we are broken [private]

I... was not the same person who I had been a few weeks ago. I could see that. When I looked down at my bruised and cut hands, I saw it. When I saw my arms, I knew it. When I had seen myself in a mirror that one time, it had actually sunk in. Kalina Nikolova from before was... well, she was Kalina Nikolova from before. The Kalina from now... the one I was- am, she was different. I was different.
It wasn't like I hadn't tried to find her. I had sat for hours thinking, wondering. It wasn't like I was able to sleep. Ha. Zombies outside trying to get in at night and then in the day trying to put up extra defenses... if anyone was able to sleep I would be surprised. It wasn't easy, that was for sure. Everytime I closed my eyes all I saw was the rotting flesh of Zombies, and then when I looked up... all too often it was the faces of my friends that I was looking at. Then I would realize that it was a thought, possibly even a dream, nothing more. And my eyes would shoot open and that was it- I wasn't able to close them again. I might not have seen a face which I knew yet among the Zombies, but there was always that chance. Always. I didn't even know if my friends, my family and comrades, were still alive. For all I knew they were already dead. When I thought like that... I disgusted myself. Because when I thought like that I also had an odd feeling of... envy? If they were dead then they didn't need to live in fear anymore. But then I would stomp on that feeling, try to make myself think it was lack of sleep and fear that was making me feel like that when I knew it wasn't. Since the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse, I'd gotten better at lying to myself.
Then there was the worry I had that it wasn't only Camp which this was affecting. What if the Zombies had moved throughout America? Plenty of Cemetery's... potential army recruitments buried in the ground of every City and Town. If they had reached Windsor... then they were gone. My Mother, my Step-Father, my Sister and my Brother. All of them. There was absolutely no chance that they would have survived if Zombies had attacked their home. They didn't have training, or any sort of protection. And when I thought of that, when I worried about that, I found that I hated myself more than any Zombie out there. Because if it had spread, then it was my fault they had been hurt- killed. Because I hadn't gone to protect them.
But no matter what I thought, or felt, the old Kali never resurfaced. I felt what she did of course. I felt the same about friends and my family. They were my family after all, even if I wasn't the girl they knew. She was gone... forever, maybe. She wasn't on her way back anytime soon, that was for sure. After myself, and after Zombies, she was the one I hated most. For leaving me here to deal with everything. Leaving me to deal with this and trusting that I wouldn't break.

When I had looked in the mirror, that one time, I had seen familiar features. Even under the dirt and blood, they were still there, you could still see Kalina underneath it.
My hair... once shiny and well groomed... it was messy and dirtier than it had ever been. I wasn't able to brush through it properly, and water was too precious to waste on washing my hair.
Cuts and bruises ranging in color and size adorned my skin, and some were a lot worse than others. My left arm had been cut so badly I needed to wrap it tightly in strands of cloth, and my wrist hadn't fared that much better in the fight. I had one bruise on my forehead which felt tender and sore, which I'd gotten from the most recent fight. It had been an accident... but I should have seen it coming. I shouldn't have been so slow. I imagined it as one of those horrible, purply black bruises which even looked painful, but I didn't know the actual color of it. In an attempt to hide it, I'd pulled my hair over my shoulders, but it hadn't done much good.
My clothes were the worst. Ripped, covered in dried blood and dirt, after coming through so many fights. I couldn't bare to look at them... I didn't want to.
I would regret that. Regret looking the way I did if I died tomorrow. If I died within the next couple hours. If it had been my choice I would have died looking immaculate, maybe in my best clothes. Who was I kidding, if it had been my choice I would have died seventy years from now surrounded by Grandkids and kids, saying goodbye properly to my family. But I didn't have a choice, did I?

