a not really kind of related little drabble to go along with the rofd prompt month yippee!
i don't usually do this because i have learned through school i am not good at following prompts or word counts or themes in art if i'm not the one deciding it. but i've had really bad writer's block so i need to try some freewriting, expect a lot of barely related to the prompt stuff throughout the month.
Claire had vivid dreams before the apocalypse, but as sleep became more of a luxury than a basic function, they only increased in their intensity. They got more bizarre, more like vague memories that Claire had never experienced herself, but memories that she knew.
Maybe it was a trauma response, everything else was. But she didn’t see things that scared her. It certainly didn’t comfort her much, but her fits of sleep were a much needed escape from the constant nightmare that the world had become. She would see some sort of done, and somehow, she knew it was Lydia coming to speak to her.
Ydris had always liked the birds, but Claire never saw the appeal. They were fine, but she was never interested in birds the same way Lydia was. She had been able to pour out any bird species she saw. Claire wondered if she still had those skills when that dove came to see her in her dreams.
It would sing her a song, not typical of a dove. From the little Claire recalled of her actual life in those dreams, doves only called for their mate to feed their children or to attract a mate. This dove sang, a melancholy tune to the winds and the everlasting silence that was present in the woods Claire found herself in. It would cry until Claire woke up again, thrust back into her reality.
It sounded much like the low-pitched huffs of the horses Claire used to know. She hadn’t seen one from Valedale in months, they had probably all been taken to the Dinosaur Valley Community. In those dreams, Claire was forced to realize that besides her own breathing and the dove, there was nothing.
The birds on Jorvik were silent, disrupted by the outbreak that had seemed to just affect the people of the island. The horses no longer roamed freely, they exchanged their green pastures for wood and concrete beneath their hooves, and long rides in desperate search for supplies. Usually, the horses would be clawed by zombies, eventually bitten and then replaced, causing the island to grow evermore quiet.
But when Claire got to sleep, the dove was always there for her. It rarely properly spoke, but when it did, it sounded like a songbird. It didn’t speak, it sang, but Claire could understand its words. It told her that Lydia was safe and happy and around people that cared for her. She was alright, and she would continue to be. Then, the song broke silence after Claire stared off into the woods for however long it has been.
Time was an anomaly, more so than ever. Claire didn't know the day, the hour, the month, all she knew was driving back and forth from Fort Pinta to Dinosaur Valley in Forrest, killing a zombie or two on the way. The only sounds were Forrest’s engine, which had to be dying, the wind and the occasional screaming zombie.
The only bird she knew of that sang was in her dreams. That dove, it perched on Claire’s shoulder and sang just for her. If Claire wasn’t asleep and the bird had been real, she would’ve listened to it every night. She would selfishly take it for herself to make sure it would keep singing and wouldn’t be killed for meat.
But the only song of Jorvik that remained was those in the dreams of sleep-deprived survivors like Claire.