Start of the Journey

Rae was glaring at Axel as he stared back at her expressionlessly. She was freshly showered as her wet hair was tied up into two buns that Elena helped her with. Sporting a hiking outfit with a small, children's backpack, Rae was dressed for the long journey in front of them. In similar fashion, Axel got a matching hiking outfit with a thick backpack, leaning back on the wall behind him, filled with both of their essentials.

"Three."

"No."

"Two."

"No."

"Please! Only two!" Rae pouted.

Axel brought his hand up to his chin in an exaggerated manner, pretending to think.

"I promise!"

Axel gave a long sigh before dropping his head.

"Fine." He turned back and dug into one of the smaller pockets of his backpack before fishing out two wrapped goods.

"Here. Make sure you don't squish it," Axel said with a hint of reluctance he purposely showed on his face.

"Don't worry! I'll be extra careful!" Rae said excitedly. She grabbed the two small objects before carefully tucking them into her small, Finding Nemo backpack. All she carried in it was a small teddy bear that their parents had given her when she was still a baby, a photo of their family on vacation at the beach, taken a year before any of the viruses started to wreck havoc across the world, and, now, the two objects that Axel had just given her.

"Okay, Rae," Axel said with a soft smile playing on his lips. "It's time to go."

Rae held out her tiny hand and Axel gladly took it into his own, scooping up his bag on their way out. As they walked out, Axel took one final look at Rae's bedroom. Although they only spent a short time in this house, Rae's bedroom was the last happy moment they shared together with their parents before they left on their supply run.

It was only two days ago, but Axel felt as if a lifetime had passed since they saw their parent's kind eyes. They had been inside Rae's bedroom just like Axel was, looking on as she finished getting ready with a serious look on her face. Passing by to see if he could convince their parents to stay with Rae, he watched as they helped her put on a normal-sized backpack. Although she was already ten, they still tended to baby her.

Since their parents had him and Rae at relatively older ages than most, they had always treated them as if they were their treasures. Although they had their fair share of problems as all families do, they were happy. Right after Axel watched on silently with a soft smile on his face, the most intense argument they had in years ensued when he was sure he didn't want to risk their lives on what was supposed to be an easy supply run. He lost it in the end. His stubbornness was what he inherited from them, after all.

Axel could not begin to imagine how it must have felt for Rae to watch them die to protect her. She hasn't acted odd or shown him anything to be concerned about, but he knew that the trauma was still present. Sooner or later, they would have to face it.

Walking down the stairs, Axel grimaced as he started counting down the days. From his estimate, he likely had around five days until the infection reached his heart.

When they got down, Elena and the others were already packed up and ready to go. Dylan gave off a noticeable scowl at seeing them. He was the most resistant one to the idea of bringing Axel and Rae back to the coalition. Angela was excited at seeing Rae in her little hiking outfit, rushing forward to give her a good morning hug. Elena and Axel smiled at each other, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Dylan.

"I still don't think this is a good idea," Dylan said. It seemed as if he couldn't hold it back any longer.

"That's a shame," Axel said. "But I don't really care about your opinion."

Elena had to stifle a giggle and look serious when Dylan whipped around to look at her.

"We made a deal. He saved your life, remember?"

"I would have been fine," Dylan grumbled. No one called him out on the fact that he probably would have been roaming the streets looking for living people to snack on by now, if not for Axel.

"Anyways. Let's get going, it's only seven o'clock, but we need to cover a lot of ground before sundown," Axel interrupted. Somehow he had become the de facto leader of the group, something that the others accepted naturally and subconsciously. Rae grabbed Axel's hand as they walked out of the house. He turned to give her a small, comforting smile before taking another glance at the map in his hand. After making sure of the path they had to take, he strode toward the gate.

At the cusp of dawn, Axel had already taken the liberty to clear out any straggling zombies roaming around in front of their house. At the same time, he snuck around and mapped the least dangerous route they could take that would lead them outside of town. After that point, it depended on their luck whether they could make it all the way to Albany.

As they walked out the gate, Axel kept his eyes on the road ahead of them. From that point onward, he had to remain fully focused on getting them all to the coalition safely.