The Will to Live
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 5:05 am
((Continued from Unanswered Prayers in the Residential District.))
Things change, and the saying goes that no matter how hard you try, you'll never quite be able to make things like they used to be. That's why there's no such thing as "normal". Things are always changing, and there's no constant. I mean, really, you never know if you're going to wake up the next morning. You don't know if you're going to make it home from school, and you don't know if the family member that's walking out the front door will ever come back home. Life is full of uncertainty like that. But I guess, even through all the uncertainty and the constant changes, I had it good. I had it real good. I had a family that loved me, I definitely wasn't doing without, and my biggest worry was what I was going to do after school.
And then this thing hit...
This "game", this "program", whatever you want to call it. My entire life came to a complete standstill the day I boarded that bus heading out from Franklyn Senior... and I never even knew that the moment my foot hit that metal staircase leading into the bus, that my life would never quite be the same. It never even crossed my mind that a week from that moment, I could be fighting for my life... or worse, that I could be dead. I never even thought something like that was possible, and yet here I am. Somehow, by some miracle of God, I've managed to survive this long, but I really don't know how much longer I can go on... the end of this... "game"... is finally in sight, but even if we make it to the end... what will we do then?
I'll tell you one thing. This sucks.
It hadn't been a long trek from the residential neighborhood to the school building, but the hot summer sun beating down on their bodies certainly made it seem that way. The smoke had finally stopped billowing up from the half-destroyed school, but even in broad daylight, the structure was eerie-looking. Whitney Acosta's eyes scanned the area around them. Nothing. No one. Nothing but silence. Even the birds had flown away, perhaps in search of better things... or maybe the stench of blood and rotting flesh that eminated from the island was too much for them to bear.
"Well... what now?" she inquired, her attention turning to Ricky Callahan.
"I don't know..." Ricky uttered in response.
"You're supposed to be the man with the plan," Whitney joked, "How can you not know?"
"I feel like everything I've done up until this point has been wrong. Why would you trust me now?"
"Because..." she responded quietly, "We've survived this long based on your decisions. Isn't that what matters? That's why you can't give up. That's why you have to keep going on. Because... if it weren't for you, I'd have died a long time ago... so where are we going now?"
Ricky closed his eyes for a moment. He'd based every single action he'd taken throughout the course of the game on some false hope of survival and escape that had formulated in his mind, but somehow, deep in the reaches of his subconscious, he knew that they wouldn't all make it home. Now that this revelation had come to fruition, Ricky found himself with nothing to fall back on. The only thing that they could do this late into the game was play, and even though he'd killed once in this game, nothing seemed worth doing it again. There weren't many left now... the game was almost over. They just had to survive a little longer.
He shrugged his shoulders lightly and headed toward the football field with Whitney following in tow.
Just a little longer...
Things change, and the saying goes that no matter how hard you try, you'll never quite be able to make things like they used to be. That's why there's no such thing as "normal". Things are always changing, and there's no constant. I mean, really, you never know if you're going to wake up the next morning. You don't know if you're going to make it home from school, and you don't know if the family member that's walking out the front door will ever come back home. Life is full of uncertainty like that. But I guess, even through all the uncertainty and the constant changes, I had it good. I had it real good. I had a family that loved me, I definitely wasn't doing without, and my biggest worry was what I was going to do after school.
And then this thing hit...
This "game", this "program", whatever you want to call it. My entire life came to a complete standstill the day I boarded that bus heading out from Franklyn Senior... and I never even knew that the moment my foot hit that metal staircase leading into the bus, that my life would never quite be the same. It never even crossed my mind that a week from that moment, I could be fighting for my life... or worse, that I could be dead. I never even thought something like that was possible, and yet here I am. Somehow, by some miracle of God, I've managed to survive this long, but I really don't know how much longer I can go on... the end of this... "game"... is finally in sight, but even if we make it to the end... what will we do then?
I'll tell you one thing. This sucks.
It hadn't been a long trek from the residential neighborhood to the school building, but the hot summer sun beating down on their bodies certainly made it seem that way. The smoke had finally stopped billowing up from the half-destroyed school, but even in broad daylight, the structure was eerie-looking. Whitney Acosta's eyes scanned the area around them. Nothing. No one. Nothing but silence. Even the birds had flown away, perhaps in search of better things... or maybe the stench of blood and rotting flesh that eminated from the island was too much for them to bear.
"Well... what now?" she inquired, her attention turning to Ricky Callahan.
"I don't know..." Ricky uttered in response.
"You're supposed to be the man with the plan," Whitney joked, "How can you not know?"
"I feel like everything I've done up until this point has been wrong. Why would you trust me now?"
"Because..." she responded quietly, "We've survived this long based on your decisions. Isn't that what matters? That's why you can't give up. That's why you have to keep going on. Because... if it weren't for you, I'd have died a long time ago... so where are we going now?"
Ricky closed his eyes for a moment. He'd based every single action he'd taken throughout the course of the game on some false hope of survival and escape that had formulated in his mind, but somehow, deep in the reaches of his subconscious, he knew that they wouldn't all make it home. Now that this revelation had come to fruition, Ricky found himself with nothing to fall back on. The only thing that they could do this late into the game was play, and even though he'd killed once in this game, nothing seemed worth doing it again. There weren't many left now... the game was almost over. They just had to survive a little longer.
He shrugged his shoulders lightly and headed toward the football field with Whitney following in tow.
Just a little longer...