In the days leading up to their run, Minerva had cancelled all but one of her training sessions. She’d been known to do this when it came time to head beyond the wall, she would always be able to train the others when she got back, but her run partner was the most important person – as they often decided Minerva’s own fate.
The newcomer, Charlene – that’s what they’d told her when she visited the hospital –, had piqued her interest to say the very least. She was weak when she arrived, but no one survived for long outside of a sanctuary if they weren’t strong. Minerva waited, as she’d been instructed to, until Charlene was well enough to leave the infirmary to begin training with her. It was quite literally the instant she was out of the infirmary, but Charlene had been up to the challenge. It was refreshing to work with someone who was so willing, receptive and trained. So far, that made Charlene and Dexter that she was able to go tough on.
Dexter had been assigned to run with someone else or maybe he’d chosen someone else. Either way, Minerva was excited about the prospect of running with Charlene. She’d forgone breakfast, as was her normal routine, and opted for a longer jog around the sanctuary the morning of their run. She was already at the gate, adjusting the strap of her quiver that sat along her right shoulder. There was very little in her bag, having always been one to pack light on running trips; just the essentials.
“Ready as we’ll ever be.”
There was a hint of a smile playing on her lips as they were led outside the wall, the snow was barely above her boots, which wasn’t ideal, but she’d been out in worse. It made it easier to follow the tracks of the infected, but it made it harder to make a quick getaway.
“I’ve been East –” she lifted a hand to gesture in the direction she spoke of. “– not much close there. I was thinking we’d head either West or a little further North, depending on how you’re feeling.”
Charlene looked in the directions that Minerva referenced, eyes squinted and alert. When she’d first come to Sanctuary, she’d come from the Westmost direction — that area was familiar. And while she couldn’t remember much of her surroundings (having been hobbling in that drunken state of not-alive-not-quite-dead-yet), Charlene’s still managed to identify elements of the neighborhoods — the punched-out windows, broken cars, the graffiti on homes to be belatedly corrected: 1 alive down here.
“Ought to go North,” said Charlene. “I didn’t find much West except for more empty cupboards.”
She whistled soft and low, and Hank approached the duo’s side, ears pricked. Charlene brought her hand down to the fringe of his back and then turned to the wall, where she fumbled with the wooden latch — pausing only to peer past the iron grates. “Before Sanctuary, I found myself navigating by the stars. You can only look at so many boarded-up houses before they begin to look the same.”
The gates creaked open and Charlene slipped through. She held it for Minerva before closing it shut behind them. Out here, she couldn’t help the prickling sensation of anticipation that shocked her limbs. It reminded her of war, and maybe that’s all this was, really: an unorganized battalion of the human race warring death itself. Then again, war offered a facade of sensibility, of purpose behind putting your life on the line. And in the nights when she startled awake from a nightmare of ripping teeth, when she’s trembling in her cot and trying to unremember the gory dreamscape of reanimated flesh, Charlene can’t help but think to herself: ‘no, of course not,’ and ‘there is no sense here.’
She peered down at her boots, dependable things. They broke the skin of frost covering the land. She never pretended to understand completely how Sanctuary operated, nor did she feign familiarity with the area.
She brought up her gaze to meet Minerva’s. “After you, then.”
