Perhaps a little back story is in order.
My name is Rachel Barbara Berry, and this was supposed to be my last year at McKinley High School. I was supposed to be moving to New York later this year to pursue my dreams of being a Broadway star. That's what I was. A star. Is that what I am? ...who knows anymore? I'd like to believe that I still am. But I haven't sang in... I suppose that's getting a little too present for a back story. Maybe I should just speak of someone else for once.
Quinn Fabray. She used to be head of the cheerleader. She was prom queen our junior year, and she hated everything about me. After a bunch of things happened in her life- all of which I do not know about- she came back to school with a nose ring, a pack of cigarettes, a tattoo, and pink hair. I used to think all of these things were clearly against school policy, but it was Quinn. I'm sure that if there was a heaven, Quinn would be allowed to walk right in, the gates left open for her. It was like she walked on a different level than the rest of us. She always had. I think she used to know it too, but... We all thought that she'd sort her life out and that this "Skank" phase would pass by rather quickly, but it never did. I think she started to hate me a little less, but... Maybe that was wishful thinking of a sort.
It'd been three days since we'd gotten away to the old, abandoned house covered in vines and riddled with who knows what sorts of bugs or snakes. From the view we had, we watched people search for us and appear to give up around the surrounding area. Maybe they thought we'd made it off campus and had turned their searching around town. They had to know that two teenage girls couldn't have gotten very far on foot. We watched as the school was emptied out in the distance. And we watched as countless people we'd grown up with- even though we couldn't see specific faces from here- were being brought to the football field and... forced to their knees to be shot. Right in front of us. Quinn kept me from yelling out, but I don't see how she managed to stay so silent.
We knew nothing else of the outside world right then. There was no radio or power, and our phones had long since died. I knew that I was getting antsy sitting here, not knowing anything outside our tiny shelter, but Quinn stayed quiet. Every time I spoke of leaving, she dismissed me with a look, not saying anything about it, and stayed quiet again. The only words we really exchanged in this time were sparse and unrelated, quick "Are you okay?"s and short nods for answers. Other than that, we stayed huddled down and not even close to each other a good bit of the time, never venturing outside of the living room in case the structure was unstable somewhere else. But it had been three days now.
"Quinn," I whispered as the sun went down on the third day, earning me a look over from hollowed out, hazel eyes. I'd been noticing that she'd started shaking and becoming paler. "We should go find food..." I looked down at my hands on the molded rug of the floor and took a deep breath. "I know," I started before she could. "We're safe here. I know, I know, but..."
"You're right." Her voice was quiet, rasp. She looked back out the window she never seemed to look away from and sighed quietly. "I know. I've been thinking of a way that we could manage." She looked back over at me and tried for a tiny smile. "It's getting dark. Let's just go now."
"Are you sure...?" She'd been so reluctant to even speak to me this entire time. Perhaps she was starting to act differently because of the lack of food or being anywhere else with anyone else for so long. But as I licked my lips and turned my face towards where she was looking before, I nodded with as much of a smile as I could manage. "Let's do it then. But first, we need a plan."
"Our own houses would be too obvious," She was the one too look down this time, making a fist as I saw her eyes fall to them. I was delighted that she wanted to leave now. Not for the food or for the chance to go out and see how much had changed since these three days, but... I was so sure that she would have given up already. The way she'd been acting lately... I was just glad to see that she wasn't quitting.
And so our adventure began. There was no way we could prepare anything. We had nothing; we had no idea what to even be prepared for. And so we just left. We weren't even sure where we were headed. But at this point, anywhere was better than here. And we knew we wouldn't last if it were to rain as it was. But... where was there to go at this point?
She'd mentioned not going back to our parents' because it being obvious, but I had to wonder if some of it was due in part to her parents obviously not going to be able to handle knowing that their daughter had fled from a quarantined area because she was found out to be infected. ...but thinking on this called my own sanity into question. Why was I travelling with her? Risking my life like this for an infected person? ...The only answers I had was that it was Quinn and that there just had to be a cure. There had to be.
And if we had to travel across America to find it, we were going to find this cure.