Hysteric

A few days passed as the two of them sat around in their cells. Zach hardly ever ate anything, but considering the stress he’d been under it was understandable. Arisa would sing obnoxious songs whenever the staff appeared, and act out on occasion. She wanted out of the cells, and her favorite fighting method was to be obnoxious. Eventually Zach started singing with her too. Then one day the doctor opened both doors four days early.

“Shut up Arisa… please…”

She smiled, “did that actually work? That has never worked before…”

“No, neither of you are showing any signs of infection. Should you have been bit, there would have been visual symptoms by now. Go on, get lost. Not seeing you anymore, Arisa, shall be my greatest delight.”

She smirked, “and getting out of here is mine. So, any happening news for the colony since I’ve been out for a week and a half?”

The doctor frowned, “we need your cells, we’ve got new comers arriving. It seems the scavenge crew found a wandering colony… but they were attacked. We’ve got enough survivors that your presence here is unnecessary.”

Arisa whooped glad to be freed, “Okay, later doc.” Arisa shot a devious glance over to Zach only to great a nervous face.

“What happened to Danny… or Meg?” He asked.

The doctor gave Zach a thoughtful look, “The boy, Danny… was… problematic. We could not get him to calm, and he would keep throwing… tantrums. He was very afraid. Eventually the woman with him, your Meg… or whatever her name was, she kept changing it, she walked out with the boy. I’ve never seen two people just stroll out of here like that, but they did. They went out with the trucks and didn’t come back.”

Zach gulped, “and so now that they are gone; there is a scavenger colony arriving?”

The doctor nodded, “yes, it would seem so. Which is excellent news for you Arisa, your job assignment is being put on hold. We are going to need to first deal with these incoming people before the council will have time to look at you.”

Arisa’s smile widened further, “can’t say I’m not displeased at hearing this.”

Zach raised an eyebrow in slight confusion as he looked at Arisa, “job assignment?”

She winked back, “yes indeed. You reach a certain age around here and you have to contribute back to society. It’s my time now. Quite a bit of the council wants me to act as ‘zombie bait’ or a ‘clown’ for the scavenger crew. To be delayed a death sentence is fine with me.” Her face lit up almost like it was a rare gift she had been given; a chance to extend her life expectancy by a few more days.
Zach watched Arisa with an uncommon intensity, “I don’t think I’m ready to let them take you from me.” He turned his head away and looked out to the far off exit that Arisa had brought him through.
Arisa stood still upon hearing his words unable to fully translate his meaning. What did he mean by that, to not be ready to have the council take her away from him… she glanced up at the doctor.

The doctor gave Arisa a nudge, “good for you kid,” and with that he walked away.

“Um… Zach… what… what are you rambling about.”

The boy’s placid face remained unreadable, “nothing I guess… hey… we should get out of here. Aren’t you going to give me a tour or something?”

Arisa grabbed Zach’s arm and hurried him down the hallway, “come on, first we’ve got to see who’s all coming in! I hope we get more people like you.” Arisa said with nervous excitement. She was certainly intrigued by the presence of a new people. This would dilute the mundane and rigid council members who currently sat elected. New blood could work in her favor, as long as she reached out to them first.

Arisa dragged Zach out to the front entrance of the building. As they looked down over the railing the two of them watched the group coming in. The armored men pushed aside local colonists as they moved the new people up to the containment cells.

Most of them were just regular people glad to have found sanctuary. Only one man stuck out from the rest. He was a tall blond character wearing priest’s robes.

“Ooh, a holy man; I haven’t seen a believer for the longest time. Most ‘believers’ were either turned to the undead, or turned to atheism.”

Zach agreed and he glared at the priest, “indeed… I’ve never been a fan of the holy realm.”

Arisa kept her gaze on the priest, “well regardless, maybe his god shall keep him company in those boring cells, huh?”

“Perhaps…” Zach fixated at the man as he came up the steps. The armored men pushed Arisa and Zach to the side. As the survivors passed by the priest returned the gaze with Zach. He smiled at him and nodded his head as he walked on. Only for a second did the priest make eye contact with Arisa before looking past her. His eyes were a cold blue that gave Arisa the chills. As she looked at him she could almost feel her heart stop. The priest continued his walk turning away with an impassive air about him.
“Do you know him?” Arisa asked glancing back to Zach.

“Yeah, a carrier of death is what that man is. I’d rather not see him ever again.”

