Year Zero - 7.7. The Last Time 4/4

Alter: Olivia

Local Network World: 0055

Dates: 13/03/2025

Here I Lie Broken; Crushed Under The Weight Of You; Unmade by Absence

“Where are they?” Ari leaned back against the brick wall. They were in the living room of a random, empty house they’d found and broken into. The aesthetic was mildly ‘Seventies’, with ageing, floral patterned couches and faded threadbare carpets; three walls a sort of peach-yellow hybrid and one brick. They had slept in the same room, taking turns on ‘lookout’. Lee had been last, just before daybreak.

“I don’t know.” Sage replied. “I woke up while they were leaving, I didn’t have a chance to ask.”

“Who’s gone?” Maya asked, sitting up on the couch, eyebrows knitting together.

“Kira. Kier. Lee.” Ari listed off.

“I know where they went.” Olivia murmured. “I couldn’t sleep. Heard them talking about it.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Ari asked, their tone exasperated.

“I don’t know.” Olivia replied quietly.

“Well tell us now at least?” Ari insisted.

“Okay.” Olivia nodded. “They went to find Seven. To confront her.”

“Jesus, Liv…” Ari groaned, dropping their head into their hands and letting out several muted sounds of frustration. “You’ve got to pull your shit together. We need you here with us.”

“No you don’t. You should have just left me there with her.”

“Liv…” Tash knelt down in front of Olivia. They planted their feet on the ground, folding their knees up under them. “We know how you feel.” Olivia shook her head, sniffling. “What, you think we didn’t all love her? She brought us together. She was our friend.”

“She was…” Olivia paused, shaking her head. “I can’t even describe what she was to me.”

“She was a part of you. She was a part of all of us.”

“It’s not the same.” Olivia murmured.

“What?”

“It’s not the same, and you all fucking know it,” Olivia growled. “She was the thing that held it all together. She made it make sense. She made it worth it. I tried to fight it for so long, tried to hide from it, but there she was: there she always was. I loved every…fucking…atom of her, and now she’s just…” Olivia trailed off. “So what’s the fucking point?”

“Liv…” Tash whispered.

“It wasn’t rhetorical, Tash. Tell me: what…is the fucking…point?”

“I love you, Liv. We all love you. We’ve been through so much together, and you mean the world to all of us. Just like Annabelle. I need you to know that before I say what I’m about to say. So tell me you get that, okay?” Tash murmured. Olivia looked up at them suspiciously.

“I get that.”

“Good. You’re selfish, Liv. And you’re stupid. Your pain is valid, and it’s profound, and I know how deep it is and how long it’s going to take to process it and move forward. But it doesn’t cancel out the value of the other people in your life. Do you love us less because you loved her more? How about your family? How about Dawn? Are you genuinely going to pretend that you loved Anna more than Dawn, rather than just…differently? For fucks sake, you’re the crazy bitch who started a relationship with some girl you were smitten with by telling them that you would never, ever love them as much as you love your best friend. And you’re gonna pretend that she doesn’t matter, now? That your family doesn’t? That we don’t? Cause if so…fuck you, Liv. Genuinely.”

“Tash…” Olivia inhaled deeply, meeting their eyes. “I just…I don’t know how to be okay.”

“Respectfully? Yes you fucking do. We’re all traumatised as fuck. We all know how to compartmentalise. So do it. Break it off and bury it. Wallowing in your own bullshit is a form of privilege and we do not have time for it. We’re gonna fucking die here if we can’t get out soon. If you can’t do it for you, then do it for us. And if you can’t do it for us, do it for Anna. Because she deserves your best, even if she doesn’t get to see it. Don’t you dare let her down.”

“Guys,” Ari interrupted: “Company.” They pointed to the window. Through a crack in the curtains, Olivia saw several figures walking through the front yard. She heard footsteps on concrete as the figures approached the front door. “Probably going house to house, looking for food. Let’s go out the back.”

“Sink or swim, Liv,” Sage hissed as she and Ari and Maya started towards the back of the house.

“Swim, bitch.” Tash insisted, locking eyes with Olivia before getting to their feet and holding out a hand: “Just swim.” Olivia hesitantly took Tash’s hand, letting them pull her up.

“Love you too. Let’s go.” Olivia and Tash joined Ari and Maya at the door. The five of them cautiously opened in, eliciting a long, drawn-out creaking sound. Ari took a deep breath before scanning the backyard to be safe. Olivia blinked repeatedly, her grief-fogged brain clashing with her senses: hypervigilant; on high alert. The gust of breeze as the pressure differential adjusted; the scent of damp grass and the slight chill of morning air were jarring; disorienting. They ducked out, closing the door behind them - staying below the line of the windows - and made their way cautiously down the side of the house, backs pressed against the side wall. Olivia flinched - hard - as the sound of the front door being smashed in echoed through the house, causing vibrations to run through the foundation and into the flesh and bone of her back. Her heart hammered in her chest and she took a deep breath, trying to calm her nervous system. She looked down at her hands; initially shaking but returning to stillness as a feeling of cold focus washed over her.

“Hey, are you okay?” Tash hissed.

“Never better,” Olivia ground out through gritted teeth; her jaw tensely, involuntarily clenched. The five of them continued down the side.

“Where to?” Sage nudged Ari.

“I don’t know. Can anyone feel where the others are?”

“Yeah. In South Bank.”

