Clementine

Clementine had taken over the kitchen table.

She had gotten all the supplies she needed earlier that day to start working on the biome project her class was doing. The entire thing had been randomized, and she had actually found herself feeling lucky she got the ocean. She knew how to draw lots of ocean animals, and being near an actual beach meant she could even get real sand for it.

Which is exactly what she did. Bought supplies, got a jar of sand and a few sea shells in case she needed them for decoration. She had spent some part of the afternoon drawing outlines of animals she would color in eventually - a dolphin, some fish, a crab to name a few, all decently drawn for someone her age. But she had that all in a pile off to the side, because she was currently working on the box portion of it - and it was a decently sized box, because a shoebox was just too small - carefully beginning to decorate the inside with actual paint. Glitter would eventually get involved because she found some and it was pretty, but she knew it would have to wait until what she was doing dried.

She was starting to work on the back of the box when she heard the door open. Bailey reacted with a whole lot of happy whining, so Clementine knew it had to be either Andrea or Spike. Bailey saved that kind of greeting only for the three of them.

"Hi," she said, not looking up from what she was doing just yet.

Things had been strange lately. Between everything that had been happening with Andrea and training with Yukio because of her new...abilities, she felt out of sorts a bit. It wasn't really anyone's fault, but a lot of it felt really overwhelming. She didn't really know what to do. It was the weekend, though, and she decided the best thing for her was to get out with Bailey and take a walk. thinking maybe it would help.

She didn't get five minutes from the apartment building when she passed by a flower shop with huge potted plants outside, holding the door open to customers. She really only glanced toward it briefly when the sight of a familiar little thing among the leaves of one of the plants caught her attention. It peeked out from behind one of the big leaves at her, and she smiled.

"Hello there," she said, crouching down to see the little golem better. The demon seemed nervous at first, and didn't come out. "It's okay. I like the plant you're in."

If anyone noticed her talking to what seemed like a big house plant, they weren't saying anything. She didn't mind being seen as a little weird either way, and Bailey was, as always, patient. It looked like it was just about to come out when someone approached, and she looked up and over her shoulder to see who it was.

Clementine tried not to talk about it.

She knew Andrea worried about her a whole lot. She knew she was trying her best to make it better. But there was really no making it better. Most nights pieces of what she remembered became clearer and more whole through nightmares. To stay away from the nightmares, she tried not to sleep much. She was tired most of the day because of it, but at least she didn't wake up sweat drenched and shaking. She kept hoping it would get better, but honestly it just kept getting worse.

There were a lot of bad things to remember. What happened back home, the bad man who did things to Andrea, the place they were all sent to -

All she wanted to do anymore way stay inside unless she had to leave. Sure, she tried to do normal things - tried her best to keep going. She took Bailey out for walks. She visited places close to the apartment. She did her best to get ready for the new school year, which she honestly was dreading a whole lot already in a way she never felt before.

It was a warm, muggy late afternoon that found her sitting on the stairs again, slid all the way to one edge so she didn't get in the way. Bailey, off her leash and sitting at the bottom step, seemed to stand guard. She brought her book of pictures and her crayons down with her, intent on finishing the drawing she started that morning after she was woken up again by a nightmare.

She couldn't find the words to talk about it, but she could draw it. She could draw a picture of her sad and crying with people on the ground with 'X's over their eyes. Next to her stood Lee, who she worried now about more than ever before, frowning too, the gun Andrea now had in his hand. She could draw pictures of what she'd seen when they went to somewhere not home and not Darrow too, all the destruction and the giant machine in the sky.

It was the first one was what she was working on at that moment. She stared at the unfinished drawing for a long moment before quietly taking a crayon and starting to slowly color it in, careful never to wander out of the lines. It was as if part of her thought if she could make a good enough picture, she could make that particular dream go away for good.

She knew it wouldn't happen that way, but it didn't stop her from trying.

It'd been inevitable really. The school was in decoration mode for Easter, and it got Clementine thinking about egg coloring. It'd always been something she'd do with her mom around the holiday, and it was something she'd like to do here, too. So she asked Andrea, and she'd been fine with the idea - even helped her pick out the coloring kit and buy and prepare the eggs. She thought it might be nice if Spike could help too, since he was there a whole lot. Andrea had invited him, so she made sure to do all her homework early so they could color eggs a little later. That's when he could visit.

They were almost all set up by the time he showed up. She sat at the table as she dissolved the blue tablet into the liquid they poured carefully into the cups the kit provided. Andrea just had to get the hard boiled eggs out of the fridge.

