#omid is a liar

[trexalicious]

Omid can blame anyone he wants to for the wrong copy being sent. It doesn't matter as he has sworn on his life, and the lives of his family, that he NEVER wrote a copy with the names in it (lie). Additionally, he is now blaming his agent for sending the wrong copy. Which means that he DID write a copy with those names in it and sent it to his agent--probably before legal went through it. His agent is going to fight back like the translator and publishing house as it's also his reputation and livelihood on the line. I think he purposely planned this with the Duchess of Deceit. I also think he used the title instead of a name because it was Camilla but they knew people would assume it was Catherine...

[sassyfrassboss]

Omid's lackluster career...

[pakgirls530916]

Busted!! The draft was sent with their names on it. What a POS!

[donttempttme-blog]

"News reporting is becoming so pathetic. This item claims a "royal biograher".......Turns out they are talking about team suckess weasel omid scooby doo.

One he's not a biographer. He only maybe allegedly co-authored or maybe lent his name to a book. And it wasn't about royalty. It was about EX , that is, has been royalty, so......NO NINE network; your only source is NOT a royal biographer. You lazy bastards. But then you've rarely been known for actual journalism.

Then the bastards let him go after children AGAIN. Of course the harkles haven't actually got any to worry about, whereas the Cambridge's have 3 real children to care for.

[daimiyamoto]

‎‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎→ KEI'S GIF PACK DIRECTORY!

Since Tumblr terminated my previous account, where I stored every gif pack I ever made, I decided to upload them in a separate one just in case this one gets nuked too. This is the link to the directory, but I will also post a list in alphabetical order under the cut so you know which ones I've made so far. Some of them are in a payhip page, the rest are in their respective Tumblr page.; most of them are for free, a couple of them are paid.

If you like, use or plan to use any of them, please spread the word! I won't be making an individual post for them again, so a reblog to this post helps too. Thanks!

Alec Secăreanu in Happy Valley season 3

Alex Høgh Andersen in Darkness: Those Who Kill season 2 (P)

Álvaro Rico in Madres: Amor y vida season 4 (P)

Bilal Hasna in Extraordinary season 1 (P)

Brian Tyree Henry in The Outside Story

Brian Tyree Henry in Atlanta season 3 (unfinished)

Carlos Cuevas in Citas: Barcelona season 1 (P)

Carlos Cuevas in El verano que vivimos

Carlos Cuevas in Sin límites

Carlos Cuevas in Smiley season 1 (P)

Carlos Miranda in Station 19 season 5

Woo Do-Hwan in Bloodhounds (P)

Evan Peters in American Horror Story: Red Tide (gif icons)

Elias Kacavas in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin seasons 1 & 2

Wi Ha-Joon in Bad and Crazy

Wi Ha-Joon in Little Women

Wi Ha-Joon in With Coffee

Hasan Piker in several interviews (gif icons)

Kim Hieora in Bad and Crazy

Jesse Williams in Only Murders in the Building season 3 (missing one episode because I'm d*mb)

Jesse Williams in Your Place or Mine (P)

Jim Parrack in 9-1-1: Lone Star season 3 (unfinished)

Jordan Calloway in Fire Country season 2

Lakeith Stanfield in The Changeling season 1 (P)

Omid Abtahi in American Gods seasons 1 to 3

Omid Abtahi in Damien

Nabhaan Rizwan in Industry season 1

Nico Greetham in American Horror Stories season 2

Peter Gadiot in Yellowjackets season 1

Raúl Castillo in Night Teeth

Raúl Castillo in Seven Seconds

Ritesh Rajan in Twentyfiveish

Sachin Bhatt in But She's my Best Friend

Stephan James in Surface season 1 (unfinished)

Ted Sutherland in The Walking Dead: World Beyond season 2

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Watchmen season 1

I think I didn't forget any — if you think I did, let me know!

[skippyv20]

The new release was easily outsold by Britney Spears' memoir

Scobie's book ranked at No 731 on the Amazon bestseller list yesterday

Comment:

Hmmmm… this looks bad Omid. The world sees who you are….A liar! No one wants to hear anything you have to say. YOU are nothing more than a laughingstock….you need to find a new profession…author is not working…perhaps a standup comedian?😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Creepy Scobie the minion of Table 12 has failed to land. by u/ElectricalAd9212

Creepy Scobie the minion of Table 12 has failed to land. Remember, it is less than 12 months since Netflix was released.They had planned the next 12 months out.It was to be the year of triumph and the year in which the monarchy bent the knee to Meghan Markle.Netflix would lead to an uprising against the Palace across the world.Spare would be Harry's nuclear bomb over their heads.The royal family, reeling, with the masses of Britain in revolt against their treatment of Her Holiness Saint Markle, and the entirety of America also united against them, with the behemoths of liberal American media also on her side, would seek to apologise and give Table 12 and Smelly This One all they wanted.Half in Half out.So 'Endgame', by Omid 'What Happened To My Face Why Did I Do That Extra Plastic Surgery Oh My God My Face Has Melted' Scobie, was supposed to be the final bullet to the head of the royal family.It was the victory lap the supreme ruthless endpoint of the 12 months of war that would change history and place Markle and Harry on a metaphorical throne of triumph, with William and Catherine cowering and meekly secondary to them, destroyed, wrecked and bending the knee.Except the opposite happened. Scobie, who had hoped for power and influence as the key eunuch for Markle in her new royal court, has flopped and failed.His book is treated with derision. He is known as a liar, a hoax propagandist, a perjurer, and everyone is done with their nonsense. It has flopped, like an impotent old man. Neither selling copies, nor being spoken of or read. Their scheming, their narcissism, their sociopathy has led to universal revulsion, and Table 12's narcissistic ventriloquism waging war on the future King has utterly failed. Its actually being widely ignored. Nobody cares, nobody believes them, and nobody takes anything they say seriously.Henceforth, their little jihads as a creepy cult will have diminishing returns and only lead to them being even more disliked, reviled and viewed as repulsive.Anything else that comes from them is just autistic screeching and squealing and fading background noise of mad people.The book is just another coda to their own Downfall, which would be a great name for a book about the last 12 months in the ways and life of these disgusting grifters post link: https://ift.tt/SR75hJT author: ElectricalAd9212 submitted: November 20, 2023 at 09:24PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[na19love]

Whew, this tweet 🔥🔥! Couldn't have said it better

https://twitter.com/Canellelabelle/status/1779980685362553146?t=XtrS-9z_CLvR6bR9Bu3_dg&s=19

"So, after Meghan apologised in UK High court for "forgetting" that she leaked information to Omid scabies via Jason Knauf, in order to write Finding Freedom and attack the RF; today The Telegraph reveals that Harry had to apologise in Court after he "emailed confidential information to Johnny Mercer, the veterans MP concerning his security claim against the Home office"🔥

This is interesting because this is the same MP who has been singing the praise of Harry's military service and the same MP who is helping him with his bid to return invictus to the UK. So was Harry expecting a gov MP to go against the UK government decision regarding his security or pull strings on the inside?🤔

You see my dears, Lies travel faster than the truth, but the Thruth always comes out at the end and brings shame with it🔥

All the bad press Harry and meghan get is absolutely justified: They always end up doing worse than what they are accused of.

