital room had a vase of flowers in the corner of the room. And they were the flowers that Elisa loved. The ones Zayn always said looked like they would be called Brianna...

...Your brother chose my girl's name. My beautiful baby girl..."

And like a click of a finger, Vickie's face turned into nothing but emptiness. There was no sadness. No happiness. No life. Nothing.

On the outer corner of Vickie's eye, a tear managed to slither out of it, falling down the side of her face.

"Vickie, no," Kloe started, everything beginning to go numb. "No, Vickie! Don't do this to me..." she begged, shaking the woman continuously in her grasp. "You can't- you can't go... not now..."

No cries left her, only silence as several tears pooled out of her eyes. "Vickie!" she finally screamed, pulling the woman's lifeless body close to her, rocking back and forth.

She had never lost someone who was this close to her. She had known Vickie her entire life, and losing someone she'd known for that long hurt like hell.

She cried and cried and pleaded for Vickie to magically come back to life for ten minutes straight. Not in the way that she would eventually turn into, but a human being again.

Kloe knew what she had to do through her sobs, but she couldn't find the gut to. Her whole body shook, everything being too sudden to cope with. She was all alone.

And that was her worst fear.

Her hand gripped tightly around her knife, squeezing her eyes shut as tears flooded out once more.

She had to do it. She had to do the one thing that Vickie wanted.

Kloe attempted to gulp, but couldn't. She positioned the knife beside Vickie's head, not being able to set it still from how much she trembled.

She lightly pressed the tip of the blade against the side of Vickie's head, lifting her eyes to the sky where the stars flickered. While staring up at them, she began pushing weight into the knife.

The blade slowly entered the Parson woman's head, making a horribly crunching sound. Kloe instantly shut her eyes as she did it quicker instead, letting out a quiet sob as she pulled the knife back out.

Vickie Parson was gone.

And she had no idea if others were too.

It felt like she had lost everyone.

...

She sprinted as fast as she could through the forest. It was completely dark, and she couldn't see anyone. It must've been almost dawn since it took mostly all night to dig up a grave for Vickie Parson.

She was exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. So she decided to run. She killed Vickie, is what plagued her mind repetitively. She caused this.

If she hadn't been so selfish with wanting to find someone important to only her, then maybe Vickie would still be here. Maybe Brianna would still have a mother.

She killed her.

She kept one thing that belonged to Vickie Parson, and that was her red plaid flannel. She put it on, wanting to keep it for Brianna when she found her.

She killed her.

She pushed past any outgrown branches that blocked her way, not giving a care in the world if they gave her fresh cuts from the thorns. She felt like she deserved the pain.

She killed her.

No matter how much the muscles in her legs begged her to stop running, no matter how much her lungs begged for a break to catch real oxygen, no matter how much her mouth begged for water -- she never stopped.

She killed her.

The very woods she was running through was the way back to where Maggie, Sasha and Bob were. She had to get near someone. The more alone she was, the more it infected her and made her lose her mind.

She killed her.

She eventually came to a stop, recognizing the rocks in front of her and the water streaming down the creek. She whipped her head around frantically, in hope to find someone there.

She killed her.

"Maggie?!" she almost screamed, the tremble present in her voice. "Anyone?!"

She killed her.

She looked down at her hand, the one that still held the blood stained knife. The blood belonged to her own sister's mother's head.

She. Killed. Her.

That was the final straw Kloe Rhee had to offer, her legs giving way. Her knees crashed against the solid rock, a large wave of stinging pain raging from the skin of her kneecaps, but she didn't care.

Her body slowly fell sideways, the whole of the side of her body crashing against the rock. The side of her head rested against the rock, and her motionless eyes stared at her hands.

They lay in front of her, covered in cuts and bruises from the branches she pushed in the woods.

She figured her asthma had decided to take effect since she could barely breathe. The exhaustion overtook her body, swallowing her whole into nothing but darkness. Leading her to another memory.

...

"You know I hate blindfolds!" Kloe yelled at her family behind her, who carefully led her to something. "It feels like I'm blind and I hate it."

"That's kind of the whole point, Klo," Zayn stated back at his younger sister. "And relax, it's only for a few minutes."

"Why don't you try putting on a blindfold and walking for two miles, Z!" Kloe snapped at her brother, turning her head to the side in hope she was facing her seventeen-year-old brother.

"C'mon, Klo-Klo," a voice behind her said calmly. "You only have a few more steps to do, and you'll get your present." The man who spoke pressed a hand on her shoulder, relaxing her ever so slightly.

"It better be worth it, Dad," she groaned, her mother squeezing her hand as she was being led through either the woods outside their house in Florida, or a field.

"You'll love it," Elisa smiled, sharing loving glances with the rest of her family behind her.

"Are they lying, Norah?"

"Nope!" Norah responded, jumping up and down with excitement for her best friend's main fifteenth birthday present. "Your mom's right. You'll love it."

After another two minutes, Elisa came to a stop, causing Kloe to also stop. The Schmidt woman reached down for her daughter's blindfold, slowly taking it off the girl's eyes.

Kloe squinted for a moment, the bright sunlight shining directly in her face. She adjusted her vision, the first thing her eyes landed on was a target. An archery target.

A large smile etched on the teenage girl's lips, turning her head to the side to face her mother, who was already smiling down at her. Then, emerging from the trees beside her was a lifelong knowing woman.

Vickie Parson. With something behind her back. Vickie's face slightly fell when she saw Kloe. She whipped her head over to the Schmidt man. "You took her blindfold off already?" she hissed humorously, grinning at the Schmidt family.

