I hope you enjoy! Trigger warnings for violence, gore, blood, and death.

Special thanks to my co author lllllllllletsgay on tumblr and follow me Whybe123 on tumblr

I took point. Chloe was walking beside me. She was holding Kate's hand and holding her pistol in the other. Victoria had gone a few yards ahead of us down the train track. The woods were quiet except for the sound of Kate sniffling every so often. She was still crying. I saw Victoria stop and fall to her knees on the track, her body trembling. I swallowed a lump in my throat and bit back the stinging pain of tears.

"I'm gonna go check on her." I said softly. Chloe nodded and let me jog ahead. I padded down the tracks until I came beside Victoria. She was crying too, her face buried in her hands and her voice so hoarse you could barely hear the sobs. I kneeled next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"...it's not safe out here, Vic." I spoke, my voice wavering. Victoria turned slowly and looked up at me through puffy red eyes.

"You don't think I know that?" Victoria she spat, her lip quivered. She was outraged, and rightfully so.

"You know what I...Get up. We need to get back." I wasn't going to be having this, not out here, not now. My hands looped under her arms and hoisted her to her feet. With reluctance, Victoria marched along beside me. Autumn leaves littered the clearing alongside the tracks, tall trees made a wall around us.

This was our highway. Our highway to the coast. The coast littered with the corpses of fish and whales being eaten away by gulls and the ones still walking.

Victoria's hand went into mine. She apologized silently with a squeeze and a sideways glance at me.

"I'm sorry too." I breathed. My gaze turned behind us to see Chloe and Kate approaching fast, only a few feet behind us now. Chloe have me a half smile that I struggled to return. She still had the blood on her face, as did poor Kate. She was watching the ground with wide eyes. Chloe had to guide her every step. Her free hand was clutched around her rosary, knuckles white. I wanted to say something but I couldn't think of any comforts. So I turned back and walked on. No one spoke the entire walk home. Not a sound to be heard from us, or anyone. Arcadia Bay had gone quiet.

"I don't like this." Chloe grumbled while we walked down the Main Street. It was littered with cars, all of them empty and stripped of valuable parts. Most of them were splattered with gore.

"Why don't I see any?" Victoria asked me as if I had an answer.

"Be ready to rewind, Max." Chloe spoke up again, releasing Kate's hand and walking in front of the group. "We still have a good ten minutes walk."

"Alright." I agreed absentmindedly. Victoria flinched irritably and bit her lip, shaking her head. I bowed mine in return. Kate quickly clutched to Victoria's other side. I let Victoria go to dive into my messenger bag, I pulled out a pistol of my own and cocked it. Victoria pulled a monkey wrench out of the bag on my back and held it firm. Kate had a small switchblade in her hand. Her mouth was moving silently, probably mumbling some sort of prayer. Kate's eyes were darting violently across out surroundings.

She was breaking.

I watched Chloe kick something out of our path and into an alley. I briefly saw the flash of meat, bloodied and crawling with maggots. Victoria and Kate didn't need that right now. Not after what we did.

We walked back to the base with no more incidents. This was one of the few times I was glad for the walls around the school. Tall, concrete. The wrought iron hates of the front had been blocked off with a few cars, benches, and picnic tables.

'Piss off!' Was written across one of the walls in bright purple spray paint. Part of me laughed. I remember when Chloe did that a few days ago.

Chloe holstered her gun to remove the two backpacks she wore and chuck them over the tall walls. Then she squatted down and netted her fingers together.

"Let's go." She urged. Both Victoria and I looked at Kate to go first. She released Victoria's sleeve from her grip and pocketed her knife. Kate hurled her own backpack above the wall before turning to Chloe. Her foot went into Chloe's palms and she was boosted up to the top of the wall. Kate perched on top briefly before jumping down to the other side. Victoria went up and over next, repeating Kate's process. I was last. Chloe stood up as I approached her. She came close to me, her blue eyes downcast.

"You side with me right, Max?" My friend whispered, her eyes almost begging.

"There were no sides. We only had one choice." I felt tears now but ignored them. Chloe's expression softened. She bit her tongue and kneeled down to boost me up. I scaled the wall and straddled it. Then I leaned down to grip Chloe's forearm and pull her up with me. The two of us jumped down and saw Victoria and Kate halfway to the main building. Chloe and I followed silently behind with our bags in tow. I saw some old classmates standing at the front doors to the school with guns in their hands, shotguns to be specific. They gave Kate and Victoria a nod as they entered. When Chloe and I approached, one stopped us to ask;

"Hey, where's Taylor?"

