Identity of the Heart

Giggles waited until everyone else was asleep before she started walking to the van. Trudging down the dirt path that circled through the forest, she listened to the sounds of the night around her. Crickets chirped out of the trees in a low-static buzzing. The tree's leaves rustled like sandpaper above her. It felt strange that just a few miles away from such a peaceful place, there was a full blown annihilation of mankind going on.

And it scared her. Not that this was anything new though. Ever since she could walk, Giggles had been a girly girl who shrieked at the sight of things like spiders. It only felt commonplace to feel terrified at the idea of something that was actually dangerous being so close. After all, it was what she was accepted to do. She couldn't help being the damsel in distress all the time. It just happened….

For as long as she could remember, her life had been pleasant with lemonade stands, slumber parties and bows in her hair. To some girls this may have been fun, but not Giggles. She knew from a very early age that there was more to life than gossiping about what guys were cute and who was popular. Sure, these were the times when she actually wanted to break out of her shell and find out what life was really about, but that didn't really seem worth it at all. She was a normal girl. Just like the rest of them. And if she wanted to fit in, she had to get exactly what all of the other girls got out of life. Absolutely nothing.

Giggles sighed as she walked down the trail. It was all so stupid. Not just the road trip from hell she was on, but everything in general. Things really hadn't made sense for a long time. Everything seemed like a lie that hadn't been real since the dawn of time. And there was only one person in the whole world who had a way of clearing things up…

As the trail ended at a marked fence, she could see the van sitting out on the road. And he was there too. He looked like he was at the verge of passing out, but he was definitely there. Walking out onto the road with the cold night air whipping at her cheeks, she pulled herself up onto the van's dashboard. For a second she hoped he would notice her and turn around, but he didn't. He just stared out into space with the rifle cradled in his arms. She smiled softly as she pulled herself up beside her boyfriend.

"You're shift's up, Cuddles", Giggles said. "Time to pack up for the night".

"Eight", Cuddles said blankly. "I got eight of em'. It would have been nine but I only scared the last one away. How much time do we have until we clear out?"

"Only a few hours. We're going to play it by ear and wait until the thunder so we can clear out of here before sunrise". She paused. "You might want to sleep a little before we're back on the road".

"No thanks", Cuddles replied brightly. "I like the outdoors. The breeze feels really good tonight, dontcha' think?"

He was smiling, and this was what terrified her more than anything else. He was actually enjoying their little adventure. Shaking her head, she crawled over and rested a hand on his shoulder. He didn't give much of a reaction.

"You're a nervous wreck", Giggles said. "I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. Why don't you put down that gun and we'll walk back to camp together. Then we'll sit in the tent, calm down a little, and just lie down and talk. Just like old times. Doesn't that sound good?"

"We can talk out here", Cuddles said quietly. "And I really can't sleep".

"I found some sleeping pills in the clinic before hell broke loose", Giggles offered. "My mom used them all the time after she finished working the graveyard shift at the hospital and couldn't sleep. If you pop one you'll sleep like a log".

"I've heard too many stories about people overdosing on those things", Cuddles said stubbornly. "I'm staying out here".

There was no point in trying to convince him anymore. Knowing Cuddles, he would just keep making excuses until the sun came up. This had been a problem in their relationship, almost to the point where she'd considered breaking up with him more than once, but there was no denying that he was a good person at heart. He was just too wrapped in his happy, little fantasy world to really give a damn about anything.

"Fine then", Giggles sighed. "We'll stay out here".

"That's good", Cuddles said. "That's really good".

There was a deafening moment of reticence between them for a moment. The sun's rays were peeking over the horizon now, shining a hue of dim orange out across the countryside. It wasn't like the orange of the cloud though. It was an orange where neither of them felt any fear. She snuggled up closer to him, feeling his warmth on her. He seemed to return her feelings this time, nudging against her and wrapping his arm around her.

"Remember that time last summer when we snuck out at midnight and went to catch that movie downtown?" Cuddles asked.

