Better Angels

"Don't speak even whisper, come on now and don't be scared."

Had I heard her correctly?

It was seven seconds of white silence before I would breath again, I blocked out everything else she said, or anyone said. Not because of the shock, but because I didn't care.

I heard the blurry sounds of her trying to speak still, as I wrenched my wrist away in one swift harsh movement, jerking my hand out of hers, I turned away, the faces around me dimming out, I bend over and wrench my heels from my feet and tossing them aside, my feet on the cool ground, I don't look behind me, I just start running.

I run until my heart swells and I stumble to my knees and break down. My lungs burn for a breath, which I slowly give it in the mixed choked sobs and cuss words slipping in a slur from my drunken moving mouth.

I hadn't expected that, at all. And even now after I've heard it, I can't believe it, I can't gather it into my head of the possibility. Everything has crashed upon me and for the first time in years, I shed my armor, and let myself become weak, I cry, I sob and I free the beast, lashing out and tearing the remaints of my heart to shreds.

Good. I think If I don't have a heart, I can't feel a Goddamned thing.

I try to smile, but it contorts into a pained grimace in 2.1 seconds flat, and another sob rips my chest.

I lean forward and hug my knees, my dress scuffed into the dirt, I try to care, but no emotion pulls itself fourth. I thought I promised myself that I wouldn't shed another tear for her, but I did, and I have, and I am.

I press my forehead into my knees for ten minutes until I can calm down enough to breathe, then I look up, and behind me. The distant lights of the dance, the house and the campfire. The dance looks pretty vacant, it's so far away I cannot tell who is left.

I sigh, and try to take a deep breath but it comes to me in a fit of starts and stops and sniffles. Embarrassed as I am for my outburst, both the public one and my private sorrow, I can't bring myself to regret the pain, maybe I've earned it and it has become apart of me.

I take deep breaths slowly, exhaling them at an even slower pace, then doing it all over again. As I calm down, the side effects of crying start weighing in. My eyes, probably bloodshot, are stinging from all the salty bitter tears. My face feels swollen and my heart so small I'd believe it wasn't there anymore if I couldn't hear my pulse behind my ears.

I look down at my bare feet, slowly numbing from the cold, the moon is concealed behind a thin veil of clouds, but provides enough light to see the feathery scratches and scuffs across them from running through puddles and stiff dead grass and weeds, they sting too.

I'm still trying to figure this out it feels unreal that there is a new little human joining our group. Almost everyone heard it... My parents, Merle, Daryl, Andrea, all of them actually. Someone dragged them all out here tonight, everyone knows.

I lean forward and touch my toes, looking down until I hear the light patting sound of tell-tale foot steps behind me, but I don't look over my shoulder, if it's a walker, maybe it'd just be better that it rips my throat out and we can be done with it.

But no, a tall, muscular figure kneels beside me, but doesn't look at me, not yet. Instead he looks up at the pale moon, slowly emerging from it's veil of fog, lighting up the surrounding blank prairie.

Daryl isn't someone to say he's sorry for much, unless he really means it, and if he caused it. So I don't expect him to offer any consolance and sympathy, I'm grateful when he doesn't.

"Quiet night." He comments.

I nod, but don't feel like talking.

"Now I know ya ain't in no mood to be talkin' so I won't make ya, just come back with me."

"Why?" I mumble, voice cracking weakly.

"Because everyone misses you." He cooes, once again showing me the side of him no one else gets to see, the silly, childish, immature Daryl.

He pinches my cheeks for added effect and I swat his hand away. "Bullshit." I mutter.

He shrugs "You want honesty?"

"I could use a healthy dose of it, yeah."

"Your sister is a little upset by how you handled it, but that... Fucking Missouri bastard, Mike..." He seethed "Is sayin' all kinds a shit, bout you."

I shrug limply "Not an huge surprise." I sigh "Who was I to think being who I am would get me anywhere, it doesn't win me any stars with the kids, cause I'm so brutal and dark, being me... Just isn't working anymore."

