“What in the! Just a torn paper!” Sophie shouts giving a long sigh and folding the last shirt. “calm down Sophie , what were you expecting.”

“Ofcourse diamonds!” she shrugged and her eyelids drooped.

“Yeah , only a blockhead would sneak inside my house and put a box full of diamonds inside my cupboard.” Ava lifted her eyebrow.

“What? Is that not possible?” she asked again , scrunching her forhead and nose. “ I have never seen a halfwit like you , but im happy for you.” Says Ava with a smirk.

“Why?”

“Well , you’re safe from rett syndrome , targets brains , very common nowadays.” She speaks with a grin.

“Yeah , right.” Sophie rolles her eyes. She stands up and turns to the door.

“Im going downstairs , throw this and follow me.” She says.

“Ill be down in a minute.” She puts the box aside and takes out the torn paper.

She starts reading the letter , with each passing line , she keeps getting more and more confused. She picks up the box and starts turning it up and down , inspecting it. “Where is the remaining part!” her eyebrows squeezed together forming a crease , she expresses absolute annoyance.

She folds the paper and puts it inside her cloth-made purse.

Both of them walk out of the house. They notice something strange , plenty of trees covering the road to the city. “I can barely see the way to the city , what’s happening?” Sophie asks anxiously.

“Its okay , I walk to the city everyday , lets go.” Ava tries to comfort her. As soon as they enter the thick lush green tall trees , they find themselves lost inside the forest. There was no way to go , everywhere they looked , they could only see the trees. Feeling lost , Ava started panicking. “I told you something was wrong , it’s the same person who snuck into my house last night , he is doing it.” She felt her stomach crumpling. “Oh come on Ava , there’s a limit to what a human can do. He’s just a regular thief trying to steal something , how can we get lost because of him?” Sophie explained.

“let me make things clear , he is NOT a thief and he is not trying to steal ANYTHING! He wants my life.” She shouts.

“Oh yeah? If he has the power to do THIS to us , why hasn’t he killed you yet?” Sophie asks widening her eyes and raising her eyebrows.

“Slow death is what he desires , he want me to die everyday.”

“How do you know that?” Sophie starts getting tired listening to her senseless imaginations.

“Its my intuition Sophie! Its never wrong!” she claims.

“Why don’t you do this , ask your “intuition” who your self-pictured , extra-terrestrial non-existing being is.” She sighs.

Ava does not reply and starts looking for a way out. A sudden pain runs through her neck which she had been experiencing for a while now. She holds Sophie’s hand and starts running without a direction.

“Where are we going!” shouts Sophie. “I don’t know , lets just get out of this place.” She says and closes her eyes. Both of them were now running blindly.

A sudden flash of light , and they were out of the forest , lying on the ground.

“Did we just , did we just , DID WE JUST GET OUT?!” Sophie gets up from the ground. She looks at Ava who is lost deep in her thoughts. she has one hand on her neck expressing the pain of her neck. She keeps staring at the other hand.

“What now?” asks Sophie. “Someone jus-just grabbed me! And-and he.. he just pulled me out. And thi-this immense pain , it’s the s-same from before.” She stammers but completes her sentence. “How do you know he’s a HE.” She says with a smile , her eyebrows raised up and her eyes narrowed. “It just felt like a guy’s hand.” She looks away.

“Oh? How do you know how it feels when you’ve never even held a guy’s hand before.” asks Sophie interested in where this conversation was headed.

“Let’s just leave to hemlock , before something else happens.” Says Ava.

“About that , while you were panicking in there , I remembered that we have to make a card for your entry inside. I totally forgot , sorry.” She says.

“WHAT?! How much time does that take?!” Ava yells giving her a sigh , a vein popped out of her neck. “It takes five days.” She informs.

“What? Cant we ask them to hurry it up?” Ava was in a hurry to leave this city. She did not want any other such incidents.

“We cant ask the authorities but oh yeah ! there IS a person who can help you.” Sophie says. “Name him!” Ava exclaimed. “I don’t know his name.” Sophie smirks.

“What do you mean?” Ava perplexed. “I mean the self-pictured , extra-terrestrial non-existing being! Maybe he could do us a favor?” Sophie chuckled.

“I think you do not want to go to hemlock with me.” Ava says exasperating.

“What made you think that?” Sophie asked.

“BECAUSE DEAD DON’T WALK!” she yells at her and infuriately looks the other way. There is sudden silence everywhere. then after a while , Sophie walks up to Ava , and looking at her with her amusing smile she softly whispers.

