[private] stay with me

At first, I had went from safe house to safe house. I spent my days outside in the sunlight, savoring every last moment of it. It was the only time that the Zombies didn't come out, didn't want to attack. I had tried to find supplies, would sometimes help an injured camper, and moved around, never staying in the same safe house for two nights in a row. Course, there had been too many close calls outside. Too many times when I had to end a Zombie Camper's life, even if it was an undead life. I regretted it, every time, but they were abominations. They were attacking my friends and family, and I wasn't going to let them off just because they looked strangely like someone I used to know.
Then, the safe houses started shuting their doors. I'd had to make a choice, and I'd chosen the Camp Store, just because. I didn't know anyone in there too well, only to wave to, only to say an occassional hello to. But now that we were all sitting in the same place, living off the same supplies, and fighting the same fight, I'd gotten to know some of them a little more. Not all of them, but some.

I had definitely come out of the fights I had been in worse for wear.
My brown hair wasn't perfectly straightened, curly on the ends and even more windswept than usual. In all of my supply hunting, the one thing I had never come acorss was a brush, so I had to use my fingers every day, combing through it for as long as I could bare. One of the many downsides to long hair which I had never known before now.
My rucksack was slashed in several places, the bit of stuffing used in it falling out in clumps. The clothes inside were dirty, stained with mud and blood, some of which was mine, and some of which was other peoples. The clothes which I was wearing... they weren't much better. My black tank top, while chosen because stains wouldn't show as easily, had a few spots on it which were almost certainly blood. The fabric was frayed at the edges, slashed on the sides and back. My black cargo pants no longer had any working pocket, all of them cut in a way which made them unusuable. The ends of them were dirty and ragged, and I'd rolled them up in an attempt to make them more presentable without any luck. My jacket was as bad as my pants and top, so I'd given up wearing it, instead using it as a sort of extra blanket during those hours I would try sleep. The laces in my left shoe had been cut by a blade, broken too much to use, while the right shoes laces were tied too tightly for me to undo the knot. The soles of each were worn down quite a bit.
I myself didn't look all that great. No one gets out of a fight unscatched, and I'd been in quite a few fights. My arms and leg were covered in small cuts and bruises got from trees pulling at me and such, and I had one large, painful gash on my left arm which I'd needed to use a strip off my spare top to bandage. In the same fight, my left wrist had been injured, so I'd used some extra cloth to tie that as well, just in case. My face was probably dirty too, though I had no mirror to look and see, and I knew for certain that there were a couple scratches on one of my cheeks.
I knew I looked like crap, but it was the last thing on my mind.

I didn't know how long I had been in there anymore. Why bother counting? Wasn't like we had any sort of event to look forward to and make use want to use a calender. We were stuck in the Camp Store, rationing food and trying to survive against nightly attacks by Zombies.
One of the things I was missing most about before the Zombies was light. Proper sunlight. Being the Daughter of Hyperion, I had always liked day more than night, and now that the only light I could see each day was from the cracks in the ceilings and walls, I was slightly broody. I wanted to be outside, sitting on the beach and relaxing in the warm sunlight. But I couldn't.

Absently, I shifted my position, turning onto my side and wincing at pain. One of the upsides to choosing the Camp Store? I had a sleeping bag, a proper sleeping bag like people used on camping trips. It wasn't a warm duvet and feather pillow, granted, but it was something. It helped keep me warm when I was freezing cold, and it gave me something to use to block the sounds of Zombies outside at night. My water bottle, half full, was right beside me, no longer the ice cold water that I would have gotten before. It was now room temperature, or maybe my temperature. But who would care that the water wasn't cold when it was actually water? It was blessing.
I'd not been able to sleep though. Not much. Even with my sleeping bag and water, the whole magnitude of what was going on kept me awake every night. I kept wondering about my friends, the people who I knew well and those I didn't know anything about. Were they all dead? Were they Zombies? The next time I came face to face with one of those creatures, was I going to be looking into the eyes of one of my friends? It haunted me, like nightmares only ones which came when I was awake. I was too scared to close my eyes, in case those daymares followed me to my sleep and tormented me like they did during my waking hours. So instead I lay there, watching the Campers move around and then lie back down, watching the light fade and brighten.

