She wakes up, the sound of birds chirping in her ear from the open window. A 27 year old Clementine opens her golden eyes and yawns. It is another new day since the apocalypse had ended about ten years ago. She stretches her stiff muscles, and swings her legs over the bed to stand up. It's early as she heads to the bathroom, squinting her eyes from the intruding sunlight that shone through the curtains in the bedroom. She feels groggy, as if though she had slept too long. But it wasn't even ten o'clock in the morning yet... Maybe she was feeling groggy from the nightmares.
After Clementine uses the bathroom, she takes a few extra moments to clean herself up. She washes her face, combs out her hair, and stares at herself in the mirror, her golden eyes bloodshot, her cheeks too hollow. She looked like hell in the morning, but she had somewhat always managed to keep up a rugged appearance, just like she had always managed to keep her hair short.
She had tried growing it out, once the whole end of the world thing was over, and she found herself hating hair length that went passed the chin. That was when Clem decided she'd get a much needed and much loved pixie cut, which was how she wore her hair today. It wasn't easily manageable, considering her hair was curly and tangled, but she made it work.
In exiting the bathroom, she found the smell of sausage and eggs infiltrating her nostrils, and Clem assumed that her husband was already downstairs preparing a quick breakfast before he headed off to work.
Yes, she had married. Not that it was something that she intended to do, Clementine just didn't want to be alone anymore after she had gone through and witnessed such horrible things. In marriage, they couldn't leave you so willingly, and Clem liked that. She met her husband in college, after most of the world had been rebuilt. Did she love him? She didn't really know, but love was a funny thing to Clem; it was something she didn't really understand too well. But this was her life now, and she'd have to learn to accept it.
Slipping on her house shoes, Clementine bounded down the stairs eager to eat some breakfast. Her stomach growled in anticipation when she approached the kitchen. "Morning." She greeted tiredly.
"Good morning, sweet pea..." But she didn't hear a thing after her husband spoke those last two words. He had never called her that before, nobody had called her that before since Lee, and Clementine didn't want to hear it right now. How could one single nickname or phrase bring back so many haunting memories? She had tried for so many years just to forget everything, but she clearly saw that it was impossible if memories could be triggered by a single word. God she missed Lee so much. "Is there something wrong?" Her husband asked, noticing her terrified demeanor all of a sudden. Clem was frozen in her steps, the thought of breakfast all but just forgotten as she relived her years in the zombie apocalypse. Everyone she had ever lost had crossed her mind.
"Don't call me sweet pea." She finally managed to get out, and sat down at the kitchen table
