haha surprise update! who knows where this is going anymore i don't

They're on the tracks again, and Rin doesn't like it one bit. It's not like she has a choice in the matter, anyway. Maki, for all her mindless following, had quite sternly made her own choice for once. Or at least, she was stumbling ahead for once, head dangerously lolling from side to side, feet scuffing against the concrete railway sleepers. Rin opts for the marginally safe option by walking to the side of the tracks. Even though the trains haven't been running for weeks, it still feels dangerous to walk on them. Every single nerve in her body feels frayed.

Maki doesn't stop. Rin supposes she doesn't need to. Rin needs to stop but she doesn't want to.

Every step sends grinding pains from her knee to her crown.

"Maki…" She calls out softly. Maki hesitates, miraculously. It gives Rin time to roll up her pant leg and look at the wound just below her kneecap. It's still bloody. The mark is small and shallow, somehow, and every time Rin looks at it she thanks her lucky stars that the bullet never entered into her skin more than a graze.

Is it getting infected? Rin doesn't know. She doesn't know how to deal with these sorts of injuries. Maki would know. If only she could speak.

"Maki, do you think it's infected?" She asks, hopelessly. Maki turns at her name but the blank stare gives Rin a pit in her stomach. Oh well. Maybe there are other survivors around with medical supplies. And a friendly disposition. And not likely to shoot at them.

Rin feels the names Nakajima and Aida rise like bile but she swallows it down.

The sun is setting – they've been at it for literal hours. With a sigh, Rin hoists down her pants and continues to walk, barefoot, across cooling concrete. At this point, it wouldn't have mattered whether she was used to walking barefoot before the apocalypse or not. It's such a common occurrence that Rin is sure she has blisters on top of callouses.

She realises she said 'apocalypse' a while back. This really is the end of the world, isn't it?

It's dying.

Rin trains her eyes on Maki's back to try and concentrate. It doesn't work, Rin was never any good at concentrating, but it takes her mind off things for a while. Maki's shoulder hangs on so precariously Rin isn't sure it's going to last much longer. Maybe she should wrap it up so it doesn't fall off.

They've passed the metro a while back, and now it's kind of familiar, but Rin can't place a finger on it. The beach is empty. There's not even any sign of human activity – how far have they walked alongside this blasted railway track?

"Wait," Rin calls, "Maki, wait."

Maki keeps going for a little bit until Rin calls out again and sprints forward to stop her. She groans. Rin decides that it's recognition.

"Wait, we'll…" Rin flicks her eyes back and forth. Empty. "We'll stay here for tonight. You got that? Stay. Here. Nod if you get it."

Maki doesn't nod, but she does move a bit and that jolts her head up and down. Good enough.

It's getting cold on the beach and the sky is bruised purple. The water is still. The air is still. The enclosed little circlet is isolated enough for Rin to feel safe, for one night.

She falls asleep to the gentle caress of the waves on the shore.

Maki stays standing all night.

Her feet.

Her feet are cold when she wakes up with a jolt, and she realises it's the water, licking at her heels in sporadic patterns and making the air frigid and cold. The stars are out.

With a grumble and a groan and sleep-ridden eyelids that slowly unglue themselves, Rin scrambles further up the beach, and into the open area where it feels too vulnerable. A cloud sweeps over the moon, and it goes dark.

Go back to sleep, she tells herself, but now that her eyes are open she doubts she'll be able to any time soon. Instead, she rests her head on her hands and looks up at the sky. Constellations. Stars. They feel cold. Maybe they're dying out, too.

Rin thinks of Kayo-chin, of rice, of glasses, of soft smiles and softer voices. All speaking at once.

"I'm sorry, Kayo-chin…" Her voice cracks and she's holding back tears, now, and her throat feels like it's suddenly constricted three sizes and her eyes burn. She can't say any more.

I'll never see Kayo-chin again.

The thought had the weight of a thousand bricks in her brain. She isn't entirely sure what happened to Hanayo, but hopes she is safe and sound, with the backpack and the supplies. Maybe Eli and Maki and Umi were there too.

Wait.

The sand shifts under Rin's elbows as she pushes herself upright. Every single joint protests. This is worse than early morning training.

Maki is gone.

It takes a while to register, and when it does, Rin almost doesn't feel it. Then it hits – tightness, breathing, everything is leaving her, everything is leaving her, she's going to live alone and die alone and she doesn't want to she doesn't-

Rin tries to move but it feels like she's not even in control of her body. It moves, gasps, and tastes salt from the sea and her eyes. Everything is going wrong.

Her carefully balanced lie snaps like a tendon – everything will be ok.

Nothing will be ok.

She's not going to find the others.

They're probably already dead, anyway.

Hanayo is dead.

Maki is dead.

And soon, Rin will be dead too, because her knee is infected probably and she's going to starve before she finds any help.

They'll never make it to the Love Live after all.

Tears don't flow – they fuzz your vision first, and then bunch up in the corners of your eyes before breaking and trickling down in a continuous stream and there's snot involved and it all gets in your mouth and makes your tongue stick to the back of your throat. And when you try and cry it all gets stuck, lodged in your throat just behind your tonsils and it feels like it's going to burst out of your oesophagus, but it doesn't and somehow that's a little disappointing.

