"Sometimes I claim to know a guy but I can't tell you what his hands look like."
A Time to be Alive
Chapter One
A long time ago, someone told her to trust her gut feelings. Omid had said that. Or maybe it was Chuck. Clementine always remembered the important things, but after a while it got harder to remember whose voice had said them.
"Christa, talk to me." She said to the woman sitting next to her. Christa stared ahead, letting the rain drip over her skin like someone too deep in thought to notice anymore. She was like that most days, since Omid died. She claimed to never blame Clementine, but after the baby ... Each day put a strain on their relationship, and each day she became more reclusive, her thoughts and her words growing more blunt and cold.
Christa sighed, muttering, "This'll never work."
Clementine's stomach flipped for a moment, thinking the time had finally come, until Christa stood and walked to weasel impaled over the fire. "Look at this. It's pathetic... The woods too wet to burn." She flipped the twigs around, exposing damp bark to the glowing embers. "At this rate we'll be eating this for breakfast."
"What else can we do?" Clementine asked, hoping Christa could think of something she hadn't.
"Find something that'll burn, maybe. I dunno. Won't be easy in the dark and in the rain."
Clementine sighed, quietly though. Almost anything could set her off, not that she could really blame her. The last couple of months had been especially hard on them both. It had been ages since they could scavenge enough from the houses and rest stops that they came across, and they yielded next to nothing from the woods, beside some plants and very small game. One of Christa's traps had actually caught a wounded cougar the week before, but Clementine couldn't bring herself to kill it. She half thought Christa would hit her when she found out. She was so angry, it was frightening to be on the wrong end of it.
The older woman looked over her shoulder, catching Clementine's eye. "You should be doing this, not me." She stood, spreading her arms out. "Tending a fire, so you can cook and stay warm. It's something you have to be able to do, Clementine. Otherwise..."
"I know, I can do it. I'm sorry..." Clementine said, knowing she couldn't win with her. The rain had followed them for weeks as the months passed and the weather grew colder. They just couldn't make fire happen with soggy wood and torn, outworn clothes, but without any help there was no other option but to make do with what they had. "We need to find a group." She said. "People we can trust. We've been on our own for too long."
"Trust?" Christa scoffed. "You think you can trust anyone out here? Not now. Not anymore."
A gust of wind swept through their campsite, making the fire sputter. Christa shielded it with her hands, mumbling curses. Clementine's clothes were damp from the rain, sucking the warmth from her body as she shuddered violently. "I'm freezing."
"You think this is bad? Wait 'til we get to Wellington. Then talk to me about the cold."
Clem hugged herself tight, remembering their first winter in Georgia, then when they walked along the foothills, and eventually to North Carolina, where they'd holed up in an abandoned bed n' breakfast until bandits drove them out to the woods. Sometimes it seemed like the entire world was out to get them, not just the dead but the remaining living as well.
"If we even make it there," Christa said, echoing her thoughts. "We still have a couple hard months ahead of us." She looked up to the sky, letting the drops of water hit her face impassively. "This rain will turn to sleet. Then ice. Then snow. It won't be easy."
"Do you think it'll be safer there?" Clementine asked.
"Safer than here, because of the cold. Or so they say. We just need to keep moving north."
They sat in silence after that. Christa kept tending to fire, adding stripped pieces of bark and dead grass from her pockets. Clementine thought of their time in the RV, when they camped by the train just after they met Chuck. That quiet old man sure knew a trick or two, lighting a match on the side of his boot and making a tiny origami kite from one of her leaf rubbings. Lee helped her tie it to the RV's antennae, and they watched it fly sporadically in the wind and free guitar notes.
"I miss Lee..." She whispered absently. Christa shared a look of sympathy with her, the cynicism melting from her face. "I know you do ... I..." She swallowed her words, dropping her stick. "I'm going to look for more wood. You just keep the fire lit."
Clementine watched her leave. The fire grew dimmer, to the point where only the glowing undersides hissed when rain droplets hit. She sighed, getting up to her sore feet. She pulled her old backpack out from the hollow log she sat on and unzipped it. Lee's polite smile greeted her serenely from the torn picture placed on top of her things. Her heart sunk a little lower as she pushed it aside, only to find an old crayon drawing of Kenny, Katjaa, and Duck she'd scrawled so many lifetimes ago. At times she wondered if keeping these mementos were simply a masochistic reminder of her defiance, one that she was unable to get rid of, like the scar on her knee when she climbed the tree in her backyard before her dad built the treehouse that eventually saved her life. For a wild moment she thought about burning them in the embers, just to bury them in the past. Then she saw a glint of silver and grabbed the Zippo lighter, the faded butterfly sticker still clinging on one side.
