Born 01 - Born

camped with Will and Jake and we roasted the hare. I lick my lips and think about the hare.
    Somehow remembering the hare makes me miss Meg. Her nattering took up the free air where my brain liked to roam while we walked. She stopped my thoughts and drove me insane in a different way than the hunger that is gnawing at my belly does.
    Sarah and Anna are like me. They're quiet. They think a lot.
    "I could go for a piece of the lemon meringue pie," Anna whispers the worst thing I've ever heard. My stomach grumbles. I can taste all of the food. The hunger is driving us all insane obviously.
    "I could go for the spaghetti from the first day." Sarah rubs her belly.
    I laugh, "No, the pancakes, bacon, and sausage breakfast."
    Sarah moans, "Ohhhh, cook always whipped me up something she called hollandaise, secretly, to eat my home fries dipped in."
    Anna laughs, "You're disgusting."
    We pass the camp and the small charred fire that they tried to cover over. I roll my eyes when Sarah points to it. "Hey look, a campfire."
    "Three guesses who hid that one when we camped here."
    Anna laughs, "Oh God, I miss him."
    Sarah looks confused as she climbs over an old log. "Was it Jake?" We've told her enough that she knows he isn’t great at survival.
    "Yup. The branches are leading this way."
    We make it into the valley just below the camp by nightfall. We have walked non-stop. I know we are hours from the camp. I see the exhausted looks on their faces and cringe. "We need to keep going. Anna, that bone is going to set wrong and you'll never have a range of motion with it."
    I don’t know how to set it if it's dislocated. I can set a bone if I can feel the break but not a dislocation. Instead, I tie it in a sling with strips of my pale blue scrubs, which now comes up to my midriff.
    Sarah sniffles a little. "Em, I'm so tired."
    I rub her arm. "I know. But we have to keep going. We'll be at the first camp in like a few hours. We will get food and a bath."
    Sarah looks defeated. She slumps and we continue walking. We look like the infected. We are covered in blood and dirt and our clothes are torn. We even walk like them. I'm going to be pissed if I walk all the way to the camp and end up getting shot.
    The forest grows dark. I would be scared if I had even an ounce of common sense left in me.
    I have a fever. I know I do. The chills of the soft breeze make my skin hurt. My head is no doubt infected from the filth on the bandage.
    I push myself on. One foot in front of the other. Anna is almost stumbling now. I have my arm around her and am pulling her up the hill. My legs burn. My chest aches. I'm coughing from the sickness starting inside of me. My body wants to fight the infection. It's strong from the weeks at the breeder camp but I'm exhausted.
    I feel my legs giving way and am about to collapse. My head lifts to the sky and I see an angel of mercy. He is pointing a gun at my head from a bird perch in a tree.
    "Halt."
    My dry throat barely makes out the slightest of words. "Help. Help us." I hear the croak of it.
    He is waving his arms suddenly. The forest comes alive. Torches are brought and arms reach out for me. Anna is gone. Someone is carrying her. Sarah stays at my side. I grab her arm firmly. "You're safe. Find Will and Jake."
    Her blue eyes fill with terror as I collapse. I feel fingers grabbing at me but their faces fuzz out. I slip into the darkness.
    In my sleep, I hear things. Sometimes it's Sarah and sometimes it's people laughing. I think they're laughing at Sarah. She never leaves my side as far as I can tell. My body isn’t ready to wake up. Something is withholding the waking world from me.
    Weird confessions float in the air around my head. Strange things like, "I should have killed you when I had the chance."
    "Emma, I love you. Please be okay."
    "You saved her, Em. You did it."
    I don’t know if the voices all belong to one person or if they are figments of my imagination. At one point, Leo is beside me. He is reading a book sitting in a chair with glasses on. When I look at him, he smiles his wolf smile and says, "You never should have left me, Emma."
    The blackness takes me. It's like I'm on a roller coaster and we keep going in tunnels where I can hear but not see.
    I feel something bite into my arm and I scream awake. I'm sitting up and covered in cold sweat. My clothes are gone and a bandage is across my chest. No one is in the tent with me. I look at my arm and nothing is there.
    I feel a cold shiver.