Disclaimer:
Hello! I haven't posted anything on this site since ages ago, but here I am back in action with something quite different from my past work. I'm trying to do something really slow burn here, hoping to post twice a week and am already 27 chapters in.
Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Hurt ("Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails (Johnny Cash's cover)
The sun was low on the horizon, casting a burnt orange glow over the wreckage of the world, but Avery barely noticed. She trudged along the cracked road, her boots scuffing the asphalt with each slow, deliberate step. Around her, the dead littered the streets, frozen in their final moments of suffering. Decaying bodies slumped against rusting cars, twisted in grotesque poses that were once human. But they were no more grotesque than what was inside her.
She didn't flinch. She didn't feel much of anything these days.
The echo of her footsteps was her only company. Even the wind seemed to avoid this place, leaving the air thick and still, as though the earth had stopped breathing. Avery didn't mind. She hadn't felt alive for a long time.
There was a time when she might've cared. Maybe. That was a long time ago, though, before the world had broken apart, before she had stopped counting the days. Now, it was just one foot in front of the other, dragging herself through the wasteland, waiting for something—anything—to end it.
Ahead of her, a lone walker stumbled out from behind an overturned truck, its mouth hanging open in that grotesque, empty hunger. Its eyes were clouded, distant, like it wasn't even aware of its own existence anymore. Avery stared at it for a moment, her chest tightening with something that almost felt like sympathy. Almost.
"I hurt myself today," she whispered to herself, her voice a hollow echo of the person she used to be. The words were a bitter taste on her tongue, the last remnants of a song that had once meant something. Now, it was just noise. Like everything else.
The walker lurched toward her, groaning, its arms outstretched. Avery didn't flinch. She didn't reach for her knife or her gun. She just stood there, watching it come closer, daring it to do something. Daring it to end what she couldn't.
But it was slow, too slow. By the time it was within reach, she finally moved, with the lethargy of someone who had been through this too many times to count. In one fluid motion, she drew her knife and plunged it into the walker's skull. The body crumpled to the ground at her feet, lifeless once more.
The act didn't make her feel anything. It never did.
She wiped the blood on her jacket, not caring about the stains that had long since become a part of her. It wasn't like there was anyone left to care about appearances. Her hands, cracked and calloused, were steady as she slipped the knife back into its sheath.
"I focus on the pain… the only thing that's real."
Her fingers traced the blade's handle for a moment longer, lingering on the cold steel. The only thing in this world that felt certain anymore was pain—physical, emotional, it didn't matter. It was the last thing that tethered her to this broken world, the only sensation that reminded her she was still alive, even if she didn't want to be.
Avery looked up, squinting against the fading sunlight, her eyes dry and hollow. The road stretched out before her, disappearing into the horizon. There was nothing out there for her. There never had been. Even before all this, she had been walking this same lonely path, bouncing from foster home to foster home, carrying her trauma like a heavy chain that dragged behind her.
The apocalypse hadn't changed anything—it had just made it clearer. Avery Rae Carter was alone in this world, and she always had been.
Her gaze drifted to the horizon, where the sky burned with the last embers of daylight. She wondered if the sun would ever set for good, if one day it would simply stop rising. That would be a mercy, wouldn't it? A final end to the suffering. But no. The sun always came back, just like she did.
"I hurt myself today… to see if I still feel…"
She pressed her fingers against her ribs, where an old wound throbbed beneath the surface. It had healed long ago, but the scar remained, a permanent reminder of her failure. Of the times she had tried to care, to fight, to live. She had tried to be someone better once, someone worth keeping around.
But no one had kept her. And in the end, she had stopped trying.
The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the road. Avery could hear the distant moans of walkers in the distance, but they felt far away, like they were on the other side of some invisible barrier. She was in her own world now, separate from the decay and death that surrounded her.
She walked to a nearby car, its windows shattered, and leaned against the rusted metal, feeling the coolness against her back. Her hands rested limply at her sides, her body heavy with the weight of exhaustion that wasn't just physical.
"I wear this crown of thorns… upon my liar's chair…"
The words came unbidden to her mind, and she closed her eyes, letting the melody play in the back of her thoughts. She wasn't sure where she had heard the song last. Maybe it was on the radio, back when there were still radios to listen to. Or maybe it was from some distant memory of a life that didn't belong to her anymore.
"I will let you down… I will make you hurt."
That was all she ever did, wasn't it? Disappoint people. Hurt them. Even if she didn't mean to, it always ended the same way. Foster parents, friends, anyone who had ever tried to get close to her—they had all learned the same lesson. Avery Rae Carter was trouble, and trouble followed her wherever she went.
She didn't belong in this world. She never had.
But she kept going.
Because that's what you did when you were too stubborn to die.
She opened her eyes again, staring out at the endless horizon, the sky now a deep purple, the first stars twinkling into view. She could hear the walkers moving closer, their groans growing louder, but she didn't move. Not yet. There was no rush. She had nowhere to go.
No one was waiting for her.
Avery pushed herself off the car and started walking again, her footsteps heavy but steady. The road stretched on, and so would she. Until it finally ended. Until someone, or something, put her down for good.
She didn't expect to find anything out there. Not hope. Not redemption. Those things weren't for people like her.
But maybe, if she walked long enough, she would finally stop feeling anything at all.
And that would be a mercy.
"I will make you hurt…"
She whispered the final words as the night closed in around her, a blanket of darkness that felt more like home than the light ever had.