“Yes they do, yesss they dooooo~ , the-walking-dead” prolonging every word , she explains.

“Ill stop talking to you now.” Ava starts walking towards the city.

“What if zombies do exist Ava?” Sophie follows.

“I don’t know , there can’t possibly be people who die only when we finish off their brain.” Ava yawns.

“Maybe there are? Maybe the person you imagined is a zombie? Maybe he’ll only die when you aim at his head? ” Sophie added.

“Why are we talking about that?” Ava inquired looking at Sophie.

“Alright , just tell me how you felt when that zombie grabbed your hand?” she waited for Ava’s reaction.

“Stop talking.” Ava replies.

“But I was jus-“

“STOP.TALKING.TO ME.” They cover the entire distance from the forest to Sophie’s house in absolute silence. Walking close to each other , surrounded with an awkward atmosphere.

“So should I really not talk?” Sophie thinks to herself. Sophie looks at Ava , who was already looking at her , the silence breaks and Ava asks. “What ? Why aren’t you talking to me?”

“Oh come on , this isn’t even funny!” throwing her hands up , she rolls her eyes. Then she looks at her , both stuck for a moment. Then the two figures burst out in beautiful giggles. Grinning in the darkness of night , shining like the rays of sun.

“Let’s go inside.” Ava says while still carrying a smile on her face. Their feet stop at the sound of the footsteps coming from inside the house.

“S-Sophie , its that man.” Ava stammers.

“The zombie?”

“SOPHIE!”

“Alright Alright. Lets walk up to my room , I have weapons.” Sophie walks without any fear inside the house and walks up to her room.

“Weapons?!” Ava tags along.

“So , whats your weapon?” asks Ava when they step inside the room.

“Move” Sophie says gesturing Ava to move away from the door.

What is she going to do? Ava thinks to herself.

Sophie slowly walks up to the door , then stops there.

“Sophie?”

Sophie grabs the door knob and closes the door latching it.

“Now grab that blanket!” Sophie points at the blue blanket behind Ava.

Ava runs to the bed and grabs the blanket.

Sophie starts screaming and snatching the blanket , rolls herself up on the bed.

“You are going to die Sophie , wait till I torture you to death.” Ava’s eyes narrowed and her face red.

“What? This is my weapon , always saves me from ghosts and he’s JUST a zombie.” Her voice comes from inside the blanket. The sound of footsteps cease. Ava takes slow small steps towards the door . Sophie takes out her head from inside the blanket. “Careful.” Says Sophie still on bed.

Ava reaches the door and reaches her hand to open the latch.

“WAIT!” Sophie shouts.

“WHAT?” Ava yells back.

“Take this blanket with you.” She says with a serious look on her face.

“Sophie ! On top of everything , you are dead serious!” Ava says rolling her eyes getting irritated.

They hear a soft knock on their main door.

“Whose here at this time?” asks Ava.

“I don’t know , not someone I know. Maybe the z-“

“He is NOT a ZOMBIE!”

“The Z-Creators… , the people for your entry card.” Sophie smiles and says.

“Oh.. I’ll go and take a look.” Ava says.

“What are you SAYING? Don’t you watch horror movies? We should always stay together , one minute alone and bam, were gone!” Sophie exclaims with her eyes wide opened.

“You movie-freak , lets go.”

Both of them walk down the stairs. The wooden door standing shut in front of them as they stared at it in a dilemma. Should we open it? Sophie finally decides to open the door.

“Mom heard someone screaming , she wanted me to check.” Ash stood there. lazily brushing his hair with his hands , he yawns.

“we’re fine.” Ava replies turning away.

“No we are not , um.. actually there is someone inside our house , will you help us?” Sophie’s cheeks turn light pink , showing clearly how she was feeling. Ava turns to her giving her an infuriated look.

Ash walks in with his hands inside the pajamas’ pockets , passing Ava a cold stare , he walks up the stairs and enters the room.

“Did you see anyone? Nobody here.” Ash inquires from Sophie.

“Oh? O-Okay , probably our home-alone fantasies were flashing inside our heads.” Sophie told ash.

“No they weren’t.” Ava adds.

“If something happens , maybe we could call you out?” Sophie asks bashfully.

Ash gave a quick glance sideways , he felt irritated , not interested at all in Sophie’s obvious purpose.

“I’ll be sleeping.” He replies walking past Sophie.

“Oh? That’s fine , but in case you would still be up , ill shout “HELP US OUR GUARDIAN! , and you’ll come save us.” She smiles.

