Blank 9

Amelia's heart pounded in her chest as she ran across the uneven ground of the forest. Her hurried breath created little puffs of steam as she exhaled into the chilly night air. The gun in her hands seemed heavier than normal as she pressed forward, trying to make as little noise as possible while still trying to get to her destination as quickly as possible.

As she turned the corner, said location became visible. It was an old, abandoned hunting cabin that had long been forgotten out in the woods. Well, forgotten by everyone except for herself and select others. The door to the cabin seemed to hang at an angle, as if the building's weight had shifted at some point but the door remained stubborn. Amelia reached out and knocked on the door repetitively and impatiently.

"W-who's there?" a scared voice from within called out. Amelia rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Maddie, it's me, Amelia! Open the stupid door!" she hissed. There was a pause of silence, and then the noise of rusty locks being fiddled with. Soon after the door creaked open a crack, revealing a sliver of a person's face and a violet eye. Then the door was thrust open fully, revealing a delicate-looking girl with her long, blonde hair pulled into loose pigtails. Amelia pushed past her and closed the door behind her.

Maddie was Amelia's twin sister, and she had always been the shyer of the two. Before the Dark Days, Amelia had been very boisterous and eager to meet new people, but Maddie was weary of nearly all strangers, and she was even worse now than she had been before.

"You know that you don't have to peek to check if it's me if you hear my voice, right?" she asked as she walked over to a gun rack and placed her rifle back in its place.

"I'm just double-checking!" Maddie insisted. "You can't be too careful, you know!"

Amelia set the sack she had been carrying with her down on the table. "Zombies can't talk, Maddie," she said dryly.

Maddie threw herself down on a love seat and frowned. "Still…" she muttered under her breath. She then turned to her sister. "So what did you get on this raid, anyways?"

Amelia sighed and flung herself down onto the couch across from Maddie rather ungracefully. "Not much, really. Most of the area around here has been picked over pretty well."

Maddie looked at her sister sadly. "So we're going to have to relocate, soon, then?"

Amelia frowned and sat up straight to return Maddie's gaze. "Afraid so, Mads. There's just not much tying us here anymore. That's why Arthur is out scoping for a new place, remember?"

Maddie looked away in favor of an old, dusty painting that hung on the wall over the mantle of the fireplace. "And...you're sure Arthur will come back?" she asked tentatively.

At this Amelia stiffened and her hands instinctively curled into fists. "Yes, I'm sure Artie will come back perfectly fine!" she said through gritted teeth.

Maddie looked back at her sister, immediately regretting what she had said. "Oh, Amelia, you know I didn't mean it like that! It's just...well, I don't know what we'd do without him. We were pretty bad at this survival thing before we met him, and-"

"We were just fine at surviving on our own! And even so, we don't have to think about that because Artie will be back soon with more supplies and a better place for us to live! Just stop over-thinking stuff for once, Maddie!" Amelia shouted as she shot up out of her seat, fists clenched at her sides so tight that her knuckles were white. She then stormed over to the gun rack and roughly took her rifle off.

"W-where are you going?!" Maddie asked, startled by Amelia's outburst.

Amelia was by now at the door and unlocking the many locks. "I don't know, for a walk or something. I just need to be alone!" She unlocked the last lock and threw the door open angrily. Maddie winced at this.

"Oh, okay. Be careful, though!" she called out. By then Amelia had already slammed the door shut.

Amelia stalked through the woods angrily, muttering harsh words under her breath. They weren't directed at her sister exclusively, however. She knew that Maddie hadn't meant any harm by her words. She was just worried. She tended to get worried easily enough already, but the Dark Days had just made it worse.

By now the sun had gone down to the point where it was hard to see, and Amelia had to squint to see more than three feet in front if her. If she were in her right state of mind at the moment, Amelia would be back at the cabin, possibly heating up a can of soup on the wood stove and apologizing for her earlier actions. However, Amelia was still seething with anger and other pent-up emotions that boiled her blood under her skin. It was because this reason that she nearly didn't hear a twig snapping somewhere near herself.

However, Amelia had just barely heard it, and she turned sharply towards the direction of the noise, squinting to see ahead as she raised her rifle to her shoulder. She strained her ears and could barely hear what sounded like footsteps in the brush, too heavy to belong to an animal. Amelia concentrated her eyes, trying desperately to see ahead. Eventually she could see the faint outline of what looked like a man coming steadily closer to her.

Amelia's breath hitched in her throat and fear gripped her heart for a moment. Could this figure be a zombie? Or one of the night-prowlers who took advantage of refugees such as herself? She had to get back to her sister to make sure she was safe! She backed away silently, her feet barely making any noise. However, they soon found a wayward tree root that was jutting out if the ground, and she tumbled to the forest floor rather noisily. She stopped herself from crying out, at least.

The footsteps halted for a moment, then quickened in her direction. Terrified, Amelia scrambled to pull herself off the ground, but the adrenaline pumping through her veins made her jittery and clumsy. 'This is it,' she thought remorsefully. 'I'm going to die, soon.'

