07:00
September 1st, 2017

[color=00aeef]Triss strummed lightly on her guitar, having learned to play fairly well when she was younger. She played lightly as the fire slowly burned down to a small bed of coals, waiting for Emmie to wake up. She looked at her watch. “Seven o’clock….c’mon Emmie…..wake up...we have to go.” she mumbled, resuming her quiet but sad song. The strings were cold in the morning breeze, yet they felt so natural as they brushed against her fingers, effortlessly playing a tune.

A small shiver ran down her back as the morning sunlight rose over the trees. She smiled lightly “Good morning world….please don’t kill me today.” she thought, glancing across the treeline for movement. A small breeze blew her hair around and made her aware of how quiet it really was out here. No cars, no people, no sounds of the city at night. Only the two of them. Two against the world.[/color]

[color=39b54a]“I don’t wanna,” Emmie groaned, shifting in her sleeping bag angrily. She made a curious, high-pitched noise expressing her displeasure and sat up, fussing with her bedhead. “Where’d you get a guitar, anyway?” she asked, half-asleep, massaging her eyes with her fingertips.

“My dad paid for piano lessons, when I was younger… I think I can probably still play a few chords… I was never very good at it.” Rising from her bedroll, Emmie began to piece her things back together, placing them inside her pack, rolling up her bag and tying it to the back of the backpack.

Emmie yanked the map of Missouri she’d found in a BP out of one of the pack’s side-pockets, unrolling it and examining it thoughtfully for several long moments. “So… we’re… I think we’re pretty close to the fort,” she mumbled, rubbing her cheek. “I’m not really sure. Probably like… ten or… twenty miles, maybe? I mean, that’s not that far.” Not for two reasonably fit young travelers, anyway - though Emmie frequently wished she had taken her cardio more seriously before… all of this.

“We got anything left for breakfast?”[/color]

[color=00aeef]Triss layed the guitar at her side, looking over to Emmie “I got it a few days back, found it in a warehouse, still in good shape.” She would watch Emmie with a slight curiosity as she packed up her things. She looked around. It was way too quiet.

She looked to Emmie “I tried piano once, never really liked it all too much.” Her stomach growled, reminding her of the ugly truth the two of them faced. Limited food. She walked over to take a peek at the map Emmie had out “Goodie, then we should be there in a day’s time, maybe two. We should probably keep an eye out for any other buildings, take our time getting to the fort.” She often wondered if this supposed fort was actually real.

She began to look through her bag at Emmie’s question, she was also curious if they had anything else to eat that hadn’t gone bad yet. She tossed her climbing harness and rope aside and dug deep into her bag, hoping for anything at this point. “How does canned peas, beef jerky and kool-aid sound?” she said, almost in a sarcastic tone, laughing to herself at the odd assortment of food.[/color]

[color=39b54a]“Sounds like…” Emmie trailed off, rolling the map up and sighing. “Sounds like I miss McDonalds. I’d kill somebody for a Big Mac - seriously!” She shrugged her shoulders, pushing messy blonde hair out of her eyes. “I’ll take the peas, jerky, and kool-aid, though.”

Fifteen minutes and one vaguely sad meal later, Emmie felt a lot better: she was visibly more alert and upbeat, no longer suffering from morning hunger. “Okay!” she declared, glancing southwards thoughtfully. “There’s an old supermarket, like, half a mile that way - you wanna see if there’s any food left? I mean, it’s doubtful, but hey… you never know what might have been pushed underneath a shelf or tucked away, or something. Besides, if Fort Leonard Wood is a bust, we need to find more food - y’know, so we don’t… starve, and junk.”[/color]

[color=00aeef]Triss swallowed the last of the cold canned peas with a shudder. She’d never liked peas, but they they tasted twice as bad when they were cold, though she was grateful that they actually had food. She tossed the can into the mostly burnt out fire before re-packing her things into bag and tossing it over her shoulder. “While having food is nice….why did it have to be peas!” she shook her head “Yes, the supermarket sounds like a good idea. No more peas. Maybe some corn, but no damn peas!”

She took a large gulp from her water bottle before clipping it back to her bag and looking to Emmie “Lead on, you know where you’re going. Quick question though.” She kicked the remaining coals to spread them out so they would burn out faster. “What’s at this fort that you need so badly? Do you think there’s even anyone still there?” [/color]

[color=39b54a]“That’s the rumor,” she replied, adjusting her pack on her shoulders and trudging south, Triss in tow. “Alex - she’s a friend I was traveling with - she and her friends said that… there had been rumors, a few months back, that Leonard Wood was safe. It’s the only military base for, like, hundreds of miles, I think? There are Marines there, I guess, and it might be a safe place to stay. We could have, like… beds… and food, maybe.”