H&M have spent the past 6 years lying ad nauseam about William and KP;

Lying that he is in bed with the press; lying that he leaks about them. Yet it is them who are continuously exposed by journalists as having a whatsapp group chat; with the same british press they publicly complain about; in order to leak info to them🤡

It is them BOTH who have been outed in the court of law as liars and leakers🤡

It is them who are on record violating the RF privacy and giving interview to the press🤡

It is their supporters who were exposed in the press as a cyberbullying group doxxing and harrassing people as well as pushing death threats against the wales family and their supporters🤡

Quite simply Everything they accused William of doing to them is actually everything they did and continue to do to HIM, his wife and their family🔥

The proofs are out there in every book they wrote and ghost wrote, in their projects, court cases and well documented bots orchestrated campaign they lead nonstop on William and His family.

Now we know clearly that the leaks and bullies in KP were always Harry and meg which is exactly why William threw them both out.

This Man has never defended himself againt their lies, slander or defamation of character because he knew Time is on his side and the Truth is on his side🔥.

The Ones who cried wolves on every public platform to attract sympathy and play victim were all along, the actual wolves trying to gaslight the world into believing their actual targets was the wolves.

But Prince William is not one of H&M numerous victims. He is a Lion at heart. He never announces himself. He simply strikes and scores because the Lion is King☕️"

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🗞️📖 Bookish News 📖🗞️

🦇 Extra, extra. Read all about it! 📖 Good evening, bookish bats! A lot happened in the publishing industry last month, but here are a few highlights you may have missed!

Adaptations Jennifer Lopez's production company and Netflix - Emily Henry's Happy Place Laika (Travis Knight directing) - Susanna Clarke's Piranesi Universal (Taika Waititi directing?) - Percival Everett's James We Were Liars adds Rahul Kohli to the cast Patrick Dempsey and Sarah Michelle Gellar have joined the cast of the Dexter prequel, Original Sin Chris McKay to direct Brynne Weaver’s Butcher and Blackbird Ayvan Williams, Jessica Belkin & Savannah Lee Smith casted for Becky Albertalli's The Upside of Unrequited First looks for Heartstopper S3 are out Apple TV - Laura Lippman's The Lady in the Lake Adult Swim - Anthony Bourdain’s graphic novel series, Get Jiro! UCP - Chris Witaker's All the Colors of the Dark The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Barbara Robinson A24 - Jennifer Lawrence starring - Paul Rainey's Why Don't You Love Me? Netflix - Richard E. Grant and Tom Ellis casted for The Thursday Murder Club Sony - Michael Crichton and James Patterson's Eruption Renee Zellweger starring in 12 Months to Live Awesomeness - Melissa De La Cruz's Blue Bloods The Uglies adaptation has a release date after 18 years (September 13) The trailer for Elin Hilderbrand's The Perfect Couple is up Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea is being adapted into a graphic novel Prime - Colin Firth joins the cast of Young Sherlock Universal - Omid Scobie's Royal Spin Netflix - Bridgerton Season 4 lead announced Amazon - Fourth Wing series adaptation is a go Apple TV - The trailer for Pachinko! Season 2 is up An adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys will open the 62nd New York Film Festival Patton Oswalt’s comic book Minor Threats is being adapted into a live-action series HBO - Dune: Prophecy releases in November

Cover Reveals Babylonia - Costanza Casati The Get Off - Christa Faust The Ragpicker King - Cassandra Clare What Does It Feel Like - Sophie Kinsella Wake Up and Open Your Eyes - Clay McLeod Chapman Ageless - Renee Schaeffer The Thirteenth Child - Erin A. Craig Song So Wild and Blue: A Life With Joni Mitchell - Paul Lisicky The Meadowbrook Murders - Jessica Goodman On Her Terms - Amy Spalding Onyx Storm - Rebecca Yarros The River Has Roots - Amal El-Mohtar The Wind Weaver - Julie Johnson In Gad We Trust - Josh Gad The Life of Herod the Great - Zora Neale Hurston (posthumous) The Other People - CB Everett How My Neighbor Stole Christmas - Meghan Quinn

Upcoming Releases I Saw the TV Glow director Jane Schoenbrun has a debut novel coming out, Public Access Afterworld Carol Moseley Braun is writing a memoir, Trailblazer: Perseverance in Life and Politics New memoir by Hilary Rodham Clinton The Road is Good - Uzo Aduba Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart - Eric Geron Viola Davis is co-writing with James Patterson

News Macmillan is launching a "new adult fiction" imprint. The 2024 Locus Award winners were announced The 2024 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards were announced Nebula Award winners were announced Random House is buying Boom! Studios

[trexalicious]

Omid supposedly is an investigative journalist so why isn't he investigating how the names got into his latest book? 🤔

[sassyfrassboss]

LMAO!!!

So I guess he is facing some serious lawsuits…

[celticcrossanon]

Hi Celta, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on the book that Omid ( ably assisted by the Harkles, IMO,). I can't believe it was allowed to be published, honestly. Is there more to it than we realise?

Hope you're feeling better x

Hi NZCarol,

I was feeling a lot better and planning to come back and start blogging again this weekend.

Then I got covid (thank you family members) and now I am a miserable mess.

With respect to the book:-

I believe the writing and structure is dreadful, which explains why his first book had a co-writer.

It is very clearly Meghan and Harry speaking through the author, Meghan moreso than Harry imo (although Harry is by no means blameless).

it is also very clearly an outpouring of spite and hatred against the BRF, specifically the King and the Prince and Princess of Wales. The contents are apparently a repeat of all the gossip from social media, so old news and stale news.

