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          𝐈 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐕𝐈𝐑𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐀. I miss my house, and my bed. I miss my friends and maybe even school! That's a statement I never thought I would ever say. I really miss all the stuffed animals I have at home because now I only have one, and I gave it to my new friend, Sophia because she doesn't have any stuffed animals.

But, now I realize that I don't have a stuffed animal or a doll. And the stuffed animal I had was my favorite. It was my stuffed bunny named Lucy. She was white and her ears were floppy, and she had a little white cotton tail.

But, it's ok because I still have a pillow and a blanket, but, it doesn't really feel the same because I really, really, really liked that stuffed bunny. But, I don't wanna be selfish, so, I just gave it to her. She was really happy when she got it, so, I guess that's good.

My dad just said I was stupid for doing that. That it wasn't unselfish to keep something that was mine first. And, I think he's right because my dad's a doctor, so that means he's smart. So, I guess I am stupid. I'm not just stupid because I gave away my bunny, I'm stupid for lots of reasons.

I'm stupid because I'm super bad at math and I'm not the best at reading. I'm not smart and sometimes people have to really explain things for me to understand them. Like right now, Ms. Lori Grimes is explaining how to do a math problem to me, and I feel really bad because she has to do that a lot. But, she never seems to mind. I say sorry to her all the time, she just laughs and says not to worry, and that some people just need a bit of extra help. That always gets me flustered and embarrassed because I don't wanna be the kid who always needs help, but she doesn't seem to mind doing it.

I like Ms. Lori.

I like a lot of people I camp!

There's the Grimes, Carl, and Lori, and their friend Shane. Shane's a cop, which is real nice. He's big and strong. Carl is Lori's son, he's about twelve years old. Carl's kind, a bit moody sometimes, but I gotta cut him some slack because his daddy died. Lori's super, super sweet. She's just got something about her that I like. She's always hugging Carl and saying nice things to him.

There were the Peletiers. Ed and Carol, along with their daughter, Sophia. Sophia and Carol are very nice, but also very shy. Sophia's real pretty and so is Carol. I don't know a whole lot about Ed. He kinda just hides away and smokes cigarettes all the time down by the quarry.

Then there were the Harrisons, Amy and Andrea. They were sisters. Andrea was many years older than Amy, who was probably in her early to mid-twenties or so. They were nice ladies. Andrea used to be a defense attorney or something like that. Amy was in medical school!

Dale Horvath who had the big RV. He was an older man, in his sixties. He was very kind and sweet. He usually kept watch all day on top of his RV. He had cared for everyone at camp. I like him because he gives candy from his secret stash in the RV. What I'm about to say is kinda selfish, but, I haven't told anyone about the candy because I think it's just Dale and I's thing.

There was Glenn, a young man in his twenties. Before the outbreak, he delivered pizzas. He is super funny, maybe even a little bit cool.

There was the Morales, Miranda, Louis, Eliza, and Louis Jr. Everyone called Louis Sr. Morales though. I'm friends with Louis and Eliza

Then, Jim, and I didn't know about him. I see him helping Dale do stuff with the RV. He came here alone, and I kinda feel bad for him.

There were the Douglas family, Theodore 'T-Dog' and Jacqui, a married couple. They were very kind and caring. T-Dog was a real funny guy in my opinion.

Finally, there were the Dixons. My Daddy says they're white trash. They kinda just smoke cigarettes all day and drink beer. Sometimes they hunt squirrels. I don't like squirrels. But, they weren't very friendly, at all. Merle and Daryl Dixon, two redneck brothers.

That's everyone at camp, really.

I think I kinda forgot to explain why we're at camp. We're at camp because there's this thing called the outbreak. Now, in simple terms, it's a zombie apocalypse, but no one calls it that. No one even calls the zombies 'zombies' which is really weird to me.

Some people call them 'Geeks' which I don't understand. One of the people at our camp calls them 'Walkers', and I kinda get that 'cause they're walkin' from the dead. They call them 'biters' which I can also understand because they bite you. But I just don't get why people don't just call them zombies, because that's what they are!

But, I don't correct anyone or give my opinion because that'd be rude. Dad says not to correct people, especially not adults. So, I only really do it if a teacher mispronounces my name at the beginning of the year when they read my name off the list.