And maybe her father was waiting there for her.

Climbing over a downed tree and cutting into the sparse Missouri woods, Emmie glanced over her shoulder at Triss. “So, do you have any family left? Anybody that might be out there?” She looked forward again, marveling at how quickly the leaves had come off the trees as autumn settled in. Emmie shrugged deeper into her woolen jacket, wishing it was warm again already… and if this felt bad, she couldn’t imagine what the real winter would be like.[/color]

[color=00aeef]Triss’ face went blank at the question. She suddenly saw her father’s face, then herself beating the creature he had become to death with her bat. She felt like she was going to puke. The disgusting sound of bone being crushed resonated through her head. She shook her head, trying to get the thought off her mind “N-no….I don’t.” There. That’s all she had to say. She looked at her bat. She wanted to say more, wanted to let the guilt out, the anger. “I beat my dad to death….he had turned.” she said, the words echoing through her mind.

She went silent, looking down at the ground as they trudged on, the memory of that moment flashing through her mind repeatedly. The blood, the sound, the panic. She looked to her shoulder, the pain of the wound still present, though faded. She whimpered quietly, then looked up, hoping Emmie hadn’t heard it. She didn’t want her thinking that she was soft. She wasn’t soft, she was tough. She had killed. She had survived.[/color] 

[color=39b54a]Emmie stopped, turning around. The pain and the anger was clear on Triss’s face, and Emmie could only frown - knowing all too well the terror of having to murder what was once a living being, having to clean blood off of yourself and sprinting in terror, heart racing, pouring sweat. Life was… considerably less fun, these days.

“Hey,” she murmured, walking back towards Triss and putting a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “I’m sorry… that’s… horrible. I’m… sorry you had to do that - but - but it’s better than… letting him stay like that, right? I’m sure he wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want that.”

She watched Triss, biting her lower lip, uncertain of how to help the girl. The breakdowns weren’t uncommon, she knew - truth be told, she’d been having one of her own when they ran into each other. “Um…” she started, and then grinned. “Hey - what was your dad like? Was he cool? I… I love my dad, but he could be a real pain in the ass, sometimes,” she giggled, putting an arm around Triss’s shoulder. “And the jokes, too - like he thought he was funny! Ugh!”[/color]

[color=00aeef]Triss had no idea what to say. She wanted to scream. Her dad had been the only thing she had for the longest time. Now he was gone. She’d thought about what would’ve happened if it had been her instead of him, what he would do without her. She looked up to Emmie, sadness in her eyes. “He was everything. He taught me everything, helped me with everything. And now he’s gone.” she almost yelled. She looked down and walked past Emmie, tears running down her face.

An hour went by. An hour of total silence. The memories were running through her mind. Memories of when life was good, when she had her warm bed to hide in, a meal to come home to, a father to love. She wanted her old life so much, there was nothing she wasn’t willing to do to get it back. She looked to Emmie, a slight twinge of guilt running through her. “My dad was kind. Every night when he got home, we’d go out to the field and we’d play ball. He’d help me with homework, comfort me when I was down. He always knew what to say and when to say it. He was my person. And now. Now he’s gone, and I don’t want to talk about it because I fucking killed him.” 

She walked on in silence, clutching the leather handle on her bat, remembering the sound of the baseball when she hit a homerun in the final game of her last season. She’d do anything to see him one more time, but she knew that would never happen. All she could do now was press on.[/color]

[color=39b54a]“You don’t have to talk about it, but…” Emmie paused, frowning - a sadness in her voice. “You didn’t kill him. That wasn’t your dad, Triss, that was… some thing that looked like him.” She considered saying more, but she had made her point, and just then - the pair of them crested the final hill before a sweeping supermarket came into view! It wasn’t a supercenter or a megamart or whatever, but it was big enough, and it might still have something worth taking.

“There we go,” Emmie said, smiling. “Maybe we can find something to eat that doesn’t suck. Hey, maybe they’ve got… like… a McDonalds. I bet I could get those stupid friers to work… if there was electricity. Oh… I guess the freezer wouldn’t work either, then. Oh, gross - eight month old meat.” Emmie faked a gagging noise.[/color]