She pulled out a crumpled up receipt from her jeans, lighting it and sticking it under the pyramid of sticks. It blazed a bit, but not enough to keep going for more than a few minutes. She shucked a moldy log next to the fire that they'd kept for when the fire died down late in the night, praying Christa had more luck with finding something better to burn.
A voice she didn't recognize alerted her to stand, whipping her head around for the source. It was far off, but aggressive enough to carry through the trees.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
She crept through the brush, finding three armed men surrounding Christa. "I-I'm by myself!" She heard Christa say. One of the men spat tobacco at her feet. "You're obviously with someone, where's your group?"
"Don't fucking lie to us!"
One of the men held a hunting rifle up to eye level. "Give us the truth and you don't get hurt!"
Clem hid behind a tree, watching them shove Christa between them. "I-I told you I'm by myself!"
"Bullshit! Where's the rest of your group?
"She's lying!"
One of them pulled a gun out and aimed it at her head. "Cut the shit, lady."
Clementine grabbed a rock at her feet and chucked it at the nearest man's head, stunning him when it hit his ear. He yelped in pain as she shouted, "Christa, RUN!"
"Augh - hey!"
She bolted, running past their campsite as she heard them hit Christa and feet crashing through the brush after her. She ducked behind a tree, hoping they'd give up. "Get the fuck over here! NOW!"
She ran as soon as the bandit looked away, dodging toppled trees and rocks a split second before she could trip on them. She was fast, but the woods were blackened by the stormy sky, making every step an obstacle. She tripped, landing on her chin and clacking her teeth together. The guy chasing her grabbed her ankle and dragged her back. She grabbed at the nearest loose rock and slammed it on his knuckles.
"Aw - FUCK!" He yelled, letting her go. She scrambled to her feet and ran, nearly bumping into a walker. She slid sideways and went the other way, over brambles that scratched at her skin. The man came up on the walker, and she snapped a branch off a fallen tree, skirting around them to jab at the person chasing her. "Gah - are you fucking kidding me?!"
She bolted again, running with an eye over her shoulder until the ground changed to soft dirt and she skid to a stop just in time at the edge of the ravine. The river she and Christa had been following thundered below.
Something crashed into her, nearly throwing her off the edge if he hadn't bear-hugged her midsection. She screamed, "Leave me alone!"
"Stop fucking squirmin- AAAUUGH FUCK!" He yelled as she bit into his thumb and dropped her.
She scrambled into a hollowed dead tree. The man grabbed her ankle again, drawing her out and grabbing at her wrists. She kicked and wailed on his limbs, until the walkers closed in on them. She glimpse one next to a boulder on their right and swung her weight in that direction. The walker grabbed at the man as he screamed, tearing at his flesh.
Clememtine backpaddled away from the encroaching dead, tossing a stone at the mass. Her hand sunk in empty air and she crashed backwards into the ravine, tumbling into the freezing water. The air was stolen from her lungs as her body flailed in the currents, until her head popped above the surface with a heaving gasp. She couldn't see where the water was taking her, and she tried to cling against boulders ineffectually until the river spread out. She floated on her back, feeling her head want to sink as she struggled to keep her lungs filled with air so she wouldn't fall beneath the surface. She clutched at sharp grass, anchoring herself on some cattails. She dragged herself ashore, just enough to lay her head on soft leafy mud before blacking out.
Clementine woke up choking on water. The sky was a bright gray above, and the river calm like it had never been a raging force of nature the night before. The currents had spat her out on a muddy bank, the tide rising enough to splash her face awake.
She groaned weakly, pulling herself up only to double over as her ribs protested fiercely to the movement. Her entire body felt bruised and heavy. She glanced at her surroundings, finding only a small embankment walled off by a steep, rocky ledge. No walkers though, which was a plus. No Christa either.
"Hello?" She tried. Nothing but echo. Super.