Anyways, so, this outbreak kinda caused the world to go down. I know it sounds CRAZY, but it is one million percent true. And that kinda makes me sad because I do kinda miss school and my friends back at home.

When I got home from my school, St. Patrick's Elementary with my older half brother, Kellen, who goes to St. Patrick's High school, my Mom and Dad were packing up the house. And, I knew something was wrong because one, my Dad's never home that early from work because he had the important job of being a doctor of some sort. And two, my mom wasn't drinking a glass of wine. She was full-blown packing up stuff.

My Dad looked at me and my brother, and he had that stern look that he usually had on his face, and then he said, 'Pack your stuff up, we have to go.' I didn't ask why because usually when my dad said to do something we'd all just do it. If he said jump, we'd ask 'how high'. Usually my brother's the one who argued and asks questions. He said 'cause he's the provider we should listen to him, and I guess that's right.

But, I packed up all of my clothes and my favorite special blanket. It's light green and it's really soft, but, the edges are starting to fuzz up and fray for some reason. I think it's because I use it so much. So even though I don't have my bunny, I at least have my blankie.

So, after we left our home, we discovered that we were going all the way to Georgia because my Nana and Pop live here and my daddy said that we'd be safer with them. But we actually wouldn't be because they're not alive anymore...Daddy found that out when we walked inside the house.

So we left their house and got back on the highway. So, on the highway in Georgia, we were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours. It felt like an eternity we were there.

Now we're here, in this place we call a 'camp' down in Atlanta. We're over this quarry, which is super nice and pretty. I've been trying to find the positives in stuff down here. The people are nice, there are a few kids around my age, and there's a nice man named Dale who gives me candy and pretzels sometimes.

"So, all you have to do is just think of it as having two slices of pizza, and your daddy has two slices, so combined how many do you guys have together?" Ms. Lori's voice really got me outta my zoned out state. I acted like I was paying attention and I nodded. I looked down at my fingers.

I have two.
Daddy has two.
I have four fingers up.

"Four?" I ask, Lori nods her head and patted me on the back.

"That's right, Mare." I smile a bit because I'm happy I got it right, and also because nobody has ever really called me Mare. Or any kind of nickname. Well, my parents don't. My real name is Maryn, it's pronounced Mare-in. Some people have said it like Maur-in, or Maureen. But it's not either of those, it's Maryn. I think people would know how to pronounce it better if it was spelled M-a-r-i-n.

I went off-topic again, but I'm always just Maryn, or Maryn Louise because Louise is my middle name. Sometimes my teachers or friends would, but, not a lot.

I don't know if I'm more flustered over the pat on the back or how Ms. Lori gave me a nickname. Either way, it made me feel good inside.

"Wanna do another one?" I like it when Lori asks me if I wanna do something because she never makes me do something I don't wanna do. Well, actually, I never really say no because I don't wanna hurt her feelings. Because right now, I don't wanna do another math problem because I hate math, but, I don't wanna be rude so I just say yes.

"Sure!"

I did a few more and Lori said I could be done. I just smiled and nodded. I also said thank you because it's good to have manners and all that.

Once I'm done, I walk over to my tent. Mom's sitting on a chair, her head on her hand. She has a headache, she's had one for a few days. And my dad's choppin up wood for a fire later with my brother. My Mom's name is Jennifer, and my dad's name is Micheal, but my mom calls him Mike sometimes.

"Hi, Momma." She looks up at me, and I can tell she's tired. Her eyes are all dark and she's sluggish.

"Grab me a water, my head's bothering me." She miserably said. I just nodded and flashed a smile to try and make her feel better.

"Okay," I walked away over to our cooler which doesn't have ice in it, but, we've got water and stuff in there. I take out one of our bottles, the one labeled JEN and I take it out. There's not a lot in there, so I grabbed the one labeled MARYN, and it's mine because it has my name on it, but it's also a light green color. But, I put some of my water into hers so she has enough. I close mine and but it back in.

I walked back over to her and hand it to her. "Thank you, baby." I nod my head and give it to her. She takes a sip and puts it in the cup holder. "Mommy's head hurts, she hasn't had her special water in a while." I know she's talking about wine. I'm stupid, but I'm not that stupid.

