sweet nothing

❝Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day...

[iskra-garland]

hi! i don’t even know if anyone is still lurking the tag? it’s jade, i played genevieve and kris. the email address i used for their accounts was one of those ones that got security breached bc it was hella old, so now i can’t access their accounts and likely won’t be able to again. annnnnnnnnd i can’t login to skype bc i made the account specifically for you guys, and now i can’t remember the bloody username. i miss everyone like crazy though, if anyone is still out there pls pm me so we can skype <3 i’ll be making a new account and actually noting down my login info this time.

[rydercxstillo-deactivated201603]

Wednesday… The tenth. Okay, good. That wasn’t a day he was waiting for. Okay, he wasn’t really waiting for certain days to happen. More like he was waiting for those days to pass. Once they do, it’s fine. No, no. It’s further down in February that he has to look out for. Not that he’s going to say any of this. “Valentine’s Day, huh? I think I heard about it. I was told that corporations just used it to get money.” He didn’t mean for that to sound so negative so he had to just add, “but it sounds pretty cool.” Nice save, Ryder… Now, who was Hope? Oh yeah. Hope the baby. “What are you planning on giving her if I may ask?” When was the last time he spoke to this young woman - Iskra was it? Ryder doesn’t remember having particularly any conversations with her. But from this conversation alone, she seems alright in his books. Certainly hopeful at least.

[iskra-garland]

So, he’s cynical - they all are, a bit, but Iskra didn’t read any malice into his comment. Maybe it had just been a way for corporations to grab money; she preferred to believe otherwise, but people were allowed their own opinions. “A blanket. It’s nothing too fancy, but I found some nice jumpers in the house and picked them apart for the wool, and a hair ribbon to embroider her name along the edge. I’ve made her some clothes already, but she grows so fast...” She rambled, and then it occurred to her that people didn’t want to hear her go on about motherhood all the time. There were more interesting things, even though to Iskra, nothing was more important than her daughter. It did seem rude, either way, to make the conversation all about her. “How about you, then, you not got a gift for someone special?”

[maestusjane-blog]

When Iskra smiled, Jane’s own lips curved upwards in a smaller echo of the expression. Though perhaps it might have seemed disingenuous in its subtlety, the good intent was there hidden behind all of her uncertainty. She had no knowledge of what life was like before the end of the world, though even if her memory was intact she would have little to go on as she had lived a mere two years before everything fell apart. Perhaps she would have stories at the very least, but it wasn’t something she often thought about. She had lived in silence for over a decade; any stories that came now were out of the ordinary and thus not something she expected. Besides, words were not her strong point. Instead she enjoyed the actions that made her think things might be different, things so utterly banal that they were extraordinary, such as drawing with another person. “No, no. Just as pretty. Maybe probably less pretty than you are.” Not a graceful application of words, but the effort was present. “Back home, I had a lot of empty time after the hunting was done. I used rocks on the walls and drew the dead. The very dead ones, not the ones that were still walking. Sometimes I drew animals, but they don’t stay still as well.” 

[iskra-garland]

She’d always heard stories, mostly from her mother, sometimes from any guests they took in. The world wasn’t as kind as it seemed to her, that was what the stories always boiled down to. Some people didn’t get fresh eggs for their breakfast, some people forged weapons out of whatever materials they could because they had nothing, some people lived in the wilderness amongst the dead because they had no other choice. Jane was obviously someone like that, someone so other, so removed from the world Iskra knew, that it was like they were from different planets. While Iskra had been learning how to read and how to shear a sheep for its wool, Jane had been hunting for food and scratching pictures into walls with rocks. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be sad or not: Jane didn’t seem to want sympathy, and her life wasn’t inherently worse than Iskra’s. Just different. Lower lip held between her teeth, Iskra kept drawing. “Do you still draw now that you’re here?” 

[rxsswilliams-blog]

In another life, in another version of this universe, maybe Ross would have understood what this mean; maybe Ross would have understood what it meant to respect the dead and bury them. Had he been living a life where all was normal and as it was supposed to be, maybe he’d have a little empathy for what he and the others who were burying David were doing.

But he didn’t live in that life, in that version. He lived in this one, and in this one, leaving the dead behind, running for your life, and throwing others in front of you so that they’d be dead before you were were normal. There wasn’t any other way life was supposed to be; this was the only thing that Ross had ever known.

Yet, here he was, burying a body he hardly knew. This was — let no one forget — a body that had decayed to the fungus that turned people into monsters. So, no, Ross did not understand. Ross did not understand why he was doing what he was doing. Ross did not understand why he and the others needed to do this.