I looked up at the student, a young man too small for that big gun. I stared at him, filled with such anger. Hatred he didn't deserve.

"She's dead." I spat. His face dropped and he looked to the ground.

"...damn." He whispered and shook his head. I stood there in silence with Chloe beside me for a moment longer to glare at that boy. Cursing him for asking me, damning him for wanting to know how we fucked up. How we failed.

Then I walked inside.

The hallways were a lot more dim now. We removed half the lights to save them for when these blow out. It just made it all more eerie and all too real. Chloe and I caught up to Victoria and Kate outside the old art room. Alyssa sat in front of the door with a clipboard in her hands. She gave us a half hearted smile.

"Hey guys." She had the sense not to ask about Taylor. "You can just drop your bags off, I'll stock everything."

"Thanks." I said.

"Oh and uh, Wells and Jefferson wanted to talk to you. In the hq." Alyssa added lowly. I nodded with a breathy sigh.

"I figured." Was my tired response. My legs carried me off to what once was the office of a school, now it's the head quarters for a group of survivors. The rest of my group followed behind. I didn't bother knocking on that oak door, I went in without a second thought. Wells, that big fat man, sat as his desk with papers around him and his lapdog Mark Jefferson leaning over his desk. The men glared at me as I bursted in the room.

"Yes, Maxine Cau-"

"It's Max. I would've thought you bothered to learn that by now." I growled sourly. Wells was taken aback. He paused to lick his lips and clasp his hands together atop his desk.

"Tell me what happened to Taylor on your run." He said cooly. "Close that door and get in here, all of you. Tell me what happened." We obeyed, closing the office door and approaching his desk. I was the only one to speak.

"She was bitten," I felt Victoria cringe. "She turned. She attacked Kate. Chloe shot her. Taylor never said anything about being bitten. We did what we had to."

The room went into thick silence as the blondes behind me held in sobs and the men before me gave each other wary glances. Wells sighed.

"Mark, give me Taylor's file and the rations reports. We need to make some adjustments."

"I'll tell the kids at the food storage as well." Jefferson said quietly as he handed Wells a few stacks of paper. Jefferson proceeded to lead us out of the office and close the door behind him. "Go get cleaned up. Dinner will be in an hour." Jefferson said stiffly and paced away down the hall towards the cafeteria.

None of us could even consider eating. It was unspoken between the four of us that eating was out of the question. Our group walked back out into the courtyard. It's funny how it almost looked normal. It would've been normal if I didn't see my friends perched high up on buildings or on the walls to look out over our town with guns in their hands. I told Chloe to go get our rations anyway even though the thought made me want to throw up what little food I had inside me. Chloe listened and turned on her heel to jog to the cafeteria while the rest of us went to the girl's dorm. Victoria walked ahead of Kate and I. My eyes went down to Kate, she was still in shock about what had happened. That was the closest she'd been to death since that day on the roof that felt so long ago. To make it worse she had watched her turn right in front of her. She had to fight for her life. My arm snaked around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Her wide blue eyes looked up at me. She still had the blood splatter on her face and her clothes.

"...Max," she barely spoke, her voice panicked.

"Yeah?"

"...I...I saw her...I saw inside her head." Tears poured down her cheeks. "I saw her skull...I saw her brain...I saw it all be blown away..."

"...I know." There was no reasoning this. There was no comforting or consoling. The world had lost it's reason and it's generosity. Kate's eyes went back to the front.

"Her blood went in my mouth, Max."

I had nothing to say that time. I heard her gag, I pulled away as she fell to her knees and threw up all over herself and the sidewalk. She was almost screaming with how hard she was crying.

"Get up Kate, we'll clean you up. It's gonna work out." I urged through my own sobs and pulled Kate up. I practically dragged her inside the dorms. Others inside averted their eyes and held their breath out of pity and disgust. I took Kate into the shower room.

"Get in the shower Kate." I said, almost ordered. She nodded and entered one of the stalls. "Give me your clothes, I'll get them washed. I'll bring you more."

"O-okay." She whimpered from behind the curtain. I waited and listened to she sound of her trying to calm down and stripping herself. My thoughts raced, flickering from the images of Taylor splattered on the floor and back to the present. I needed to focus on the now. I need to take care of Kate. I need to take care of Victoria and Chloe too. I should check on them...