He looks down at me sideways, he isn't smiling anymore.

"Who cares what they think?"

"I don't, at least I didn't... I just get so goddamned tired of being alone."

"You ain't alone." He shakes his head.

I look at him "How do ya figure? Sure, I'm surrounded by people, but how many of them talk to me because they want to, not because they have too?"

He hesitates, and looks down at his hands "I do."

I smile, just a little, but the happiness doesn't reach me completely. "Yeah, that's right. You do."

He rolls his eyes playfully and punches my arm.

"Thank you."

"For what?" He asks in confusion.

"For being honest with me, ever since I met you that's what our relationship resided on, honesty... And sarcasm... If the world were still in working order and I was that spoiled brat, I dunno if I'd ever befriended someone like you, maybe my parents wouldn't have let me... Either way, I'm happy I met you, and... I never said it, but thank you for saving my life that day, I owe you."

He smirks "That's right, you do."

We sat there for a while, looking up at the glazed over moon, in silence. I was still processing the news, I wasn't excited... I was scared shitless of it. There was so much that could go wrong, she could die. But I guess that's the risk she's willing to take, and I can't have any say in what she does. If this is what she wants to die for, then I can't stop her.

"Ok, anyways, it ain't doing you any good being out here, lets take you back-"

"I can't go back."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want the fucking sympathy."

"What's your thing against sympathy?" He chuckles.

"It makes me feel weak." I shrugged "Anyways, I'll go, if you can smuggle me past the crowds, I will. No people, deal?"

I held my hand out, and he looked at it thoughtfully, before he did something totally disgusting. He licked his hand, his filthy, grease stained hand, from finger to wrist, and grabbed my hand and shook it firmly.

"Ew! Goddamnit Daryl, that's fucking disgusting!" I wiped my hand off on his arm, but I still felt it.

I grimaced as he helped me to my feet and we walked back.



"Here we are, my humble aboad."

Daryl gestured to the cab of the blue pickup truck, I just looked at it stupidly.

"Why are we here, exactly?"

"We're chillin, and doing what you said, no people."

He pulled open the creaky drivers door and wiped all the trash off the seat, dusting several cigarette butts out the door onto the moonlight pale gravel and gestured inwards, I climbed in, and sat next to the window, looking out, up at the moon as Daryl rummaged around on the floor and under the seats until he pulled out a crushed package of cigarettes and lit one, leaning back against the drivers door and looking at me with those tawny narrowed eyes, he asks questions, asks for stories, but reveals little about himself.

I sat there and talked to him until the wee hours of the morning, when the sun began to rise, we'd covered every random subject from games of Monopoly to coffee cups, it was the first conversation I'd had with Daryl that wasn't entirely about surviving.

There was a thick layer of cool fog that resided on the windows of the little truck cab, I studied them, and the oddly shaped outlines within it that were the tell-tale of previously made finger prints and smudges.

I hadn't calmed down entirely, I just felt numb to the touch of the whole thing, I can't describe it, why would I want to? There's no way that I can.

Around five-thirty our words slurred into mingled silence as Daryl passed out, his face pressed against the drivers window, it now rests on his arms crossed across the steering wheel, forehead planted into his forearms.

I listen to the light ruffle of his snoring and press my lips into a line to keep from smiling while I look down and weave a stray black thread from my skirt between my fingers.

Just looking outside made me shiver, even more so when I remind myself what things I'll have to face today. I also contemplate hiding in the hay loft all day, curled up by the foggy window with a book and avoiding everyone, forgetting the world. But I have a duty to this group, and even though I'd like to strangle my sister for her stupidity and carelessness, I need to step up to my agreements, and do my chores and help out.

I rub my arms vigarously, not because I am cold though, but because I strive for something to do, some kind of emotion to feel. I don't feel anything beyond the bleak numb wall I forced up around myself some point last night after recieving the news, I feel the prickle-points of something when I look around myself, but for the most part it is all blocked out.

