𝑨 𝑯𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝑴𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒅𝒚. (𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒏)

{1} Alone

"I ain't telling you shit"

•••

Bright violet coloured bags drooped from underneath the girl's eyes, her scraggly brown hair clotted together, forming some type of disheveled blood-mixed mess. Dust whipped at her tattered boots as she trudged along the desolate road with a simple rucksack flung across her left shoulder.

Dark patches of mud and dirt was scattered around her cheeks, as well as the added speckles of dry crimson. Despite the early evening sun peeking through the gnarled branches of the trees, the air was frosty and cold, causing the girl to occasionally shiver, her hands turning a pale blue.

Brooklyn had been on her own for a while now. Travelling from place to place to find somewhere trustworthy and safe, yet everywhere she arrived always ended badly. The last camp she had stayed at was hidden away in some sort of wasteland surrounded by battered houses and old crumbling buildings. Yet those snarling things found her and her people. Pandemonium occurred and those monsters viscously sank their rotting teeth in to every living thing they could feast their eyes upon. Luckily for her, the girl escaped and once again she found herself alone.

Survival seemed to be the only thing anyone cared about since the world has spiralled out of control those long three years ago. Never again would she have to think about what cute outfit to wear when going out, or what series she'd binge watch when relaxing all day in her pyjamas. What Brooklyn really missed the most was music. Even before this she'd find singing and writing songs as a way for her to escape and make her feel safe or calm. Yet since the dead decided to come back to life, that wasn't an option anymore.

Instead Brooklyn found herself piercing knives in to the skulls of those monstrous creatures. And even though it had been a couple years, she felt herself slowly changing in to a different person. However, she couldn't decide whether it was a good change or a bad one.

Tucked in her rugged bag was a large monochrome coloured notepad filled with hundreds of lyrics that the girl had written whilst battling her war against the dead. It was the only thing that kept her sane and distracted from the broken world around her. Although there would be no physical music, Brooklyn would often come up with a simple melody in her head to accompany her songs.

When she first found the notepad, it was caked in a thick layer of dust, abandoned in a small convenience store. Before finding it, Brooklyn had memorised old songs from the past in her head, always humming the tunes as she ambled along the roads. But to her, that book was now her life, it was the only piece of the real her that she had left.

Narrowing her eyes, Brooklyn's chapped lips curled slightly in to a smile at the sight of what looked like an old worn down gas station. She yanked her pistol out of her holster and wrapped her feeble fingers around the trigger before scurrying over towards the grimy looking entrance.

She pounded her fist against the splintered door, grimacing at the pungent stench of decomposing bodies wafting around. Once she had realised that the store was seemingly vacant, she threw the door open and casually waltzed inside.

Brooklyn scanned her surroundings and ran her tongue along the brim of her lips whilst pondering to herself on what to do. Apart from the usual pile of dead rotting corpses, no one had seemed to have raided this place. Or at least they tried to, but quite evidently failed.

Her scuffed boots clomped along the blood stained floor, to Brooklyn, it almost felt way to quiet for her liking. Though each aisle had something half decent to offer and Brooklyn was quite pleased that she was able to stock up on her supplies.