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Cold.
The cold was all he felt. The harsh winter winds surrounding him in a snowstorm. No fire, no food, ice over all the rivers known in the area.
There was no way he could survive and he knew it.
He wished to see his family.
His father, who had taught him to be strong. His siblings, the twins. Malik, who had reprimanded him countless times so he would never fall behind, but he failed. Dean, his dear brother Dean, who had looked out for him, who couldn’t care more for anyone than he cared for his beloved younger brother.
He wondered if there was a chance the three made it out of the wreck, if it was possible that Dean was out there, worried sick for him. Or maybe none of them made it out.
His mother. His loving mother. The mother who haunts him. In his nightmares he sees the life leave her eyes in front of him over and over again. The way she reached out to him as those monstrous cannibals tore her apart. If only he had not fallen behind. What an idiot he was in those days.
Now he was alone. Ronette Mukeshimana. “One who praises God.” He never knew how to feel about the god his parents glorified. “Everything is a part of God’s plan,” They always said. Did God really believe this life necessary for him? Was humanity that terrible of a thing that he had to sentence the entire population to live amongst these man-eating creatures? “Umupfu” as his father called them, they were a plague sent by God for some forsaken reason, not the devil as his mother said.
These thoughts circled the young boy’s mind as he wandered through the snowstorm. He was shivering, starving. He knew better than to fall behind. It had cost him everything.
He forced himself to drag his feet forward, to take one step after the other. To make it somewhere, someplace. The cold had numbed his feet. It was almost impossible for him to keep moving.
He wouldn’t make it. He was sure of it.
He looked up, to see something, anything that would motivate his body to keep going.
He saw it.
Him.
A recognizable silhouette of a tall man with an afro in a jacket, walking beside another man, slightly taller than him.
He didn’t focus on the other man, however, he focused on him.
Dean.
It looked like him, it had to be him, and he needed to reach him. There was nothing else he would do. Nothing else he could do.
He forced his body to push through, push forward. To catch up and never fall behind again. He realized he might make it, he might survive another day, he might be able to take at least a few minutes of rest.
All he needed to do was get to Dean.
Dean didn’t notice him, however. He turned his back and started walking, talking to the man beside him.
It had been almost a year since he had seen any of his family, and he slowly felt the chance to see his father, his brothers, and their faces slip out of his grasp.
He had barely any energy, surviving the harsh winter nearly impossible after being on his own for a year, maybe even two.
But he didn’t care. He needed to get his attention. To let Dean know that his beloved younger brother was alive, to let him know that he was safe.
“Dean!”
He wasn’t able to yell loud enough, muted by the violent winter winds.
He mustered the strength to pick up snow from the ground, immediately feeling the numbing chill of it from the ground. He threw the feeble snowball at Dean with all the strength he had left in him.
It missed.
His knees buckled and he crumbled to the ground, unable to keep moving. He closed his eyes, uncertain if it would be for the last time. He felt the sheet of snow he fell on, suddenly becoming hypersensitive to the cold wind on his face again.
He was alone, again.
______________
Russ and Darius had been tasked with checking if the nearby river had frozen over yet. They had been walking silently for some time when they heard snow crash onto the floor in front of them.
Russ spun around quickly, pointing his pistol at the direction the snowball came from. There was no real threat, however. Just a random teenage boy passed out on the snowy ground. Behind the boy, were the barely audible groans of the constantly wandering monsters.
Russ glanced over at Darius. Darius looked back at him. It felt cruel to leave some random kid to die out in the snow, despite the snowball he had pathetically thrown in their direction.
Darius picked the kid up and headed back to their group’s refuge:
The University of Richmond.
______________
Ronnie slowly opened his eyes, adjusting to the light as he sat up, still somewhat delirious. He looked around the room, realizing he was not out in the cold, as he was used to.
He saw him enter the room.
“Oh, you’re awake.” He awkwardly looked back, seeming to be glaring at a person outside the room.
“…Dean?”
The man looked back at him, confused, and Ron realized it wasn’t his brother he was looking at.
“Um, no. Russ.”
Oh.
Ron looked at the floor when corrected. Of course, it was too good to be true. At the very least, he wouldn’t have to tell his brother of the horrific death of their mother, as cruel of a comfort that was.
The uncomfortable silence that followed seemed to be unbearable for the man, now known as Russ, and he left the room. Ron stayed in the room he woke up in, it seemed to be a makeshift med bay in a college classroom. He heard the door creak open, finally lifting his head to see a taller woman with dark curly hair walk through.
“Hi! I’m Janelle, the group appointed ‘nurse’ here. What’s your name?”
Janelle seemed kind enough, so Ron hesitantly answered.
“I-it’s Ron. Ronnie.”
“Well, Ronnie, you’re lucky Darius got you here in time. You probably would’ve died out there, hypothermia and all...”
Ron suppressed a “no duh” and let Janelle continue talking. Once Janelle had finished talking, she left to introduce him to another person.
The door swung open once more, and Janelle entered with a different man, taller than Janelle with short black hair and a beard. Ronnie straightened his posture when the man looked at him. He found the gaze of this guy intimidating, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t end up accidentally pissing him off.
“So this is the guy Russ and Darius found on their way back, Ronnie.”
Janelle gestured to him.
“Hi.” He said, sheepishly.
“Ronnie, this is professor Ruben, the guy in charge around here.”
“Hello.”
Before another awkward silence could return, Ron spoke up.
“Is there any chance that I could, um, stay.. here…?”
______________
Room 463.
That was the room he was told to stay in. He opened the door slowly, making sure there was nothing there.
He looked around the room, there were two beds and one of them looked like it was taken, it seemed like he was going to have a roommate. He set his bag down on the floor next to the vacant bed and attempted to go to sleep in his new bed.
He couldn’t sleep, not when he was so close to death merely hours ago. Ron stared up at the ceiling as he waited for his roommate to show up.
He heard footsteps approaching the door after a half hour, and the door open.
Unfortunately for Ronnie, the person who got stuck with him was Russ. The one he had mistaken for Dean during the snowstorm. Russ looked at the teenager, trying to find a way to be polite, but not being one for greetings.
“Hey..?”
“Ronnie.”
“The Professor send you here?”
Ron responded with a nod.
“Hm.”
______________
It got dark fast, the sun’s light disappearing after a couple of minutes, but Ron couldn’t sleep that night. Maybe on a different night he would be calmer, but as of tonight he was too nervous to shut his eyes.
There were still some people he had yet to meet, as Russ had explained earlier. A woman with multiple tattoos, the two “best friends” who Russ had described as “uncomfortably close and oblivious when together,” the asshole kid, and some other folks.
Ron was scared of messing up or falling behind again and losing even more people.
But at least he knew he would survive tonight.