“See him again? You do know him!... but you’re calling him a carrier of death. Stories Zach, you’ve got stories to tell me.”

“He’s one of them. One of the people who… he had Danny locked up in that place! He’s a killer! Don’t let those robes fool you.”

Arisa looked back as the group of people walked to the containment cells, “No shit. Do you think we should inform the council?”

Zach turned, “we should run out of here… I want to get some fresh air… I don’t want to be inside anymore. Besides, your council won’t listen to you anyway. It doesn’t take a simpleton to realize you’re not exactly popular around here. No one will believe us.”

Arisa pushed her anxiety to the side, “That is generally an answer I’d find myself very happy with… but… you’ll have to forgive me on this one. I want to be here when those people are discharged from quarantine. You may not like that priest, but maybe we could take advantage of your knowledge? Like blackmail him or something? He looks fairly charismatic and I think he’s capable of swaying the council. We could take advantage of evil. I’m a lowly creature, I’d be okay with that.”

Zach frowned, “he’s not that kind of person. It’s best you let him be… at least for now. We should leave still… your new politics will be all boxed up for the next two weeks anyway, and that priest won’t be making any moves… how about you show me just how adventurous you really are instead.”

Arisa nodded, “Alright, we’ll sneak out again. The best parts about this place are not indoors, but outside. We’ll have to sneak out and back in again… getting caught means going back in the box so we are not to get caught. Perhaps we can look for your friends while we’re out there?”

Zach shook his head, “they’ll be fine… Megurine… she can be gruesome when she needs to be…”

Arisa shrugged indicating a care-free gesture, “it’s whatever man. We’ll come back when the quarantine time is up; then I can pretend to be the charismatic creature that I am not. I think we can get something out of that evil bastard before we let you kill him for your buddy Danny. Come on, you know as well as I the way out of here.”

Zach held his tongue not sure how to respond to her. Not wanting to give her a response as her statements become crazier and crazier.

The two of them ran off to the snipers box where Arisa had once guided him to the safety of the power plant. There she could easily spot her acquaintance Silas, the guard that had let her slip out and about many times before.

Arisa pushed forward in hopes to press her luck, “Hey Silas, don’t tell on us this time. If anything happens, we won’t return, okay?”

He nodded, “you’re a good kid, and I pity any zombie foolish enough to come near you. You’ll be fine, enjoy your time on the outside.”

Arisa smiled back, “I think… I think we’re going to go camping. Just need some time out of here.”

Silas nodded, “well, I’ll keep a look out for you, but I won’t anticipate much. It’s amazing you just haven’t run away for good yet.”

She joyously grabbed Zach and they climbed up.

For Zach, time with her seemed amazing to him. She was so full of energy and life with an optimistic view about everything. They moved through the water fall and up through the cave, past the boulder where Arisa stood with her arms spread out inhaling the outdoor air.

“No death up here, just… nature. We’ll come down when we feel ready to. The beauty of the lake is it’s got fish if we get hungry, but also,” she turned around and pointed at the trees, “a mulberry grove and boy does the fruit taste good. Full of tiny bugs too, so, yummy fruit with lots of protein.”

Zach cringed at her joy for the little bugs, “and how long will this adventure last?”

She replied, “two weeks, like you said earlier. Enough time to have some fun out here and away from the colony bullshit, but also enough time for me to get back and make some friends with the new people.”

Zach gave a disapproving sigh running his fingers through his hair. She was relentless on using blackmail to make a bad man her ally. Someday he’d have to teach how detrimental that type of thinking was.

“Okay mister,” Arisa pointed her finger into Zach’s chest and frowned at him, “what’s the deal with your stank face? Every time I mention the newbies you get all weird… like weirder than you were in the box. What’s up with that?”

The boy’s lower jaw clenched as the two of them moved down the paths outside of the factory. “It’s just… The priest is worse than you think he is. People come to trust him, confide in him… but he’s a man of cowardice. When the zombies attacked the remnants of the Cambrian colony he was the first to knock over a pregnant woman so that he could get away. He’s a coward Arisa, no true man of god. And worse yet, he has no scruples toward the amount of people he’s will to sacrifice for his own satisfaction. He made Danny a test subject for a sadomasochistic surgeon without even blinking. I’m not even entirely sure what they were supposedly experimenting on with Danny. I just think he’s sick in the head. He’s evil, and trust me, you don’t want anything to do with him.”