"Ah shit..." Daryl mumbled sleepily, lifting his face and rubbing his hair out of his eyes, he glances over at me "Damn Aries, I'm sorry, I fuckin' passed out, I was supposed to be keepin' ya company and talkin' with you, but fuck-" He groaned and planted his face into the steering wheel.

"Don't worry about it." I say, forcing out a smile through the numbness for good measure. "It gave me some time to think things over."

"Oh you mean without my big Goddamned mouth interrupting ya?"

I shake my head and laugh "No, it's fine. I probably would have kept running had you not talked sense into me."

"I hardly talked anything into you." He mumbled incredulously "I merely stated the facts."

"Which is how you helped me."

He shot me a look, one of 'don't push it' and confusion, then he just shook his head and let it go, pushing open his door and hopping out into the foggy serroundings.

"I'll see ya at lunch, ight?"

I nod "Ight!" I called after him as he walked off, still wearing his old winged vest and filthy jeans.

I looked up into the cracked rearview mirror, I looked much the same, in fact more like myself now that my stupid tears had spilt the makeup all over my face, it's been so long since I wore mascara I forgot what it does to emotional people.

Most of my hair fell out of the ornate bunnage my mother had done last night, I finished pulling the bobby pins from my hair until it all unraveled and fell down.

I grabbed all the pins and pushed open the passengers door and walked through the still yard, slipping into the house unnoticed for a shower and a change of clothes.



"And I'm sorry, that I made you cry."

There was a lot to be thought over, a lot of it I couldn't think straight about or didn't want to think about all together when I'd sat beside Daryl in the passengers seat of his pickup, a little more than tired, exhausted actually.

After I'd finished my thinking process (I'd kept it brief) I dried off quickly and put on black jeans, a white tank top and a red flannel shirt from the depths of my dresser drawers. I laced up my boots while I perched from the edge of the tub and gathered my killing nesecities and headed out into the hall.

I figured while I had this time, I went to find Hershel to check my bandages on my shoulder on my back. The more I get hurt, the more paranoid I'm getting that the group is giving me a nickname behind my back that would probably be The Hazard.

While I sat on the wooden stool in the white tent, he checked over the stitches, Maggie nor Beth helped him today.

"So there was some news going around camp this morning." Hershel noted as he patted a piece of gauze soaked in some syrupy, sticky, stinky, anti-bacterial stuff aross the bullet wound in my shoulder.

"If it's the same news I'm thinking of, then it's true." I sighed "Gossip flies like a bird around here."

He laughed as he wrapped a clean roll of pearly white gauze around my shoulder, frowning as he did it.

"What's wrong?" I ask as he cleans up.

"I'm concerned." He states, turning away from me to arrange some things back into the big plastic tub on the floor.

"I'm concerned that we are running low on certain medical supplies. The weeks haven't been especially easy on us with the injuries, and even with everyone contributing, I think we'd be on the safe side to have more."

"So... what are you suggesting? Another supply run?"

"It's awful risky..."

"Don't worry about it, Hershel, if you need supplies, we'll get them. I can get one arranged for noon, if you'd like."

"It'd sure help a lot. Thank you, Aries."

I nod and smile, standing up and fixing my jacket, I head out to gather my group.

"Gather 'round men and women of all ages, preferably thirteen and up," I called loudly from the center of the yard. Shane looked up from chopping wood and wiped his brow, balancing on the ax. Rick and Lori emerged from a tent and T-Dog and Glenn walk over. Many more civilians from the groups come.

"According to the group's doctor, we could use a stock up of supplies, I am prepared to lead a run into town, you're welcome to join, I leave at noon."

"Aries, when the hell was this decided?" My dad demanded, grabbing my arm and pulling me aside.

"Hershel needs more stuff to work with, and I feel it's best to be ready in case we have an injury that's in over our heads."

He nods slowly "I agree, but why you? Why is it always you who volunteers for the dangerous jobs?"

I smile faintly and pat his cheek "Dad, you and I both know that I was born to be a tomboy."