“How disgusting Sophie , zip up , so you really didn’t feel any presence?” Ava tries to talk in a friendly way to ash.

Ava’s P.O.V:-

“you are fine I guess? I’ll be leaving” He says while ignoring me. My brain was about to explode and I was already imagining him dead inside my head. That guy is repeatedly provoking me , one day I’ll take him with me out fishing and exchange him with the bait and FEED him to the SHARKS!

“Did he just not answer me?” I talk clenching my fists and grinding my teeth.

“He did answer saying that he really didn’t feel any presence except me.” Sophie guffaws.

“Looks like you really don’t want to go to hemlock.” I reply narrowing my eyes.

“Looks like you’re missing the zombie.” Sophie giggles.

“I don’t know how you even reach that outcome.” Sighing , I lied on my bed.

“maybe it’s because I have a higher IQ than you.” Sophie proudly presents

“no , It’s because you lack common sense.” I pull on the blanket on my face turning to a side.

“Good night” Sophie softly says , she never minds these kind of things because she never had a mind.

“Good night.” I reply. I close my eyes and feel them burning , It was a long day , my eyes had gone through a lot today. I recall all of the events that happened today , the torn paper and the cold hand. What was happening? I fall into deep sleep with all the darkness surrounding me.

“Wake up! It’s 10a.m!” I hear Sophie yelling at me , shaking my shoulder. I did not want to get up , it was so relaxing , I had not been sleeping so peacefully for a while. I covered my ears and pulled up the blanket.

“ ~ All I wanna say is that you don’t really care about me.

Beat me hate me you can never break me

will me thrill me , you can never kill-“

I hear Sophie singing in her dying seal’s voice.

“Hey Sophie , why don’t you go eat something.” I say in my lazy still half asleep voice.

“Eat? Why?” Sophie’s throws at me her never ending questions.

“when you eat , you can’t sing , that is WHY.” I say and hurl my face into the pillow.

“that is rude , Avalynn.” She says in a brittle voice.

I spare her a glance to see if she actually found it rude. She stood there grinning with her eyes on me.

“I just found out your full name and wanted to use it.”

I sat up and looked at her thinking how she turns every little thing into a special memory. Putting my hair into a pony tail , I kept thinking about what I would’ve done without Sophie. “help me up.” I stretched my hands towards her.

She grabbed my hand and I stood up.

“So! What’s today’s breakfast?” I asked.

“empty cupboards and an abandoned fridge.” We both laugh at Sophie’s description of ‘nothing in home’.

“Alright , lets advance to Beans&Snacks! Our ultimate survival place.” That place had always served as that ‘lucky’ small island in the middle of a large desert. Where we could go and quench our thirst.

“I guess the money was spent on my entry card?” I asked feeling a little embarrassed. Sophie always did a great job in growing flowers and selling them to the customers. She earned each penny by working hard.

I always helped her in growing them for which I was given half the amount she earned. Although I deserve only quarter as I only water them.

“It’s alright , now you owe me a Nokia 6110.” She said.

Sophie has three wishes , a Nokia 6110 , the new mobile phone model that is out now. Well we did not even have Motorola. We never felt the need to buy it.

But she was somehow really addicted to Nokia. Her second wish is to visit K2, the second tallest mountain which actually becomes taller than mount everest for a few weeks , much larger than the whispering peaks. And of course , her last wish is to marry Ash.

“Alright , ill buy you a Nokia 6110 when you’re a score.” I smile.

“Only a month left then? Then people will call me Sophie Scott , twenty years old , born in 1970 , 16th of October.”

“Believe me , no one will call you that.” Ava replies as they head towards Beans&Snacks. Reaching there , we call the waiter.

I look at the waiter as he approaches us. He looks at me , then looks at Sophie.

“What would you like Ma’am?” he asks Sophie.

“Umm lets see , Vanilla drink and a Mexican tortilla.”

Did he just ignore me? Did he just ignore his regular customer.

“I AM SITTING HERE AS WELL! LOOK AT ME! “ I yell at him.

“Yes ma’am , I was just turning to take your order.”

Utter humiliation , utter nonsense , my brain was trying to tell me to calm down. my face was red and my eyes stuck were on his smiling face. He stood there carrying the pen and notepad in his hand. Waiting for my order. I sat there stuck not saying a single word and just staring at his face.

“Ava , are you possessed? She’ll have the same.” Sophie’s voice sounds to me like an angel singing a song who has just saved me from this humiliating situation.

“Did I just get insulted again , indirectly?” I was still shocked and asked Sophie.