Arisa brought her finger up to rest on her chin, “a cowardly man… but probably a lot of political swing with his ‘fancy talk’,” she put her arm down, “eh, he sounds like he’s perfect for the council. A bunch of ridiculous cowards that can all get along together and cover. You haven’t swayed my mind yet. I’d like to get him working for us or else I need to rethink my position at the power plant.”
“You should just re-think it,” Zach grumbled, “Once someone looks at the priest it’s hard to resist his temptations. The people who meet him are just too incredibly ready to forget his past and start anew. That’s what made the priest such a perfect parasite.”

Arisa broke into a full run and swung up into one of the trees not caring to continue the conversation, “Come, on Zach! There is a great oak out in there that you can only reach by climbing through the other trees!”

Zach climbed up after her wondering if she would heed his advice. She leapt from tree to tree. Climbing, swinging, or jumping wherever she was needing to go. She was much like a monkey; a carefree animal that could not be contained within the confines of a system. Finally she reached an old pine tree that didn’t look healthy. She cautiously jumped over and grabbed onto the healthiest portion of its body which was the main trunk. From there she edged out onto a dying dried out branch and looked at Zach with assurance that the branch would hold. She leapt off soared through the air moving toward the next tree. A sturdy oak caught her in its arm and she climbed to her feet then walked down the fat healthy branch. It didn’t even sway under her weight as most trees did. She waved her hand and Zach repeated the motion.

To Arisa, watching Zach move was like watching a spider. He was very quiet, and very light on his feet. He leapt the distance to get to the pine tree with ease before carefully gauging the distance for the oak branch below him. He didn’t bother to step out onto the dying branch as Arisa had done; rather he climbed further up to a narrow portion of the trunk then hung off with one arm. Both his feet were pressed against the side then he sprung off of the pine using the trunk as a springboard. He flew down and caught a smaller branch above Arisa with his hands. The branch swayed with the impact of his weight, but it sounded no heavier than what the wind blowing past. Perhaps years and years of having to hunt zombies made him this quiet.

He dropped onto the massive branch and looked at her with his red/brown eyes. “Now what?” he asked.

She grinned, “Now we enjoy camping. We’re here.”

Arisa crawled up between two thick branches and over to the other side, “I found this a long time ago, and let me tell ya, this was a pretty sweet discovery.”

Zach crawled over and looked at a cabin sized home built up into the tree.

“There was a rope ladder inside it… but I had to cut it down. The zombies at one point actually started to make progress on climbing up it, before falling back down. It freaked the hell out of me, so I just slashed it down and ate all the berries and birds I could until their little rat pack up and vanished. I spent more time out here than I was prepared for.”

Zach looked at the structure. Someone had put in a lot of time, money, and effort into making the small tree home. It had stained glass windows, and it was a rather artistic shape, made to intentionally look like a wooden crafted egg in a giant tree nest.

Arisa walked over and opened up the front door, “watch your step… it’s a bit slippery on this first branch.”

Zach stepped in even more surprised to see the inside of it. The cabin had storage cabinets, a couch, and even a bookshelf with books still in it. There were three beds in total, all of them built up into a loft area above the living space. There was a kitchen prep area, and a small wood stove inside. It had all the necessary things about it, except there was no electricity.

“It’s cozy camping, I know it, but I’ll be damned if this wasn’t an awesome discovery. Someday I just want to retire out here. The original owner of it was some kind of spiritualist. He was very into Taoism and Buddhism… I don’t care for most of those books over there. Though, every now and then I’ll find an out of place book on divination that is mildly entertaining… for like maybe an hour or so. I can pretend to read my own palm, or predict my future looking at the tea leaves left at the base of my strainer.”

Zach smiled, “it’s a lovely home…”

“Yup, and,” she swung a cabinet open. It was filled with dry tea’s, and very fine glassware inside. “The cabinets came stocked… it’s the only place I’ve found that came stocked with canned caviar… which I got to tell you, does not taste very good. Oh, and then there is this,” Arisa popped open a floor board beneath their feet, “secret awesome booze stash with cigar box. I found the smallest rich person house ever.”

Zach reached into the secret cache and pulled out an aged chardonnay from the 1950’s. “No kidding… man these things are ancient.”

“Really old wine, some of it tastes like vinegar now… aged too long, or a seal broke. But, some of it tastes okay. I myself find that I like this guy’s whiskey the best. It’s like taking sugar shots with a warming feel to it.”