I think the three people involved in writing the book (Harry, Meghan and their mouthpiece) wrote it to vent their spite and hatred, and that it was designed to cause as much trouble for the BRF as possible.

I also think that those three people grossly underestimated the ability of the general public to see through their bullshit and to understand exactly what they are doing.

The only real point of interest that has been picked up by the media is the naming of the so-called royal racists as King Charles and The Princess of Wales, which is a) unbelievable given the named people's past history of behaviour b) clearly an attempt to boost sales and c) not to be believed as that story has changed its details every time it was repeated, right from the start with two version being given in the Oprah interview. With both the author and Meghan being proven liars in court, it is difficult to take anything they say with any degree of veracity.

@emmashouldbewriting has explained that the agents handled the English version rights, but the author themself handled the foreign language rights, which means that the version with the names that was translated was supplied by the author

I think the author saying the names was a mistranslation is a lie. That is not how translation works. I think including the names of the royal racists was deliberate, to boost sales and to cause problems for the BRF. I also think that by blaming the translators the author has done a lot of harm to two innocent people.

I think the book is a targeted and deliberate attack on Charles, William and Catherine, and it is designed to make Charles look like a bad king. I have no idea why someone would write this apart from spite and malice. From the title and the blurbs, the author clearly thought that this book would take down the monarchy and finish it for good, but to do that the book needed several things it is sorely lacking, such as coherence, an organised structure, and truly shocking information about corruption backed up by proof instead of stale gossip that has done the rounds many times before appearing in the book.

I think the book was a definite attempt to undermine and discredit the British Monarchy, I think it has failed, and I think that Harry and Meghan will now scramble to disassociate themselves from the book with more lies, if they have not already done so.

The question now is how will King Charles respond to this collection of obvious hatred. Any reaction will be twisted by the author and Harry and Meghan into more publicity, so there is a case for ignoring it (continuing the grey rocking), but there are also the questions of how far is too far and when do you have to take steps to protect yourself and your family.

By itself, I believe the book is nothing more than an incoherent jumble of opinion mixed with old and tired gossip, seasoned with a liberal does of spite and malice, but it is part of a bigger pattern, one of continual malicious attacks on the BRF by Harry and Meghan. Is it time to shut the couple down for good, and if so, how would you do it so it is both decisive and effective? I think those are the questions facing King Charles and his response with either fix the situation for good or male it much worse.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Enty Lawyer: "Omit is a LIAR"

Enty confirms Narcle met Omit in Toronto 2015

I like Kinsey, but I often wonder if she's playing dumb or just really ignorant about Megain's personal history. Kinsey is a good example of how willfully ignorant some American media personalities can be.

I don't understand how a youthful Princess Diana enthusiast could miss all the Narcissist red flags about Megain, but at least now Kinsey is open to pursuing the truth.

Enty and Kinsey think Omit has gone rogue. They don't believe Megain (&/or Sparry) intentionally published the contents of Megain's Dear Pa, "you, Camilla & Kate are unconsciously biased" letter.🙄

[ingek73]

Piers Morgan will find many ways to deny phone hacking – but how long before his number is up?

Archie Bland

Following a judge’s ruling in favour of Prince Harry, the former Daily Mirror editor’s confected outrage is starting to look a little desperate

Mon 18 Dec 2023 14.15 GMT

So how much, exactly, did Piers Morgan know about phone hacking when he was editor of the Daily Mirror? It depends when you ask him. And since he edited the newspaper for nine years when hacking was at its zenith, and since other people similarly accused have spent time in prison, this seems important for reasons that do not depend on your feelings about Prince Harry.

On Friday, for example, Morgan had a simple line for reporters gathered outside his house. Perhaps his thinking had been clarified by the unfortunate news that a judge ruling on claims from Harry and others had found that there had been extensive hacking going on at the Daily Mirror, and that there was no doubt Morgan knew about it. Similar evidence has been presented to the Leveson inquiry and in previous litigation, but never as extensively or with such a powerful endorsement from a judge as this. But it’s all nonsense, Morgan sputtered, who would do such a thing? “I’ve never hacked a phone, or told anybody else to hack a phone,” he said. Simple.

As he also said, this is a line he’s maintained for a long time. You would be amazed at how carefully he has maintained it. He used exactly the same words to the BBC in September. He used exactly the same words to the BBC in May. He used exactly the same words on Twitter (now X) in 2015. He used exactly the same words to the Guardian in 2014. He used exactly the same words on CNN in 2011. Ask Piers Morgan what his favourite biscuit is at any point in the last 15 years and the response is likely to have been that he never hacked a phone, and he never told anyone else to, either.

If you view the narrow precision of Morgan’s repetition as interesting, you will probably go looking for other things he’s said about phone hacking. And you will find a laundry list of public statements from a bygone era that don’t exactly contradict his later recitations, but do cast them in a different light. In 2003, he told Charlotte Church that she should change the security number on her phone to stop reporters from accessing her voicemails. In 2006, he wrote that he had been “played a tape of a message Paul [McCartney] had left for Heather [Mills] on her mobile phone”. In 2007, he told Press Gazette that hacking was “an investigative practice that everyone knows was going on”.

What are we to make of this change of emphasis? If we take him at his word, we will have to conclude that Morgan knew absolutely loads about phone hacking, but had absolutely nothing to do with commissioning it. You might wonder if there was any need to tell the voicemail interception specialists used by the Mirror to hack a phone, and reflect that when you get the plumber round because your sink is blocked, you don’t need to encourage them to bring a plunger.

Alastair Campbell at Hay festival, Hay on Wye, UK, May 2018

‘Alastair Campbell gave ‘compelling evidence’ pointing to illegal techniques being used by the Mirror’s agents to obtain details of his mortgage.’ Photograph: Steven May/Alamy

The thing is, Mr Justice Fancourt didn’t take him at his word, and went to great lengths to explain why.

In rejecting the judge’s 386-page ruling, Morgan dwelled on the evidence of Omid Scobie, who was once an intern at the Mirror. Scobie said that he had heard Morgan being told that a story about Kylie Minogue was sourced from a voicemail. Morgan said Scobie was a “deluded fantasist”. As for Alastair Campbell, who, according to the judge, gave “compelling evidence” pointing to illegal techniques being used by the Mirror’s agents to obtain details of his mortgage: he is “another proven liar who spun this country into an illegal war”.