"Here, Max." Kate's fragile voice snapped me out if my thoughts. Her pale hands stuck out of the shower holding her ruined clothes out to me.

"I'll be back in a few minutes with clothes, okay?"

"Okay."

The water turned on, I took it as my cue to leave her. I rinsed off her clothes in the sink for a second, scaring her with the cold water; I apologized profusely and left with the wet clothes. I threw them in the community laundry bin the girls had in the hall and made for my room. Kate had slowly began moving into my dorm. It was rather cramped at this point since I already shared it with Chloe. I didn't mind much though. It was nice to keep my friends close and know that they're safe. However, on my way to my room, I could hear shouting coming from Victoria's dorm. There was banging and shouting from behind her closed door. Instinctively I opened it and was shocked to see Chloe and Victoria wrestling on her floor, the two fighting for a knife.

"What the fuck are you two doing?!" I screamed. Victoria stopped fighting to look up at me, Chloe ripped the knife out of the blonde's hands and scrambled to her feet.

"She was trying to kill herself." Chloe panted. "You can be mad at me all you want, Max, but I'm not fucking losing two people today." Chloe was red in the face, both from anger and from being so tired. I blinked at her, examining the anger in her eyes.

"...I'm not mad at you." I decided was the best response. Chloe softened and nodded slightly. "Can you go get Kate something to wear? She's in the showers, I need to talk to Vic."

"Sure, Max." Chloe muttered lowly and left the room, she put the knife in my hand before she departed fully. I looked down at the blade in my hand, it was bloody but still shining. My gaze went to Victoria whom still lay defeated on the floor, panting.

"...Were you really going to?" I asked. Victoria's fine features contorted into a grimace as another bout of tears escaped her.

"I don't know!" She exclaimed. "I wanted to...I want to! I want to die, Max! I can't handle all this!"

"No one is handling this!" I shouted back. "We're all fucking dying inside, Victoria! All of us want to die! But we're not going to give up like this. We're going to fight for everyone who has died." I threw the knife down onto the floor in the doorway and pawed my way onto the floor beside Victoria. "You can't just quit after working so hard." Victoria was fighting herself, I could see it in her eyes. Her breathing was spastic but she was trying to relax. My hand made it's way to her back, scratching slow circles over her torso. Victoria and I sat on her bedroom floor for what felt like days. Eventually she relaxed and sat up. Quietly she thanked me.

"Don't make me do this again, Victoria. I'm not losing you." I replied sternly. She looked so confused but nodded. "Did Chloe bring you food?"

"Y-yeah, but I'm not-"

"Eat." I interjected as I rose to my feet to walk out. "And go to bed. Its been a long day."

"Hella." Victoria jested with a faint smile. It brought a tiny smirk to my lips hearing that.

"Hella indeed."

I left Victoria's room. I took her knife with me.

I was back on course to my dorm. When I entered I found Kate sitting in Chloe's lap on my bed. Chloe appeared to be asleep as she leant against the wall. Kate was eating very slowly. Her tired eyes locked with mine, she smiled faintly.

"Thank you for looking out for me all this time, Max." Kate said gently. "You're the one thing I still believe in."

I didn't understand what she meant at first, then I noticed her rosary was sitting on my desk instead of around her neck. I felt a twinge of guilt.

"You should wear it still, Kate. Just because he hasn't been helping today doesn't mean he won't tomorrow, right?" I insisted, picking up the golden rosary and walking it over to Kate. She mustered a half smile.

"I suppose..."

"It helps to have something to believe in." I continued and returned the rosary to where it belonged. Kate's smooth skin was hot to the touch, I could feel her pulse as I clasped the rosary back on her. My hands got momentarily tangled in her wet hair, it was still odd seeing it down despite how often I saw it that way as of late. "Thank you for believing in me, Kate." I held her face gently and planted a peck on her forehead, her hand briefly went to mine and she smiled. I sat myself next to them and watched Chloe's breathing. She changed and showered as well. She was wearing one of my old shirts and some shorts. Chloe was out like a light.

"Did Chloe eat?" I asked Kate.

"Only a little. She gave me the rest of here because I told her I threw up earlier..." Kate responded. I sighed.

"You selfless dork." I mumbled at my sleeping companion. I planted a kiss on her cheek and curled up in a ball at the head of my bed.

Today was too long.

Tomorrow would be even longer.