It was chasing me, and I couldn’t run fast enough. I was running but it felt like I was running through thick syrup, like time and space suddenly turned thick. It was chasing me and I could feel its hot breath spread across my skin. I didn’t want to turn around, because I knew what I would see. But I couldn’t run fast enough. I looked up to the sky in despair, and knew I wouldn’t make it. Thin, cold hard claws sunk into my back and pulled me down. My face hit the dirt and I choked on the dust. Growling ripped through the air, and razor teeth broke the skin in my neck. Warm blood oozed down my back and I let out I cry, but it was no use. I couldn’t get up. Then the teeth stabbed down on my neck again. I heard a crunch, than everything was black. I could tell it was all over now. I was done in the game of life. Game over.
But then, something started to come into focus. I saw the face of a man with most of his skin peeled off of his face, and was covered in blood. I recognized him from the car in the gas station. I didn’t want to look, but I didn’t have a body to turn away from him. I couldn’t even scream. One of his eyes was smashed out and bloody, but his remaining left eye opened suddenly. His mouth opened and moved, like he was trying to form words but I couldn’t hear anything. Then, he let out a scream that made my blood go cold. Then he started laughing, which was worse than the screaming. He finally disappeared, and my body returned to me. But now I was standing in the streets of Singer City. The bodies of all the civilians who either were killed by the aliens or the virus, were now laying all around me. I gasped. The sight of them up close was terrible. Some of their skin was gone, eye balls hung out of their eye sockets. Limbs were missing and blood was everywhere. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, they all started to get up. Some didn’t have any legs, but they still managed to hold themselves up with their arms. They all stumbled towards me like mad zombies. I wanted to run but I was frozen in place. They crowded around me, trying to grab me. They all wanted to reach me, to take me. They kept whispering things. “Help us! Save us!” they repeated over and over again. “Leave me alone!” I screamed at them but they continued to crowd around me. Blood smeared off on me, broken finger nails clawed at me. Mutilated bodies pressed against mine. Why couldn’t this end? I already died a horrible death, why did these ghosts have to haunt me? I screamed. This was pure hell, this was agonizing. I didn’t deserve this, what did I do wrong? It’s bad enough I died young. I fell down as the walking dead pulled and grabbed me. Staring up at the little space of sky I could see through the zombie’s heads, I sighed. If this was going to happen to me, then there was nothing I could do about it. There were thousands of them, and stronger than me. I closed my eyes tight. Finally, I was overwhelmed by corpses…
“Eva! C’mon, it’s just a nightmare wake up!” I woke up to find Vae shaking me. I was sitting in the passenger seat of the van, and Vae was leaning in through my open car door and grabbing my shoulders. “I’m awake, I’m AWAKE! Stop shaking me!” I yelled. Vae gave me a smirk, but then it changed to sympathy. Apparently she was remembering how bad the nightmare was. “You okay?” Vae asked. “No, I’m not okay.” I said and stumbled out of the van, still bleary eyed. “We’re packing up, you can help after you get breakfast.” said Vae. I looked over to the smoldering fire where R.J. was cooking more bacon. Seeing sizzling meat reminded me of my nightmare, and I felt sick again. “No thanks.” I muttered and looked away. R.J. got up and left the bacon to finish cooking. He nodded in greeting to me as he walked by. I turned see where he was going, and as he passed Vae he tapped her on the shoulder and gave her a look that said, ‘I need to talk to you.’ Vae nodded and followed him behind the dented van. I decided to follow them. Maybe it was Vae’s memories mixed with mine, but I had the strange urge to see what they were talking about. As I walked to the van, I knew Vae knew I was going to eaves drop on them but I made a promise to myself that in the future I wouldn’t tell R.J. I was listening. I got on my stomach to see under than van and hear them talk. I saw R.J.’s big black combat boots, and Vae’s sleek black ones. “Why didn’t you tell me aliens were going to attack us last night?!” R.J. asked angrily. Vae sighed. “Didn’t I warn you that I wasn’t going to tell any of you about what I saw when I was fifteen? Didn’t you promise you wouldn’t bother me about it?” Vae shot back. “Look I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what I was saying. Walker could’ve died last night. We ALL could’ve died last night!” R.J. exclaimed. “Yes, but if we did there would be nothing I could do about it. Just because you would know, wouldn’t stop it.” said Vae. “Can’t you give us warnings? Like if we’re about to run into some aliens, couldn’t you stop us from running into them?” R.J. asked. “R.J., the truth is I’m scared. I’m