Episode 2: Breathe

Episode 2

"Breathe"

(This Part of the Story is From Kayla's Point of View)

I ran as fast as I could, I didn't look back. I just kept ducking under tree branches and jumping over fallen logs and tree stumps. I saw Brandy running beside me in the corner of my eye. I didn't see anybody else though, I didn't worry about that though. I would find them later, I needed to get away from the stranglers right now. I finally took one little glance behind me, and saw two stranglers on me. The other stranglers were either shaken off of us, or going after other people. The stranglers got closer, I looked ahead and kept running, as fast as I could. I then tripped over a branch that had fallen onto the ground. I was paying attention to the stranglers and didn't the branch. I fell to the ground, and the wind was knocked out of me. The two stranglers stopped and circled me. It was like they were planning on how to kill me. They growled as they eyed me up, getting closer slowly. It almost felt like they were devilishly smiling at me.

"Stay back!" I yelled as I crawled backwards.

The stranglers kept slowly moving closer, I picked up a branch and threw it at a strangler, it hit it in the face.

"Get away!" I screamed.

The strangler didn't like me throwing a branch at them, the strangler screamed and ran for me. I closed my eyes and braced for my death, there was then a big thud sound. I opened my eyes to see Brandy pinning the strangler on the ground, he had tackled it.

"Run!" he yelled.

"No! You need help!" I yelled.

"No Kayla! Run, none of us are protected. You might get sick!" he yelled back.

I wasn't leaving Brandy to fight two stranglers on his own though, I needed to help him. The second strangler tackled him onto the ground and Brandy fought to keep it off of him. I grabbed the branch that I threw at the strangler earlier. I came up behind the strangler and smacked it in the back of the head. It fell to the ground. The second strangler came at me, and I swung the branch again. The strangler flew down to the ground and I heard a bone cracking sound. Ouch. I reached for my pistol and shot one of them in the chest. It was down for good now. Brandy shot the other one. I could have shot the strangler before instead of whacking it with a branch, but I might have gotten strangler blood on Brandy. We need to be careful around these things.

"I told you not to help me." Brandy said.

"You almost died." I replied.

"Now you might be sick."

"I don't care, I couldn't live with myself if I left you to die. We will be sick together." I said.

Brandy and I started walking through the forest, we didn't shout for the group, that would attract stranglers. We tried looking for them though, we walked around the forest trying to find them.

"Are you scared?" Brandy asked me.

"About what?" I asked.

"Do you think we'll ever find the group again?"

"I think we will, are you scared?"

"Oh of course not!" he exclaimed, but I think he was.

"It's okay if you're scared," I said, "It's normal."

"Well, maybe just a little." he admitted.

I was a little scared too I have to admit, but I believe we will find the group again, if we've made it this far, a few stranglers aren't going to set us back. We kept walking through the forest, and we tried to remain calm. Panicking won't help anything, usually it just gets you killed. After walking for a long time, I actually started to lose track of the highway. We were deep into the forest now, and there was no going back. We were going to have to keep moving, and hope we find the group again.

We tried to make the best out of a bad situation, but it really wasn't working. I was starting to get concerned. I honestly thought we would have found the group by now, but there is no sign of them at all.

"Can we take a break?" Brandy asked.

"Sure, this is a good spot." I sat down on a tree stump and Brandy sat on the ground next to me.

"I'm starting to get worried." he said.

"Me too, but we just have to keep searching."

"Hey Kayla? Can I ask you something?" Brandy looked up at me.

"Yeah?"

"Do you think someday, the stranglers will be gone? Maybe we can return back to a normal world once again."

"Honestly," I began, "I don't think so. There are so many stranglers out there now that it is almost impossible to get rid of all of them. The only way to really stop them is to build big walls, and keep them out. And even if we do that, I don't think the world will ever be the same again. People will be screwed up from living in the apocalypse for too long. What has it been? One year now? I think the old world is over, and it's never coming back."

"Oh." Brandy looked down at the ground, a tear fell from his face and he sniffled.

"It's okay, we will survive it. Just breathe." I got off the stump and hugged him.

There was a growl, I let go of Brandy and looked. I was expecting to see a strangler or something, but it wasn't. It was a wolf, or a coyote. I can't tell the difference. All I know, was that it was really angry. It gritted it's teeth at me and kept on growling. I slowly reached for my pistol, I then pulled it out of my pocket. I quickly pointed at it. I was expecting the dog to attack me, but it didn't. The dog whimpered and backed up. I looked over at Brandy.