Now, you might not trust Scobie or Campbell. But what Morgan left out is that Scobie’s story fits precisely with invoices, numbers on a Mirror reporter’s phone, and a matching article about Minogue bylined to someone the judge described as “a known phone hacker”. Campbell’s claims, meanwhile, are lent considerable weight by the fact that the Mirror had just used the same private investigators to do exactly the same thing to Peter Mandelson. The corroboration for Morgan’s claim of innocence, on the other hand, is simply that he keeps making it.

Set Scobie and Campbell aside, if you think they have sold the judge a pup. Perhaps because it was cold outside, Morgan didn’t find time in his doorstep speech to critique the rest of the evidence cited in the judgment.

Melanie Cantor, an agent and publicist, said that Morgan “always seemed to be the first person to know about events that had recently happened” involving her clients, and that invoices and phone records demonstrated that she had been repeatedly hacked by the Mirror’s reporters. The judge concluded that “sensitive information … was passed to Mr Morgan, who must have known how it had been obtained”.

Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, the head of strategic communications at Downing Street under Tony Blair, said that Morgan had explained to him how hacking had been used to get a story about Ulrika Jonsson’s affair with Sven-Göran Eriksson. And David Seymour, the Mirror’s political editor, said that he had watched Morgan playing that McCartney voicemail to a group of reporters. Morgan, he added, was “unreliable and boastful [and] apt to tell untruths when it suited him”. The judge said he accepted Seymour’s evidence “without hesitation”.

Those are just the human sources. The judge also drew on mountains of invoices, emails and phone records. Still, Morgan had another card to play, another that he turns to quite a lot: an enthusiastic swing at the motivations of Prince Harry, who he said was on a mission with his wife, Meghan, to “destroy the British monarchy”.

If that is the purpose of Harry’s exhaustive legal crusade against the Mirror, the Daily Mail, and the Sun, it seems an odd way of going about it. But hacking has never just been about Harry. Even on Friday, there were three other claimants. The wider litigation involved more than 100 others.

Hacking was certainly not just about Morgan, either. But his confected outrage as the evidence against him mounts does give a sense of how we can expect the story to continue from here.

The financial consequences are instructive, too. Harry won £141,000 in damages; another claimant won £32,000; another two didn’t get a penny, because their claims were made too late. Morgan will not have to pay any of it. Meanwhile, he is under contract at Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV and the Sun, on a deal reportedly worth about £50m. Both outlets would have had ample evidence to suggest his involvement in hacking before this case even began, and neither has shown any signs of abandoning their man, who never hacked a phone, and never told anyone else to.

Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter, and writes on media, culture and technology

Following a judge’s ruling in favour of Prince Harry, the former Daily Mirror editor’s confected outrage is starting to look a little desperate

-

starting to?

[voltstone]

scav·eng·er | TWDG Retelling | 2

GRANOLA

what has the bite done to her?

[6,070] [Apr.26.2024]

— — —

Second chapter! Yay.

See I can write stuff. >:)

Anyway, hope you enjoy.

:)

— — —

AO3 | FF | Wattpad

[Previous] | [Next]

Nothing they feed her now settles. There's no stomaching the cans, or the bars, or even the hunt Christa manages with her swollen belly, and what Omid cooks fervently over every fire.

Clementine tries—she does—to string herself together, just to force the food down. To no end. It's fruitless.

.

And none of them know what to do.

. . .

IT WAS NOT ENOUGH

. . .

They've noticed her shivering, from time to time. The jacket Christa finds is blue. A dark blue. It fits Clementine, and it hides her away from the breeze and winds.

It's enough.

Clementine nods when Omid asks if it's snug, or cozy. A lie, though. Because it is neither. The jacket is loose to give her the room to grow, and it's…nice, but she's still not warm. She feels it when she sleeps. It's also there when she wakes, with the air biting through. The zipper catches. She can't grow when she's this… This hungry.

And they know.

Both Omid and Christa know because it has to be written across her face by now. Etched in it, if the way her eyes sit, and her smile fades, is anything to go off of. Clementine's just a liar. As it turns out, she has been raised to be one with all white lies and good graces.

This is the most they can manage, for the meantime, whenever she doesn't sleep soundly beside Christa, or lay her head, just to rest herself snug beneath Omid's arm.

.

Morning tends to come drawling.

This one has the sun rise in all shades of yellows to oranges. The trees too, with all the greens instead. They've been slipping their way to spring, and so the leaves are nice. The flowers are nicer.

This morning is also one that has Omid rest his hand over her head for the hundredth time that hour. In the other is a soup can. There's broth and cuts from the few birds they managed the hours before. Clementine smells it. She can't bring herself to reach for the can, or ask for a bite. Even though it's hers, and she doesn't have to ask—it's still a habit—, and she'll have to force it down anyway.

.

"I'm telling you, she feels fine, Christa… It's just. I— "I don't know."

.

Clementine stands miserably.

.

"Well, there's something, Omid. She's barely eaten."

.

And she's pale. And she doesn't ever seem to have the energy to talk—even when she wants to, which isn't often.

She's cold, she's miserable, and, of course, without Lee by her side. Her gun never seems to steady itself in her hands. Clementine can never truly raise it, despite the lasting flecks down its barrel.

.

Then the nightmares. There's those too, where she smells the meat locker, sees a saltlick thrown upon a grown man's head. There's blades and there's gore. Streaks on the walls. Bone chipped across a countertop.

The plates, though. The dining room. It's the quaint light hung above that table, and the cloth dressed over that table, the people sat, the dinner… It's those which steal the light from her world. The locker was reality. That table, and the community sat—they were the unseemly horror, lurking under her nose.

She can't shake it.

In no way can she do such a thing. Not when Clementine hears them gnash their teeth and writhe through the fences. There's rot on their skins. The meat begins to decay before her very eyes, on the plate, at the dinner table.

And the locker.

Their ragged clothes are hanging. Their bodies are swaying. Hooks gouge into their backs. Their dead eyes loll; their jaws sag.

.

Citrus.

The nightmares, from horror to reality, they reek of sweet marmalade.

Strung to rot.

In the sun, then in the rain, then in the mulch.

She hates her name. Loathes when she rocks to sleep. Hates where the jacket scathes the most.

The bite. Of course it's the bite.

.

She just. Doesn't. Understand. Not how. Never why.

It's agonizing. This has only been agonizing.

.

Omid and Christa try something. The week after.

.

Clementine is sat close to the fire, to keep her warm, and in her hands…

Meat.

