Chapter 6: C006 – Lions prowl, Rats hide, Flies watch

[After setting down the broken camera and the little bell she named Wall and Little Miss Bell respectively on a book titled Sins Per Continent. Aures sits silently for a moment. Her worn and torn shirt allowing her modesty but the short arms of the shirt showing numerous small scrapes and cuts. Her jeans seem in just as bad condition, holes here and there with rough patches of fabric. One of her arms looks recently bandaged but poorly.]

[Exhaustion on her face, shallow and fast breaths permeate the silence. One hand holding up her head on the desk she is sat and the injured one hanging like a puppet with cut strings.]

So, so sorry I didn't get around to talking to both of you these last few days.

You are reading story A Final Message in these Apocalyptic Times at novel35.com

[Her energy seems sapped from her while she has a slight slur to her speech.]

I managed, managed to get the harvest properly, well most of it. It was, it was hard but now we have food and everything. I must have overworked so hard, my body feels a bit hard to move but I must not be used to farming. No idea how those old guys are able to shift those large hay bales with one arm. I can barely get them moving with my whole strength.

[She takes a moment to breathe again]

I'm sure I'll feel fine in a few days anyway, I tried scouting a bit the other way but it was a bit hard, so I'll have to do it once my arm heals up and everything. Don't worry I'm just tired is all. I'm sure I'll be able to get some good sleep tonight.

[Her hazel eyes look out across the cracked concrete forest strewn about before her, small birds perched on different parts of buildings, with small critters exploring the depths of the fallen society taking its riches for their own.]

I used to read books about archaeology. It always fascinated me about the buried history everywhere. Do you think, like what we have here now, would be how they would have felt seeing us dig up their ruins for research? Like watching people who barely understand your ways, tear up how you built everything, reached for the skies with your buildings and histories. All for it to be turned into a few pages of a book about what was lost.

My parents eventually told me that digging in the dirt wasn't going to get me anywhere in life but I can't help but wonder what it would have been like, what my history would have been if this one hadn't happened.

After thinking for so long its not hard for me to think of the question. I might be living now, but what about the other mes.

The rest of my group didn't really care about the question, they were 'here and now' with their outlook, what they could do and get done. Maybe if I had looked up from my feet I'd be in a better state now. Zombies running around, gangs who capture people for a food supply. I don't think anyone I knew is going to be fine either, even if they are around, even if they survived. Things change us, I guess. They change me.

I can't even remember the faces or names of my friends and family yet I expect to find them, to live with them and find shelter.

I just have to keep moving because thats all I've known, all I'm going to do. I've probably gone insane talking to bells and broken cameras but its something. Something to release my stress, my feelings. Was the word levity? I wasn't that smart so probably not. That feeling of freedom, of release, but a slow creep of insanity.

I don't want to be aware of whats happening to me. I hope I can just stop thinking once I'm better, get back to how it was. Surviving mindlessly wasn't so bad, was it?

I think I need rest, hopefully tomorrow I won't have to think as much.