No complains came from him, though. At least, not out loud. The whole afternoon of the digging, he’d been carrying himself so heavily and letting everyone know with his body actions that he didn’t want to do this. Now that all was done though, he finally sat himself on a big rock and drank some of the water he brought along.

“Worth it, yeah?” he said out loud to the person in front of him, though he did not think so. His voice was teetering on sarcastic, teetering on condescending. “We didn’t just waste our time doing that, no?”

Maybe he needed someone to tell him something other than what he thought.

[iskra-garland]

David had not been a friend. There were few that tolerated the squalls of Iskra’s daughter, noise always being the most fierce enemy, but David always had gone out of his way to criticise her for being unable to keep her daughter under control. As if one month olds knew how to be quiet. As if Hope didn’t represent a future that they were all fighting for, day by day.

There was little room for hate, or even dislike, in Iskra’s heart - there was always more than enough of that to go around - but she hadn’t held David anything close to dear. She could understand those that were tense, terse, guarded, because that was only a survival mechanism. But David had been more than that,  he had just been unpleasant. Though she hated herself for thinking it, she wasn’t surprised that if anyone was going to get bitten and just hide it from them, as if he wasn’t endangering the entire group, it was always going to be David.

It was the first time since she’d arrived that Iskra had been angry. Worse than that, furious; she was spitting angry that her newborn child was put at risk because this arrogant, swaggering, idiot had thought he was above getting infected. She felt nauseated to her core at the thought of anything happening to Hope. She had come out for the burial, out of a sense of obligation more than anything, with Hope strapped to her back. And when the time had come, she’d done her best to help dig. It was difficult - she was still bleeding, and still weak, from the birth (was that normal? She wished someone could tell her), but she’d done a little more than nothing. And besides, nobody expected her to be in peak physical condition.

At least she had tried, and that, Iskra thought bitterly, was more than he would have done for them.

“Just because he lost his humanity long before he was infected, doesn’t mean we have to as well.” It was more generous than she felt, but Iskra wouldn’t blacken her own heart for David’s sake; he wasn’t worth that. And besides Ross was new; he had had a bad enough first impression after David’s stunt, and she would hate for him to think they were all awful.

[athena-reich]

Wow, uhm. Sorry. This is kinda embarrassing. I’m trying not to cry, I promise. I’m trying… I’m trying…

[iskra-garland]

“You don’t have to apologise, treasure. It’s good to let it out, sometimes. Is it... the stuff with David that’s got you down?”

[thesshowls-deactivated20160215]

A sudden voice at the door nearly made Thess jump and – due to the jeans at her ankles – lose her balance. She grabbed the side of the dresser she was standing in front of tightly to keep herself upright, eyes wide and nostrils flared as she turned her attention to the person to whom the voice belonged to. “Don’t fuckin’–” she grumbled, muscles relaxing, “–do that, Jaysus.” Taking a deep breath, Thess pulled her feet out of the jeans and idly tugged the back of her knickers in place, void of any lady-like sensitivities – those things were more or less lost when civil society had, weren’t they? “Take them in?” she asked, making a confused expression. What the hell does that mean? “In where?”

[iskra-garland]

"Sorry, sorry,” Iskra cringed, hand to her brow. She hadn’t meant to sneak up on Thess - in fact she was almost impressed with herself that she was even capable of sneaking. She was probably the loudest member of the group, by virtue of often having a squalling baby hanging onto her. Hope was napping in her cot right now, though, and quietly at that. “Um... Take them in? You know...” She pulled at the waist of her own trousers, folding the loose material in in an attempt to illustrate her words. “You cut off some of the extra material and sew the jeans back together so that they fit better? Make ‘em smaller, like.” Her voice was lilting, placating. She didn’t want anyone to be cross with her, and hoped that if she helped Thess make her clothes fit better, then she might calm down.

[aiden-stevens-blog]

When he recieved the answer, Aiden quirked a brow and met Iskra’s eyes curiously. Her answer was full of information, and it was another thing Aiden was able to learn despite the whole end of the world shit they were all going through. He smiled and silly half-smile and looked back to the pens she pointed out with a rather inquisitive look. Iskra was new. Not as new as some, but newer than others. A month provided more opportunities to learn about a person, but Aiden spent to much time with the people he already knew he’d failed to seek anyone else out. “You know an awful lot about barns and animals, don’t you?”