He sighs, and does something I don't expect, he pulls me into a hug, crushing me into his arms, he whispers in my ear "Be safe, see you soon."

I nod "I will, I'll take Daryl and T-Dog along too."

He nods in agreement and looks over his shoulder at the group that has gathered. "Take care of them too, they're good people... I never told you this, but I... I'm proud of you, for all you've done, and for bringing them here. You really saved us." He smiles and pats my shoulder.

"When will you be back?"

"Tonight, tomorrow morning at latest, we'll be fine."

He smiles and nods.

I look at my gathering group that has Daryl, T-Dog, Jacob and Shane in it, then.... Then my sister steps forward and joins them, the look of sheer determination ingraved into her face, my stomach twists uneasily and I check my ammo, check for my knife and bow and then I huff a sigh and walked towards the van to help load up gear.



I hugged my Dad goodbye agains before we left, promised Jaden some comic books and then I got into the back and sat next to Jacob, Myriah sat to his right.

Shane drove, T-Dog sat in shotgun and Darl sat in the trunk, occasionally gazing out the windows at the blurry prairie, while he scrubbed his bolts with a grease stained red bandana.

Our lists were pretty simple, we'd visit a small pharmacy on the east side of town, and then we'd be back, no more stopping than we have to, I was just happy to be away from that clausterphobic camp for a little while, even if it's only three hours.

I looked out the window absentmindedly, admiring the way the world looked, even after it had gone to shit. The trees were tall, as they'd always been, there are only a handful of them to be seen on the drive to town, the roadsides untrimmed after two winters and two summers, was thick with dead weeds that flowed over two feet in height.

The pavement stretch into town was cracked, small groups of priarie grass emerging from the cracks, and the occasional abandonned and overturned car on the thirty-two mile stretch from home to Torrington.

No one really spoke, it was mostly Shane talking. He told us three stories of his time in the police force, and the story that T-Dog and Daryl had heard before of how Rick got shot and was put into a coma, he had woken alone in the trashed hospital of Atlanta, Georgia, and had somehow found his way back to his family. It was news to me how Rick emerged into the zombie world.

T-Dog cracked a few jokes and Daryl stayed silent about any personal information other than wise cracks on Shane's stories, I have noticed, increasingly so, since I first met them both that they were invisably at each others throats, cracking down on each other with snide comments, like how Shane jumps at the oppertunity to call Daryl a redneck, as does Daryl to tell Shane no one misses him at camp, I sense a story behind it, but I am in no mood to get the evil eye from Shane in the rear view mirror because I asked.

Finally a few small farm houses started to emerge alongside the road, mostly trashed, overturned cars and trash skidding across the driveways in the Wyoming wind.

The trees started getting thicker also, grouping together to hide more houses and small farms, though from the looks of it, they didn't have much success, there were broken windows, doors sagging open and a handful of walkers shuddering as they shuffled about the yard.

"Here we go." Shane announced as we pulled up to the pharmacy. There are two in town, one on the east side, the other on the west.

The building was relitively small, long and rectangular, painted fading white with a green splintering shingle roof and the windows, for the most part, were boarded up, criss crossed frantically in the attempt to protect it's goods.

We got out and gathered the three duffle bags we'd brought to fill, I slung one of the canvas bags over my shoulder and readjusted how the bow string rested across my collarbone and then followed the others to the door. I didn't make eye contact with anyone, including Myriah. More for her sake than mine, I'd probably blow up and storm off and then we'd get nothing done.

Shane wrenched off two of the boards across the front door with a crowbar, T-Dog pulled off the other three with his hammer. They pushed the door inward, the musty smell of stagnate air wafted out, followed by the eery chime of the bell above the door.

"Well, let's go. Remember to search the place first, be quiet, take everything you can get." Shane instructed, drawing his hand gun and heading in first for show.

The building was dark, a small amount of dim sunlight that penetrated between the wooden boards across the windows, the ceiling had once been white, but now the slabs hung down and sagged, brown water stains fancied the edges and dust motes floated around.

