Chapter 3: I Promise I Love you with all my Heart
Rudolph Alinsky
Estimated, May 2025
About 36 months after outbreak
Oregon
Season 1
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Oregon, once known for its incredible views, is now known for its thousands of dead in the streets of Portland and its lack of breathing life. It isn't a place you stay unless you have to. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that.
We ran out of gas eventually, I carried Airianna as she shivered in my arms. Juna clung to my pant leg, she held on even tighter when the dead entered her line of sight. I knew Airi was miserable, I knew I had made a mistake with making her leave at a time like this but that doubt didn't make me turn around and start walking back. I wasn't ready to do that yet, I tried to convince myself that I was searching for something but really I was just running from the truth. I was scared, scared of what they thought, scared for my life and my daughters, scared of getting too involved and not being able to get out.
I was worried about Ethan, Leah, Steve, and the rest. I was terrified that if I did go back, they would all be dead, maybe bitten and therefore turned. I didn't want to see that, I didn't want Juna and Airi to see that, there'd be no way to unsee it.
I had to do what I thought was right for their well-being. I knew that travelling to a whole other state probably wasn't the best for them but I was out of ideas and I didn't want them to be a part of Ethan's war.
I didn't know how much more Airianna would be able to endure, it didn't even cross my mind at the time that I was practically killing her. Slowly, her life was draining, the less medicine she had the more pain she felt and the more she rocked in my arms the more rattled her brain got. I didn't think about her dying because it seemed impossible at the time. The thought of losing my children was otherworldly because that would be my final breaking point.