she was an unexpected reprieve from their world of darkness

A Story by Ms.BMH

In his post apocalyptic world, survival is the most important thing. Until she shows up, and it isn't. I apologize for any grammatical or spelling errors, I do try and proofread. Thanks!

The world ended when he was 23 years old. People dying left and right of some bizarre, unknown disease with no cure. It wasn't long before the well were being quarantined, while the vast masses of sick were left to rot in the streets because there was simply nothing that could be done to help them. They lost nine tenths of the world's population in under a year. And then as quickly as it started, it stopped.

No form of real government was maintained ; some people lived in nomadic tribes, others formed small villages, but many took to the cities, where they could take comfort that they had not survived entirely alone. He made his home in Chicago.

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Crime was rampant, and death was brutal and bloody and all around him. And after a while, he dealt it himself often enough.Crime meant food on the table, and that meant survival, and damnit to hell if that wasn't the most important thing nowadays. Food shortages were common, because much of the livestock and crop had been wiped out by sickness as well.

He rose to the top of his game quickly. By the time he reached his 26th birthday his reputation spoke for itself. He made a few alliances, plenty enemies,and escaped death at least two or three times a day. He survived.

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He saw her before she saw him, and it was a damn good thing too, because if he hadn't he'd certainly have been cold in the ground. Not a moment too soon either, because within seconds of his realization that she was following him, her gun was pressed against his temple. He'd had the foresight to bring his own, thankfully, which was now jabbing at her stomach.

"Look," he said, "I don't know who I pissed off to get you to try and kill me, but who ever you're working for clearly doesn't know who he's dealing with."

"Oh yeah?"she replied, her voice sharp as knife. "What're you implying? That I'm not more than capable of pulling the trigger?"

He chuckled darkly.

"Oh, I think you'd be perfectly capable if I didn't have a gun to your stomach."

She snorted dryly at this.

The bones stuck out of her gaunt form in such a way that it was painfully obvious she hadn't had a meal in days, but she was incredibly strong nonetheless . She looked only a couple years younger than he was. If she wasn't personally involved in whatever she was trying to kill him for, and it was unlikely that she was, for she had the look and finesse of a hired gun about her, then perhaps they could strike a deal.

"Look" he said finally, "we've reached a bit of a stalemate here. I'd like to go eat my dinner. And, from what I can see, you'd probably like some food as well. You're a formidable, capable young woman. I could use someone like you."

She hesitated for a moment, but after a beat they both lowered their weapons cautiously, never once breaking eye contact.

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He hadn't meant for her to become his partner. He thought he'd put a hot meal in her, find her a place to stay, and let her be his hired gun when he needed. But they were sitting there next to each other at his sorry excuse for a kitchen table, eating canned soup that'd been heated over a fire, and he could sense how scared she was, and something inside of him sagged and crashed and died.

He wasn't supposed to care that she was scared, but the fact of the matter was that he was scared too, that everyone was scared and that there was no way to live anymore without being scared but what kind of a way was that to live? The girl sitting next to him probably hadn't had anybody to be there for her in ages. Hell, he hadn't either. He couldn't just dump her somewhere.

He slept on the couch that night because there was only one bed and he didn't want her to be so scared anymore. He wanted her to feel safe.

She did her job well, always by his side, helping, and never intruding into his personal space, never asking about his past because everyone had a past and every past was painful.

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He hadn't meant for them to become friends, but one night she went out on her own, to try and scrounge up some food, and when she came home he was sitting on the couch, balling his eyes out. Instinctively she sat down next him, and asked what was wrong. He looked at her, then down, then back again.

His mom, with whom he'd been staying during the initial outbreak, had been infected early on in the run of the disease. Rather than wait for a slow and painful death, she hanged herself from their living room fan. He'd been the one to discover the body. That'd been five years ago, to the date.

She held him as he cried, made him some soup and saw to it that he got some rest.

From then on they were talked about their problems together. Like friends.

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Love was a funny thing, and it worked in funny ways.

It was New Years eve, seven years after the run of the disease, four years since she'd moved in with him.

By some miracle they'd gotten their hands on a bottle of champagne. They toasted to surviving, to living , and then put the rest of the bottle away for another special occasion, and stayed up on the couch talking till the clock on the wall read 11:59.

"Let's count down!" She cried."59, 58, 57..."

He hadn't realized how very pretty she was till recently. Her reddish brown hair, usually tied up in a messy bun, was cascading down her back as her green eyes, once filled with such fear, usually so hardened, now dancing with mirth, locked with his brown ones.

"36, 35, 34..."

She was smiling coquettishly at him, and he felt his pulse quicken.

"3,2,1."

Her lips met his hard and with purpose, and his hands found their way into that glorious reddish brown hair.

"Happy new year."she said quietly into his ear.

Love was a stupid thing to fall into in this awful death filled world of theirs; it was a liability, and a vulnerability, a weakness. Very bad for survival.

And yet, from then on, whenever those eyes met his, whenever those lips crashed onto on to his own, he couldn't find it in him to be unhappy with how things turned out.

Happy new year, indeed.