Never Ending Life by Rose Cooper (learn to read activity book txt) 📖

was a reason to keep on living. To keep on going. Oftentimes I still catch myself looking to them for motivation. To avoid questions though I've always worn a leather jacket that covers the marks. It's been a while since the last time I counted how many tallies I have. A couple of months in fact. Honestly I've been avoiding it, dreading it. It seems everyone is a bit crazier than usual, because I've had to kill twice as many people than before. To the point where the tallies are on both my arms. 

 

Honestly I was hoping tonight would finally end. My last night in this shit of a town, and I was on my way back to my "place" so I could pack and leave. When I saw in the corner of my eye movement. Thanks to my mostly black outfit, I was easily undetected in the shadows by anyone. But I could pick out movement like a hawk. I turned my head and saw it. 

 

A guy was running, holding the hands of two girls and a backpack on his back. One of the girls tripped and they had to stop, clearly wasting precious time. By the time they were about to keep going, a group had already stopped them. Three guys and a girl. It would be easy, so easy. I could kill them all right now and get out with their stuff. Stuff that could provide for me at least a few more weeks. No, I just want to go. I'm not going to help them. I shouldn't, it's not my problem. No one helped us.

 

But I stopped moving and turned back to look at them. The guy was holding a third girl in his arms. She was small. Tammy wouldn't have been much younger than that. Damnit. The little girl, she makes me think of Tammy. I don't process what I'm doing until I've done it. I skated over to them and killed three of the four. I made sure to make it clean and precise, and as quiet as possible. I was ready to kill the fourth when he brought up Joshua. I ended up in a fist fight with him, and the damn cheater almost got the better of me. Of course I wasn't gonna have that. Unfortunately though, I'll have to manage myself up later. Now here I stand, a bit bloody. In front of these three girls and a guy. Ready to add four tallies to my list.

 

"Did you kill them all?" The girl holding my stuff asked. I gave her a small smile. "Erm, no. Just the carrot guy. The other three, I just put them to sleep yeah. But when they wake up they'll be mad, so I'm gonna have to go." I didn't know whether to lie or not, but I thought it was better they didn't know I killed them all. I grabbed anything valuable out of all of their pockets and put it in my pockets. The girl walked to me and gave me my roller blades and bat. I smiled and she smiled back. "Thank you." I whispered to her. 

 

"Well now that that's over, I think it's time I leave." I turned and started to walk away. I already saved them, no need to take them with me. They were all uninjured and looked somewhat healthy. No need to be a hero Tatiana. Just walk away. No need to get to know the little girl who reminds you of Tammy. Just ignore that other quiet girl's cute smiles and nods. The bigger girl probably faked her smile and words to her. Right no need to get to know them and help them, even if you want to. 

 

Oh god what am I thinking? They're kids. I'll just scare them away. Anyway, the guy was clearly incharge and didn't say a single word the whole time. Obviously he doesn't trust or like me. I sighed and kept on skating. Until I heard it. I turned around as the small voice got louder. The whole group was running towards me and the guy was shouting "wait! Wait!" 

 

When they caught up and regained their breath I nodded for them to continue. "Uhm I want to thank you for what you did back there. You didn't have to help us but you did." I let out. a short laugh, "yep, and look what that got me." I pointed to my bruised face and bloody body. "Well it's fine I don't mind, anyway I got some good stuff from them so it wasn't a mistake." "Uhm, well to repay I can help fix you up, if you would like that is." Honestly I don't know what he thinks he can do for me, but I nodded anyway. 

 

They followed walking behind me for 45 minutes before I stopped and turned around. I sat down since there was a clear spot on the ground and opened my bag. The others sat down next to me, clearly confused. I opened my bag and pulled out a party size bag of chips I found a few days ago, along with two water bottles. I gave the chips and water to the four of them and smiled.

