shots in the dark
prologue:
and the walls come tumbling down
A NOTE:
There are three things that everyone knows:
1) The Sanctuary is safe because of its walls.
2) The first is a flat out lie – the Sanctuary is a bomb waiting to go off.
3) But everyone ignores the second anyway, because it's easier to pretend.
::
In the end, everything's a blur. There's screaming and groaning - buildings are collapsing and zombies are surging and she's running even though she can barely breathe. Her mother's hand is loose, slipping out of her own sweaty palms, sliding out of her fingers, and the crowd rushes in. And then her mother is gone, swept away by the crowd. She can't see her dad or her brothers or her sister or–
She chokes back a sob and wants to curl into a ball and never move again, but her survival instinct is too strong and people are dying back there.
So she runs. She doesn't know where, and she doesn't know if she'll even make it there. She feels like she can't even think and that's scarier than anything.
Then, it's over as soon as it began. The screaming fades to a distant buzz, and her legs give out on her.
But, as Jinora lets herself cry, she knows that this is only the beginning.
I: Jinora
a sky full of stars
What happened?
The sun is tapping out an odd pattern in front of her eyes, not the glare of sunlight streaming through a dirty window that Jinora's grown accustomed to. It takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust, and she realizes that the sun is filtering through the bright green leaves of tree, and that she's leaning up against the tree's trunk.
Then, she remembers. The Sanctuary. The walls. The zombies. Her family. Dead, eaten or Turned?
She combs a shaking hand through her hair, her fingers getting tangled in her hair tie, so as she tries to undo it, so that the hair that had been held in a bun tumbles down. Her body is trembling, but she forces herself to stand anyway.
Survival class at the Sanctuary had prepared them as best it could, and she knows the first thing she needs is not food or water. If she wants to survive long enough to worry about those things, she needs a weapon.
She dusts off her clothes, the dirt already clinging to the fabric, and does a quick scan of the area for anything suspicious. There doesn't seem to be any zombies around, and she can see the burning ruins of the wall of the Sanctuary in the distance.
Blinking rapidly, her brown eyes unusually bright, she turns her back on her old home.
After walking a few blocks, Jinora finds a dead body in a half torn down building. It's been there for a while if the flies swirling around it are any indication, and the torn flesh makes her stomach churn. She wonders if it was someone from her Sanctuary, or if they were from another one. But there's a weapon; that's what's really important.
It's a long curved hunting knife, lying a few feet away from the man's body. Was it knocked out of his hand? His last hope of survival, gone? She grasps the hilt tightly and shakes the dust off the blade. There's some black smudges on the hilt and it leaves a dirty imprint on her fingers and palm.
The smell of death is too much to bare and she's grateful when she stumbles out of the building, her hands surprisingly steady. Jinora supposes she'll have to get used to death, sooner rather than later.
She is six when the outbreak starts in the Earth Kingdom capitol of BaSingSe. A vaccine gone wrong. It spreads, it dominates. Her family moves away from Republic City – cities are dangerous and full of people and the more people they are the more likely it is to get sick. It's not enough. They move to a safe place.
She is seven when she asks why they're surrounded by walls. "Because, darling," her mother, Pema, begins delicately, "there are dangerous things outside, and the walls keep us safe." It's enough of an answer for now, and when she's ten and starts school, she wishes she had never learned exactly what those dangerous things are.
Gaunt faces, sagging lines. Mottled, bloodstained skin and black teeth. Eyes that are black, like an endless abyss. "This is the most common zombie," her teacher explains. "They're called Commons. They are only a big concern in packs."
Blind eyes, skin hanging off and revealing bone, sounds of tongue gnashing against teeth, quivering ears. "These are Clackers. They use echolocation to find their prey, so the farther away and the quieter you are, the less chance they have of finding you. They usually hunt in small groups of two or three."
Skin stretched tight over bones, thinly veiling a skeleton, and long limbs and fingers. "Speedsters. They are the least common, but also the most dangerous, as they can easily outrun humans. You're only hope is to pray that they don't find you."
She remembers all of the kids in her class not wanting to talk after that lesson, too disturbed, too afraid. Even the loudest kid, a boy with a messy undercut, was solemn.
She remembers sobbing into her mom that night and her mom stroked her hair.
The second thing to worry about is shelter. There are plenty of abandoned buildings - remnants of the old world, before the outbreak, a few years after her birth. Jinora can recognize a few. There's a school, a few houses - small, collapsing in on themselves. The school looks like her old one: red-brick, two stories, only these windows are broken, and half of the building has been reduced to ruins, but some of the roof is still intact. It's familiar.
Jinora holes up inside it, clutching her new weapon tightly in her hand. It's not like she's actually going to sleep - not only is it dangerous, but she doubts she could if she tried. No, tonight is for thinking. She needs fire, water, and food. She needs to survive.
Now, she sobs alone. She sits and listens in the relative dark, her makeshift fire a sad excuse for one, and it does nothing to keep her warm.
It's only when she lies on her back, her body finally drained off tears, that she sees something beautiful. In the Sanctuary, they were kept safe by walls, and at night, a huge glass dome that revealed nothing of the outside world. Here, her eyes met a sight more beautiful than anything she ever could have imagined. Twinkling lights cover the vast inky blackness above her, burning bright and pristine, shining in her eyes.
Had this been here before, when she was a girl? Before the beginning of the end had started? She had been only five, too young to really remember, to know anything but the hellhole she was living in. The books she had managed to get her hands on had described fantastical things - magic and strange creatures and evil being overcome by good - but nothing compared to this.