She hugged her body close, shivering as she walked up and down the path, finding only a canoe snapped in half and upturned in the water, and a shoddy, half rotted set of stairs that poked out from the ledge at a downward angle. The edge was only a couple feet over her head, possibly climbable. She jumped up, twice, and caught the edges with her fingers, forcing her body up over the edge.
She lay there a moment, breathing hard and lamenting the weariness her body suffered. How long had it been since they'd been attacked? She couldn't spot the precise angle of the sun and had no way of telling the time. Had Christa gotten away? From the sounds of it ... Probably not. Tears welled up in Clementine's eyes. That couldn't be right. They were smart, they survived. She had to keep going.
She got up and went up the stairs, seeing nothing but more woods and a skinny trail snaking through the trees. "Christa, are you there?" Silence, which wasn't exactly a bad thing, considering. She pressed forward, past the cross-shaped stick shoved into the dirt and the sign stuck into the head of a corpse warning her of BLACK BEARS, COYOTES, MOUNTAIN LIONS, POISONOUS SNAKES, and OTHER SPECIES.
She walked for an hour, or several hours, she couldn't tell from under the pines and the general fog her mind drifted in. She hopped clumsily over a fallen tree, feeling the wind pick up and shuddered in her cold, soaked-through clothes. Though the trail was fairly flat with little obstacles, the misty pine trees seemed endless. Anything could rush her and she would have nowhere to go but out there, into that infinity of dense nature, until she dropped of sheer exhaustion.
Movement shocked the bushes near her. Alarm clenched her muscles, all of a sudden thinking of lions and tigers and bears. A dirty tail wagged in midair, making her think coyote before she saw a mid-sized yellow dog sniffing at an empty can. It turned to her with a clink of its blue collar, ears perked at her footsteps. She froze, heart beginning to thud. The dog growled, flattening it's ears.
"It's ok, boy," she said, reassuring both the dog and herself. "It's ok."
The dog perked up at her voice and yapped, presumably satisfied that Clementine wasn't a walker. "You gonna be cool?" She crouched and held out her hand. The dog went still, like when they're about to bite or run away. "I'm not going to hurt you."
He sniffed her fingers, bumping his nose in her palm and licking in approval. Clementine grinned, enjoying the small victory by saying a soft "Good boy," and scratched at the matted clump of fur behind the ears, surreptitiously checking his name tag. "Sam. Nice to meet you.""
The dog trotted off, sniffing at this and that, occasionally looking back at her in case she was following. He stilled again, looking at something in the bushes. "Whatcha doing, Sam?"
He suddenly barked and barreled through the foliage. "Sam! Where're you going?" She hesitated on the edge of the trail, then decided why not?, as her only other option was to simply keep walking alone. "Wait up!"
They came upon an abandoned campsite, trash littered around the rusted over Volkswagen van and a couple shredded tents just barely hanging on to their poles. Sam happily bounded after a squirrel, jumping over one of the sitting logs until the critter scampered up a tree. There were no visible signs of life. Clementine called out for good measure, but nothing responded.
Suddenly Sam's bark changed, his haunches raised and growling at something behind the tree. "Shhhh, we have to be quiet." Clem hushed, circling the tree with a wide berth. A corpse sat tied up to the trunk, nearly bald and not too recently dead, a folding knife wedged into the bone in its bicep. It didn't move for so long she thought it was actually dead, until popping noises in its neck gave away it's attempt at movement.
"It's ok, Sam. He can't hurt us." She scooted around its reach so she was in front of it. "We're smart and they're not. We're smarter than all of them."
She had to get that knife, but the walker was starting to reach for her now. She picked up a sturdy branch, her muscles still strained from fighting mano-a-mano with the river. She slammed it down on its cranium with all her weight, fracturing the bone. She swung again, this time snapping its neck and caving the skull in. It's searching arm slumped, only a struggled hissing was left. One more time, she grunted as the branch snapped in her hand upon impact, taking a chunk of skull and brain tissue with it.
"See?" She informed Sam between breaths. "We just need to stay out of their reach." She yanked the knife out, wiping the blood off on her jeans. "At least we found something useful."
The rest of the campsite was pretty barren. She rooted through the boxes in the van, finding nothing except a couple snapshots of a cheery couple with their dog and little girl. She glanced over at Sam, who was gnawing at an itch. That explained the walker tied up to the tree, but what happened to the rest of his family? Why didn't they take their dog?
