Day 14 — The Foot of the Mountains

The air changed out here. Smelled like pine and damp soil instead of smoke. The silence pressed down different—heavy, expectant. She walked ahead, her shoulders squared. I trailed behind, counting steps.

At night we made camp beside a creek. The water caught starlight and broke it into a thousand shards. She kept staring at the reflection like she wanted to fall in and vanish. I watched her from the firelight, wondering if I’d already lost her.

Day 15 — The Cabin

We found it at sunrise: a hunting cabin half-hidden in the brush, roof sagging, chimney cracked, ivy crawling up the walls. The door was open. Inside smelled wrong—not just mold. Something deeper. Something rotten that remembered being alive.

I told her to wait. She didn’t.

She kicked the door wider and charged inside. The first ghoul came from the hall, skin peeling in ribbons, eyes glowing like coals. She met it head-on, machete flashing. It dropped. Another came. Then two more. She moved through them like a storm, screaming, every swing faster, angrier. It wasn’t survival. It was release.

When the last one hit the floor she didn’t stop. The blade kept coming down, again and again, until the wood beneath was slick with blood and she was sobbing.

I grabbed her wrist. She spun on me, eyes wild, teeth bared. For a moment I thought she’d finish what the ghouls started. Then something broke inside her and she collapsed against me. I held her until her breathing slowed.

We dragged the bodies outside and burned them. The smoke climbed through the trees, black and thick, until even the sky looked sick of it.

That night we slept inside. The floorboards creaked with every breath, but it was a roof. A roof was something.

Day 18 — Cleaning

She hasn’t stopped moving since. Scrubbing floors, boarding windows, patching cracks that don’t matter. Her hands are cut and raw. I told her to rest. She said, “If I stop, I’ll think.”

Sometimes I hear her whisper to someone who isn’t there. I tell myself it’s prayer.