"I try to forget", Giggles said with a shudder. "I swear, when I came home, I thought my mom was going to have a heart attack. She doesn't like you, you know. She was always saying that you were going to be the one that got me killed one day".

Cuddles smirked. "So she thinks I'm an idiot?'

"She thinks you're careless, but same thing I guess. I can't really blame her. She was just watching out for me. I mean, you can call me an accident magnet if you want. I get hurt a lot just because I want to live life for real instead of giggling and going to parties like all those other girls. If I just got a scab on my arm at the playground when I was little, she treated it like a flesh-eating disease".

"You want an adventure", Cuddles said. "A real adventure…"

He said it with a wishful expression on his happy face. He'd said things like this before, and all in all, they frightened Giggles to no end. There were even times where she'd thought he was some kind of sociopath. After all, even when he did something incredibly stupid that got her hurt, she ended up crawling back to him like nothing ever happened. He seemed to have this unnerving kind of control over her. You're in love. Not by traditional standards, but you're in love….

"Yeah", Giggles said finally. "I guess I do".

"Well, then that's what you got", Cuddles said with a smile. "The thrill of the open road, the adrenaline pumping through you. What else could you ask for?"

"To be back home safe and sound maybe?" Giggles replied. "I mean, this isn't an adventure, honey. This is hell, and the sooner I got out of here the better".

"I'm just trying to make the best out of a bad situation", Cuddles said. "I mean, there's no denying that things around here are bad. We all have to keep our chins up and come hell or high water, we have to keep on trucking. But I didn't like the way things were going before I left to keep watch. Have they gotten any better?"

"Sort of".

"What do you mean?"

"No one trusts eachother", Giggles sighed. "They're all kind of shaken up. But I think we're getting better..."

"Is everyone asleep?" Cuddles asked.

"They must be by now. I left the tent to go check up on you and they were all pretty much dozing off. Petunia went out like a light. She's such a control freak that she pretty much worked out all her energy until she passed out. The others all fell asleep after". She paused. "Flaky fell asleep with a gun in her hands, Cuddles. A gun, for Christ's sake! And none of us did anything about it! She's scared and paranoid and we're not doing anything to help her!"

"Well, you can't really blame her'", Cuddles said as he reloaded his rifle. "I mean, look at yourself. Can you really say that you trust half of the people here?'

She opened her mouth to reply, wanting to say that she would immediately give her life anyone in the group, but no words ended up coming out. He was absolutely right. It was a grim realization, but she had no other choice but to face the facts. When she looked at the group, she pictured herself standing behind a glass wall and watching it all fall apart. In the end, she was powerless to do anything. After all, off the top of her head, she could point out everyone's flaws. Flaky was paranoid, Nutty was frightened out of his mind, Petunia thought she was a leader, Cuddles was living in a dream and Shifty hated everyone without a second thought and dragged his brother down with him. And what about you? Where's your place in this mess?

"Well, maybe things will get better once we get back on the road", Giggles said finally. "If we just clear out minds we'll have a fresh slate and then we can start working together".

"Yeah right. Everyone hating each other will make things a hell of a lot easier…"

Giggles glared. "You don't have to be so pessimistic about it".

And then something strange happened. Making a strange groaning noise, he dropped the rifle to the roof of the van and looked over at her with his exhausted, black-lined eyes. The cheery demeanor that had kept him going was gone, and whatever he was feeling on the inside was beginning to come out.

"Damn it Giggles! You don't get it! I'm not trying to be pessimistic! I'm just doing my best to stay alive while everything's falling apart around me. I'm sick and tired of everyone yelling at her. Everyone needs to calm down. Things will be so much easier if everyone just calms down".

"Yeah, but-

And then he kissed her. She was shocked at first, but the feeling quickly passed when she felt his warm lips press against hers. His breathe was slightly sour from the lack of proper hygiene for the last couple of days, but that was the last thing on her mind. Closing her eyes, she tightened her grip on her boyfriend's shoulder as she locked lips with him on top of that van. For a moment, they were a world away from the suffering that was approaching in the form of a rain cloud only miles away from them. But then, just as quickly as he'd kissed her, Cuddles pushed himself away with an awestruck look on his face. It almost looked like he'd just seen a ghost.