The Camp Store was dark, but that wasn't too strange. If it was day, it was dark. If it was night, it was darker. Light was peeking through some of the cracks, so I'd come to the conclusion that it was day.
I'd not talked to anyone for what felt like so long... what if I did die? What if I died and no one even remembered me? I'd just be a name... a name which would be forgotten within hours... days... maybe weeks, but it would eventually be forgotten because what had I ever achieved? Nothing, if I thought about it.
Going to take a drink of my water, I couldn't even bring myself to curse when I found it was an empty bottle. Empty and dry and nothing left to wet my parched mouth and dry lips.
I looked around.
Not too many people up. Not too many people moving. So many were curled up in their sleeping bag, but I knew they weren't sleeping. They were thinking, maybe like I had been. Almost without consciously making the decision, I wriggled out of my sleeping bag and stood up. I stumbled a little, but I managed to get up without falling over or anything. Stretching my arms out, I yawned hugely, but it wasn't a tired yawn. It was a... nothing-else-to-do yawn.
Stepping around my bag, I began to make my way to the back of the store where all the supplies were stacked up. The water was all in one pile so it didn't take me much time to take a bottle and hug it close to me, turning around to walk back and cuddle back down in my sleeping bag when-
I walked straight into a tall, hard someone. Stumbling backwards, I started teetering, close to falling straight on the supplies...

In brutal honesty, if I had fallen I probably would have just sat and stared at a wall for a while, instead of thinking about what damage I had done or laughing about how much of I clutz I was. That was how bad it was now. In a dry sort of way, I found it funny. How many times had I fallen over and laughed about it with my friends? How many times had it been my fault something got broken and all I could do was laugh along with others? And now if it happened I wouldn't be able to muster the strength to smile, nevermind laugh. And it just wouldn't seem like a laughing matter. Nothing did anymore. It was like all the happiness and laughter and good had been sucked out of the world to be replaced by sadness and sobs and bad. If my friends were here, I doubt they would have laughed at this point in time. All depending on if they were still alive, which was in doubt right now. I knew nothing about how my friends were or what they were doing, nevermind my family in Canada. If the Zombie Apolcalypse wasn't just Camp then.... then it was more than likely they were dead and gone already and we'd be following them soon. I tried to tell myself that if they were dead I would know, somewhere deep down in myself, but I wasn't sure anymore. I wasn't the Kalina they knew anymore, was I? What were the chances that when she left, she took everything that would give me a sense of how they were too? She had taken everything else, why not that too?

In the split seconds it took me to process the fact that yes, I was teetering and about to fall, I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would fall. I didn't even do what others would and try stop myself by windmilling my arms and moving around. I just stayed silent, stayed still, and waited for the pain of falling on my behind.
But instead of the inevitable falling, I was shocked by the arms which were suddenly around me, catching me, stopping the fall which I was so ready for. Before all of the Zombie Apolcalypse I would have probably let out a little squeek of surprise, but now the only evidence that I was shocked was the way my eyes had widened and my mouth had opened in a little involuntary "o".
The person who had their arms around me came back up, steadying me on my feet before dropping their arms, and I looked up to find a rather awkward looking guy standing in front of me. One of his hands in his pocket, the other rubbing his left arm, he looked like he was trying to be casual, but wasn't really succeeding.

He looked tired, like physically tired, but that fact I noted without much surprise. Everyone was tired now, after so much fighting. All the teenagers I had seen (All of them in the Store, which was my Safe House of choice) looked like they had aged about twenty years within a couple days. They still looked young... but the look in their eyes, the way they held themselves and spoke, that had changed. They were all different now, less childish, more mature. They had seen things they would never forget and that had changed them.
Also, my first opinion of him looking awkward seemed to be right. His mouth opened, but no sound came out, and then he blushed deeply, something which would have made the Kalina of before giggle insanely. She'd rarely seen a guy blush, so she would have found it sorta cute.
'Um... I'm fine... it was probably more my fault than yours. I should just... look where I'm going in future.'
Another thing which the old Kalina would have found cute was the way he nervously bit his lip and looked around before looking back.
'Hello Sam. I'm....' oh what a common problem nowadays, not knowing what to call myself, '... I'm Kalina Nikolova.'