Riley looked towards Ashton as he started to pull out a bottle then looked over at Niesha, she really could use a drink right about now after just about everything that has happened today.
"Could you maybe share with the rest of the class?" Riley asked jokingly, then she paused for a moment as she caught something in the corner of her eye. She turned her head to look out the window and paused as she saw
Amelia in a Barney costume, on roller skates, her mind started to wonder what it was like for Chloe whenever she was on drugs and got high on drugs.
Riley quickly moved forward and tried to grab for the bottle, even though she knew that this was not real at all, it was something that she really didn't want to deal with right now. And Ashton was driving after all as well, she didn't want him to end up getting drunk and getting the three of them into a wreck.
As it turned out, a wreck was forthcoming anyway. Sudden, awful clarity hit Ashton like a train, snapping him out of whatever hallucinatory purgatory he was thrust into. Reality wasn't much better, and his mind had to take in a lot, all at once. What was most puzzling was that, despite regaining his full faculties, he was still holding that damned bottle of homebrew. Slowly, he looked over to where he saw his brother sitting earlier. It was thankfully empty, except for his rucksack, his bow, and Thana's pack resting atop them both.
Thana. He knew where she was going, and what they were about to do. That's the thing about reality: It sucked.
Ash's mind drifted to her, and Newnan, and all of his people that he just lost - some of them people he knew since he was a kid. His Virginia people were most likely all wiped out by the collapse, along with the last of Leann's people and every local. It was appalling. Absently, the bottle left Ash's hand while the icy fingers of reality tore at his heart. He barely registered the bump on the front of the Hordebuster as a mailbox went flying past the grate covering the windshield. He registered the sudden explosion of powdery white as a snowbank on the side of the road was obliterated, though. Registered it just fine. It turned out that, even as his mind was drifting, so too was his truck; drifting right off the side of the road.
"Damnit!" he growled, leaning into the steering wheel and angling the Hordebuster back onto the blacktop. A forced voice, near devoid of emotion, inquired:
"Booze okay?" Niesha wasn’t too sure being in the hoardbuster was safer then being outside. As Riley suddenly reached for the bottle, Niesha flinched, imaging shards of glass flying towards her if the bottle smashed over a tug of war.
What the hell was wrong with them all? She didn’t have enough data to go on. They could have been drugged somehow... she shook her head, seeing Ash starting to drift. Maybe she should offer to drive... although driving this monstrosity was a little daunting. More than a little.
As the bottle slipped from Ash’s hand, Niesha reacted instinctively, reaching for the bottle and catching it, bringing it safely to her chest, holding it so none would spill, although she wasn’t sure why. She looked down at the bottle, then back up, letting out a relieved sigh as she saw they were no longer running over mailboxes.
”yes” she said, keeping a good hold on it,
”we’ve all seen things, haven’t we?” she said softly, before taking a swig of the drink.
Riley started to finally get her head cleared over whatever it was that was making her see things, like a cloud had lifted finally as watched Niesha grabbing the bottle of booze from Ashton. Riley started to tense up when the Buster started to drift and hit a sign and snowbank, when the Hordebuster finally got back to the road Riley closed her eyes and sighed softly to herself.
Riley eyed Ashton for a moment when he asked if the booze was alright, she was tempted to say something she wasn't in the mood to say anything. Looking at Niesha for a moment and nodded slightly.
"Yeah I've been hearing shit, then saw Chloe outside, and Amelia in a fucking barney costume. Now I feel like what sister was when she got high on drugs." Riley admitted.
"Yeah." Ash said with quiet absence. Sure he's been seeing things he shouldn't have. Hearing things. Feeling things. It was the barest amount of comfort that others were, too. His problem was that he had been hearing thing for a while now, anyway. About a year actually, and after some time he made peace with it. Even came to trust that it was part of himself, looking out for him. But today... today was a ballbat to the face. Aside from the obvious and painful loss of life on a massive scale, Ash had just found someone to care about that might actually care about him, too, only to lose her because she was on the wrong side of an
instant canyon. Alive, but out of his reach. Ballbat. Face.
Ash grimly realized that he could still detect her in the air. The scent of her seemed to materialize in his senses, along with memory of the previous evening with her. He didn't even notice the tears spilling down his cheeks until the road began to blur in front of him. Ash's breath came in quiet shudders. He had to put distance between them and what used to be home, and to do that he had to keep it together. He was already all over the road dodging pieces of tree and the like, hopefully no one would notice that he scarcely had control of the Hordebuster even in the clear sections of blacktop. If he couldn't pull himself back into his trademark stoicism, and fast, he was going to have to stop. Stopping was bad.
So they had all seen something then.
"I heard... Saw Sophia... was more then sure I could feel her breath on my neck... I saw Richard with that damn axe in his head... Ravi saw something too, he said something about a razor, I don't know if he was being coerced to slice his throat, or cut that fucking beard of his." She said softly,
"I think... maybe we were drugged somehow... I don't know, but it doesn't seem like we'd all have a mental break down at the same time" She shrugged, sighing, and trying not to look out the windscreen.
She didn't want to see if death was coming towards her. Whether earthquake, or walker, or something more mundane, for the moment, she wanted to live in bliss.
"We just keep on going"