 

None of them started to eat. "Jesus" I grabbed a chip and ate it. "There, see?" The girls looked to the guy and he nodded. They all started to eat the chips and I watched for any incoming. "Alright while you guys eat and drink I'm about to tell you a few things. But first, my name is Tatiana." "Im Calvin. The tallest girl is Daina, and the other one is Samantha. The girl sitting in my lap is Layla, she was only a few months old when this stuff started so she's pretty accustomed to how things work." I nodded. "Alright nice to meet you guys. Uhm so I was about to leave this terrible town, so if you want it to come with me then maybe, depends on how well you do in the next 10 minutes. The reason I say that is, to get into the place we're going, well it's gonna be hard for you girls. But I can help make it easier. But for this to work. I'm gonna need you to stay as close to me as you can the whole time unless I say otherwise. I'm gonna need you to do every single thing I tell you without a question. Lastly, stay quiet the whole time."  

Calvin

"Alright nice to meet you guys. Uhm so I was about to leave this terrible town, so if you want it to come with me then maybe, depends on how well you do in the next 10 minutes. The reason I say that is, to get into the place we're going, well it's gonna be hard for you girls. But I can help make it easier. But for this to work. I'm gonna need you to stay as close to me as you can the whole time unless I say otherwise. I'm gonna need you to do every single thing I tell you without a question. Lastly, stay quiet the whole time." I stared at Tatiana, unsure if we could trust her yet. I mean she did risk herself to save us, and gave us food and water. So I guess she can't be all that bad.

 

That's the most anyone has done for us since this whole thing started anyway. Well I guess she can be trusted unless proven otherwise for now. Once we got the chips and water packed and away we followed Tatiana down the alley. She stopped and looked around the corner. After that she turned to the wall and pulled down the fire escape ladder. She quickly took off her roller blades and tied them to her pack along with her bat. She motioned for us to climb up, once we did she came up behind us. She pulled the ladder back up and then walked up the stairs. We followed behind her up the stairs for about four flights before we stopped. She shushed us and opened the closest window. She slowly and quietly stepped in through the window and motioned for us to follow quietly. 

 

Once we were all in the building she closed the window. I tried to look around but I couldn't see much. Just that we were in an empty brick room with no lights on. Samantha and Daina followed behind Tatiana and I followed behind them holding Layla and our pack. We walked to the front of the room to a door. Tatiana opened the door and looked out, then motioned for us to follow. Once we were all out of the room we were standing in what used to be a fancy hotel hallway, but now looked like something out of a drug house mixed with a crazy cat lady's house. We walked down the hall silently and turned left. We kept on going until I heard footsteps coming from behind us. 

 

Tatiana moved swiftly pushing us into a room and closing the door behind us. She let out a loud sigh and walked to the back of the room. Then she pulled back a pair of black curtains and opened a spray painted window, revealing a yellow tube. She turned around, "alright how well can you all swim?" "I was top of my class!" Daina smiled brightly and looked at me. "I can swim well, and I can carry Layla." Samantha blushed red and said, "I can't swim very well." "Alright here's what's going to happen. Calvin already has a backpack and Layla. So he'll swim with that. Daina will swim between us in case she needs help. My bag can float, but not enough to hold Samantha completely, so Daina you can use it to give you a little extra help. I'll carry Samantha.

 

"We're all going to go down that tube and then land in a shallow pool of water, but once you get down there move forward to far becasue just a few feet in front of it, the ground drops and the water goes from 3 feet deep to 30. So don't go drowning, because I can't guarantee I'll be able to help you if you go too deep. Alright? Lastly when we go through the tube, I need you to be completely silent. Like the grave. Lets go!" 

 

Before any of us could object or ask questions she jumped down the tube. Daina went next, then Samantha. Once I made sure the bag wasn't going anywhere and Layla was well situated in my arms, I jumped down after them. When I reached the bottom of the tube I landed in a pool of water like Tatiana said, except she didn't mention the smell or the color of the water, green and brown.

 

I gagged trying to keep down the chips from earlier. I let out a sigh and breathed in only through my mouth. I looked at Tatiana and saw that she already gave her bag to Daina and was ready with Samantha. I nodded letting her know I was ready and we all stepped forward. As soon as we moved I felt the ground disappear and sunk down a bit