"Have you ever colored eggs?" she asked Spike, curiously. She knew he was her age a long time ago, so maybe he hadn't. If he never did, she hoped he'd have a lot of fun making these too.

Clementine hadn't thought twice about trying out that weird machine. It seemed fun at the time, getting a fortune, even though she hadn't really understood the message that came out of it. Something about being stronger or something like that - she had stuffed it in her pocket and promptly forgot it was there. That night, she got in her long gown pajamas - it had a big sleeping bunny on the front of it, and was her favorite - and went to sleep.

The next morning, everything seemed wrong.

At first, she was so half-asleep she almost thought it was a dream. That lasted all of a few seconds, until she realized she was staring down at herself from where she was laying, still tangled up in sheets, and not recognizing at all what she was looking at. Her same clothes were still on, but much shorter - barely covering her much larger body. She sat up, her heart pounding, and for a moment all she could do was look.

When she realized it wasn't a dream, she practically scrambled, nearly tripping twice, all the way to Andrea's room. It was still early, so she was still asleep. Waking her up wasn't something she liked doing, but she didn't know what else to do.

"Andrea?" she called, her voice quivering with panic.

Going out for walks around the city was something Clementine did with Andrea often. She'd never been one to like staying inside too long, and there were only so many places she liked going to alone. Sure, she could get around if she wanted to, but after everything that happened -

Sometimes, she just liked staying close to someone she knew.

They were just wandering the shops that day, not really buying anything (it was fun to just see the things that they were selling) when they passed by a pet store. It wasn't the first time Clementine had paused a little as they passed to look in the window, smiling a little when she could see even from there what it was offering. Instead of continuing on, she tugged a little on Andrea's arm.

"Can we go see?" she asked, looking up at her.

Clementine'd noticed the switch immediately. One minute, it'd been a beautiful day, and she'd just been walking home from school, the next, everyone was gone, and fog blocked out the sun. Stuff was falling from the sky. It was so striking and out of place that it took mere seconds to connect why it was familiar.

She'd seen it before. She'd seen it before and it meant something bad.

It turned out she hadn't been entirely right. It soon became apparent that it was like before - but worse. She went into stores to see if she could find anyone and found them all empty. She ran back to her apartment and found everyone gone. Trying to call people got her nothing. It was if she was the only person left.

For a long time, she sat on the floor of her room, hugging her legs. Night came on fast, and with it came the siren that made her stomach drop. She knew the noise, knew what it'd bring. She'd had Andrea last time, though, and this time -

She was alone. Completely and utterly alone.

The memory of what they'd done last time came to mind, but the idea of going outside by herself to get to that church seemed impossible. Instead, she made herself as small as possible where she was, holding her breath every time she heard noises outside. If it were any other time, she would've checked to see if it was someone else. She didn't think it was someone else.

When morning came, things went back to how they'd been before night fell, just like the last time it all happened. She waited a long time before finding the courage to go out and see if she could find help. No one was even in the church, which she decided to stay in when she got there. It'd been where people were safe last time, after all, and it had to be that way again.

Except it wasn't. It wasn't like that at all.

That night, they broke windows. It wasn't the monsters she saw before - not in Darrow, anyway. Instead, they were the same monsters that had plagued everywhere they went back home - and the minute the realized someone was there, she knew she was in trouble. She ran as fast as she could, escaped into the open, dangerous streets, and when she couldn't run anymore, she took shelter in the closest store she could find.

By some pure luck, it was empty. That didn't mean she was safe, though, and she knew it. The last time she went into hiding with Lee, the place was all boarded up all over. The shop she was in now was one that was wide open, and anything could come in at any moment. There wasn't much she could do, though, and she at least tried to make herself small, hard to see. The store's maintenance closet didn't have much room, but she fit herself in when she found it, shut the door behind her.

That was where she stayed, listening for noises outside, keeping her mouth covered to muffle the quiet sobs she couldn't hold back. She'd thought she was safe from them, but it'd all been a lie, she could see that then. Time crept on, and exhaustion started to set in as nothing happened. She fought it for what felt like a long time, but she nodded off anyway.

Even in the uncomfortable position, she slept. Slept through the night, slept through things turning back to 'normal' for the daytime. She awoke with a started gasp some stretch of time later, the monsters chasing her in her nightmares catching up to her, and for a moment she wasn't even sure where she was. Everything hurt, and she winced when she tried to stretch out even just a little. The attempt was halted halfway through it when she suddenly stopped moving and listened to her surroundings.

She could've sworn she'd just heard a noise outside.