The wood floor had a thin layer of dust with no previous foor prints, which led up to belief that we were the first here in a long time. The shelves were still pretty raided, but had a decent amount of things still on them.

I gathered seven rolls of gauze and the two bottles of Tylonel I found, then walked towards the pharmcists counter at the back of the store.

I looked up warily at the wide white shelf leaning against hte door behind the cabinet. I walked forward and heard a shuffle. I froze and drew my gun slowly, angling it towards the door where there was more shuffling, some groaning... Walkers.

I drew in a deep breath and held it, the thudding pulse behind my ears and the panic that hitched my breath.

The door flew open, watery groans and hisses and walker arms poking through the opening, I take a broad step backwards, and trip over a board lying across the floor. I scramble to grab something before I fall and grab the shelf, it isn't nearly as heavy as I thought, and it crashes down on me, I squirm away before it makes contact but it comes down hard on my left ankle.

I scream in pain, the crunch, and then the door pushing open wider at the sound. Half a body of a tattered pharmisist pulls her eager body through, grabbing for my leg, I push myself backwards to get out, but as the walkers fall out the door onto the shelf, I become pinned.

I start firing at the walkers, six of them piling onto the shelf, pressuring my ankle and the pain is unbarable, horrible. I grab my leg tightly and yank it backwards, the pain, I can't move it.

"Damn it.." I mutter, rolling over onto my chest and pushing myself up off the floor, I lean over the white counter I squeeze my eyes shut to ward off incrouching tears. It fucking hurt!

"What the fuck?!" Daryl walked around from a back room with his crossbow lifted.

"Damn walkers." I muttered, pressing my forehead into my hands and trying to detract myself.

"Here."

Daryl grabs my arm to pull me away from the counter and the walkers and I whine in protest, pulling back as though I'd been burned.

"My fuckin' ankle." I hissed venomously.

"What the hell happened?" Daryl demanded.

"I think it's broken." I admit, shifting forward a little bit.

"Shane!" Daryl yelled "Get yer ass over here."

Shane jogged over from the back of the store, confused.

"Aries thinks her ankle's broken." Daryl states.

Shane rolls his eyes but doesn't say anything else as he crouches to check it.

"Didn't you sprain it like... A month ago?" He asked, annoyed.

I sigh and lean back against the cabinet.

"Yeah, it's broken. Pretty bad too, what the hell did you do to it?"

"Got a damn shelf dropped on it." I muttered, glaring at the wall, the all red vision incrouching.

"Waste of damn resources..." Shane muttered, yanking open one of the duffle bags and digging around in it. I smacked his hand "Don't waste em then, I'll live."

"And I'll never hear the end of it from Hershel." Shane mumbled.

He went to try to readjust my foot, I growled at him "Shane, dammit, we've got better things to do than hang around here, we can do it when we get back."

He ignores me.

"Shane, stop or I'll fuckin' shoot you."

That gets his attention.

His eyes move upwards, narrowing into a shaded dark glare. But he stands and grabs the duffle bags and swings them over his shoulder and stalks out of the pharmacy.

"C'mon."

Daryl knelt and wrapped one of my arms across his shoulders and guided me out, I sat in the trunk with my foot propped up on a medical kit and we drove out of town, until Jacob shouted out in recognition.

"That's where Emily lives! Or lived..." He points out the window at a little farm house in the rual suburbs of Torrington.

"Who?" Daryl asks.

"She's, or was, I don't know, my girlfriend."

I'd known of Emily before he'd mentioned her, in fact they'd been going out a while before the apocalypse hit. I didn't think they were still together.

"Do you think she's there?" I asked, pushing myself up enough to look out the windows.

"Maybe." Jacob sighed.

"Shane, pull over."

His hands tighetned around the wheel.

"Shane." I said with authority, and the cars swerved aside.

The trunk popped and Daryl, T-Dog and Jacob got out, I noticed Myriah's concerned gaze at my foot, which was cocked at an unnatural angle.

