(Ann)
August 17th, 1925.
The town is deserted. We can see clues of battles, traces of dried blood and rubbish everywhere. Some fires rampaged the place too some days ago.
We meet no one. Neither humans nor anything else.
Rose doesn't look frightened either. She even looks somehow... Happy? This woman truly is incredible.
I feel weirdly confident too. She seems to enjoy my smile even more. I think that having survived this long gives us experience and confidence against what's happening.
But it's different. We don't see any traces of torture nor bodies.
We look around and gather what could be helpful.
I ask Rose what we should do. She looks at me with her slightly scary but kind eyes. She's smiling. She's holding a map of the area I think. She's smiling victoriously.
R - I'm going to go home, but where would you like to go?
Despite everything we've been through together, I still cannot fully understand her. And despite everything I've lost and been through, I can't help but smile heartily at her.
Oh mother, father, husband, son and daughters in heaven... I've been seduced by a monster...
I've felt the worst of her onto my neck. But I've also witnessed the best of her, for me, and for the last ones that I lost. I've seen her heroism. I've felt her suffering, and enjoyed both what was sweet and bitter. I've seen her strength, and also her most shameful weaknesses.
I want to stay with her. I tell her that...
I still have her unintelligible book. I show it to her. I guess she would still like to bring it home? I ask her.
She smirks. She's proud of me. She offers me to hold her right hand.
I go to hold her left hand, as softly as I can through the bandages. I think it's the first time that I see her genuinely surprised. I like that look. It makes me chuckle.
Yes, let us go. I'm quite curious about her home, and that book I'm carrying for her.
It's a long story she tells me.
As if I would mind. I know she can be scary and dangerous at times, but I also know it's far from being everything she is. Life will be more interesting along with her. Along with that sharply thorny, but intelligent and thriving rose...
My grief will remain. My shame and my fears too. My sadness over my losses... It will remain as a part of me.
But I'll travel with my Rose from now on.
~
Unknown day. Future.
Rose and I, we travelled across an unrecognisable country together.
We've met a few other survivors. Humans, and other things. The world has gone entirely wrong, and civilisation seem to have gone suddenly extinct. We're still unsure why as of today.
At least, the nightmare is mostly over now, though nights still are ominous for different reasons. But we don't need to fight for our lives as much as before.
I taught Rose how to ride a horse when we finally found a few. They've become as rare as people.
After a few weeks of travel, we finally reached Rose's hometown.
It was deserted like every other city we've been to. We went to her home. A strange house outside of town, hidden by the woods. Hidden from the world...
What Rose found there... I'm sighing, trying to put the pieces back together.
What she decided afterward... We'll start looking for it now.
But because of what I know deep down, I feel uneasy about it.
A part of me wishes that our journey together would never end. And out there, it will... But I can't tell her.
Rose keeps moving forward, no matter what happens. She keeps impressing me.
Anyway...
Only one thing matters to me now.
Our strange journey resumes, it goes on, in that strange new world open to us.
A new world... A strange new world.
Where my strangest Rose thrives. And makes my journey on Earth thrilling. The world I dreamt of.
~