[iskra-garland]

“Grew up on a farm,” Iskra put in, wistfulness trailing her breath. She missed it. Fresh milk, still warm with the cream on top, and eggs. She hadn’t realised how lucky she’d been, Christ. “Besides, I’m worse than useless at hunting. Need some useful skills, so I do. Not that it’s much use to me now, I’ve not seen a pig in months. Dunno where all of you’s are getting your food, to be honest,”

[queencfheart]

It wasn’t a familiar face that made it into her line of vision. Not a lot of them were and that was her own fault. She had decided to stick around but had made no effort to speak to anyone unless spoken to or approached. People weren’t her forte. She didn’t know how they worked as she did arrows, or guns, how to take down someone twice your size or how to prepare an animal to eat. Those were things that she excelled at. Anything else wasn’t something she bothered with. People weren’t a vital part of survival. If they were, she hadn’t figured out the purpose of them. “That’s rotten,” she pointed out before leaning to the side to see what she had on her back. It looked inconvenient. Baby, she assumed. It was gross looking. “Did that come out of your vagina?” It came out frank but everything she said did. There was no reason to beat around the bush. 

“Anyway, you can have half but if that thing eats meat too, then you’ll have to share your part.” Emma continued with a shrug, checking on the rabbit again. It was almost done and it smelled heavenly. Sometimes she wondered what they ate back in the day and how it tasted, but it was a useless thought. As long as she got her occasional meat, she was content. “You talk funny, by the way.” Another comment that slipped past her lips as she begun to poke around the fire. She wasn’t kind per say, but if someone were to eat a rotten fruit in front of her when she had enough to share, she wouldn’t ask them to leave. Everyone was just trying to survive. She knew that it was technically a weakness, one Robert had taught her well, but it was half a rabbit. It would do no harm.

[iskra-garland]

“I’m from quite far away,” She said, almost dazed. Emma delivered her words in short, sharp chops, out of sequence. It was a strange mix, for she had the terseness of the chronically untalkative, but the verbosity of a gentler soul, and Iskra wasn’t quite sure where to place her. She wasn’t even sure whether her company was welcome, or whether the barrage of barbed words was meant as a hint to leave.

The smell of cooking rabbit was too tempting by far, though - she couldn’t think of the last time she’d felt properly full. Holding the tip of her tongue gently between her two front teeth, Iskra pondered. Did it make her a bad person, considering taking food from another? She’d done nothing to earn it, after all, nothing to deserve it, whereas Emma had presumably spent time and effort obtaining it. “I couldn’t take half from you. Maybe... maybe a leg, though?” She ventured. She might not be able to finish half, anyway. Stomachs have a way of shrinking if you don’t feed them enough. “She doesn’t eat meat anyway, only milk, so it’d just be for me. And she did come out my vagina, ‘bout a month ago. Bit grim, really. Hurt like hell.” Iskra sat in the grass then, supposing it wouldn’t offend Emma too greatly. The rotten fruit sat limply in her hand, though she was hungry enough to venture another bite. Food had to be worse than rotten to ward her off.

[thesshowls-deactivated20160215]

So perhaps the best thing about not constantly staying on the move and being in one place for more than just a few hours was that there was an opportunity to fix or change what needed to be fixed or changed. Thess couldn’t remember the last time she’d managed to get a change of clothes, and while food was scarce as a resource, clothes were usually more easily available. That was, if you actually had or took the time to look for it. It had taken Thess a few days to actually get over herself and explore the abandoned farmhouse, to look for what appeared to be bedrooms, going through drawers and closets for anything that would actually fit her. “You didn’t have daughters?” Thess grumbled quietly as she held the too big jeans to her hips, peeved that when she let go, they dropped down to her ankles with very little resistance. “I can’t believe this…”

[iskra-garland]

It was a struggle Iskra knew all too well. Nothing was made for them, they had to work for it. If her mother was to be believed, in the past you could walk into a shop and buy prepackaged food, and there would be racks of identical clothes in all different sizes. Now, if you found a shirt, you put it on. If it didn’t fit, you made it. In fact, Iskra had made most of her clothes herself - her mother had been a keen seamstress, and she had imparted her knowledge upon her daughter. It had been useful for Hope, because there certainly weren’t any baby clothes lying around this barn. Iskra had sewn her a little romper, with room for a few months of growth, out of an old pair of curtains she had taken down and washed. It made her happy to feel useful, because she couldn’t go out and hunt. “I can take those in for you, y’know, make them fit a bit better.”

