Chapter Four: Sheer Cold

Raven was still heaving from slaughtering the walkers. She was holding red stained stilettos that she recently retrieved from the heads. She watched intently as Carl walked past her, staring in utter disbelief at the amount of bodies scattered throughout the forest. She waited for him to say something and was terrified as to what would come out of his mouth. He spun to look at her slowly. His expression was no longer shocked, but rather concerned. "Are you alright?"

That was definitely not something she'd expected to hear at the moment. Not with everything else going on. She was drenched with rotten blood and a sea of corpses were surrounding them. And yet he starts with that. She couldn't help but ask, "Like…mentally?" He sighed a little at that and walked up to Raven. She was about to make a smart comment when he wrapped his arms around her.

Her own arms were aching to reach up to him, but were paralyzed with some form of confusion and fear. She wanted Carl to hold her for a long time. If she held him back, would she have another break down? She didn't wait to find out as her arms acted on their own, bringing him closer. Just feeling the racing of his heart against hers was enough to keep her mind away from fear. Away from her fear of losing everything again. It was the first time in forever where she felt peace of mind.

When Carl pulled away, she felt colder than ever. But when she saw the understanding in his blue eyes, warmth flooded into her cheeks. She felt stupid for not telling him anything. "I'm sorry, Carl. I didn't think you'd understand…"

"I do." He tucked a few strands of Raven's dark hair, which were sticking out of place, behind her ear. Even though she looked like a mess, it seemed he hadn't noticed a thing. Almost like all he saw was her; no blood, no dead walkers or any other distraction.

He was cut off at the sounds of growling from a distance. Raven had never hated zombies more than she did now. Carl pressed lightly against her back. "Let's head back." She saw that he was a bit disappointed too. But she nodded and walked next to him as walkers wandered into the area they left.

While they were heading home, Raven spilled everything to him. "You probably figured it out already, but every day I come out here and go on a walker-killing spree." She kicked at a stone and it hopped down the path. "Don't panic, all of those bodies you just saw were almost a week's worth of work. As amazing as I am, even I can't take down a hundred in one day."

"I wouldn't be surprised, actually. That would only be about fifty heads per knife." He reasoned and tapped at her weapons belt.

She shoved him off playfully and pretended to consider it. "I guess you're right." She said through a smile. She forced herself to change the topic back. "It's just…If no one's going to take them out, who will? There may be a cure that comes along, but how long would it take? Besides, that only applies to humans. Once you're a zombie, there's no going back." Carl winced at that. When Raven thought about it for the first time, she felt the same pain. But can a person with no lower limbs actually be able to breathe and think? It's impossible. It was the reality that no one could ever accept. "Every walker I leave alive has a chance of killing another person." She looked at Carl to see how he was taking it. She just realized that the blood from her shirt had smudged over him. "It's my ultimate dream," she said to him, "to rid this planet of those freaks." She laughed bitterly, but her words were the truth. "So that no one else has to suffer that kind of death." Raven's mind was flooded with images of people being ripped to shreds by teeth.

Carl must've seen the solemn expression on her face. "I never told you about how my mom died. But she died giving birth to my sister." Raven averted her eyes to the ground. "Before she died, she called me brave. But hearing that from you… you're braver than I ever was." His tone was serious and so was his expression. "She also wanted me to beat this world. And I plan on it. It'd be a lot easier if I had you."

They had made it to the clearing when they came to a stop. "It'd be my pleasure." Raven agreed. They stood there for a moment. Raven figured that he was thinking about what to say when they'd see the group. "Don't worry. I'll cover you." She chose her words carefully, still debating whether or not she would reveal to the rest of the group what she's been up to.

He nodded, but seemed like he was thinking about something else. "Yeah, but…" He pointed out the dark stains on Raven's shirt.

She'd forgotten to change clothes like she normally did. The difference was she could easily change when she was alone, but… "Turn around." She commanded.

Carl obeyed and stared at a tree trunk. He heard sounds of Raven unzipping her bag and taking clothes out. He felt compelled to peek, but he focused on the ragged lines of the wood. After what seemed like forever, Raven said with a slightly shaky voice, "Kay, you can look." He turned and half-expected to see her shirtless. But there she was wearing a black hoodie. "Let's go." She led the way as the teens came into the clearing.

When they got into the house, the first person they met was Beth, who was making soup in the kitchen. "Hey, where were you guys?"

"Carl was helping me hunt for a bit, but no luck." Raven sounded disappointed. Before she could spit out another question, she asked, "So how's lunch going?" Her eyes flickered to Carl, who was concealing his surprise on how good of a liar she was.