Red, with the blood burning, and the marbled fat oozed between the musculature.

It's off the thigh of a beaver Omid took hours trying to tackle, before he kicked the dam in. She stares between him and Christa. The blood drips between her fingers. It laces down her nails, streams from her knuckles. The rest of the animal is still over the fire.

This is a desperate hope. Maybe, for whatever reason, she needs her food fresh—borderline raw—, because the cans and boxes they come across, they're okay, they're enough, but they're just about as okay and enough as the jacket on her back. Clementine stares at the slab in her hands again, for too long, the moment Christa assures it is cooked enough. Because that's what everything is now: it's either barren or enough. She's already tired of it. Knows that it's just the beginning, and will remain this way, to the end. But, at least, this wouldn't get her worse. The beaver. She won't get worse from this. Won't get any more sick than— Than she is.

Because Clementine is sick.

And the bite…is a lurking taunt, somewhere behind her eyes.

She does try, though. Clementine finds within herself the words to a white lie, a good grace, as she brings it to her mouth.

.

It's…

Only enough.

.

She wants to cry.

There is only desolation. She's barren, and hollow. Starving.

No tears will come to save her.

.

Clementine gives them a white lie, a good grace, through a nod. A quiet, broken smile as she gnaws on the meat.

.

They see through it though. Their smiles are resigned.

.

It's etched on her face again, the truth.

They don't know what to do.

None of them know what's been done to her.

. . .

DID NOT WANT TO

. . .

The dead are her roaming orchard.

.

Before, they had been a bed of sulfur. There was a sweet melancholy beneath that. More like honey, if set aside in a dark, decrepit corner. It took ages to find normality. She'd often have to bury her head into the motel's bed pillows. Cigarettes have a musk. It is far, far better than rot, even if Clementine felt her head spin for hours in those rooms.

Lee was better to bury her head. He had a musk too, especially whenever the woods leeched to his clothes.

He was her anchor. Before the rot claimed him too.

.

Clementine is…grateful for the bite. For this. For the one, barest favor:

Lee died smelling like one with the roaming dead orchard.

Never sulfur. She is dourly grateful.

.

"I never thanked you properly."

"What do you mean?"

.

"For saving my life, of course."

.

It's another campfire, another night. She chews through the best they could find: a protein bar, though it runs down like cud, the way bile gnaws at her. The raw meals over their fires are intermittent. It's been days since the last. Between then and this bar, there's been rice, and cans, and a little bit of nothing at all.

Their efforts merely stave off this dwelling famine of hers.

Because there's an itching now. It lingers when she wakes, then claws in her sleep.

At least there are hours like these, where Omid's smiling, Christa's laughing, and there's a warmth between them. Sometimes Clementine is caught in the crossfire, and she feels the beginnings of a smile herself. Most times, she's an onlooker, only an onlooker, and there's only orchard, and Lee's shadow behind her eyes.

.

"And now I get to repay you! Once … this thing's not. Um. This."

.

When the fire begins to settle, and they quietly are urging her again to rest her head, Clementine nods. Curls against a tree. Waits.

It doesn't come to her, dreamscape.

Such a thing has become a distant dream in itself as it slips away, between her fingers.

Christa can only bring herself to slip the last blanket they have over her lap. Omid gives his smile; if only it could reach his eyes. Neither do press her. There is no point. Their words are never enough, for this life has succumbed to a miserable parody, where coins drop, and those coins are racing down and around then around again—with momentum to gain and everything to lose—, before they plummet into a pit, the center of it all. A spiral wishing well… One of the many, many things that the world has left behind, and it's one that Clementine clings to. Bitterly. In absent thought.

She doesn't mean to cling. It just happens, whenever she can't sleep, and she slips into habit.

And it is a bad one. Clementine's aware. But, it's the only one she really has now. It's a semblance of something. A normalcy.

.

She just wishes it wasn't as disorientating as those wells.

Clementine did like them, for the record. When they kept themselves in arcades, and not this.

Until tonight, because they haven't kept themselves to where they belong. Tonight, it's this: when the dark rings around her eyes and those blurring thoughts of hers have her spiral, and she smells of copper, and there's nothing to do but the same, and the same. Over and over. Over again. Before she plummets. And there's no knowing what waits her in the dark.

.

Clementine is losing control.

.

The world is smudging. The days are blurring.

What did that man do to her…?

What did following that man do to her?!

.

"It's not so bad."

"'Not so bad?' You just had to be my knight in shining armor!"

"Warrior princess."

.

"What?"

.

It's cold. The fire has died.

Her feet drag, and she's left the blanket behind.

There's an orchard in these trees. Far from her now. Except… Except for one, and it doesn't move.

.

"A warrior princess. "It means we can save each other. But I still have the sword."

.

"Well. Gun, but sure."

.

The corpse is a shell of a walker, and the rotting gravestone of the woman before. She smells sweet. A touch acidic. Tart on the tongue, perhaps, if Clementine…reached into the night.

There's Omid. He steps on a branch behind her. His hand is a careful, soothing gesture on Clementine's shoulder not a moment later.

.

"You'll stick right by my side like before, right?"

"Yeah."

.

"Yeah, I will. "I promise."

.

She doesn't really hear him. He's too unsure in his words, and yet, she can read them. On his face.

Omid is searching. His eyes dart. He is the most sincerely grave she's ever seen. It haunts her, how natural it looks. Like he's worn these eyes and this face enough times in his life for it to fall so seamlessly.

It falls on. It falls off.

The brief frown that crosses him whispers a knowing about him. Murmurs the same—louder—when Omid eyes the walker shell.

He walks her back. Clementine roamed farther than she realized.

.

"I promise."

.

It begins to happen as intermittently as those raw meals. Clementine will start to drift, or she'll stray away. She's a husk herself. There's no telling where her mind will take her.

And one grey morning, she wakes. Clementine stands within her roaming orchard.

The dead do not mind her. The dead do not mind.

.

"I promise."

.

Omid runs. He barrels through the trees. Knocks into her before she's in his arms. Dirt billows. The dead ravage, because they do mind him, and his heart. The one that thrashes against her. His thoughts trill from his mouth. He darts wherever he can. Before he lurches. A hand has snagged him.

He throws her ahead. Snaps at her to run, and there's fear. There is only fear on his face as he writhes to his feet. Flounders for balance.

.

"I promise."

.

The orchard closes in.

