The Time That Passes

by AbigailBell

The story is as follows... Ireland Hayes and her younger sister, Willow, have survived the outbreak of the infection that creates the walking dead. Now they live day to day, meal to meal in the fallout of what is left of the world while the infected are still roaming the streets of abandoned cities. They now resign in abandoned underground bunker. Reviews are appreciated.

14. Into the Woods

Into the Woods
Chapter 14

I stare at the ceiling. My breath has caught back up to me and the exhilarating thrill dissipated awhile ago. Humiliation and shame fills me. I acted out of pure longing and whim. I never really thought what I was doing until it was all over. This was worse than crying, I showed and expressed myself completely to him. The more I think about it, he barely knows me. It doesn't matter anyway. That life before the outbreak is long behind me and fully vanished when Willow died.
I couldn't stay in that bed any longer, I felt suffocated. Daryl sleeps with his back to me. He wasn't exactly a light sleeper so sneaking out from the covers wasn't a challenge.
I grab my clothes and tiptoe out of the room. Putting on my boots, I grab my bow and arrows and leave the house. I needed to escape into the woods where my thoughts can relax. I walk across the cool pavement with my arms crossed. It's dawn and every minute a star disappears from the ray of light. Drifters sluggishly stroll around cars and the neighborhood. I take a few out.
I run into the woods which are still darken by the lack of light. I tread lightly on the dry pine needles. It's about an hour until I can make out a foot ahead of me.
I keep walking and don't think to stop. It could have been hours or minutes and I wouldn't have noticed. Then I stumble out into a clearing. There it was. The bunker that kept me and Willow safe for almost a year. I bite my lip.
I make my way down the ladder and into the dark room. Ash covers the floor and it almost appears to be snowing. My eyes narrow to the floor. We were safe here, I thought. The structure was fine. The cement walls were unharmed by the flames but everything else would have to be cleared out. But it seemed impossible returning. Just standing here made the pain of her loss reappear. I could never stay here again.
I turn to go but something catches my eye. Under the ashes something shimmered in the light. I pull it from the pile of powder. Sickness flares in the pit of my stomach. It was a picture of when I graduated from boot camp. I was in my uniform and so was Eli. Willow clutching my waist with a smile ear to ear on her face. My father was the one who had taken the picture and my mother was dead by then. Even if she was alive at the time, I don't think she would have been in the photograph. My eyes start stinging. I don't know if its from the dust or the lingering tears I have for Eli and Willow. I tuck the picture in my back pocket and ascend up the ladder one more time.