[maestusjane-blog]

As Jane watched the method with with the other woman pressed the crayon to the paper, leaving streaks of color she associated with the way some plants – or blood – stained her clothes and skin. This was more purposeful, however, and it took no more prompting to get her to take the blue crayon she held and press it against the paper. Her movements weren’t quite as smooth as Iskra’s as they were based off of years of scraping rock against rock to make art. As she had done then, she drew what she saw. She was silent for several long minutes as she focused, eyes flickering up occasionally though she made no attempt to speak until she finished. Turning the paper to show Iskra, she revealed a sketch of the woman. It was not refined such as a trained artist might have done, but it was recognizable and had a fair amount of practiced skill. “It’s you.”

[iskra-garland]

Now that she got the idea, Jane was drawing away with a profound look of concentration. It seemed a shame to interrupt, while the woman was so intent on the paper - it was sweet, and Iskra smiled to see it. This was how she imagined life Before, as her mother told it. Two women sitting around an old, scrubbed table, doing silly pictures: it was nice not to think about food and survival, even if the reprieve was only temporary. In the quiet interim, Iskra nuzzled at Hope’s head, smiling contentedly to herself, just enjoying the moment. It was a different sort of normal. She thought that when Jane’s eyes flicked up, she was just watching to make sure Iskra wasn’t doing anything untoward; nobody trusted without reason. But when she turned the paper around and Iskra saw a strangely polished portrait of herself, she clapped her hands together in delight. She’d never seen a picture of herself before, and even in a rough sketch, it felt like seeing herself through someone else’s eyes. “Oh, it’s wonderful! I think you’ve made me prettier than I am,” She grinned, and pulled a clean sheet of paper over to her. She wanted to draw Jane, now, though she didn’t think hers would look as good. “How’d you get so good at drawing?”

[aiden-stevens-blog]

Aiden stood up in the barn house loft, perched against a railing and looking down to where animals were supposed to be. Animals he’d probably never before seen or heard in his life save for storybooks his old friends showed him while he was growing up. The stalls and space were now occupied by living people, but he thought for a minute what it would be like to have this place functioning like something it was supposed to. When Aiden heard approaching footsteps, he didn’t bother to glance over his shoulder as he asked with a childlike curiosity, “What do you suppose the people who used to live here would’ve kept in here? If they were still alive, that is.” 

[iskra-garland]

“Cows or horses, I’d think. See that lower pen, that was probably for pigs, maybe chickens, and they’d keep the hay up here in this loft.” Iskra answered - it was almost a relief to have a question she knew the answer to. Their farm hadn’t been big, and it was difficult to breed the animals because there simply wasn’t enough resources to support more life, but Iskra had grown up with a miniature farmyard menagerie.

[queencfheart]

With her knife, she poked around the wood burning so the dead rabbit strained above the fire would cook faster. Hunger was manageable but when she could eat, she was rather impatient. Emma leaned back against the fallen tree, eyes settling on the barn not far away. It had been a week but she still didn’t know whether it was worth staying around. She didn’t want to depend on others and she definitely didn’t want others to depend on her. Cautious and selfish for a very good reason. “C’mon, little rabbit. We’re not in Wonderland anymore,” she muttered as she turned the strung up animal around. Sound of dirt grinding beneath shoes, the occasional twig being trampled on made itself known but she could tell the difference between human and dead. Neither were preferable when she was hungry. “You gonna invite yourself for dinner or just lurk?” Her low voice still bounced between trees as she made no effort to see if it was a face she recognized.

[iskra-garland]

She’d known people to describe themselves as ‘a people person’, and others as ‘not a people person’. For her part, Iskra wasn’t sure where she fell on that spectrum. She liked to be with people, but not always engaged. It got exhausting too quickly, and now that she had Hope, she found that more often than not she preferred to be away from the crowd at the barn. Just she and her daughter, alone. For her dinner, she’d managed to obtain a bruised, unidentifiable fruit off the barn floor. She knew nobody else wanted it, because she had watched someone deliberately discard it. It was, after all, more bruise than fruit, but Iskra wouldn’t know where to begin hunting, and was still too sickly to try. She would never ask anyone else for food, because none of them had enough to share. The fruit would have to do her - Hope didn’t know how lucky she was that milk was enough. She had only come out here for the peace, and hadn’t meant to disturb Emma at all.

Honestly, she wished she could invite herself to dinner, but she’d never take the food from another. Emma was quite new, but she had the air of a person not to be taken advantage of. Hope, strapped to Iskra’s back with a few thick scraps of cloth, reaches out at the fire in fascination. “Oh, no, I’m - uh, I’m all set. Didn’t mean t’intrude, sorry.” Iskra said, sniffing at the fruit - a plum? - and taking a small, tentative bite.