There's one stumble too many, and they snare him. Clementine feels her voice shred her throat, and her chest. From the bottom of her heart. It reverberates off her restless stomach.

It's enough.

Omid lunges from the orchard. He untangles himself from their hands. Breaks from their maws.

It's enough to spark the last of his life. He is not unscathed. He is unstable in his strides when he finds her again. They sprint down the path she roamed.

And… And she wandered far again. She wandered far.

.

Doesn't remember how, or why, or when.

.

Just that she was searching for something too. Something like— Like a dream, and there were oranges, and they weren't this rot.

There was Lee. Cigarettes, and then a motel.

Somewhere someplace, behind an orchard.

.

"Good. Then I'll have the chance to pay you back."

.

Each breath Omid scrapes for himself, they rattle in his mouth, whistle from his throat. Flesh hangs from him. Blood seeps.

He has enough life in him to follow Clementine home—that's what he always called Christa, his home.

.

She meets him halfway.

.

Omid reaches for her. Rattles for the gun. Whistles a last sweet gesture.

.

The rifle screams widower. Its bullet gnashes the air. Meets him between the eyes.

He falls heavy, as though the weight of the world had been on his shoulders, and it all followed. First, he plummets to his knees. Then, he tilts. His home fractures. Her world tremors, and he falls. And he's dead.

And Clementine is their onlooker, only their onlooker.

.

"Okay. "Can we play dragons?"

.

"Sounds perfect."

.

For the first time in her life, Christa cries in front of her.

She cries. In anguish. From heartbreak.

.

It's not the same as when tears prick, or her eyes glaze, whenever there's exhaustion, a thorn on her side. Christa… She doesn't cry when life strikes her body. Tears may fall. Her voice might whimper. Those hours do not bring her to her knees like this. Christa never laments. She's never sunk into sorrow's depraved hands.

Until now.

Because this is the first time she has cried for Clementine to witness.

.

And it's her fault.

It's Clementine's fault.

.

Omid doesn't smell like an orchard in death. There isn't citrus. There's none of that sweet acidity. Not on him. He was given that grace. It had been in the name of a lover's mercy.

.

He rests purely on the bed of Christa's grief.

The grass smells like the dew rained from her.

. . .

A BIRTH

. . .

The baby is born fragile. She is born alive.

.

It's an hour where all Clementine can do is be the arm Christa suffocates by one hand, and she's glad to. For once, she's the one helpless, yet there, trying. Within everything—Christa's sweat, and tears, and the blood, then the whimpers she bites into cloth—, Clementine is glad. Won't admit it, finding solace in being the helpless observer, but she… She just is.

And the baby is born.

And Christa actually smiles.

She's still aging by the day, and her hair is not as kept as it used to be. But there is that smile.

.

Beneath that, a quiet worry. The smile is gentle. It can't hide everything, however.

.

The baby is born fragile, weeks too soon, in a time where Christa herself is not as strong as she says she is.

.

Life is just one confusion after another.

That's all the end of the world has taught Clementine. There is no knowing. There's only ever just…this.

Every break in the clouds, it comes with the fact that there are clouds, and there's still a storm brewing. Those glimpses of good are just that. A baby is alive, in her mother's arms, but she's weak. They both are. A girl sits beside them, more in the moment than she is hungry for once. Yet, she still is hungry. There's a famine. She still is sick. The baby has her dad's eyes. Her dad is dead. The girl gnaws on a granola bar, and the mother is humming. She can't find the ease to swallow it down; the murmurs are off-tune.

.

"What about Carley?"

.

Clementine tries to cling to this. It doesn't matter if they're in a bathroom so forlorn despite the evening stirring its light through the window. There is still the light, and the baby is here. So she thinks of names. Many come to mind. Including Diana, though she can't bring herself to that. She can't bring her mom back to memory. So, there's Carley. A close second, or a scrap of the same.

Christa is rocking the baby. Her smile flickers in a kind way, and she nods.

.

"That's a nice name, Clementine."

.

It is.

She decides it's more than enough, and Clementine feels…less hollow. More wistful.

This won't last. They both know it won't.

Neither will tell Carley that, however. Carley Hope, because they really don't need the subtly.

. . .

REALLY DID NOT WANT TO

. . .

Her skin is greying before her very eyes. Her words go hoarse in tandem to the stagger in her stride, and the gasps for air.

Clementine reminds herself of Lee.

She's thought of lunging herself off a ledge, or diving into every river they cross. One would plummet her, straight onto the broken concrete; she'd hope the overgrowth wouldn't break her fall. In the other, her body would thrash; she'd bite her tongue to keep reflex from fighting back.

.

Christa watches her. Helpless with an ailing Carley in her arms.

Because her baby is going pale. Her cries are losing volume, and her arms are more limp now than what they were.

.

There is something wrong, however.

Something very, very wrong.

.

Clementine and Carley, they are not the same.

.

Where she is greying, and where her words go hoarse, Clementine finds a vibrancy in her eyes, upon every reflection. Yellow cleaves best in the dark.

There's an erratic— An erratic stability in her mind. She hears what she shouldn't. She jolts to any and every noise. Sometimes, it's the odd motor miles off, when a car is blaring down a distant road. Other times, it's Carley. Her cries are losing volume; Clementine cannot fathom how blistering they would be to her ears if she wasn't dying—

She's dying. The baby. Clementine knows it. Smells it. Hears it. There's citrus. A slowing heart.

A tremor finds her, down the line. Whenever the baby does manage a scream, Clementine claws to keep her hands away. There's an animal to her. It cannot bear the sound of this— Th-This voice. The crying. Carley's too shrill. It's too sharp to her ears, and Clementine just wants to feel that tug again—the one that tells her to nurture, and soothe, and rock the poor thing back to sleep.

.

She stares at her hands.

Tries to find a prayer.

If only…the dead could pray. Because that's it, isn't it?

Clementine's not sick. She is dead. She's already dead, and bit, and gone.

.

Except she's not.

.

She's ebbing away. Getting stronger. As her skin greys, but her eyes flare, Clementine can weigh the pistol in one hand. Can decide it isn't heavy after all.

Which she does. And once she does, Clementine finds the flare in her eyes. Manages to shoot where Christa guides her—right for the lone meal, grooming its wing. The shot fires. Its echo cracks her skull, and she's on her knees, holding the world together with her hands clapped over her ears, and the ground warbles the more the tears drain into the dirt. She bares her teeth. Gnashes—audibly, she gnashes—back the impulse to lunge at Christa, or the baby, or both at once. The sunlight blinds when her ears seize.