Zach said, “Too bad there is no ice. It’s amazing this has all kept in this heat, and hasn’t gone bad.”

“It’s a miracle,” Arisa commented, “a miracle stacked with all kinds of hidden goodies. Hey, you like dried meat? I found like a bag of jerky stashed under the pillow of the bunk above us. Someone tried to hide it, but I found it and it’s still very good. I tried making my own jerky once, there wasn’t enough salt so I kept stealing from the kitchens back at the power plant… but… I don’t know. I guess I didn’t hang my squirrels high enough, because they kept vanishing. It’s whatever now, I just camp up here when things get too stressful back at the colony. It’s nice you know.”

Zach nodded, “ritzy is what it is… the only place I’ve seen ritzier than this is the mansion out in the west. Perhaps the owner of that place built this one too, leaving behind secret treasures.”

“Sounds plausible, if this is still part of the mansion’s land. Who ever owned that place owned the mulberry fields too. And let’s face it, this tree house is awesome, check it out.” Arisa walked over and flipped down the couch.

It turned down into a hardwood table. She pulled out two cushions and set them on top of the end tables that were on both sides of the couch, “a table for two. Actually, bunches of stuff folds out or in. You can pull down that bookshelf and turn it into a desk without knocking off any of the books… it’s really bizarre. If you rotate it, you can pull down another bed, but you’ve got to have a super clean floor, because it doesn’t work out to well if there are any obstructions. The couch can be used as a real tiny bed if you like, I’m just more fascinated someone made it into a duel table. You can rotate a lot of stuff along the walls to find additional storage space. Sometimes you get lucky and find neat junk hidden inside, like I did with the floor boards. Though I struck out on the boxes that hold the beds. Underneath are just blankets and junk.”

Zach replied, “This place is awesome.”

Arisa nodded, “yup, and there is more.” She walked over to the back door that had also been fitted with an intricate stain glass window containing the image of a single red rose and opened the door.

“There is a containment unit that catches rain water, if you pull this string a regulated unit of water starts to flow out. Instant shower on the planks above the forest ground. It’s just too cool.”

Zach nodded in agreement.

Arisa made up some of the jerky and cracked open a can of peas for the two of them to eat. She dumped out most of the rain water in hopes to clean the containment unit. It had grown a lot of mold, and things seemed to be living in it now. She threw in a chlorine tablet she had swiped from under the sink counter of the tree house (though there was no faucet to the sink, since water did not flow in).

“Okay… hopefully it will rain soon, or we’ll just smell for a bit…”

Arisa popped the top of the can of peas and swung around the salted jerky slapping the food down onto their plates, “its deer and its divine. You’ll love it. I like the canned vegetables the best, so don’t eat it all up.”

They ate a poor meal off of ridiculously expensive china. Arisa made up some lukewarm tea for the two of them to enjoy with their meal.

As she placed the tea bags into the cups of water she said, “Um… I don’t want to start the stove… there is free fire wood underneath it, but… fire fuels zombie’s attention, and I just don’t want them near my tree again.”

Zach agreed, “This only becomes a problem with the water you want to use. Too many zombies and not enough water, I can see how that would make you nervous.”

“Well, kinda. This place comes with bottled water! A rare find indeed! I drank a lot of it when I got stuck here that one time, but I try to conserve as much of the good stuff as I can. I only boil water when I feel like it’s my absolute only choice left.”

Zach could barely eat what Arisa provided him, his stomach felt too upset and he felt too nervous. The idea of that particular priest returning back into his life had him anxious. The two exchanged a few stories before bed, and once he was sure Arisa was asleep he decided to head back to the factory.

He needed to leave, that and he was very hungry. The food Arisa had made was too salty for his body to handle. It had been a long time since he’d been this hungry. He slipped out the front door and closed it gently.

Arisa snapped open her eyes and watched him leave the tree house, “huh… he must have to poo…” She laid back down and slept through the rest of the night. As the sun began to peak in through the windows she opened her eyes again. Still Zach was not back, and it seemed unlikely that she would wake both times when he had to lean off the side of the oak tree.

The door was quietly opened as Zach returned.

“Have you been out all night?” Arisa asked looking down at him from her bunk, he winced.

“Yeah… well no… sort of… I couldn’t sleep. I’ve just kind of been exploring around here. I wanted to see if there were any more of these huts built.”