"Oh, I'll shut my eyes, Vick," Kloe told her, squeezing her eyes shut. Zayn stepped forward, placing his hand over his sister's eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing anything.

"Hold out your hands," said Vickie, growing closer to the girl. She took out the item she was holding behind her back, Norah's eyes immediately widening with how cool the item was.

Kloe nervously extended out her arms, ready to feel the item drop into them. She smiled widely, unable to hold it back as she listened to Vickie stop in front of her.

As expected, she felt it being placed into her grasp, and she instantaneously recognized the feeling. A bow.

Zayn took his hand away from Kloe's face, allowing her to open her eyes to examine her new bow. Except the second she opened her eyes, she wished she hadn't.

In front of her was Vickie Parson, smirking devilishly down at her. Kloe's once joyful expression turned into a look of horror, a gruesome bite deep in Vickie's shoulder was the first thing she saw.

Blood dribbled down the side of her head where it looked like a knife had been plunged into her, and the same red goo came out of her eyes. Her dirty blonde hair was matted with her own blood from where it mixed with either the knife wound or the bite wound.

Kloe dropped the bow, landing in front of her feet as Vickie began taking steps close to her. She didn't hesitate to step back, however she stopped when a pair of hands gripped onto her shoulders.

She spun around, her eyes setting onto her mother. She had dark circles under her eyes and was ghostly pale. Her hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in weeks, and the white part of her eyes were bright red.

Her head darted to the side, then catching the sight of her father, who had a crimson red liquid run out of his mouth. In his chest were three bullet wounds, and his eyes looked lifeless.

Instantly, he fell to the ground -- dead. She jolted back, tears brimming her eyes as she turned back to her mother and Vickie, who both smirked at her wider with harsh glares.

She dashed past Elisa's grip, in hope to find her brother who had vanished. "Zayn?!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Norah?!"

"Over here, Klo," her brother's masculine voice said, making her head whip over to the woods beside her. Her brother stood there, except it wasn't his seventeen-year-old self. It was his twenty-five-year-old self.

The self Kloe knew now.

"Are you just going to sit there? Are you not going to look for your family?" he wondered, slowly turning his body to face the woods.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, tears flowing down her cheeks from what she had just seen less than a minute ago.

Two more thuds hit the ground behind her, causing her to spin her body back around. Her mother and Vickie were both on the ground, completely lifeless. In the middle of the field where the archery target was stood a man in his twenties.

She furrowed her brows, trying to make out who the man was. She snapped her head back over to where her brother was, who had his back turned to her while he walked away into the midst of the dark woods.

She looked back at the man in the fields, and then that's when she made out who he was. Her husband.

She took several steps toward him, beginning to make out his state. His face was solemn, and he only stared at her. Her expression fell when she made out his state, spotting the blood that trickled out of the corner of his lips.

He looked how he did when he was still sick. When he almost died. He still stared at the younger version of his wife as she grew closer to him.

And once she was close enough, he figured it was the time to speak up. "What are you doing, Klo?" he questioned, a sense of hurt present in his tone. Her brows brushed together, perplexed. "You promised. You said you'd find me. What are you doing?"

Then, within a blink of an eye, he vanished into the air. She searched around for Glenn, seeing nothing but the deserted greenery around her.

Unexpectedly, loud steps erupted from the side of her. It was like someone was running toward her. She turned her body to the side, her eyes more broadened than they already were when she noticed it was Isabelle Marshel.

The sixteen-year-old girl was only a meter away from Kloe before she crashed into her, a long, metallic blade slicing through her abdomen. It took her breath away as she felt the burning sensation ring out of the new wound.

Isabelle vanished into the air, along with the knife. Kloe clutched her stomach, the blood pumping out of the wound like a waterfall.

Less than a second later, another familiar male figure formed out of nowhere to the left of her, causing her to whip her head over to him. A man with a blade for a hand wrapped his actual hand around her wrist, bringing the blade up to her chin and started cutting through the lower lip of Kloe Schmidt.

"Now I get why you didn't like me calling you Klo-Klo," Merle whispered into her ear. "That was the nickname your pops had for you." He brought his blade away from her chin and down to her thigh, slicing it across as she let out a painful yelp.

Then he vanished into thin air.

A firm hand landed on her shoulder from behind her, causing her to spin her body around while she cried. Another man stood there, not hesitating to slash his knife across her already cut open thigh.

"You're weak, Kloe," the Governor snarled. "Be stronger."

He disappeared, just like the others had done.

And if things couldn't get worse, she grew light headed. She thought it was just the blood that ran down her. From her stomach, from her chin, or from her thigh.

But it wasn't any of that.

She leaned forward, her breath getting caught in her blocked up throat, blood flying out as she coughed. Her hand flew to her throat as she choked on her own blood, struggling to get the oxygen to her lungs.

While she choked, someone else appeared that she didn't recognize. She frowned deeply as she continued to gasp for breath. She was surprised she hadn't collapsed to the floor and died.

She was bleeding out, and she could already feel her legs growing weak.

The person who appeared raised his gun, not hesitating to pull the trigger. The bullet flew through her arm, and then the person disappeared. She let out a scream of pain as the force of the bullet sent her body to the ground.

She stared up at the sky, the colors of the sunset being the only thing she could see. Everything went blurry and black dots appeared from all over the place.

Another figure showed themself above her, causing her to blink frantically to be rid of the blur. She continued to wheeze and gasp for breath, but she made out who it was above her.

The feminine figure crouched down in front of her, her hands setting on her shoulders as she stared down at the dying girl. Norah Byrd shook her under her grasp.

"Wake up, Kloe. Wake up! Wake up!"

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words: 3856
22nd january 2022
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mannn kloe goin thru it fr