scared about this time travel thing, Walker said it was safe but I don’t know. Even when Eva leaves, what if by being in contact with her, it might do some damage later on?” Vae sounded genuinely worried. “I’m sure that won’t happen.” R.J. said as comfortingly as he could. “I’ll tell you one thing that I know will happen. Eva being here with me, well we both won’t come out of this completely unscathed. We run into some…difficulties.” Vae said, and I saw her feet shift uncomfortably. I could see R.J. was standing still though. “What do you mean difficulties? You said everything would go fine if we brought your past self here!” R.J. said. “It won’t happen for a while, I don’t understand it yet but some problems happen. Which is why we have to send Eva back as soon as we can.” said Vae. “What problems though? What happens?” R.J.’s voice had some panic in it. I saw Vae step up closer to R.J., and heard her kiss him. “You’ll find out.” Was all she said. Then I saw her boots turn around, and walk away. When I realized the conversation was over, I jumped up and ran away as fast as I could so R.J. didn’t see me eaves dropping. I skidded over to the burnt out fire pit near where the bacon was sizzling in its electric pan. Carter was sitting across from where I was at the pit, and looked up at me. “Why is your front covered in dirt?” he asked. I looked down and saw the orangey-brown dirt covered my entire front from where I was lying in the ground by the van. “Uhhh…I was um, lying down.” That was the best excuse I could come up with in that moment. Carter gave a curious stare, than got up and left. ‘Smooth Eva, smooth.’ I thought to myself. I turned around and saw Walker leaning up against the jeep drinking out of a water bottle next to Naty. I walked over to them. “You feeling better?” I asked Walker. His head was wrapped in a bandage, a large blood spot stained through the bandage on his forehead. “Yeah, I’m feeling much better.” He said after he took a sip of water. “You scared me though, I didn’t know whether you were going to go into a coma or not.” Naty said. I remembered what Vae said about some problems that were going to happen from me being here. I thought about whether to ask Naty and Walker about it, but thought better of it. What Vae said scared me though. She sounded scared herself when she said there would be difficulties. I shuddered at the thought of what she said, then I remembered I was standing in front of Walker and Naty. “You alright?” asked Naty. I nodded. “Yeah I’m fine.” I felt someone rest a hand on my shoulder, and saw Vae. “We’re all ready to leave, let’s get in the van.” She said. I said goodbye to Naty and Walker, than followed Vae to our beat up van.
Once were in and moving through the empty wasteland, I felt better. I always feel better whenever I’m on the move. I watched barren landscape and clouds as we zoomed along behind the jeep. I looked over and watched Vae drive. This was a good time to ask her about her talk with R.J. “Vae?” I asked. “Yeah?” I shifted in my seat. “When you said difficulties of me being here, what did you mean?” I asked. Vae sighed like when she sighed while talking to R.J. “So many questions…” she muttered. Finally, Vae responded to my question. “I might as well tell you.” She said. She readjusted her grip on the steering wheel. “I know what I said about us being the same person only mind wise, but our bodies near each other cause some sort of chemical reaction. Not sure how it happens, but it does. The longer you’re here and with me, are bodies will start to break down.” She said. Panic flooded through my chest. “What do you mean?” I asked. “I mean, after a period of only a few days we will get weaker and weaker. We’ll get paler, thinner, slower, and more tired as time goes by. That’s why we have to get you home fast, except the others don’t know that unless we get you home in under about a week, we’ll both die.” Vae said. I let that all sink in. “So…when I asked if us meeting would make the world end, you said it wouldn’t.” Vae nodded. “That’s right, but we’ll end if we don’t get you back to 2012 soon.”
We kept driving for a long time. I wondered how Vae knew where we were going. The landscape was empty except for the jagged remains of Singer City in the distance. Me and Vae passed the time by remembering old times and just random stuff. It was surprising how much I have changed over the years. Vae seemed looser, more confident. Her laugh was light and carefree. She was a much stronger person then when she was fifteen. And she was also pretty. The sight of her made my heart warm, because I always worried about how I looked in high school. I thought I looked funny, and was so self-conscious about it, that I couldn’t look people in the eye because I didn’t like people looking directly at my face. But I didn’t feel like I was bragging when I thought Vae was beautiful. Her face had gotten more slender over the years, her eyes had a pretty curve to them. My nose was the same, and so was my mouth. I lost all my freckles, must’ve been from the lack of sunlight.