Absently I noted that the person beside me was getting up, out of his sleeping bag. When the rustling of the sleeping bag was replaced by the patting down of clothes, I came to the conclusion he was just going to get more supplies or something. True to what I'd thought, muffled footsteps soon followed that.
I wanted to strike up conversations which people. I wanted to feel like I wasn't so alone here, with Zombies outside and terrifying me. Hell, I wanted to not be terrified. But I just... couldn't. No, couldn't wasn't the right word. I wouldn't. I didn't want to become friends with someone who might die. Cynical, right? But it was also the truth. Every night there was a chance one, or all of us, would die, and if I had to see a person who I loved or liked die in front of me then I would lose that little shred of sanity which was still with me. Just a shred, mind you. After seeing so much, I felt like I was holding onto my sanity with my nails and at any second that shred would fall away too, leaving me completely and utterly mad. Although, being mad in a situation like this might have been better than being sane. At least the images which I saw wouldn't torment me anymore.

As the kid beside me came back and sat down again, I wrinkled my face and yawned, realizing that I was tired. So tired in fact that if I was to stay lying down in the semi-comfortable position I was in, I would fall asleep. And that was the last thing I needed to be doing.
Stretching my arms and legs out, I started to pull myself up into a sitting position against the wall, and nearly jumped straight out of my sleeping bag at the quietly spoken question.
"Do you think anyone's alive out there?"
I quickly finished what I was doing, making myself less comfortable against the wall and turning to look at him. I didn't even care that I looked like crap and my hair was one big mess. Frowning slightly, I answered.
'I'm not sure what I think anymore,' wincing at how hoarse my voice sounded after not being used for a while, I ploughed on, 'Someone's gotta be alive, surely. I want to believe everyone else is still alive. If everyone else was dead we would be too. The Zombies would aim their whole attack on us, and we wouldn't stand a chance,' the image was scary, but I'd seen a lot of scary things over the last while, 'So... maybe I do think some of the others are still alive. Though, without communication that's pretty hard to know for sure. What about you, do you think that anyone is alive? Or are you undecided?'

I was sorry that I couldn't offer the boy a more... uplifting answer. Something upbeat and happy, optimistic. Something that had hope.
A couple weeks ago I was that sort of person. I had hope and happiness and I hadn't known anything about Zombies but what I learned in Video games. I wasn't spending my days curled up in a sleeping bag, on the cold ground, staring at the wall across from me and occassionally watching the other people who moved around. I was upbeat and I was optimistic about my future. Now... now I wasn't even certain that I would have a future. I wasn't sure I'd live through the Zombie attacks, and even if I did... I didn't know if I would or wouldn't become what I was. If I would go back to being what I had been.
Thankfully, it seemed like the guy himself wasn't even all that optimistic.

It had been a while since I had chuckled, or giggled- actually, even before this I'd never been much of a giggler- or even laughed. What was there too laugh about? How people who we all knew were being killed daily by Zombie hoards? How about the fact we were all one baby step away from death at every moment? No? Not funny? Yeah... I didn't think so either. The last time I had laughed properly, well, that was probably before all of this mess. When I was tripping over chairs and going on Camping trips. When me and Nat were just hanging out, talking about things which at this point I just couldn't remember. It was like the Kalina Nikolova from a couple weeks ago was a different Kalina Nikolova from now, and that she had ran away at the hint of trouble to leave me dealing with the mess.
But... for some reason, some unknown reason which even I couldn't exactly say, the guys attempt at humor made me laugh softly, the first laugh for weeks. Sure, it was a shadow of the laugh I once had, but it was something, right?
Dead men walking... why does that statement amuse me? Why am I laughing at it?
In all honesty, it was like I'd been devoid of happiness and laughter for so long I wasn't even able to pinpoint the reason why I was laughing anymore. Why I found something funny.

Pulling my own bottle of room temperature water out, I unscrewed the blue, ridged cap slowly, before pulling it off and holding it in a fist. I sort of missed the days when the water bottle I was opening had condensation dripping down the sides, and was ice cold. I missed the crack of the seal as it twisted and opened and I missed the feeling of cold water running down my throat.
I guess a lot of people are missing the little things.
Taking a deep drink of my water, I swallowed and instantly felt the difference in my throat. Disuse and the sparing of water until I really wanted it had left my throat dry and given my voice a slightly hoarser sound than it usually had. But even this one drink, of warm water that was a far cry from the water before, did wonders.
Clearing my throat after another couple moments, I attempted a smile for the guy, attempting to be the girl I had been weeks ago.
'I'm Kalina. What about you?'
The question was though, was I Kalina? Kalina Nikolova had been a girl in clean clothes and with little to no major cuts and bruises on her skin. She was bright and loud and sarcastic and happy. What was I? A pathetic lump of a girl who was in clothes stained with blood and dirt, who had cuts everywhere and bruises everywhere else. I wasn't the Kalina from before, so did I count as Kalina now?