Eating my experiences

TOME 4

I couldn't so much as move till mid-day, when alex had come looking for me, we were the last two left out of five. He pushed into the room quietly, taking only a moment to absorb the scene in front of him. Gabe's lifeless eyes had started to attract flies, just another twist of the knife. Alex slid next to me, sitting on his heels as he slid his hand into mine. Alex and i were close, he was possibly my closest friend before all this happened and now, he was all i had. We had lived together once upon a time, and he was the only thing keeping me sane at that time, hopefully he could do it again.

he looked at me for a long while, studying my expression, my hitched breathing, and noting how much i was shaking. "Do you want to talk about what happened? you don't have to if you don't want." he let out a long, heavy sigh as he closed Gabe's cold brown eyes after shooing away the flies with his free hand.

in an attempt to make a sound all that came out were strange creaking sounds, like a frog, i couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't feel my face, now that i'm thinking about it. Alex knew me well enough to know i wasn't one to be left speechless, let alone utterly broken. He hunkered down and brushed hair dried to my cheeks of with a satisfying crunch as a single tear rolled off his eyelashes. "i'm going to try hugging you, is that okay?" he whispered in a shaking voice. I mustered a single nod of my head before he slid his hand out of mine and moved it across my shoulders, pulling me twords him in a smooth, slow, movement.

He was warm, i didn't realize i was so cold, so in need of comforting. how long was i up here alone? my eyes began to flow like a fountain as i tried to come back into my body where i belong, and as soon as i did, i was sobbing, shaking the very earth with my anger and despair. The events of the night before rolled out like a snowball downhill, getting bigger and harder with each sentence. I could feel alex's tears and spit on my shoulder, spilling out as he was crushed with what could not be taken back. crushed by my emotions.

"listen," alex said, pulling back to look at me, voice broken "you are the strongest person i know, you push on and do whatever needs to be done, you always have, and you don't let anything stop you, that's what happened last night, and what needed to happen last night for you to survive..." he wiped his face with his sleeve, snot in his beard "you did what you had to, you hear me, i'd be dead without you!" the last part seemed to surprise him when it came out.

"we're alone" i blubbered, my throat hurt so bad i instantly regretted speaking and started to cough.

"well..."he glanced at Gabe "yes...but the food will go much farther..." i hated him in that moment for being right, but knew he was just doing his best to make my mistakes worth it in the end. "we need to get you out of here, okay, i'm going to pick you up" alex wasn't a large man, but he had enough adrenaline in him to kill a small bear and smoothly scooped me up, pausing to rest halfway down the stairs at the second floor. I cried the whole way against his chest. How can i miss Gabe so much already?

once we got downstairs, alex lay me down at my "bed" and grabbed susan's pillow and blankets to make me more comfortable and warm, and grabbed zach's pillow for me to hug while he hurried to get me water and started making some oatmeal quietly as i cried quietly into Zack's pillow, my heart aching for my lost friend and Gabe.