"Look, I can barely chop up strawberries without cutting myself with a knife. There is no way I can use one to kill those things," Marley said in exasperation.

"Well you're going to have to," Ryder said, clearly annoyed. "Unless you want to be eaten."

Marley's eyes widened for a split second. "Fine," she grumbled.

Jake placed his knife in her hands. "Just get a feel for it first, okay?"

Marley held on to the handle of it as if it were on fire. "I-I really can't."

Ryder put his hands up in frustration. "Listen, Marley, you really need to toughen up. This isn't a game. This is our life now. This is how we need to deal with things now. You need to-"

"Ryder!" Jake interrupted, his voice rising in anger. "Just stop."

"I'm not going to let her get us killed," Ryder grumbled before retreating to his room.

"I'm sorry," Jake said awkwardly after a couple seconds of silence.

"No, I deserved it," Marley mumbled quietly, taking a seat on the couch. "I'm being a baby about it."

Jake sighed and joined her. "You're not," he said sincerely. "This is scary. Nobody blames you for not knowing what to do."

Marley let out a snort. "Ryder sure does."

"Ryder can be a bit of an asshole sometimes, but he's really just as scared as you are. He had to watch his whole family get eaten by the biters before escaping."

Marley lowered her head. "I didn't know," she whispered.

"Well, now you do." Jake grabbed her hand and stood up, bringing her up with him. "Now let's try this again," he said, handing her his knife.

Marley took in a deep breath. "Okay," she said as she exhaled, gripping the knife. She followed Jake outside the house where the three rotting corpses laid.

"You can practice on these guys," Jake said. "And remember, always go for the brain. That's what kills them."

Marley nodded and kneeled over one of the biters. Her hand trembled as she held the knife over its head.

"Don't think, just do," Jake said. "You have to be quick."

Marley took one last deep breath before forcing the knife through the biter's already sliced head.

"Nice!" Jake cheered, high-fiving her.

"Really?"

"Well, considering it's your first time killing one, yeah, definitely. We'll keep practicing, though."

"Sounds good," she said, trying to hide the blush blooming on her cheeks. It wasn't everyday that a cute boy complimented her on her newfound knife skills.

"Well, um, I should probably go cool Ryder off," Jake said after a minute of awkward silence.

Marley shook her head. "No, let me. I should be on good terms with him if we're all going to work together, you know?"

"Okay, yeah. I'll go make something to eat," Jake said before walking back inside.

Marley stood over the mangled body of the former human for another minute. She felt tears suddenly rush to her eyes. This used to be a person. A living, breathing person, who probably had a job, and maybe even kids. This person had their whole life ahead of them. "I'm sorry," she said tearfully, then walked back inside.

Marley softly knocked on Ryder's door. "Can I please come in?" she asked.

"Whatever," she heard Ryder reply back. She slowly opened the door and saw him on his bed. It looked like he had been crying.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for acting like a baby back there. I was being stupid."

"Everybody becomes a different person after something like this happens," Ryder said. "You leave your old self behind." Marley couldn't tell if he had accepted her apology or not.

"You don't need to completely lose yourself," she said, joining him on the bed. "You just need to be tougher. And maybe find new traits that you didn't know about yourself."

Ryder didn't respond.

Marley decided to change the subject. "Jake told me about your family. I'm really sorry."

"You know, witnessing something like that changed me. I'll never be the same person I was before," Ryder finally said. "A-And witnessing that made me realize that there is no hope left. There never will be. We're all going to die, sooner or later."

"There's always hope," Marley said. "It may not seem like it now, but you have to trust me."

Ryder let out a humorless laugh. "How? The world's basically over. I'm sure half, or even more of the population is already wiped out."

Marley sighed. Suddenly an idea came to her. "Look, this is probably going to sound really dumb, but just think of all of this like you're in a videogame, and you only have one life left." Marley closed her eyes in anticipation, waiting for Ryder to tell her how stupid she was. Instead, he surprised her by smiling.

"That's not a bad idea, actually," he said. "It's a good way of looking at things."

"I like to try to stay positive, you know?"

Ryder nodded. "Jake and I really need something like that here. So, uh, thanks."

"No problem," Marley said. "I'm going to go help Jake make dinner."

"You like him, don't you?" Ryder said, a knowing look on his face.

"What? No, of course not," Marley said, feeling flustered.

Ryder laughed. "You're a terrible liar."

"I-I'm not lying," Marley tried to convince him, but Ryder saw right through it.

"Don't be embarrassed, Jake totally has a thing for you too. But, if I were you, I wouldn't act on anything yet. All you need to focus on is practicing your knife skills. After you master the knife, we'll teach you how to use this bad boy," he said, pulling out his rifle from under the bed.

"How did you get all these guns?" she asked in astonishment.

"Jake and I raided a gun store in the city before heading here. A lot of them were already gone when we got there, so we grabbed all that was left."

"That's smart, I guess," Marley said.

"Yeah, especially when we're out on the run. We can't stay here forever."

"Right," she mumbled, thinking of Kitty. She could be anywhere, waiting for Marley to come find her.

Ryder got up from his bed and walked with Marley downstairs to the small kitchen.

"Do you think we'll find Kitty?" Marley asked him. "Tell me the truth."

Ryder sighed. "New York City is huge. I doubt we'll find her. It would be a complete miracle if we did."

"That's what I thought," Marley muttered sadly, wiping away a tear before sitting down and joining Jake and Ryder for dinner. She knew it was going to be incredibly hard, but she wasn't going to lose hope yet. She still had faith.