The weather, formerly clear and pleasant, grew ever more foul the closer Eddie and Melanie came to the Slagspire Mountains. Brooding clouds darkened the skies, blocking both light and warmth from reaching the two travelers. Wind gusts would occasionally sweep past them, feeling like an invisible hand trying to stop them from proceeding any further.

It was near noon when they reached the base of the mountains, but Melanie noticed Eddie checking his pocket watch to be certain as the clouds overhead had been obscuring the sunlight all day. The road they'd been following led past the decaying remains of what had once been a sizable town. A few of the structures had burned down, leaving only charred posts sticking up like bones of a carcass. The name of the town had once been posted on an iron plate bolted to a slab of stone near the town's border, but weather and time had taken their toll, leaving only a rusty outline of where the sign had once been.

"Do you think there are any zombies around here?" Eddie asked, hatchet in hand and a wary eye on the few buildings still standing.

Melanie considered the possibility. They'd encountered five groups of zombies over the past three days, butthe number of staggering corpses had been small enough to allow Melanie and Eddie todispatch them with blades and conserve her ammunition for when it might beneeded later.

"Judging from the rot and warping of the wooden boards here and there, I'd say this place was falling apart long before the undead arrived," Melanie theorized. "If there are any around here, they're probably not from here originally, just wandering through."

"Let's hope they keep wandering and stay away from us," Eddie added.

Melanie gave a silent nod of agreement.

Although the town ended at the foot of the mountains, the road continued on, vanishing into a pass between two towering peaks, the clouds concealing the snowcaps in a thick blanket of gray. Near the edge of the town was a large field of scorched grass; sheltered by the mountainside, the wind had yet to blow away the ash. Rounded stones and rocks poked up through the ash like diminutive trees. Looking closer, Melanie discovered the stones were actually grave markers.

She didn't know why she turned off the road and entered the town's cemetery. Something about it drew her. Melanie crouched and brushed aside dirt and ash to read names and dates on a few of the headstones. One of them had the inscription, Devoted Mother, carved into it, and Melanie suddenly thought of her own mother.

The random thought had been but the first link in a chain, and once the first one had been pulled, the others followed. Her mind dredged up memories and pain long forgotten, replaying carnage and death in perfect clarity in her mind. She closed her eyes, placing a palm against her temple, but the images refused to fade. She could even hear the screams and feel the blood on her hands. Melanie fell forward onto her hands and knees as a parade of twisted and bloody faces marched through her mind. People she'd known and watched die, many of them by her hand after being infected. Flashes of memory brought back the pain of her injuries and the feelings of hollowness after being transformed. Years of loneliness with only the rotting undead and the perpetual threat of her own violent death as the only constants. It flooded over her without warning and without mercy. Melanie opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She was drowning, unable to move or breathe.

Eddie knelt beside her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders. She couldn't think about pushing him away; she couldn't think about anything except the horrors of her life. Melanie hadn't shed a single tear in a considerable amount of time, thinking it one of the things lost by the transformation, but the tears came now, pouring out of her in a flood that made her push her goggles out of the way to prevent them from filling up. She felt like a rag drenched in liquid misery someone had picked up and twisted to wring out every last drop, and when her voice came it was a raw and wordless cry muffled only by Eddie's shirt as he held her. He didn't react to her tears soaking the front of his clothes. He offered no words of comfort. He only held her, waiting for it to pass; a friend in silence.

It was a few minutes before Melanie regained a semblance of composure. She brushed a hand across the dampness of Eddie's shirt.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I don't know why that happened. Everything I've been through, everyone I've lost; it all came at once."

Her words trembled as the pain lingered in her mind, a swollen river threatening to spill over its banks again.

"Memories have a nasty habit of playing dead, hiding and remaining silent until you think they're not around anymore, then they sneak up behind you with a brick," Eddie responded. "If anything, I think this is a good sign."

"How can this be in any way good?" Melanie asked, irritation pushing aside all other emotions.

"The mind has a tendency to hide from pain when it thinks it can't handle it," Eddie explained. "If things you've repressed are starting to surface, it means your mind thinks you're ready."

"I wish there was some kind of flow control," Melanie grumbled.

"I wish that too at times," Eddie agreed.

"We, uh..," Melanie struggled to find the words. Forming cohesive sentences felt like trying to find something in a room filled with mist; she knew what was there, but she couldn't seem to take hold of it.

Eddie pulled a handkerchief from an inside pocket and cleared away the trails left by her tears through the ash and dust coating her face. He paused, staring into her blue eyes as if wanting to memorize every detail before they returned to hiding beneath her goggles.

A lightning bolt tore open the sky, and its thunder echoed from the mountainsides.

"We should get going," Eddie suggested.

"Yes," Melanie agreed.

He stood and offered her a hand. She looked at him for only a second before accepting, letting him provide a firm anchor for her as she pulled herself up. Together, they headed deeper into the mountains.