"Hey! Who's there!" a male voice with a thick English accent called out across the forest. Amelia's heart skipped a beat when she heard his voice. Could it be...?

"Arthur?"

The footsteps stopped short for a moment, then the man spoke up again. "Amelia, is that you?"

Amelia felt relief was over her immediately when she recognized his voice. "Yeah, Artie, it's me," she said as she lifted herself off the ground. "You scared the heck out of me, you know that?"

Arthur cleared the distance between himself and the blonde girl quickly, his gun resting limply at his side. "You were making too much noise, you know. If I had been either a zombie or a prowler you would be dead by now." He spoke dryly, but after he was done talking the corners of his mouth turned up into a ghost of a smile. "Lucky for you that it was just me, or you'd be toast, Amelia Jones."

Amelia scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Just for the record, Arthur Kirkland, I was the one who heard you approaching first. I just happened to trip and fall. Otherwise you wouldn't have known I'd been here at all!" It didn't take long for her scowl to break into a huge grin, however. She ran up to Arthur and hugged him tightly, almost as if her life depended on it. "I'm just really glad your back, though."

Arthur was surprised by the sudden hug at first, but after a moment's pause he returned it. "And I'm glad to be back. After traveling with you for so long, I found that being alone was much quieter than I'd grown accustomed to. It was surreal."

Amelia pulled back from the hug and punched Arthur lightly on the arm. "Not funny, Artie," she chastised.

Arthur chuckled lightly at the blonde girl. "Come on, let's head back to the cabin. Your sister is probably waiting for us." He pulled her closer for a moment and left a quick kiss on her forehead, which sent happy shivers down Amelia's spine. Then he released her and they started walking towards the cabin together.

Amelia and Maddie had met Arthur a few weeks after the Dark Days had started. The only supplies the girls had were food that they got from their own pantry and the clothes on their backs. They had no idea how to survive without electricity or supermarkets, and they were quickly running out of food. After a week or so, Amelia had finally realized that in order to survive they would need to raid the surrounding abandoned houses, and volunteered to be the one to scavenge. When she was going through the pantry of her third house she heard a noise coming from somewhere else in the building. Amelia froze up, scared that she had broken into a home that wasn't, in fact, abandoned, or worse, that she had walked straight into a horde of zombies.

Wielding the baseball bat that she had nicked from another house, she made her way through the halls, breathing slowly in order to make less noise. Eventually she tracked the noise to one of the house's bedrooms. When she peeked inside she saw a tall, dishwater-blond boy sifting through someone's dresser drawers. Terrified but curious, she walked into the room.

"H-hey! You! What are you doing?" she spoke up, her voice slightly shaky. The boy turned around quickly, his eyes wide with surprise, revealing that they were a deep, mossy-green.

"I-I, um…" he stuttered, caught off guard by Amelia's sudden appearance. He then cleared his throat, and tried to speak again. "I'm terribly sorry. Um, is this…your house?"

Amelia shook her head, still not lowering her bat. "No. And I'm guessing it's not yours, either."

The boy also shook his head. "No, you're assuming correctly." He looked at Amelia inquisitively. "Are you a refugee, too?" he asked, raising one of his eyebrows (which, Amelia observed, were quite bushy).

Amelia scoffed. "No, I'm a zombie. No duh, I'm a refugee!"

The boy frowned. "Hey, no need to be snappy with me!"

Amelia rolled her eyes, then she looked at the boy skeptically. "What were you doing going through the drawers, anyways?" she asked.

The boy looked confused. "Looking for new clothes, obviously. I can't exactly wear the same thing for the rest of my life, and I lost all of my old clothes when my town was evacuated."

Amelia gaped at the boy for a moment before speaking up. "Clothes, really? Out of all things in this world you could be worrying about at the moment, you're concerned with clothes?! What about, oh, I dunno, food?"

The boy narrowed his eyes at Amelia. "Well, I was going to look for food after I was done in here! I didn't know there were other people snooping through the cupboards in this area, too, otherwise I would have started in the kitchen!"

Something about the way the boy said "snooping" rubbed Amelia the wrong way. "Hey, just so you know, I'm gathering food for my little sister and me to eat!" Immediately after she had spoken Amelia realized she had given this stranger too much information. She didn't know anything about him, so she shouldn't have revealed anything too personal, even if that thing was the existence of her sibling.

The boy's eyes widened in surprise and something that was unidentifiable…maybe understanding? "You have a little sister?" he asked. Amelia bit her lip and nodded slowly. "How old is she?"

Every bit of Amelia's reason told her to stop talking right now and to not give this boy any more information about herself or Maddie. It told her to get away from this house and this boy and to keep everything to herself for the rest of her life. But at the same time, some part of Amelia missed being so open with people. She missed being able to chat with people who weren't her family and for her to be an open book that anyone could read. It was this part of Amelia that spoke next. "Well, she's the same age as me – we're twins – but I was born first, so technically I'm older." She then took a deep breath. "We're nineteen."