Angry…

This is her angry. And confused. The harrowing, fine line between the two.

.

Clementine wants to gouge, and to tear. She's desperate to feel something—anything—fracture between her hands.

She's small. She knows that.

Whatever lurks within, it doesn't care.

.

She wants to bite.

.

Her mouth is parched. It longs for something. Satiation. A meal.

Agony thrives there.

.

"Clem…! Clementine!"

.

Citrus…

It's wane off the baby, but it's there. Weaker than what she got from Lee. But it is—

It is there.

.

"Clementine, honey, you have to get to your feet… Come on. Please. "Please talk to me."

.

Her ears…are throbbing. The trees and ground are a blotched haze, and when she tries to steer her head to those words— Soft. They're soft, and they're gentle enough. So when she turns for her, for Christa, the haze follows.

.

She collapsed. Just now.

.

Clementine begins to piece together the writhing tracks her nails bestowed into the dirt, and the thrashed streaks her legs left behind. Her stomach aches. Her mind whirls. There are no words. How could there be?

There's something wrong. There's something very wrong.

Christa is helpless to do anything.

Because nothing has worked. It's only been barren, aside for what has been forced down her throat, time and time again. But her throat is sore, because it's never good enough. She's lied. Too many times, Clementine has. It's never good enough.

.

They find a modest Bed and Breakfast. It's a sweet, little old cottage.

.

Christa starts its fireplace. She's given the time on her own, with Carley quiet in her arms. Clementine keeps to herself. Sits on the bench outside the front door, on the patio. Her body is rattled. It's plagued by exhaustion, even though she snaps to every lurch through the trees, where a walker or few trip over themselves.

.

In that hour, alone on that bench, Clementine understands.

.

Her hand is grappled over her sleeve. The bite grates against the cotton.

.

She understands what the man did, better than he could've known. She understands what's happened. Knows now, what it is she longs for. What her stomach, her famine, has crooned.

Bile climbs for her mouth, because there are no tears left.

.

Walkers.

The dead around her.

They are why she can smell the way she does. They are why she can listen for them, and why her eyes are searing across the night.

Clementine craves them. To the marrow.

Because she's dead, but also not.

She craves them.

. . .

HAD TO

. . .

This is the same trance that lured her before.

The one that killed Omid.

.

Clementine slugs down the path she follows. Her vision fades between the footprints Christa leaves behind, and the shadows amid the trees. The clothes on her back, she barely feels. The jacket is the same; she wears the hood over her ballcap to hide herself away. She knows the shirt beneath is a purple. Vaguely. Clementine wasn't all there in…wherever they found these clothes. Because she's dragging herself. Can barely hear it, never mind feel it, yet Clementine knows. Somewhere beneath the starvation, she knows.

It's not hunger anymore. Yes, there's traces of broth on her tongue, and down her throat. She's forced another meal down.

Her body doesn't want any of it. Her stomach screams. Her mind idles, then it convulses.

Does so now. Seizes her stomach mid-stride.

.

Clementine vomits.

.

There's a fire. Christa's cobbled together a tent, and the baby rests.

She keeps her back to all of it. The fire, where she can't bear the light anymore. Christa too, because her voice is— It irritates her. Irritates the agony in her ears. Something festers. Clementine can't stifle it. Not when her stomach screams again.

Not as citrus looms in the air. Some steams of Carley, but it's feeble. Clementine stares out into the shadows instead. There's one there. It doesn't move. There aren't any eyes to trace in the dark.

.

She's walking.

.

The moonlight blurs if she stares long enough, before she's rattled, and she searches again. Her nose guides her. Clementine scrapes the ground with her eyes, then her dragged heel.

.

Finds it. The walker.

.

It is where Christa shot it down. The rifle stole most of its face.

Clementine sinks to her knees. Her breath froths the air, and she's clawing into the body. It's older. Still with a suit and tie. The corrosion in its blotched skin, it frays to her fingertips with ease. Her face is wet. She's— She's crying. Can't tell the difference between the revulsion and relief anymore. There's anger, though. The desperation.

.

Brittle.

She doesn't know when she's brought a strip of this corpse to her mouth, but when she does feel her mouth, Clementine finds it brittle. The flesh, all that the walker has left with its abdomen hollow the way it is. Then she digs where she can—to the chest. It's softer. And there's citrus rot. That sweet, rancid marmalade…

Except, she's confused. Has to be. It doesn't taste rancid. This walker is decayed. He likely was on his way to an office, years ago. He is decayed. And rancid, yet all she has in her mouth is citrus, or marmalade, and meat. A rough, brittle texture. Hates it. Keeps gnawing. Doesn't mind the dark gore down her arms. But she does. In her heart, she does.

Honest.

It's just that, Clementine's hand is also tearing into the lungs. Her hand grazes the last of this corpse's literal heart.

.

Her tears begin to salt the meat.

It adds flavor.

.

She has been famished all this time.

.

The smog is clearing. The trance.

Where moonlight finds her, the more this body looks…like what it is. A body.

His hair was dark once. He wasn't tall, nor anything beyond slim. The walker after him, it tore open its hands. Half of its torso had long since dragged behind itself, before rotting away completely. A leg bent at both knee and ankle. The other is locked straight.

.

Clementine slows. Then stalls.

The world collapses around her.

.

"Clementine…?"

.

She's panicked. So Clementine hesitates, and those angry, desperate tears well again. Christa wants to say another word. Maybe it's her name again. Beyond that, however, she hears the rifle's safety.

There's a debate. To lunge at her. Have Christa panic more than she already is—see the whites of her eyes before the sentience—, and shoot Clementine down.

However, the urge has nothing on the human who still dwells within. The part of her she has refused to let go, one way or another.

.

Clementine slowly raises her hands. She climbs to her feet. There's a sob within that, as though it's the lamb in her, gnawing on her wolf's clothing.

.

The look on Christa's face says it all.

There's gore strung from Clementine's mouth, and it's damp from the tears she's spilled over the corpse. There is no red on her hands. Only black, and it smells of citrus rot. Flesh grows soft in her mouth. She doesn't swallow, no matter how much she salivates to. Because her eyes are pleading. Clementine may stand there, begging for forgiveness. Or, she begs to be shot anyway. She doesn't know. Just that her stare is the only staunch reminder of humanity, and every tear leaked from her is the agony of it all.

.

"I— I-I don't know what's h-happening to me."