A sigh escapes her lips. She wishes she could share this with her family; her father and mother and sister and brothers. Are they staring up at the same stars she is? Are they sharing this moment with her? She hopes so; she prays so.
In the morning the stars are gone, and so is her peace. Jinora isn't too troubled about it: peace never meant survival, after all.
Jinora quickly falls into a routine. She explores during the day, her fingers always itching to whip out her weapon if necessary. (Not that she really knows how to use it. While other teenagers left the Sanctuary to journey out and recover supplies, she stayed back helping keep the Sanctuary in working order. All had been for naught, apparently.) She scrounges up a bucket with barely any holes and leaves it at the school, so that it'll collect rainwater. She hasn't found a stream yet, only puddles, but dirty water - disgusting, foul and surely damaging - is still water.
Food is easier to come by. There's an old grocery store with flickering florescent lights still operating, full of food never used. Some of its gone: stolen and given back to the Sanctuary in the past, but most of it is usable. She lives off of expired juice and crackers and cereal. There are plenty of squirrels around, but she knows they are too fast for her to catch. Someday, perhaps, but not someday soon.
Sleeping is hard. There's the constant fear of being caught, of being killed, but her body gives into exhaustion. Her naps are short and sweet, the bare minimum.
Jinora survives though. No zombies have ever come her way (no humans either, she thinks glumly) and the walls of her old home are still smoking, but the fire is gone. The zombies, now multiplied, will come soon. She'll have to move on.
Which is why, with the basic necessities taken care of, she hopes to find a map. Even if it's outdated and slightly inaccurate, it'll give her an idea of the layout of the land. Knowledge is power, preparedness. She needs all the certainty she can get.
Jinora finds a map in a deserted and dusty place that once long ago sold houses to people. The place is a mess with smashed windows and some bloodstains, but the maps are untouched. She even manages to find a battered backpack buried underneath a group of rubble in the school, where she crams as much food and plastic water bottles from the grocery store, discovered in a backroom that had been locked until the door crumbled away the day before.
The teenager shoulders her backpack, tightly grips her knife and sets off from the school. The sun has only just risen: she wants to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. It rained last night, so the ground is muddy and every footstep covers her boots with flecks of mud and a squelching noise. She heads towards the grocery store, which is near the back of the town, planning on eating a meal and then leaving the town.
As always there are no zombies around when Jinora arrives there. The town is empty, for now, but even the smoke of the walls are fading, and she knows she has a day or two at most. This'll give her a head start, at the very least.
The door automatically opens and she steps in, artificial light greeting her eyes. She's strolling down the cereal aisle when she hears some shuffling from around the corner. Jinora raises her knife, not daring to call out. If it's a Clacker or a Speedster she's as good as dead. Or undead. Neither is an exciting prospect.
It takes a second for her insides to unfreeze, and cautiously, she takes a step back. Then, she's slammed onto the ground faster than she can blink, her head aching from its harsh contact with the floor, her eyes streaming with tears, a knife pressed against her throat, a body over hers. Her knife clatters as it skids away from her. "What are you doing?!" she chokes out, struggling to throw the stranger - human, thank God, human - off of her. She manages to worm an arm free and slams her fist into the human's face: dark skin, darker hair, green eyes.
Panting, the stranger rolls off of her, already back on his feet, swearing. "I thought you might be a zombie," he says, rubbing his jaw, tracing his fingers over a thin layer of stubble.
Jinora eyes him warily and picks herself off the floor to grab her knife. She doesn't put it away. "Well I'm obviously not," she snaps. She takes in his appearance: ratty jeans, a black jacket two sizes too big for him, a few scrapes on his face. Tall, lean, muscular. It's clear he's more equipped to be out here than she is. He looks vaguely familiar… maybe he's from her Sanctuary? It's relieving to know that some people may have survived.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes, and her anger dies down.
"It's fine," she mumbles. "I just came here to get food."
You're from my Sanctuary, right?" He runs a hand through his messy undercut, and she realizes that he was the loud boy from when she was a child. Who knew how much nine years could make such a difference.
"Yeah," Jinora says, sighing a little. The sudden common ground is jarring, yet makes the tenseness in her shoulders fade away. "The zombies will be coming soon, you know."
"I know. I'm hoping to get to the BeiFong Sanctuary on the other side. You?" he says it so casually it takes her by surprise. He has a plan. A goal. She hasn't really thought too much ahead of day to day. And the BeiFong Sanctuary is on the other side of the Earth Kingdom too.
"I dunno," she admits. Just surviving until the next town came up seemed plenty hard already.
"It's dangerous travelling alone," he warns.
Jinora narrows her eyes at him. "You're doing it."
He regards her for a moment before he half-smiles at her. He has a nice smile. Or maybe she only thinks that because he's the first human she's seen in almost two weeks. "I'm Kai." He sticks out his hand.
Hesitantly, Jinora shakes it. His palm is rough, calloused, but warm, strong. "Jinora."
"So Jin," Kai begins, and it irks her. Nobody calls her Jin; she's never been fond of nicknames. But she bites back her protest; it's not the time for it. "What do you say to not traveling alone?"
She wants to say that she barely knows him, that she can't travel with a complete stranger and it's on the tip of her tongue when she realizes: what other choices does she have? She'll never make it far on her own. Besides, she has nothing to lose.
"Sure," she shrugs, "why not?"
"Great," Kai readjusts the strap of his own backpack, bringing it up higher over his shoulder. "Let's eat quickly so the undead can't come and eat us."
"Are you always this cheerful?"
"Normally, no." Kai pulls a box of cheerios off the shelf.
Jinora rolls her eyes. "Fantastic."