The boy nodded, a slightly amused smile tugging at his lips. "I had a little brother before the Dark Days. He was about twelve. I don't know where he is right now, though. After the evacuation I realized that I couldn't take him with me in a world like this, so I left him with a nice foreign couple who promised to take care of him. I haven't seen or heard from him since." He looked Amelia in the eyes, mossy-green meeting watery-blue. "So I guess I understand how important that food is to you." The boy took something from the bed and held it in both of his hands. With a start Amelia realized that it was a gun. It wasn't pointed at her, and the boy's face didn't look threatening, but its presence still made Amelia's heart speed up and her chest feel tight with fear. "I guess I'll leave you, now. I just have one question; what is your name?" The boy smiled warmly at Amelia, and for a moment it made her forget the gun that was currently in his hands.

"Amelia," she answered quickly. She didn't even have time to think about whether or not she should give this boy her name – her mouth just worked on its own, answering questions without her consent.

The boy nodded. "That's a pretty name. Mine is Arthur." He looked to the ceiling for a moment, then back down. "I guess I'll be on my way, now. Goodbye, Amelia."

Amelia nodded in return, finally lowering the bat that she had just realized she was still holding. "Goodbye, Arthur."

Arthur stepped forward, still smiling, and shifted his gun to one hand so he could hold his other out for a handshake. Amelia hesitated, but returned the handshake with a small grin. "Good luck out there," she said. Though her tone was joking, Amelia's words were far from a joke. They were a true wish that this man would have luck on his side.

Arthur nodded at Amelia, and she could tell that he knew the seriousness of her words. "Good luck to you and your sister as well," he responded, returning her blessing. Then he released her hand and walked past her, out the doorway and into the hallway of the house, and presumably heading towards the door.

Watching him leave, Amelia had mixed emotions. She was relieved that Arthur had turned out to be an honorable man, and not a creep willing to take advantage of a young girl out on her own. However, she also felt a little sad, as he had been the only contact she had, had with anyone outside of her family tree since the Dark Days, and it pained her to know that she would likely never meet him again. The world was a big place, and refugees like him and herself were always on the move.

Amelia let out a light gasp as an idea suddenly came to her. She immediately turned on her heel and ran from the house, hoping she could catch Arthur before he got too far.

"Arthur!" she shouted as she ran through the house's front door. "Arthur, wait!"

Luckily enough for her, he was only a handful of houses away, walking alone on the sidewalk with his gun resting against his shoulder. Upon hearing Amelia's voice, he turned to face her. Even from so far away, Amelia could tell that he was confused by her actions. "Amelia, what is it? Is something wrong?" he shouted in response.

Amelia ignored his words and run up to him. Once he and her were face to face, she started talking urgently, still breathless from her sudden actions. "Y-you're traveling alone, right?" she asked.

Arthur raised an eyebrow at her question. "Um, yes. Why do you ask?"

"Well, Maddie (my sister) and I are travelling alone, too, and I figured that if we all traveled together, maybe we would have more man-power and it would be easier to keep each other safe and survive!" Amelia looked Arthur in the eye excitedly. "What do you say, Artie?"

Arthur looked surprised at Amelia's proposition. "You really want to travel with me?" he asked. Amelia nodded. "You realize that traveling in a group means that it will be harder to move as quickly, right?" Amelia shrugged. Arthur sighed. "I'm just not sure…" he said, tearing his eyes away from Amelia's.

Amelia's heart cold stopped in her chest. She didn't want to lose Arthur, this person that she barely knew, but still felt extremely close to nonetheless. "Please," she begged, her voice quieter than it had just previously been. "You're the first person besides my sister I've talked to in weeks. I…I miss this sort of thing." She cast her eyes down briefly, before looking back at Arthur. "Come on, Artie, just try it. If it doesn't work out, then you can leave, and I won't be angry with you. Just give it a chance."

Arthur looked back at Amelia and sighed again. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try it," he said. Then he smiled at her, his face looking genuinely happy for the first time since Amelia had met him. "I would love to travel with you and your sister, Amelia. I just have one thing to ask of you."

Amelia cocked her head to the side, confused. "What?" she asked.

Arthur chuckled lightly at Amelia's confusion. "Please don't call me 'Artie' again."

Ever since then Arthur had been an important part of both Amelia and Maddie's lives. Maddie was, of course, apprehensive about him at first, but eventually she warmed up to him. Amelia and Arthur were two peas in a pod in the sense that they were both hot-headed and instinctive, but that was where the similarities stopped. Amelia was open and always talking, while Arthur was quieter, and a little more closed off. When raiding pantries for food, Arthur always looked for the healthiest choices for the group, while Amelia always jumped at the opportunity to bring back junk food. One time the two got into a heated argument over whether or not it was sensible to bring back a box of HoHos. Once they had gotten her a gun for self-defense, Amelia found herself being a little more trigger-happy than Arthur was. As the three traveled, though, Amelia and Arthur developed a close relationship that neither had really experienced before.

There wasn't much structure in the world anymore, so labels didn't hold much meaning, but if the Dark Days hadn't happened and everything were the same as it had been, one might be able to describe the two as a couple. All that mattered to them, though, was that they were closer to each other than they had ever been to anyone else, and they knew that they would try to protect each other no matter what., I'