Arisa sighed, “the guy who made this one started working on another one, it’s way out in the distance, but it was never completed. No roof or any fancy furniture, just a floor and a wall, with holes for the windows that may have gone in eventually.”

“Oh… there is another one.”

“You should sleep Zach. You barely slept while we were in the cells, and you don’t sleep around here… kind of why I wanted to drag you out. It’s noisy to sleep in those cubicle rooms with the other people. It’s peaceful out here.”

“Too many bad memories,” Zach responded, “I sleep when I’m exhausted. I’m not exhausted yet, so I can’t sleep.”

“I bet you hibernate through a week once you do sleep,” muttered Arisa. “Okay, what would you like to do today then?”

“Shower first,” he joked, “brush my teeth, and go from there.”

“Fine by me, I can make up some breakfast if you like. I saw some bird eggs outside my window by the bunk. I can piss off a Robin, steal his babies then make him up for dinner if you like?”

The way she talked was just so unnatural to the normality of other people, “that sounds marvelous,” Zach edged out to the back where the shower was located. It had rained while he was out last night, but it still didn’t wash the mess he was trying to conceal entirely off of him. He sighed with relief that she did not notice the grim on his body, or didn’t care. Part of the reason he always wore black was for the colors ability to conceal the filth he collected.

Arisa climbed on up above the roof of the house with mal intent on the robin family above her. She pushed her hand into the nest, and as she hoped the male Robin dive bombed her. She grabbed him as he pecked at her hand and snapped its neck, “totally going to have to start that stove up now…” she muttered.

She pulled the nest out with all the little eggs then held each egg to the sunlight. Only one egg had a blood spot on it. “Ah, there’s the fertilized one. Just more protein for us… I guess.” She very climbed back down with her little snacks being held in the nest as though it were a basket.

She slid in through the window at the side of her bed and hollered out to Zach, “I’ve got a blood spot on one of these eggs, you still want to eat it? I mean… it’s a growing baby in there…” He came in with a towel he had pulled from the storage unit under his bed.

“Naw, I’ll throw it out if you would like?”

Arisa tossed him the egg and he caught it, “sure, if you’d like… I just feel kind of bad eating the little babies you know. It’s not so bad when the eggs haven’t started developing, but I feel real awful when I see that blood spot in ‘em.”

She was capable of being a sweet girl at random points, Zach noted. He walked out of the house and she set the nest down with the dead bird in it. She’d have to remove the feathers, dig out the waste system, and get rid of the head, but either than that, it was fairly edible… just not much food would come out of it. She needed the mother to feed the two of them, and even that would not be much food.

She peaked out the window to see why it was taking Zach so long to toss a bad egg out, and instead observed his odd behaviors first hand. He had cracked the egg open and proceeded to eat out the insides raw.

“He’s like a dog…” she whispered, “maybe he just doesn’t like letting things go to waste…”

She turned back around and pulled out the first log. It was a good thing zombies couldn’t smell. She got the kindling going at the base of the stove, and then worked on picking out the feathers in the sink basin. She chopped off its head with the cutlery provided in the kitchen. By the time she was done with plucking the bird the stove was ready to go.

“Hey Zach, could you bring in a bucket of water to rinse the sink out with… I’ve got bird guts everywhere.” He nodded and did as she asked.

He scrubbed the sink and she cooked up a meal. A little bird was fired up in oils and salt. Surprisingly it looked not just digestible but delicious too, and the smell only got better as she pulled out one of the spoiled wines and added the vinegar to the robin. The eggs cooked up magnificently. She added salt and a little chili powder.

“All we need is tobasco sauce,” she said jokingly as she laid out an egg for Zach and herself. She placed the robin at the center of the table. It was small, with barely any meat on it, but it looked amazing.

“Later we can go berry picking if you like. There are a few wild tomatoes on the floor of the woods, and of course you now know about the mulberries.”

Zach nodded, “no, this is fine. It looks wonderful.”

She grabbed one of the tiny forks that came with the house. “Perhaps halflings lived up here. Tiny little people with their tiny little delicate silverware and dishes.”

“Maybe they were actually big people who needed to be on a diet?” Zach retorted, “they thought if they made everything else smaller, the little bits of food would look bigger and they wouldn’t need to eat as much.”

Arisa laughed, “yes, which is why they never made it back up to the tree house once the zombies came. They were too fat to run!”