Beth stirred the mixture, looking proud of her work. "Everything's going great. It should be done in less than an hour."

"Awesome." Raven said enthusiastically as Carl gave her a final glance before going to the garden. She watched him until he went out of sight. She sighed and wished their jobs were a little closer to each other. But she can't be picky. She was glad that he was still around. Raven turned to Beth, ready to help clean up. Beth was giving her an interested look. "What?" She asked in a not-so-innocent way.

"He likes you." She smiled as she added a few parsley flakes.

One of Raven's specialties was being able to read a person like a book. But 'love' didn't fall into that category apparently. Maybe it's because love is a deception in many cases. Either way when it came to love, she was clueless. "Really?" She ended up asking,

"Trust me. You just gotta let him know." Beth encouraged as she covered the pot with a lid and crossed her arms. "I know you did more than just hunting. You guys look like you're finally back to normal." Raven forgot to consider that. She usually was perfect in covering all details. "I can see the way he looks at you."

Raven still didn't believe that he liked her in that way. It certainly seemed that he cared for her, but how much did he care? Either way, she was happy that Beth told her this. "Thank you."

Later on, Daryl and Michonne caught a baby deer. Daryl was able to shoot an arrow right into its eye. Michonne called him a show-off and he didn't deny it. When night fell, the group (and Lyra) decided to have a bonfire feast. The wind wasn't blowing that hard, it was a luxury they were going to take. Carl, Rick and Michonne were off finding more wood, which left Raven, Beth and Daryl to start the flames with the logs they had. After a few strikes of flint stone and steel, the sparks triggered an ember on the twigs. Beth tossed in leaves and branches to let the flames dance along the log.

Soon enough, the group re-gathered and they sat around the fire. They jabbed barbeque sticks through the deer meat and hung it over the flames. Raven had one hand over Lyra and the other roasting her food. They ate quietly, but not in awkward silence. "I'm sorry." Raven spoke out. Everyone turned to her in confusion. "I haven't been fair to you guys. You're all honest and open about yourselves, and I never tell you anything."

"You don't have to force yourself. We all have things that we don't want to say out loud." Michonne had a hint of sadness flicker in her eye.

"I need to get this off my chest. It's something that I haven't been able to tell anyone." Raven told her firmly. They nodded and waited for her to continue. "Well, actually, before I begin…" She quickly revealed how she slaughters zombies for fun. Well, not for fun, but…unnecessarily. They were freaked out quite a bit, but at least she let it out there.

"But that's just a small side note. I think it's time you learn something about me."

During the time when the infection started getting worse, I was staying at my cousin's house for her birthday. She, her name was Becky, was born December 22, so it was winter break. There was one night where a giant blizzard came in. It must have piled up two feet of snow. The power lines were snapped, so we had no electricity. The storm ended three days after it started. Becky, her parents and I were locked in for days afterwards. We could barely see outside. Everything was covered in snow.

We decided to finally get out of the house. Otherwise, we would just starve to death. It was windy as hell. It made it look like it was hailing, but it was just fallen ice flying around. My uncle, Dom, got a slash across the face from an icicle the second we left the driveway. There was no road or people in sight. The lumps of snow showed all the buried cars beneath. We were just trudging blindly through the coldness. We made it to the main street and still had no sign of people.

Then we saw someone at the far end of the street. He was wearing no coat, no hat, no gloves. I thought he was a psycho. 'It's freaking negative ten out here, he's insane'. That's what I said to my aunt, Sarah. Dom insisted that we asked him for help, since he's the only 'sign of life' we've seen in a week. We called out to him and he came closer to us.

It was when he got real close that we realized that he was an Infected. It was the first I'd seen in person. It pounced on Dom and he yelled at us, telling us to look away. Becky was already crying and Sarah had us in her arms, turning us around. Just hearing the screeching noises haunted me. I only turned for a split second and saw Dom smash its head on a lamppost.

I just couldn't process what the hell was going on. I began to think about how many people had died while they were at home. There were probably only fifty of them around at the time. How fast did the disease spread? My head was spinning; hearing Becky sob hysterically, staring at the red tainted snow, seeing both adults looking helpless. I then saw shadows approaching from down the street. I shook Dom to get his attention. They were trampling over the snow slowly, but their numbers frightened us. Dom pushed us forward and told us we should get back home.

The hail pellets were cutting away at our skin. We were going against the wind now. It was nearly impossible to see. Occasionally an Infected would lunge from the sides. Sarah and Dom shoved them off abruptly and they sank into the snow for a while. Their house was a still a block away. From behind me I hear Becky shriek. We all whirl around and see Becky fallen onto the snow.