"Is it scared of me?" I asked.

"Looks like it!" he replied.

I slowly put the pistol away, and started walking towards it.

I walked slowly, to make sure the dog didn't get startled. The dog put it's tail in between it's legs and whimpered. I think it thought I was going to hurt it. I put my hand on it's head and started petting it. The dog let me pet it, and I think it started to like me.

"Kayla, I don't know about this." Brandy said.

"Come on, it's scared. That's all." I replied.

"What are we going to do with it?"

"I think we should keep it, it can protect us. I haven't seen a dog since the apocalypse started. I want to keep it."

Brandy was unsure about keeping it, but we ended up keeping it anyways. The dog followed us around the forest. I noticed that it's rib cage was showing, and it looked really hungry. We needed to find some food, my dad had the backpack on him. Now that we aren't with him anymore, we have nothing. We kept on walking until we found a small pond. The dog ran to the pond and started drinking out of it. I ran to the pond too, but Brandy stopped me.

"What?" I asked.

"That water probably isn't safe to drink! You might get sick!" he said.

"We fought off two stranglers," I said, "We might already be sick. I'm not afraid of some water."

Brandy sighed and I ran and started drinking the water with the dog. Brandy finally let in and started drinking too. It wasn't the best water I ever had, but it wasn't too bad.

"This water is gross." Brandy said.

I looked over at the dog, he was drinking really fast.

"He doesn't seem to think so."

"We should name him." Brandy said.

"Yeah! I totally forgot about that! What should we call him?"

"I don't know." Brandy thought.

"Doug." I suggested.

"What?"

"Doug! Doug the dog! Sounds cool." I exclaimed.

"Whatever, Doug it is."

We kept walking through the forest, and Brandy was slowing down by the second. At first I thought he was just being lazy, but he told me he felt really sick. It couldn't have been the water, since Doug and I felt just fine, and we drank the water too.

"Do you think it was the strangler?" I asked.

"No, I'm fine. I promise." he said.

"Alright, just tell me if you need to stop."

After walking for an hour longer, I saw a cabin. It was a nice little log cabin. I started running for it, the first thing I thought was food. Food and clean water. That would be nice. Doug ran behind me, and Brandy tried keeping up. I got to the front door of the house and pulled out my pistol, I took a deep breathe in and opened the door. I scanned the room with my gun, nothing was in here. Brandy followed me in.

"You should have waited for me, what if there were people in here?" he asked.

"I could take them." I said confidently.

The cabin was dark, but I could still see alright. I looked around, but I couldn't find anything. Doug ran to the corner of the room picked something up with his mouth and brought it to me. He sat beside it and wagged his tail.

"What is it?" I asked, unzipping the bag and reaching into it.

I found tons of stuff, food, water, and even more guns. I found two more pistols in there, which looked way cooler, and were stocked with a lot of ammo.

"Damn! Look at this!" I threw my old pistol to the side and picked up the two new pistols.

"Duel wielded!" I shouted, waving them around in the air.

Brandy reached into the bag and found a granola bar, he unwrapped it and gave the whole thing to Doug. Doug ate it really fast, and we gave him two more. He looked really hungry. This bag had six water bottles in total, a couple granola bars, and some small chip bags. I poured some water in his mouth as best as I could.

"We really hit the jackpot!" I said.

"Should we stay here?" Brandy asked.

"Yeah! Why not?" I asked, opening up a chip bag.

"I don't know, it just seems a little too perfect. A bag sitting here in an abandoned house stocked with stuff? I think someone lives here. I think we should leave before they get back."

"Oh come on Brandy! Let's just stay here for the night! It's really cold out there, and it's getting dark."

Doug happily barked, I think he was agreeing with me.

"Don't you want to find the group?"

"I do, but I also don't want to freeze to death." I said.

"Alright, fine." Brandy said.

He reached his hand in the bag to get some food, his sleeve rolled up and I saw something bad. It was a gash mark on his right arm.

"Brandy?" I asked pointing to his arm, "What's that?"

He quickly rolled up his sleeve.

"Nothing, must have been a branch that cut me or something."

"That looks a lot like a strangler scratch mark." I slowly said.

"What? No! No it's not!"

"Brandy, it's all coming together now. You seemed down the entire day, and you said you were feeling sick. You're infected."