I climbed out on my own slowly, and then took support from Daryl and we hobbled towards the house, the garage door.

Daryl exchanged odd hand gestures with T-Dog and they lifted the garage door and slipped inside, I leaned against the exterior wall with my foot propped up slightly.

"See anything?" I called to them as I looked in the windows of the two vehicles parked in the garage.

"Emily!" Jacob shouted, not in search, but in recognition.

"Jacob?..." A voice whispered, the backseat door of the pontiac on the other side of the garage opened and she slowly stepped out.

She has green eyes, blond hair in a knot on the back of her head with an outstretched hair tie, her eyes a frenzy of anxious energy.

"Where've you been?" Emily murmured while they hugged.

Jacob told her of our camp and offered for her to join us.

"What about my sister? My Dad... He isn't doing well."

"What happened?" Jacob asked, taking her hands.

"I'll show you."

She walked around to the trunk of the car and popped it, I came close enough to catch a whiff and gagged.

The smell was a myriad of rotting flesh and decomposing body parts, the groans that slipped from the walkers slack mouth as it mumbled to itself drunkenly.

"He's dead?..." Jacob asked.

"No." Emily defended, reaching to brush the matted hair of her fathers sweaty forehead. "There will be cure, and we'll be ok."

"Oh please fuckin' tell me that you're not one of those people. The ones who still believe in that shit." Daryl scoffed, rounding the car after a sweep of the house.

"There will be." Emily insisted, tightening her grip on Jacob's hand.

"Where is your sister?"

"In the car, I'll get her."

I followed in a slump hobble, my hand hovering over my holstered gun, I watched as she opened the door and whispered soothing words to someone and scooped up the little girl into her arms and swinging her out.

She was still human, didn't stink with walker perfume and still had a rosy tint in her cheeks. Her eye lids fluttered and she looked around herself at us, she didn't look any older than nine.

"Here, I've got her." Jacob said as he put up his gun and took the little girl from Emily.

"Aries." He stated as he walked by me, I followed, bending my weight across a rake I'd picked up.

I opened the door so he would lay her inside, I climbed in beside her, they could sort out the walker issue fine without me.

Five minutes later after some brief argument, there was a bang of gunfire, a single bullet, then Daryl emerged first, crossbow across his left shoulder, frowning as Emily jogged after him, yelling at him and calling him every dirty name in the book.

He stopped midstep and turned around and grabbed her arm, glaring at her the way he does to me on occasion.

"Now listen here Goddammit." He said in a rough southern voice "I just spared you the job of takin' yer dad outta his misery, and the least you could fuckin' do is show a little goddamned appreciation."

Emily just stood there with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, fuming angrily in silence, her face portraying that she'd like to rip his face off.

"He was going to live." She hissed.

Daryl rolled his eyes and walked away, getting in shotgun, and yelling back at her "Life don't work that way, sunshine."

It reminded me of how we were when I first met him, the day in the woods afterwards, we just started cussing each other out, and have slowly grown onto each other since then.

"We ready?" Daryl asked T-Dog and he nodded, everyone got in, and I was surprised. I'd expected it to take longer.



Tragedy struck just five miles up the asphalt road, as we manuvered the maze of husk cars and mounds of misplaced grass by mother nature, we found a group of walkers crossing the road.

"Kill that damn engine." Daryl muttered to Shane.

"Guh!" A walker turned and shuffled towards the car.

"Roll up the windows." Shane ordered.

They crowded up agaisnt them, pounding on the glass and the little girl began to cry, and Myriah looked petrified.

"I ain't fuckin' with this." Daryl muttered, rolling his window down enough to shiv the skull of the walker pounding the glass, and he pushed the door open and ran out, firing his crossbow at three walkers and taking down two more with his hunting knife before the surrounded him and I couldn't see him anymore.

"Daryl?" I hardly whispered.

It's weird, the feeling that came over me when I realized he could verywell be dead. My heart leapt from my chest and I kicked the back doors open and jumped out, stumbling and crying out in pain, I got my knife and wacked off two walkers shuffling towards me.

