@sresnt

Zoe didn’t consider herself much of a fighter; nor did she consider herself weak and helpless. Her power was both offense and defence, and it had served her well enough over the years. But that was against creeps and would-be bullies, normal people, on a smaller scale. Power alone wouldn’t help her against armies. And what about when her power was stripped from her? No, she needed to know how to fight, with her own bare hands, just like everybody else.

She took part in the training that all the others did but there were too many of them and too few instructors. Forty or fifty all trying to listen to one person and follow along at once, not enough opportunity for individual help. It was slow going, and the war around them was speeding up. There was a sense of urgency. So Zoe asked Dagny to supplement her training, to help her grow stronger, so that she might stand a chance - so that maybe she could protect others.

The room was dark as she walked in, the shadows of punching bags and training dummies sticking out in the gloom, until she turned the light on and illuminated it all. Dagny wasn’t there yet so she started setting up, dragging a couple of the piled-up mats out into the centre and placing a dummy in the middle. She didn’t know what else, if anything, they might need, so she waited. Checked her phone. No signal. Occasionally it would drop out a few times a day, to her annoyance. 

@sresnt

Scarlett didn’t know how long it had actually been since everything started. For a few weeks she’d tried to keep track on a piece of paper but that had been quickly lost. By the time she’d come across a notebook and a pen she’d already decided there was no point to it, and that it didn’t matter how many days had passed. Her family and friends were nowhere to be found, if they were even alive at all, so what did it matter how many days or weeks or months had been and gone? She was alone, wandering, and the only thing that eased the ache in her chest was taking out the monsters.

If they are alive, Scarlett would tell herself, if they’re out here, I can at least make it safer for them. And so she wandered through towns and cities and deserted back roads, using a wooden staff that she’d found on a dead man to kill whatever undead she came across. One end was smooth and round, the other sharpened to a fine point, and all along it smears of dried blood lingered. At some point she’d stopped using it on just the undead, but couldn’t remember when that was, or why. Just that it needed to be done. 

Living people were already few and far between and, just like the supplies to be found in burnt out buildings and forgotten cabins out in the woods, became rarer and rarer to see as she travelled. At some point, subconsciously, she’d made the decision to stay out of cities and towns for a while, because she could not tell whether the thought of seeing another human being made her feel better or worse. But eventually her supplies began to dwindle and she was left with no choice but to find somewhere to scavenge. 

She saw the walls first, but they were hard to miss. Tall and made out of thick cement, with reinforcement along the bottom made out of old tires and other old junk. Scarlett could only see the two that stretched between two buildings up front, but she assumed that they continued around the corner, because what good were two lone walls? A woman stood atop the left hand side holding a rifle, walking back and forth, occasionally using the scope to look out into the distance. 

The sun started to drop lower and lower in the sky as Scarlett waited and watched, but what she was waiting and watching for she wasn’t sure. She’d never come across walls before, or people patrolling them. It meant there was something behind the walls worth guarding. Maybe supplies. Maybe people. She considered for a long while how she might sneak inside and steal a little for herself, but ultimately decided against it. She would find somewhere else, and stay away from people. 

Just as she was about to turn away and head back into the tree line another person climbed atop the wall and looked out. Someone familiar, and unmistakable. She was only up there for a few seconds and then climbed back down, but Scarlett could tell it was Dagny, and without thinking she began to walk out into the empty street. As she approached the wall the woman with the rifle pointed it at her and told her to stop, so she did. She pulled down her hood and opened her mouth; she hadn’t spoken in weeks, maybe months, and so her voice was cracked and her words sounded odd as they came out. “Dagny - I saw her… I need to see Dagny.” 

Dagny was busy. Dagny had lots of things to do. It was by sheer chance, and luck, that she should be there, in that exact moment, when an old, familiar face showed up at the gates. She was talking to someone about ammunition stock when her name echoed out from the parapets, and stopped short to swing her head in the voice’s direction. Dagny! Hey, Dagny! It was one of the settlers. Dagny did not remember her name. She was waving her arm about in an attempt to grab her attention, and received it in the form of a stern eye. Someone’s here! She knows your name! “Stop yelling!” Dagny yelled back, and far louder too, her thick accent puncturing a hole in the industrial clamour of the day’s toils. “I am coming!” 

What was it now? Always something! Who could it be? Dagny rarely entertained visitors, she had better things to be doing, but since she was there, and in part because she was curious, she took quick, large strides towards the guardswoman, gripped the iron ladder handles, and vaulted herself up onto the wall. The woman, who had been standing alone before and had, at the time, looked of a moderate size, suddenly looked ten times smaller beside Dagny Ermengard, who frowned first at the guard, and then at the stranger. 