Zach agreed, “they probably were too out of shape to run, but not fat. Rich people pay others to keep themselves from getting fat.”

Zach only nibbled at his egg. He seemed more interested in the bird. The fried flavors were in fact amazing, as all fried foods ought to be, but as he ate at the meat his stomach just couldn’t handle the richness of the flavors.

“You’ve made yourself sick, haven’t you?” Arisa said looking him over, “that’s why we throw out the developing eggs and not eat them raw.”

He blushed, “you saw that?”

“Yeah, but it’s okay. I understand why you wouldn’t want to waste any food that comes your way. Still, make wiser decisions on what you eat.”

He laughed, “caught me red handed haven’t you?”

She spoke through mouthfuls of robin, “regardless, I must say I’m rather glad you made yourself ill. More for me to eat now!”

“So, how much longer do you think we’ll be out here?” Zach asked.

“I told you that already. Two weeks, I still aim to get to those newbie’s and make my plea. They don’t know me yet and probably that priest fellow will be elected to the council. I want to be placed in a position other than ‘clown’. That all being said, I will ammend my plans if you don’t start sleeping right. We can head back sooner to the power plant if you're too uncomfortable with the outdoors. I know the outside doesn’t always feel safe, but this place is pretty well protected. Unless, of course, zombies learn to start swinging from trees. Then we are doomed.”

He replied, “no, it’s doubtful Zombies will ever learn to do much, but they aren’t what has me worried. I’m just… I’m just afraid that zombies aren’t the only walking dead out there.”
“Are you afraid we’ll run into vampires and skeletons? Or maybe it’s Frankenstein’s monster you fear? I can’t think of any other undead that would be out there other than zombies.” Arisa said with a scowl.

“That is sort of my fear,” Zach muttered, “If we have zombies, why not vampires?”

She giggled, “Because, vampires are much older. Their lore states that they lived with and among humans, being a prideful people they would never admit to be human engineered, nor would they wipe out their own food supply. Vampires are much more intelligent, and besides. In their heads they are all nobles, too good to be swinging from tree to tree chasing people like me. You’re not really afraid of vampires are you? They are mythology, like faeries.”

He shrugged, “you’re probably right about that. No my fear stems from what the zombies are becoming. They are getting smarter you know.”

“You must be referring to the talkers,” Arisa said, “they are smarter, but not that smart. No, if we were going to have an ancient mythological monster chase us up this tree and eat us it would make more sense for it to be a werewolf rather than an undead thing. The undead are just too slow or too above us to be chasing humans.”

“A werewolf? Dogs can’t climb,” Zach rebutted.

“Dogs don’t usually climb, but they can. A hungry man in a wolf’s body, he’ll make the climb. That monster would do anything he could to get to his tasty morsels hiding up in a tree. A vampire will suck it up and look for something easier. The desperation just isn’t there.”

Zach nodded, “so… a vampire isn’t as desperate?”

“No, they hold themselves to this degree of honor and sophistication, or at least that’s what the books I’ve read say. They are too good to be running up trees.”

Zach scoffed, “we’ll then, should we ever be turned to a monster let us hope we become vampires then. That way we’ll never have to run up trees to eat our lunch.”

Arisa snorted, “No, I’d rather be a werewolf. I’d be cuter and more cuddly, and I’d just crush through armies and armies of zombies.”

“What if you became a zombie werewolf?” Zach asked.

“Then that would be bad ass,” Arisa stated.

She was amazing to him, this girl. So easily able to hide from the problems in this world and segue into something fantastically fictional to distract her mind and taking him with her to a world all her own.

“A hungry man in a wolf’s body,” Zach repeatedly slowly, “’tis all our worst fears.”

Arisa nodded and finished off the robin, “I guess… at least you’d see the monster coming. A wolf wearing a man’s clothes, now that is scary. That charging creature would give you enough time to decide on whether you should stay to fight or flee. Both are bad decisions, so you should try to fight even though you wouldn’t win. Die quick or die slow sort of business. I’d prefer to die quick.”

Zach smiled, “no…” he muttered, “no, you would not.”

Arisa put the dirty dishes out onto the ledge of the window, “the bugs will clean ‘em off for us. No need to waste water. Want to go exploring again? I can show you wear the partially built tree house is at… it’s sad to look at. A dead dream is what it is.”

Zach nodded his head, “That would be wonderful all the same.”