.

This is the most conscious she has been for a week.

Clementine realizes how clear the world could be—has been—, and how many aches have found her. She burns in her shoes. Her legs shiver, and her shoulders throb. She keeps her hands raised, however. Lacerations scald her palms. Cuts all along her arms, and then her legs, those burn just as well.

Through all she can gather, Christa stares. The rifle falters in her hands.

.

"Ch-Christa, what's h-happening?!"

.

There is no answer. Only anguish, for Christa has watched this unravel for too long, and she must have realized it herself, the inevitable. This had been an inevitable. Clementine has stared at the bodies for too long. May have done with a gleam in her eye, one that strived for this resolve. Perhaps it has merely been denial starving her. Her own, and Christa's.

Horror breeds in Christa's face. But in her eyes, with the anguish, there's forbearance. It is, indeed, forbearance.

An inevitable then… The bite, this is what it's done.

She has known. She—

They both have known.

.

"Please… Please t-talk to me… I-I can't stop it. I—"

"I don't know."

.

Carley cries.

They both snap to attention. To console her.

Not that Clementine tries to get close. She tremors from afar.

.

Clementine paces.

Her mind is secure. Maybe. It might not be. She is pacing though, and every step isn't lagging.

It's another night, or it's the same one. Doesn't know. The days blur together regardless, it doesn't make a difference, because she doesn't dare sleep again. It's in vain. The nightmares do not care. She feels them in all her waking breaths. Still smells them too. The dead are everywhere. They do not stop roaming. And Carley, she is…quiet, and she smells like them. She smells so much like—

Like them.

.

No. Carley is silent.

Christa has slipped off somewhere. Down a road. Some road, someplace. Nearby, but that is all Clementine can gather.

.

Clementine freezes. Her throat pangs. She meanders to the same cobbled tent, and she realizes this one had been a haphazard attempt. Christa— She was in a rush. Another panic. A different panic.

She folds the tarp back, just enough for the moonlight to cast over her shoulder. And there, in a makeshift basket she barely recognizes, is Carley. Submerged in shadows. The last cry of hers hadn't been. It had been the dead's.

Did she not move to console the baby…? There's grime on her hands. The mulch makes it hard to tell if the warmth is from the fire, or if it is red. 

She staggers back. Hears Christa by the fire. She carries a trowel in one hand, then a fitted sheet in the other. Clementine's voice cracks. No words can trudge through the gore still clogged in her throat.

.

"You're back…"

.

Doesn't understand.

.

Christa stands, limp by relief, because her eyes are on Clementine, and they grow soft. To the likes of rubble rather than sheer stone.

Her hair is streaked of grey. There's lines in her face. More than Clementine thought.

Resignation. It's all it is.

.

"This wasn't you."

.

"You— You were back at the body again."

.

…the rifle—

Did the rifle steal the walker's face, or had that been her?

Was it Clementine that pulled the walker's torso apart, or— Or not…?

.

Clementine stands there. Dazed.

Doesn't remember.

Thought she did. Absolutely did not.

.

By the end, the jacket is thrown away. It is burned to ash.

This deranged part of her whimpers. Wanted to drag her tongue and reap all of what was stained.

.

Carley is buried with care.

For the second time in her life, Clementine sees her cry.

. . .

NEEDED TO

. . .

They stumble into a routine.

Mornings are dreary. Nights are worse. The hours between are a lagging odyssey from wherever they wake to wherever they find a quiet place for a fire.

Some days, they don't talk at all. Clementine sees Omid and Carley in her face, and they pale Christa, to a bleak shade of exhaustion. Other days, she's…warm. At least, warm enough, because anything more than that is something Clementine will just have to yearn for as she walks to her roaming grave.

The days between are another odyssey. She'll beg for an answer, or a conversation.

It's the same as prying a water bottle, or a last granola bar, from a hand locked by rigor mortis.

.

Whenever her skin begins to grey, and Clementine fidgets to any and every sound, Christa finds one.

A walker.

She's always so weary when she drags it to Clementine. Numb in the face. Void in the eyes. Like she questions where and why the hell life brought her here.

.

Clementine questions the same.

.

She does know now that this is desperation's bane, and it will never leave her.

This is for slipping away from Lee, his arms, for the sake of a family already dead, already rotting.

Still though, she does question it.

Clementine longs for the answer why she isn't just dead herself. Pines for the day when she is.

.

"Scavenger, then…"

.

There's a fireplace between them now. For once, they've strayed close to a town. Found an apartment complex, and it's fortunate, how much food there is left behind. She figures the town was evacuated, then left alone, for a long while. It's quaint. It's out of the way. None of the freeways crawl near the place.

Clementine looks at Christa. She finds the woman contemplative, and after a thought, she realizes that Christa has been. For the past few nights, whenever Clementine tries to roll over and sleep.

.

"You feed off the dead. That makes you a scavenger."

.

Christa explains what they are, and what they do. There's scant traces of a teacher saying the same, back in school.

Clementine nods along like she did back then. She listens to Christa now. Is far more engrossed.

.

Because this is…an answer. It's good enough.

.

Scavengers are animals. They feast off of the dead. They don't hunt. They wait.

Except, it is still strange, because Clementine does hunt. She can't wait.

Her dead roam, and she just can't seem to find the patience.

.

"Am I … still human?"

"I don't know."

.

"You're not one of them though. That's…  "That's all that really matters."

.

It's good enough.

That's all that Clementine hears from her. That is all Clementine knows now.

A mantra. It's become life's mantra—good enough.

.

They sit quietly at the foot of the fireplace. Her mind wanders. She tries to find more answers in what a teacher had said, but Clementine doesn't remember. Not the teacher, not really the class or its room. Science, if she had to guess. Something like that.

If only she had been more intrigued that day. Her slip in attention bites her now.

At least…, her skin is olive again. Almost a sienna now, the more Clementine finds the sun. The fireplace doesn't singe her eyes either—not beyond what it would do anyway. She can laze between the different hues. The cracks of the fire itself are not thorns dug into her ears. She's okay. It won't last for long. Still hungry. Still craves them. But… But she is okay.

.

Christa feeds her a granola bar. She eats it quietly, to her own corner.

.

It goes down like a dream.

Aside…for the hollow pit it lands in.

.

Goes down like a dream, yet it hardly satiates this waking nightmare.

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[skippyv20]

The BRF didn’t give her those nicknames….social media did…..liar…..😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