"I'm sorry…" he stammered. "I just….it was…."

"No", Giggles said. "It was okay. I liked it…."

Neither of them spoke for a moment. While there had been compulsory love between them a second ago, there was now a strange moment of tension in the air. Giggles had the odd feeling that they were both waiting for the other to say something. But they weren't. In fact, Cuddles was looking away from her, staring out across the wind-whipped countryside as the leaves fluttered on the trees. All of the darkness on the horizon had finally vanished, leaving only the dull glow of the sun.

"I think it's time to go back", Cuddles said quietly. "It's going to be time to leave soon…."

"Promise me you'll sleep in the car?' Giggles pleaded. "I don't want to see you wreck yourself anymore than you have to".

"I'll sleep", Cuddles said.

"And can you make another promise?"

"Depends what it is".

"Promise me nothing's going to happen", Giggles sighed. Back home this would have been an occasion where she would have been sobbing, but since the horrors of the rain began, she'd cried herself dry of tears. "Promise nothing bad's going to happen to me…"

"I can't promise that", Cuddles said. "But I'll stay with you until the end".

Watching the sun's rays stretch out across the early morning, the two lovers climbed down from the van and decided that whatever happened happened.

He was running. He had no clue where he was going, but he knew was running. The road was stretching out in front of him in a hazy blur, with only the light in his corneas giving him an idea of where he should have been going. He was taking his time, tapping his cane out on the ground in front of him and getting a basic feel of where he was going. He could hear the sound of the clouds thundering behind him, probably a mile away by now, but it gave him no excuse to stop running.

The Mole was blind. Not in his definition, but by medical standards, it was what he was. Although he'd gone through countless surgeries, there was no changing the facts that he would be robbed of his vision for life. This would have gotten him sympathy from most people, but for him, it was only a minor inconvenience. After all, you had six senses. When one was gone, you had the time to develop the other five. Being blind was one of the very last things in his life that had troubled him. This wasn't hard to say, considering very little had actually fazed him in life. It was best to stay mellow.

But if there was one thing that had scarred him besides blindness, it was the horrors that he'd witnessed in the last several hours.

The Mole been working at the airport doing security when things had begun. It had been a normal day at first. It had always seemed nice that the management had offered to give him a job despite his handicap. But in the span of three minutes, things had gone to hell.

The sounds were enough to get him an idea of what was going on. Nightmarish howling. The guttural wrenching of people being clawed to death. Planes being struck by lightning and crashing to the ground The repetitive clatter of the rain gathering puddles on the tarmac outside. Things were getting bad. He couldn't see it, but they were obviously getting bad. So, reacting merely on instinct, he'd run out of the airport. And he hadn't stopped there either. Using his cane to get a sense of where he was going and tapping it against the road, he'd run for hours on end without any real clue of what to do next.

Sure, there had been times during the run where he'd nearly gotten himself killed. First he'd accidentally run into a stop sign. And then there had been that thing that had chased him before he'd lost it by hiding in what he thought was an alleyway. Nothing had stopped him from fleeing for his life though. In about an hour, he was able to guess that he'd finally left the town's border. It was hard to tell, especially with no real way to tell where he was, but the lack of noise and the feeling of stillness in the woods had him the idea that he was safe. That was when he'd finally started walking.

"You'll survive…" he thought. "You can do it. It'll be hard, but you can do it…."

Trudging along the forest path with his cane guiding the way, The Mole knew he should have been dead. After all, wouldn't it have made sense for there to be a poor blind causality in the whole mess? People wanted to feel sympathy for him, but in the end, all they needed to do was care about themselves. He was perfectly capable of living a normal life and as capable of surviving as they were.

The world was doubting his survival. And he would prove it wrong.

Just keep running….

And so he started again.