"Sorry, Mommy." I apologize because I feel bad because she probably misses her wine a lot.

My dad walks over and sighs. "Maryn go hang out with your friends or something, I have stuff to do over here." I just nod my head. I wanna know what he has to do, and if I could help him, but, I don't want him to get mad at me. I like helping my dad, but when I do he gets mad. Like one time I had to hold a flashlight for him but I kept shaking and he ended up getting really, really mad at me. "And if I see you cut through Dixon's camp again you're in trouble. I said I didn't want you over there." I nod again. My daddy said the Dixon's were mannerless, ugly, white trash people.

My dad's all about reputation. I know what that word means because he reminds me that I have to always have a good one.

I walk away, making a note not to cut through Dixon's camp. I walk over to my friends, Carl, Eliza, Sophia, and Louis. I'm the youngest outta all of them, but, it doesn't really matter that much. Carl, Sophia, and Eliza twelve, and Louis is nine.

They're sitting around a tree and when I walk over they all smile. "Hey, Maryn." Eliza greets me as I sit down. I smile back because it's the nice thing to do.

"Hey," I sit criss cross applesauce next to Carl, who'd scooted over for me. "What are you guys doing?" I asked curiously.

"Nothing really." I see that Sophia has my bunny, she's playing with the ears and I feel sad and kind of jealous because it was mine first. I just kept smiling so nobody knew that I was a little upset and a little jealous.

I convince myself that it's no big deal because people are out there getting bitten left and right and I should just be thankful.

"So, why did you move here from Virginia?" I look up. Carl was asking me a question. Carl asks a lot of questions. But, I like how it's not hard for him to make conversations, so, I always answer.

"I was coming here because my Daddy thought that it was safer in Georgia. My Nana and my Pop also live down here, so, we'd have a place to stay. But, it didn't really go that way." I try to not sound sad when I say it, because I really miss my Nana and my Pop. Whenever we visit Georgia, I always bring coins because they have an old plastic barrel, ya know the ones pretzels come in? Every time I come, I fill it with the coins I find. Nana and Pop said once I fill it to the top, we can go to the bank and we can get it all counted out and converted to cash and then I get to keep it! Nana also let me cook with her, and Pop and I would always watch one of his old movies.

Now they're gone.

"Oh, did you see your Nana and your Pop?" I shake my head no. Dad wouldn't let me inside. He'd quickly slammed the door and ushered Mom and I to the car saying we had to go somewhere else.

I kinda put the dots together from there.

"No," I'm short because I don't feel like talking about it because it makes me feel sad. It makes my throat feel all tight because I don't wanna cry, and I feel like I gotta big lump in there that I gotta keep down. My eyes burn as well when I talk about it.

"Oh, I'm sorry." He shouldn't apologize. I shouldn't even cry over it. My grandparents died, but his dad died. He should cry, not me.

"It's ok." I shrug, "I'm sorry about your dad to." He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's fine."

I think I made it really awkward. Because now everyone's looking down at the dirt and picking at the grass underneath us.

But, we're kinda saved when Officer Shane walks over. "What are you kids up to?" He asks, standing over us with his hands on his belt.

I like Officer Shane, he's nice. "Nothing," Carl says, which is partially true. We're talking about dead relatives and doing nothing.

"Not causin' trouble, are ya?" He jokes with us. I like Officer Shane, so do my parents, which is hard because I don't think my parents like a lot of people.

Everyone just laughs because it's funny, I don't think it's that funny but I laugh anyways. I put my hair behind my ears, looking down at the ground but I keep a smile on my face while I do it so i don't seem rude.

Officer Shane seemed to have switched the feel of the room. Well, not the room since we're outside, but the feel in the area. Everyone's kinda just smiling and laughing. And once he left, we kept talking.

But, then my eyes land on my bunny again and I get sad because that bunny came from my Nana and Pop and now I don't have them anymore. I got it when I was just a baby, and I don't have it anymore all just because I felt bad...But I should be grateful, I still have my blankie! Sophia has a bunny now so, she's happy.

But I really miss my bunny.