Dagny’s face blanched. She said nothing for ages. She didn’t know what she could say. Couldn’t believe what, who, she was seeing. Scarlett? “--best friend--” Dagny had given up hope that Scarlett was still alive. She thought she’d died a long time ago. Without taking her eyes off of Scarlett, Dagny grabbed a second, passing guard by the scruff of his shirt and shoved him in the direction of the controls. “Open door,” she ordered. When nobody moved, her face scrunched and she turned to him fully. “Open. Door. Now!” He ran, then. As fast as his legs could take him. But Dagny couldn’t wait for the large, lumbering gates to open, and, against better judgement, leapt over the high parapet and landed heavily on her feet. 

@sresnt

The first thing Scarlett noticed was the noise. 

Or, rather, the lack thereof. Höllental was always loud, full of laughing and shouting, the sound of wolves howling, distant crackling fire. As soon as they stepped through the portal Scarlett expected to hear all of it, but instead they were greeted with silence. It was eerie. Discomforting. Made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She couldn’t see anybody outside where they were stood; the bitingly cold wind whistling past them was the only thing that moved or made a sound. She turned to look at the rest of their little group - Dagny, Zoe, and Vera - and shot them a questioning look. 

Zoe was gripping onto Dagny’s hand tight enough that her knuckles had turned white, and she was just as perturbed by the silence and stillness that lay before them. She’d dismissed Dagny’s bad feeling not too long ago, and now felt silly for questioning her wife’s instincts. She was right. Something was wrong. “What the fuck is going on here?”

It’d been a while since Dagny visited Höllental. It was the smell of the place which hit her first. The familiarity of it. That hint of smoke. The fresh, wet dirt. The sweet, woody scent of straw. The blood. The animal shit. The cold air. Sharp. Crisp. She breathed it all in, flooded by the memories. The silence came second. Then the darkness. It was almost six in the evening in the middle of winter, yet nobody had lit the torches. Not one torch to light the pathways; not one torch for warmth. Dagny felt Zoe’s fingers grip her hand tighter, and Dagny looked nervously down at her. Dagny always looked furious when she was frightened, like she wanted to beat somebody’s face in with her bare fists when in reality what she really wanted was for Zoe to hold and comfort her. No noise. Nothing. Not even from the wolves. The wolves. They never stopped howling. It was a sound they were accustomed to in Höllental. As ordinary to them as heavy snowfall. If even the wolves were silent, then something was terribly wrong. Dagny started in the direction of the great hall. It they were to find anyone, it would be there. “This. Very bad,” she murmured to Zoe, who was half tucked against Dagny’s large arm. “Very bad, Zoe. Very, very not good.”

“I think it was poetic, in your own way.” When Marielle had first read that particular letter she had laughed - a lot. There were a lot of lines that had made her laugh over the years, but just as many that had made her blush, or cry, or smile for hours afterwards. Despite the spelling mistakes and sometimes illegible writing the letters were some of her most precious possessions, because they had been written with so much love. “And you tried to be originally poetic, at least. In all of mine I quote other people.” Several times in single letters, in fact. But every time she picked up a book or watched something on tv, there had been something to remind her of Zelda, and she’d wanted to share that. 

Marielle took the letter back, leaning forward as she did so to plant a soft kiss on her wife’s lips. “We have something in common then,” she laughed, and then paused. “I mean that you’re all I think about too. Not that I’m all I think about.”

Carefully she placed the letters back into the stack, and began flicking through the rest to find one in particular. “Do you want to see my favourite? It’s this one.” She plucked a slip of paper out and handed it to Zelda, recognising it because it was considerably neater than the others. The letter Zelda had written to her just before Evie was born, right after Marielle had asked her if she was still sure about sticking around. She still couldn’t read it without crying. 

The kiss caused her lips to curl gently. Zelda watched her wife with tender eyes as Marielle returned to combing through the box of letters. Zelda stood up, dusting off her knees before reaching for the second letter Marielle was showing her. This one was in a pale pink envelope, its seal long since broken. Even before Zelda took the letter out, she knew what it was. How could she ever forget? The letter felt as momentous as the day she had given it to Marielle. No slipping it under the door that time. This letter had been one of the only letters she felt she needed to give to Marielle herself, in person. To look her in the eye as she did it. To let her know, in some, or any, minute way that Zelda had never been more serious about anything in her life. Ever. She knew how much she loved Marielle. There was no doubt.

Carefully she slipped the letter out of its envelope. Dear Marielle... it started. Zelda read it in touching silence. The thin paper trembled because she couldn’t keep her hands still. They shook a little, and there was a lump forming in her throat which she tried, once or twice, to swallow, but could not. Reading the letter, Zelda could remember exactly what she had been feeling when she had written it ten years ago. Ten. So much had happened since Evie was born. Ten whole years of Zelda falling deeper in love with Marielle. She had to wonder what the next decade would bring. She already loved her wife so much. How could she possibly love her even more? What came after infinity? Double infinity?