Rin doesn't even know what an oesophagus is.

And then, when it finally dies down, you look absolutely stupid and you've got hiccups and snot in your ears somehow and there's sand between every fingernail and Maki is standing by the railway –

Wait!

Face still wet with tears, chest still straining to breathe, Rin clambers up the slight slope of the beach on all fours and feels her whole world come back to her.

"Maki-chan!" She cries out, throwing herself at Maki's feet. There's fresh blood, but she doesn't mind so much. Maki is here.

She's safe.

"Maki, M-Maki, I thought I l-l-lost y-ou…!"

Maki, the impassive, the aloof, stares down with – a hint of a smile? – and Rin gives the biggest, shakiest grin she's given in a very long time. As she pulls herself to her feet, trembling like a leaf, like Kayo-chin, something finally clicks about the place. She was so tired before she didn't realise but it's really familiar.

"… Maki."

There's a faint pink just behind the horizon. It's too late to go to sleep now. Too late. They have to keep moving. They're nearly there.

This time, Rin takes the lead. Maki seems quite content to follow now, filmed eyes glazed over in a stare that's far too unintelligent for Maki. It's sad. It makes Rin's heart hurt thinking about it.

So she stops thinking.

It comes to her attention a while later that her legs are on fire and her throat is scratching against itself and her stomach is trying to eat itself and there's something on the tracks up ahead. She nearly stumbles over a body, a dead one, with an arrow shoved viciously into its eye socket. It brings her back to earth. Just in time, Rin ducks behind the support beam of the overhead shelter, before they get too close and the person up ahead sees them. It's another station. The first thing that comes to mind is that they've been going in circles, but this station isn't as well cared for, nor as big, as the last. Maki swaggers to the side dangerously, and then trips over herself trying to follow Rin's nimble movements.

"You're so silly, Maki-chan," she says, even though she know Maki won't respond, because it makes it feel better. Marginally. Maybe one day they'll fix it and Maki will remember all this and – well, anyway.

The person down the tracks doesn't seem to be moving when Rin plucks up the courage to take a peek. In fact, it's bent over something. Rin's heart stops. It straightens, and… it's holding something. It's holding a bow…?

Then it turns around and Rin is quick to duck back into safety, heart hammering in overdrive. Did it see did it see did it see.

Maki lets out a high pitched whine, and twists her neck violently to the side, locked onto the figure in the distance. Rin panics, and tries to shush her, waving her hands about and making exaggerated movements to try and catch Maki's attention. Oops.

She realises, too late, that her wild hand gestures might have caught the attention of whoever was out here as well. She wonders, vaguely, whether it's something about her and train stations that seem to carry bad luck with them, and vows never to follow a railroad again.

Rin is so sure her heart is beating so loud that it shakes the ground.

There's silence. Stillness. Maki is still locked on to something, not moving an inch, but it's still. Are they safe? They're safe. Safe enough.

Rin pokes her head out, and sure enough, the track is all clear until a fair distance down when it starts to turn and is hidden by a hill. They're really far from the town centre, now. That's good – it means less zombies, theoretically.

"Come on, Maki," she hisses, clicking her fingers like one would with a dog to get Maki's attention. Together, they start to leave the little station and towards a little dirt path Rin noticed, and then there's a whistling sound. It's too quick for Rin to decide exactly what it sounded like but it was very familiar. It's accompanied by a loud thunk and Rin automatically freezes. Maki whines again, jaw clacking together in a way that sounds like dice rolling.

Another whizz-thunk! and Rin figures out what it is. A vibrating wooden arrow sticks out of the ground just a foot away from her.

She runs.

There's at least one more arrow shot in her direction, but in the half-light it must be hard to hit a moving target. She decides to make herself even harder to hit by diving to the ground and behind a felled log. She feels the hard dirt graze her arm. Her knee screams as she hits the ground hard and she's sure it's bleeding again. Or still.

Maki isn't quite so smart, or coordinated. Rin watches in horror as one of the deadly arrows buries itself in Maki's thigh with a sound Rin will never forget, and Maki goes down. Rin screams. She thinks she does. It's all rather chaotic and she's not entirely sure what's real and imagined anymore. Of course, Maki is a zombie. She's not dead. She just tries, and fails, to get up again, flailing like a fish out of water. Thick congealed blood dribbles from the wound.

Then, there's a prickling feeling on the back of her neck, and Rin knows she's foolishly left her meagre cover to run to Maki's side but her leg has given way, and she turns around to find someone, a survivor, a human, walking towards them. Their bow is taught with another arrow and they bring the bow up. They're going to shoot. They're going to shoot she's going to die it really isn't ok and it's all her fault.

Then,

"… Rin?"

The person lowers their bow, limply. As they tentatively step closer, Rin can make out, past the boyish short hair, the grime on their face, and the hardened scowl softened in surprise…

She wouldn't have picked it, but there's no other person it could be.

"U… mi?"

word: 2090

after more train tracks, the plot finally happens. maybe the tracks are symbolic.