She spotted a frisbee amid some garbage. "Hey Sam!" The dog flinched and looked at her. "Wanna play catch?" She flung the disc, triggering the dog's reaction to run after it like mad. She cheered when he caught it, returning it obediently near her feet.
"Again?" She threw it badly, but he dove for it nonetheless. A small part of her realized this was the first time she ever played fetch with a dog. She had a friend in elementary school, whose name she no longer remembered, that had a humongous Great Dane older than the both of them put together. Her mother hated taking her there, thinking it would bite or simply sit and smother Clementine, though all it ever did was eat and snore.
The third time landed the frisbee in the trash barrel with a clank and a cloud of flies dispersing out of it. Sam circled it twice before sitting down next to it expectantly. Clementine sigh, "I guess it is my fault."
The smell was nearly eye watering. She gingerly picked up the frisbee with two fingers when she noticed a can of baked beans. She tapped the bottom of it with her fingernail. It was solid and unopened. "Oh my god, thank you!" She said, digging it out from the trash. She showed Sam her find, "Look, Sam! A can!"
Sam barked, Nice job!
"I know, right? Let's see what's inside."
She sat on one of the logs by the barbecue, flipping her knife out. Please don't be bad... She prayed, then stabbed at the lid and pried it open. "Oh, thank god." She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of regular cold beans. She scooped some out with her hands, convinced it was the most delicious food she'd ever eaten.
Sam whimpered. She looked up at the dog flicking his eyes between her and the can. "How do people ever say no to sad, puppy eyes?" She chuckled, dumping beans out onto her cupped hand. "I bet you're pretty hungry too."
She offered the handful out. Sam lapped them up, cleaning off every single one. She smiled just as he lunged and snapped the can out of her hand. "Hey!" She said, standing up. "Don't eat it all!" The words fell from her mouth as the dog jumped up snarling. She had a slit second to protect her face and felt teeth sink into her forearm.
She fell backwards, screaming as Sam thrashed his head with jaws clamped tight on her arm. She punched at his snout, frantically searching for her knife. The spilled can of beans lay to her right, the jagged edge glinting suggestively. She grabbed it and dragged it across the dogs face. Sam yelped, finally letting go in surprise.
Clementine saw her knife by her feet. She reached for it as Sam bared his teeth and lunged again. She kicked at him with both feet, sending him flying over a log. She snatched her knife, backpedaling away and waited with wild eyes. After a few seconds she realized a something was wrong, he wasn't coming after her anymore. Her stomach churned in dread, hearing to feeble barks turn to whines somewhere just out of sight. She hauled herself to her feet and approached with her knife out, though not expecting him to pop up and bite her throat.
"Oh no," The tent poles ... His dirty paws were kicking helplessly, stunned wide eyes rolling back in their sockets. She quickly looked away, but the image was already burned in her mind. Why is this happening to me? The flailing degraded to odd, involuntary twitching, as through he were dreaming about still chasing that squirrel.
"This is so messed up," Clementine whispered, kneeling by his head. She stroked his head as her throat tightened, then bunched the loose fur at the back of his neck in her fist. "Shhhhh, it's ok ... I ... I'm sorry, Sam." She slid her knife across his visibly racing pulse, one long, final whine escaping him as his body slowly relaxed. Hot tears blurred her vision and ran down her face as she stared straight ahead.
As soon as she could think clearly enough, Clementine stood up and left without a second look back, only an arm of ripped flesh to remember it by.
She walks for hours, days, or maybe only fifteen minutes. The only indication that time was passing was the fading visibility. The wound on her arm felt like the flesh had been torn off from the muscle, and the air felt colder around it and stung in the breeze. She had to find help, a first aid kit, and if there was a god, some painkillers.
Everything looked different and the same. For all she knew she'd been walking in circles. Her feet ached and stumbled the more and more steps she took. Delirium was dangerously close to taking hold of her mind. She focused on the throbbing in her arm to stay alert.
Eventually she slumped against a rock, biting her tongue to stop from crying out. The trees spun as though they were film stuck on a loop, even as she pressed her temple to the cool moss. Her mouth felt dry and she couldn't stop her eyelids from fluttering. This is bad... She thought. If I just sit here like this I'm going to die.