An Infected popped out from the white ground. Before we could even move an inch, it chomped her shoulder right off. Sarah started screaming and Dom whipped out his pocket knife. Something overtook me then. I don't even know how I possibly moved that quick, but I tackled the Infected off of Becky. My fists were pounding its eyes and nose. Even when it stopped moving, I beat the shit out of it. I was bawling by the time Dom scooped me up. He let me on my feet and Sarah grasped my arm tightly. Even though in these situations, the kid was supposed to be comforted, but right then, she needed my comfort. Dom carried Becky on his shoulders and we were on the run yet again. My tears were quickly turning to ice and it burned like crazy. Before I froze myself to death, I choked the tears back. That's kind of how I don't cry anymore.

On the outside I was freezing, but on the inside I was stirring. I couldn't think straight, with all the panic going on. It didn't even occur to me that Becky would soon be dead; I was completely focused on getting away from the horde of dead people chasing us. I snatched the pocket knife from Dom and ran in front of them. He barely resisted, probably didn't realize because his hands were numb. Whenever a zombie would show itself, I stabbed its face several times. Each time, I had to scrape the blood off my face, which was already starting to crystallize. As time went by, the realization of losing Becky sank in. I take a look at her and she was as pale as the snow itself. And I was downright furious. Soon, it took me only one jab to kill a zombie. And it felt good. I kept thinking 'you may have killed one of us, but I'll kill hundreds of you'.

Fatigue was catching on, and I was feeling dizzy with dehydration. The last thing I remembered was a giant plow truck honking its horn and a wave of dark snow covered us.

I woke up in the front seat of a car and saw Sarah driving next to me. Her eyes were red from crying and exhaustion. When she noticed I was wake she hugged me with relief. She burst out into tears and it took her a while to answer my questions. We were on our way to Georgia to stay with my parents. And Becky and Dom were gone.

It took us a week to reach Georgia. When our car ran out of gas, we had to walk until we found one. When we found one, we were off track. When we were off track, it took us longer to get there. And obviously the threat of zombies and lack of food was a problem. But it was during that journey where I found my dual blades and taught myself how to kill. It wasn't pretty, but I'm glad I got through it.

We found my other aunt before we reached my house. She led us to her house, where most of the extended family lived, besides the ones who had died. I finally reunited with my parents and Lyra. I'll spare you the emotional details.

During this time, I trained with my other cousins how to fight. Two of my uncles owned a fight club, so they taught us some moves. Not to brag or anything, but I was the star pupil. Soon, I even surpassed my uncles. But it wasn't just physical skills I learned. I learned how to shoot, how to use knifes, how to make shivs, and a bunch of other combat skills. Soon I was allowed to hunt. I brought back twice the meat the others brought. In a way they sort of relied on me, and I didn't mind. If it meant risking my life instead of others, I was all for it.

One day I came back from hunting with my two uncles and heard a bunch of screaming and shots ringing from the house. When we got to the clearing, a horde of them were attacking. Half of my relatives were already bitten or still being eaten. I killed every Infected in sight. I nearly lost an arm three times. Even with the help of the most capable people, we were horribly out numbered. Slowly, we went down. Soon it was down to me, my father and Lyra. My mother was sprawled out on the porch steps. Her neck spilled out blood and her whole left leg gone. A bullet hole was carved in her head. I didn't even have time to scream. Dad yanked me away and shoved me away from the house. Lyra followed us, unscathed, but her white fur was splattered with red. He yelled at me to run, run as fast I could and as far from here as possible. The crowd of Infected was catching up to us extremely quick. Suddenly, I got pushed down the hill. For a few seconds, I roll and bang against the grass and rocks. I reach the bottom of the hill and see Lyra racing my way. I've never heard my dad scream, but somehow, I knew it was his. It was when the horde was nowhere in sight, when I realized what had been done.

I had to force myself not to turn back, but God, did I want to. I wanted to destroy all of those monsters. But I knew it was reckless and impossible. I knew nothing could undo what just occurred. So I ran off with Lyra and escaped.

"And…yeah, that's pretty much it." Raven clapped her hands together. The group just stared at her. Their expressions were mixed; incredulous, concerned, and sympathetic. The dying fire made low crackling noises (they would have kept it going if they weren't so absorbed into her story).

After a long period of silence, Daryl blurted out, "Damn."

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Hey! So that's chapter four. Boy, I am sleepy. But good news; I'm on spring break! Hopefully, this means more chapters if I can get my lazy fingers to type. Review and follow for more :) See you next chapter!

P.S. In the beginning of this chapter you see another one of Raven's weapons; stilettos. If you've ever seen ATLA, Mai has these weapons, which are basically small throwing knives.