[maestusjane-blog]

“A crayon?” Jane echoed, rolling the small object between her fingers before looking up at the source of the voice. Her curious, if somewhat wild, eyes fell on the child, perpetually fascinated by the idea of a human so tiny. How did it even survive? It seemed like a big risk to her, but she certainly couldn’t imagine abandoning a baby so it followed that the risk was worth the reward. A slightly perplexed expression crossed her face, not associating the word picture with drawing. Sure, she scratched things into the walls of the cave occasionally, but she didn’t have a real word for what she created. “How?”

[iskra-garland]

Jane was like a child herself, curiosity tossing wildly inside of her. It seemed rude to ask her life story when they scarcely knew each other, but Iskra wondered - she wondered whether Jane had always been like this, and how her parents had treated her, whether she had known them, and is she happy? Iskra picked up a yellow crayon and formed a circle on the paper, with pink petals coming from it, and a green stem from the bottom. “Like that, see, it’s a flower. ”

[iskra-garland]

@livinghalim

When she woke each morning, it was easy to forget. The warm, musty scent of hay hung like old incense in the air, and the sun slid through the glassless windows, and she could almost hear the drowsy hum of crickets in the rambling grass of her Ireland home. One barn is much like another, and Iskra had on occasion fallen asleep in hers. But now she would roll over, and see a dozen other sleeping figures, and feel Hope clasp her pudgy hand around her finger, and she would remember that nothing was the same. Her world had ended a little later than everyone else’s, and over the course of so many months that she had barely even noticed it. She missed a lot of things. 

There was still a little pain, low in her belly, and it was difficult to walk still. One day she would try and go out scavenging, make herself useful. For now, she ambled a few feet outside of the barn and gathered a few sparse daisies, threading them into a chain for her daughter. The sound of footsteps drew her gaze, quick and sharp, but it was only a person. Adam? She wasn’t terribly familiar with their names yet. Adam had always seemed a little frightening to her, radiating a planetary coldness that she wasn’t sure she could thaw. She’d also seen, though, that he brought back seeds, sometimes. She wouldn’t expect it of a man like him, and it made her wonder if he’d be able to help her. Iskra tried to heave herself to her feet, but couldn’t quite make it; instead she pulled Hope closer onto her lap, a loop of daisies draped across the soft hairs of her newborn head, and waved at him as he approached. “Hey, hi - you’re Adam, right?”

[antagonistenthusiast]

[cvriouscr]

“Goddamn it.” Maia muttered under her breath as she felt a burning sensation coming back to her arm; she thought the cut near her shoulder was taken care of, but apparently, she was wrong – and she hated being wrong. Being wrong got people killed in a world like the one she and every other person knew and lived in; she would know since she let herself get comfortable, was proven wrong and that ended with people dying. Setting her backpack down on a makeshift table near their improvised storage box, the brunette looked around, hoping to find something to tie around her arm. “Hey.” Maia called out to the person a few feet away from her. “Can you pass me that cloth?” She said, pointing at it with her head.

[iskra-garland]

If Iskra had known the world before this, she would probably be thinking, in this moment, what a cruel world they live in. As it is, it doesn’t seem cruel; unjust, perhaps, but she didn’t know any better. People got hurt,  and they patched it up with what resources they had. Iskra was by no means a doctor, but her mother had given her a thorough grounding in the basics. Stitching wounds, which plants were medicinal, dealing with concussions - injuries were just a part of life. She tossed the cloth to Maia, brows furrowed with concern. “You alright? I can give you a hand, if you want...?” She wasn’t certain that Maia would accept the offer, because she had always seemed fiercely independent, but it wouldn’t feel right if she didn’t at least offer.

[rydercxstillo-deactivated201603]

When did he join this group? Couple of months ago? Maybe. He was never good at keeping track of the days though he did try to. It was nice to have a certain date in mind even if it was off. But now the idea of him not knowing the right date was nagging on him. He wanted to know. To keep track of how long it has been since.. It didn’t matter why he wanted to know. He just did. Ryder turned to the nearest person to him and nodded at them. “Hey. Do you have a clue what today is?”

[iskra-garland]

“Wednesday the tenth. Me ma told me that the fourteenth is called Valentine’s Day, and people were s’posed to give gifts to the people they love. It was probably supposed to be romantic, but I’m actually working on a present for my little one,” She said, leaning in conspiratorially; though Hope was down for a nap, and wouldn’t understand what Iskra was saying anyway. Probably Ryder wouldn’t care about Valentine’s Day, or anything much that she had to say - since she had arrived, they hadn’t exchanged more than a few words. If she was being honest, he intimidated her; she was incapable, though, of giving monosyllabic answers even to those that frightened her.