She was so tired. Physically and emotionally wrecked, sick of losing people, of wondering if today was the day the walkers or bandits would get her, constantly feeling scared, lonely, weak, hungry, and just so tired.
Well, it's not like anyone makes it out alive.
She chuckled humorlessly. What would Lee think of her, sprawled there on the ground feeling sorry for herself? I know you can do it, sweet pea... He'd say. You got to move!
"Just five minutes, Lee." She dozed for a breath or two, then opened her eyes. There, on her 2 o'clock. A blurry walker in the distance. And where there's one, there's always more somewhere out of sight. She blinked slowly, noticing the growls of another walker as it shambled from behind a tree. Shit.
She forced her limbs to move, though it was like wading through from under a swimming pool. She tumbled out of the path of a third walker about to cut her off. Everything was taking on a rosy hue. She groaned, dragging each forced step in front of the other. She could hear the snarls grow louder. She wasn't going to make it.
The corpse of a girl in a pink sweater lunged at Clem, the two collapsing hard to the ground. Rolling over, she narrowly missed the walker's ragged fingers from clawing her face. The smell of rot and filth invaded her senses. Fueled by adrenaline, she kicked at the walker, trying to shove the weight off. She screamed from the effort, trying to avoid the gnashing, broken teeth as she yanked at it's long ropey hair, only for it to rip loose with a clump of scalp.
Not like this, she thought frantically. Her injured arm buckled. She shut her eyes tight.
She heard a wet crunch that didn't come from her, and the putrid dead weight slid off. Bewildered, she blinked dizzily around, seeing an orange blur of a man above her wielding a machete.
An arrow shot through the air and lodged itself in an walker's eye. A voice to the right shouted, "I'm out! Grab her and let's go!"
"C'mon kid, we gotta get!" She felt herself being lifted, her face lolling onto her rescuer's chest. She got a glimpse of an older man in a green jacket sparing them a quick glance. "Let's move!"
They ran through the woods, not bothering with any of the walkers they skirted past. Clem clenched her teeth to ignore the pain in her arm, instead trying to focus on something else. She took a deep breath, smelling grass and something else that tugged at an old memory that she couldn't quite visualize.
After a while they stopped to catch their breath. The older man surveyed the trees behind them. "I think ... I think we're safe."
Clem tried to snap back alert with only mild success, feeling rather deranged. "Yeah ... Yeah, we're good." The man holding her said, following the others line of sight. He had a young face, maybe in his early twenties, with light brown hair that could probably use a trim. He looked down at her with concerned interest. "Hey, you all right?"
"I ... I think so," Clem mumbled.
"Yeah, well I used to think I could stick it to major record labels. Doesn't make it true," he quipped. "You look like you're in pretty bad shape."
Clem smiled against his chest. "Well, at least I'm not dead yet. That's a start."
The older man chuckled. "That's the spirit."
They continued walking towards the drifting sun. "So what are you doing out here by yourself?" The man in green continued. "Where are the uh, people you're with?"
Clem hesitated, wondering what may have happened to Christa. How far did the river currents carry her? It struck her then that she would likely never see her again. The last remnant of their original group, gone. The older man added, "I don't want them to think we're doing anything but trying to help you."
"I'm alone." She whispered. "Everyone I know is gone. It's just me now."
The two men shared a look of sympathy. "I'm sorry to hear that," Green-jacket man said. "I just lost a sister. We've all lost folk."
A moment of silence passed, everyone presumably thinking of lost loved ones.
"Well, I'm Luke." The man carrying her said, gesturing to the other with his chin. "And this is Pete."
Pete gave her a nod. "Hey there."
A small, sleepy smile snuck up on her. "Hi, I'm Clementine."
"It's nice to meetcha, Clementine." Luke said. "For now we're heading back to our group. We got a doctor with us and you look like you could use some - OH SHIT!" He tossed her out of his arms like she'd burst into flames. She suppressed a yelp and threw him a dirty look.
Pete looked scandalized, turning on Luke. "What the hell, boy? What is it?"
"She ... She's been bit, man. FUCK!" Luke began pacing, running his hands through his hair. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! What are we going to do here?"
"No, wait!" She exclaimed, catching up with their train of thought. "It was just a dog!"
"I didn't see any dog, Clementine." Pete said, brows furrowing.