"Aries!" Myriah shouted horrifically "Get back in the damn car..." I drowned her out and everyone else yells as I pushed forward to the group of walkers putting all the weight I could bear onto my ankle I half jogged, half limped towards them and stabbed three, pulled one off of Daryl and sawed through his neck, and pulled up Daryl, we fought back against them, but they seemed to be emering from absolutely nowhere, we were killing like mad, Shane and T-Dog firing rounds off like mad, and they were everywhere.

Act fast, be the hero.

"Hey, over here!" I shouted, running away from Daryl and across the street, waving my arms ad shooting a single bullet into the sky, They turned and stumbled, trying to run, and they were fast, dragging along limp appendages and snarling like wild pigs.

I jogged, mostly on one leg as I went through the ditch, trudged through the water and plotted down the hill on the otherside. The apartment complexes and suburb houses just below, a few yards beyond the tracks.

I got down and scooted around the sharp edges and long falls, they were hot on my trail, and above their hungry grumbles, I heard my name being called, shrieked as I kept moving forward.

Gotta lead them away, ditch them and then backtrack to the van. It'll be ok.

I kept promising myself that, but wasn't all that sure of it.

I moved quickly through the suburbs, the echo of distant gunfire fading until it was just me, my foot steps, heavy breathing and the hungry groans following me as I wove between trees, through yards, around swingsets and cutting through abandonned houses.

I pushed aside a faded wooden plank on a fence and crouched through. The running and rough movement was no saint for my ankle.

I dragged on across the small yard and pulled open the hard water stained sliding glass door on the deck. I slid it shut behind me and loaded my gun with another round while I secured the house.

When it was safe, I looked through the house for anything useful, I took a pillow case and a butter knife from the kitchen and went upstairs to the top floor, into the southern bedroom and shut the door behind me, going to sit on the wooden floor bathed in sunbeams.

I looked up at the foggy glass before attending the problem.

I rolled up my pantleg to my knee and carefully took off the boot. It was gut wrenching, to say the least. It was swollen, purple and blue bruises all over the puffy skin. And I gingerly pressed into the bone and it caved a little, making my stomach flip as my mind instantly concocted the worst vison of my bone turning to powder.

It was cocked at an odd angle, and the more I poked at it and estimated, the more aware I became that it would most likely never heal correctly anyways.

I took a deep breath and got out my knife, looking at my reflection in the foggy metal. I set it aside and ripped the pillow case into strips and tied them together tightly. Swallowing my fear and panic as I tried to make sense of what I was about to do.

I arranged the cloth strips for quick acess and I reached for a bed sheet that was strewn across the floor a few feet away.

I pulled my Bic lighter out of my pocket and looked at the knife.

I was ready.

I stretched my foot out flat against the cool wood, the knife became clumsy in my sweaty palm as I tried to estimate the best place to score.

I press the blade against my skin and my stomach recoiled in disgust.

The bone is powder, ain't nothing you can do about it now. It'll be better, just do it.

Said one side of my conscious, and the other...

You damn idiot! Feet don't grow on trees and your going and sawing off your own. You're more brutal than I thought...

I bit my lip hard and lifted the knife. I can't do it, I can't.

I glared at the blade until it blurred, I tilted it up slightly, trying to block out my thoughts and stupidity, I tried to think straight as this was my only chance.

I brought the knife down against my ankles hard with unyeilding force, I blurted out a strangled scream as I forced my hands to move, back and forth, forcing the blade deeper.

The serrated notches cutting into my flesh, crisp red crimson droplets gathering into a shimmering, menacing pool on the wooden floor beneath the work space.

My movements were sloppy and shaky, my face was pouring sweat and my hands were slick with it, I think I as crying, my hair was matted to my forehead and I felt sick.

The bone wasn't much of a task to deal with, it shifted as the blade penetrated it, sawing it into two, and then... My right foot... fell onto the wooden floor, detached from the pain, detached from me. Landing with a low, sickening damp thud.