“They’re near the fucking city? What the fuck are they thinking?” Ari hissed, keeping their voice low.

“Probably the same thing I was.” Olivia whispered.

“Which is?”

“Someone needs to put this piece of shit in the ground.”

“Right. Okay. It’s not that far. Like…a suburb away. Do we go after them?” Tash asked.

“The suburbs have been clearing out. Not enough food, I guess. We might get there.” Ari rationalised.

“Might.” Tash echoed pointedly.

“We can’t leave without them…” Sage noted.

“They really fucked us over, here…” Olivia sighed. “I think we need a car.”

“What?” Ari asked.

“We’re fleeing a house cause of a handful of randos…you think we’re gonna walk a full fucking suburb and not run into more? If we’re going to South Bank, we’re gonna need a car.”

“She’s right.” Tash noted. Maya yelped as the sound of the back door creaking open filled the air. “Run!” Tash hissed. The group moved quickly down the side, now, Olivia scanning the street as they got out the front.

“Hey, look,” She pointed. A few houses down, a car sat with a single occupant and the engine on.

“Must be with them. Should we…?” Tash glanced at Ari.

“What else are we gonna do?” Ari shrugged, a mildly panicked expression on their face.

“Do what?” Maya asked. Ari and Tash ignored her, running towards the car. The guy in the car had been looking away, and didn’t notice them until it was too late: Ari ripped open the drivers’ side door and the two of them pulled the driver out and onto the street as Olivia, Sage and Maya rapidly caught up to them.

“Hey!” One of the guys from the house shouted, emerging from down the side.

“Get in the car!” Ari yelled, Tash running around to the passenger side, opening it and jumping in while the other three opened the back door, clambering and squeezing their way into a jumbled heap on the back seat. Ari fumbled with the hand brake - hand shaking as the driver got to their feet, pounding on the window and trying the door handle - before stamping on the accelerator and powering through into the street. The driver - hand still on the latch, was dragged forward before losing their footing and falling out of sight. Olivia turned to watch the driver - still sitting in the road - and the other men from the house jog into the back view, shocked and unable to do anything.

“Oh my fucking god,” Sage squealed and bounced in her seat, grabbing at Maya’s knee.

“Adrenaline?” Tash looked back over their shoulder with a smile.

“I feel like someone just stabbed me with an epipen,” Sage wheezed. Olivia sunk into the back seat, consciously working to regulate her breathing.

“Hey. Liv.” Ari said, not taking their eyes off the road. They reached into their pocket, pulling out a necklace and reaching back to give it to Olivia before returning their left hand to the steering wheel. Olivia looked down at it, running a thumb over the thick, tigers eye pendant. There were flecks of dried blood on the silver chain. Olivia calmly - her hands steady - used her thumbnail to chip them off as best as she was able to. “It was Anna’s.”

“I know.”

“I grabbed it before we left because I…thought you should have it. She’d have wanted you to have it.”

“You play too much D&D…” Olivia murmured, mesmerised as the watched the pattern ripple across the gemstone in the shifting light.

“Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, if your first instinct when you see a corpse is to loot it? Might want to unpack that.” Olivia allowed herself an ironic little half-smile.

“Holy fuck that’s dark…” Tash shook their head with an awkward laugh.

“You were the one who wanted me to compartmentalise. Just…following instructions, chief.” Olivia shot back, holding up the necklace and reaching behind her neck, working the clasp awkwardly for a few seconds before managing to fasten it. “Did you know this was Dawn’s? Anna’s Dawn, I mean. Back when they still talked, she gave this to Anna as a gift.”

“Really?” Tash asked, looking back over their shoulder. “I didn’t know Anna had a Dawn.”

“Yeah. Just like…well, most of us. She talked about her, sometimes. Their whole thing was…different.”

“Different, how?”

“It’s a long story. Maybe if we get out of this alive I’ll tell you at some point.”

Ari drove slowly, looking out for signs of trouble. Olivia could tell from their tense shoulders; their occasionally jerky movements that they were deeply on alert. The drive wasn’t long, and Olivia could feel Kira as they approached. But just Kira. She couldn’t sense Kier or Lee. They found them - shaky, barely managing to put one foot ahead of the other - walking down a footpath at the edge of South Bank. As Ari pulled up and wound down the window, Olivia was aware of just how eerily silent everything was. No sounds of birds, or traffic. No people talking, or trains running. Nothing. Just the sound of the wind gently gusting through the streets.

“Kira!” Ari called out. Kira continued to walk, staring forward, as if they hadn’t heard them. Olivia could see several tears in their jacket, and they had a small cut on their forehead. Olivia pulled open the door, getting out and running around to them. She put herself in Kira’s path, meeting their eyes.

“Hey. Kira.”

“Huh?” Kira squinted slightly, as if only just realising Olivia was standing in front of them. “Liv?”

“Are you okay? Where’re Kier and Lee?”

“Oh.” Kira paused, looking past Olivia and off into the middle distance. “They’re not coming.” They said quietly. Olivia had the distinct impression of talking to someone who was sleepwalking…who was almost entirely not present in the same reality as herself. “Can we go home now, Liv? I…I’d like to go home now.”

“That’s the plan, hun…” Olivia said, wrapping them up in a hug. In the back of her mind, Olivia found herself thinking of the title of that old Thomas Wolfe novel. You Can’t Go Home Again.