Vae just had that elegant and hardcore fighter look at the same time. I couldn’t really put a name to it, but it made me happy that I would grow up to be her. “So,” I started. “How do I meet R.J.?” I asked. Vae smiled. Do I do that? Whenever someone asks me a question like that do I always smile? I’ve noticed that when I ask her certain questions she smiles before answering. “We picked you up from your past literally the day before R.J. goes to your high school. He’s the new kid. When we send you back to the past, the next day you meet him. And you get the courage to talk to him because by then you’ll know him even before he knows it.” said Vae. I laughed. It was starting to get dark, but even with little light left I could see ginormous shadows in the distance. The Norman Mountains. A mountain range that just stuck out randomly in the empty land in this region. “Tomorrow night is when we’ll reach the house.” Said Vae. The jeep came to a stop in front of us and we stopped too. We got out of the cars and set up camp like last night. “Please don’t tell me we’re having bacon tonight!” I whined as I started to build a fire. R.J. snickered at me. “No, even better.” He said mischievously. “What?” I asked cautiously. I poured lighter fluid over the dry logs. “Mashed together in five minutes meat soup!” exclaimed R.J. “Great…” I muttered as lit a match. I tossed it into the wood filled pit and watched the columns of bright yellow flames swirl up. It looked like they were eating the air. I smiled as wonderful heat kissed my skin. I was such a pyro; I loved lighting things on fire. I could stare at flames for hours… “Eva!” I heard someone call my name. I snapped out of my little fire trance and ran over to Vae, who had called me. She handed me a bowl and fork. “Eat up.” She said. R.J. and Carter were building a rotisserie over the fire. Once they had it built they hung a metal pot on it, which inside I assumed was dinner. I went over and sat in the ground by the fire to wait for it to heat up. It didn’t take long, and soon there was thick sloshy meat soup in my bowl. I stared at it. Chunks of beef and chicken were mixed together in soupy broth. It looked good, but not after my nightmare. After seeing a face with skin peeled off, scream and laugh at you; have zombies crowd around you and grab you while limbs hang and fall off them; and experience death in a dream, well it does stuff to your stomach. I used my fork to move my food around, considering whether it would be a good idea to eat it and risk gagging. Vae came over and sat next to me. “You know, if you don’t eat then you’re gonna speed up the breaking down process.” She said just low enough so only I could hear. I nodded. She was right, I should just close my eyes and eat it. With my eyes squeezed shut, I crammed meat stew into my mouth and swallowed. I didn’t stop till I finished the whole bowl. When I opened my eyes, R.J. and Carter were staring at me. “You must’ve been hungry…” R.J. said in shock. Me and Vae laughed. Carter shook his head and laughed too. R.J. still looked confused which just made us laugh harder. Suddenly, there was a loud boom from inside the jeep. We all snapped our attention to the car. The door swung open and Walker and Naty stumbled out. Smoked poured out of the open door, along with a bitter smell. Naty leaned over and had a coughing fit. Walker raised his arms in success. “Bombs work!” he exclaimed. He looked maniacal; his eyes were wide open and insane. His smile was so wide and proud. His clothes were acid stained and dirty. His light brown hair was a rat’s nest pushed over to one side. Besides Naty’s coughing, there was silence after Walker’s announcement. Then the silence was shattered by Vae’s clear laugh. I looked over and saw she was lying on the floor giggling her head off. Tears were in her eyes. I couldn’t help but fall over and laugh too. The look on Walker’s face was priceless! Soon, everyone was laughing. Except Naty who was still coughing. Walker turned to her. “You okay?” he asked. Naty nodded and stood up.
We all ate dinner and talked for a while. Then after a while Walker said he was having headaches so Naty and him left to go sleep. Me and Vae left after a little bit too. We got into new clothes, brushed our teeth and hair, then went into the front seats of the van to sleep. I was still sore from the night before, everyone was. I was also extremely scared. That run in with a real monster had shaken me. I had almost died, if I didn’t pull the trigger when I did, that would’ve been it. And that nightmare was so real…I thought I was dead. I thought I was in my own personal hell. Vae was already asleep. I hope I didn’t have another nightmare. I rested my head against the window and closed my eyes. Too bad I had another terrible nightmare…