"Come on, kid! We just saw you with those lurkers!" Luke said, waving a hand in the direction they'd come from.
"I can't even remember the last time I saw a dog."
"It was! Please, just look at it!"
Luke scoffed. "Yeah, and have you sink your teeth into Petes's neck? No way."
Pete made a face. "My neck? Why am I the one?"
"Cause I don't know a dog bite from a mosquito bite from a lurker bite, man!"
"No! It really was a dog!" Clem pleaded, "Please believe me!"
Luke sighed. "Look, I want to kid ... But I gotta believe my own two eyes first, and I didn't see no dog around."
"No, it was from before!" She said, though even she could hear the defeat in her voice. How much worse could this day get? She met Pete's scrutinizing gaze as he crossed his arms, silently weighing their options. "Hmm ... All right. Let's see it."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, watch yourself." Clementine gave Luke an indignant look. "Hey, don't look at me like that! You're the one who's bit here, ok." He folded his arms and looked away.
Pete gently took her arm, peeling the blood soaked sleeve back to reveal the still-oozing bite. Clementine tried to keep from flinching by gritting her teeth. "See?"
Luke peeked over his shoulder. "Is it uh, is it like she says?"
"Hmm ... Well, could be a dog. Hard to say." Pete murmured. Clementine felt like screaming in frustration. Despite understanding their caution, she wished she could catch a break and just make them realize she was being truthful. Just this one time. She bit her tongue.
"So where'd this dog go? The one that did this?"
Sam's frenzied paws and eyes rolling white flashed through her mind.
"Now just ... what does that matter. Pete? Seriously." Luke asked, looking uncomfortable.
"I killed it." Clementine said flatly.
"What?" Luke said incredulously. "Really? A dog shows up and bites you and you just kill it?"
"What would you have done?" Pete shot back.
"I don't know!"
"It attacked me!" Clementine said, irritated at his reaction. "What was I supposed to do, just let it chew off my arm?"
"Still! You don't ..." Luke sighed, running out of steam. "You don't kill dogs."
An awkward silence followed. Pete looked her straight in the eye. "Clementine?"
Clementine gulped. "Yes?
"You telling us the truth?"
Without faltering, she looked right back at him and said, "What do you think?"
"Hmmph." Pete held her gaze for a long, thoughtful moment, then nodded. "All right, Clementine. That's good enough for me."
"What? Hey, that's not even an answer."
"She doesn't like being called a liar. I wouldn't like it either." Pete carefully pulled the sleeve back over the bite. "I got a good bullshit detector, Luke. That's why you could never beat me at poker."
"Pssh, you don't always beat me at ..." He trailed off as Pete helped Clem on her feet. "All right, all right, but how can you be sure?"
"Well I'm sure I ain't willing to leave a young woman in the woods to die when we got a doctor with us who can make a call." Pete snapped. "We can have Carlos take a look at it first."
Luke took a hard look at Clementine wobbling on her feet before saying, "Nick ain't gonna like this. Not with what happened with-"
"You don't have to remind me of that, boy." Pete said quietly.
Luke looked away sheepishly. "Right. Sorry, sir."
Pete patted him on the shoulder, then said, " C'mon."
They walked towards the thinning trees until they came up on a ridge overlooking the sunset dipping behind a two story log cabin. A thin stream of smoke trailed from a chimney pipe, and Clem could make out a warm glow through the curtained windows. It was the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen in years. Despite everything that had happened, and had yet to happen, she felt an immense wave of relief sweep through her body. She was far from out of the woods, so to speak, but that warmth in her heart ignited a much needed hope.
The two men stopped at the edge of the slope for her to catch up. Pete called out to her, "Clementine, you all right?"
"Yup, super. Just ... tired."
"Well you better be super," Luke said unnecessarily. "Cause I ain't carrying you anymore with that bite on your arm."
She tried to glare at him, but her face couldn't pull it off. "Don't worry about..." She trailed off, feeling her body go limp. Luke saw her head tip back and said "Ah, shit." before going to pick her up off the ground.
Hooray! Chapter one is up and we're finally about to meet the group! This next part is going to be hard, what with getting everyone's personalities cohesive enough to remain distinct like the game. I hope it do it justice! If you like what you're reading, please feel free to scribble a review of what you think. It really helps!
