sixthiterationlogs | Reason says I should have died three years ago...

WHO: Sam Moon
WHERE: The Inn's kitchen
WHEN: January 8 (Sam's birthday)
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Language, rumination on violence and death

When you didn't get older, birthdays kind of felt like a joke. At least, that had always been Sam's feeling on the matter. She wasn't really sure where she stood right now, considering the situation. But all she really wanted was to spend the entirety of her birthday in a blanket fort, watching all three of the original Space Wars movies on her iPad. Unfortunately, as so often seemed to be the case, the fates were conspiring against her. Actually, she had pretty much come to the conclusion that it was somehow her own fucking fault she'd been abducted and tossed into this Skinner Box, but Sam had a habit of passing off blame when she could. So it was obviously the fucking fates.

And Karen, of course. She loved blaming Karen for things. And visions of the night they met--her "other birthday," as Karen euphemistically called it--kept going through her head.

She rolled onto her back. The slight motion made her feel unreasonably sick. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make sense of the whirling colors above her, but she couldn't focus. It was like the whole world had been smudged with Vaseline. And something wet was starting to seep into her hair and the cotton of her tee shirt. Sam tried to lift a hand to touch her forehead, but she couldn't.

More sounds rang out above her, like a symphony of violence. But a face suddenly filled her vision, coming into sharp focus. It was the woman who she'd briefly made eye contact with, the one with the short hair. "Samantha?" Her voice echoed. "Samantha, can you hear me?"

"What's going on?" Sam mumbled, not entirely sure she'd actually spoken out loud.

"An excuse to air past grudges," the woman said. She brisky swept Sam's wig off of her head, freezing momentarily at the sight of her red hair beneath. Whatever surprised her, she shook it off quickly, probing at the damage to her forehead. Sam let out a yelp of pain as blackness flashed across her eyes. "Your cranium has been shattered," the woman said. "You're going to bleed into your brain."

To banish the thoughts--really, all of her thoughts, Sam wandered into the kitchen. In the last few weeks she'd become increasingly obsessed with trying to figure out how to build a still. They had potatoes after all. Potato vodka couldn't be that hard. Applied chemistry wasn't her area of expertise, but she figured the challenge would only help keep her mind off of...things.

So her birthday would be spent in the kitchen. Quietly humming It's My Party by Leslie Gore under her breath, she experimented with whatever glasses, tubes, and burners she could rig up. In between each attempt, she would pause to write up a full debrief in the little notebook Jude had given her. Occasionally, birthday cakes and balloons would sneak into the margins of her notes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Went Romero? She liked that.

But they'd discuss it later.

"A zombie in prison. That does sound like a potentially awkward situation." Same could be said for a vampire, she supposed. "Kudos to Ravi. Eating everyone is...wrong? I'm guessing."

Major's slightly surprised that Sam doesn't seem to blink an eye at the idea of him being in prison.

"I mean, it depends on who you talk to. There are plenty of zombies who think that humans are basically on the same level as any other "meat" out there - cows, sheep, chicken, whatever. That they're really only as good as the brains in their skulls. Probably not much of a surprise if I tell you that I definitely didn't subscribe to that way of thinking, and neither did anyone I was friends with, Ravi included. I mean, Liv was gonna be a surgeon, initially. But after the zombie thing happened, she got a job at the M.E.'s office with Ravi, so she could ethically source her brains without having to kill anyone."

Pretty sweet gig, really. Kind of like a Kindred working at a hospital or blood bank.

Sam was surprised by all the similarities cropping up. It was so fucking hard to escape her past.

She whet her lips, leaning against the counter. "Good answer. About not subscribing to that way of thinking, I mean. I'd have to...throw a drink in your face or something if you said otherwise."

"I'd be surprised if that was all you did, to be honest," Major replies back with a shit-eating grin. "Count on the Seattle-ite to find a way to ethically source brains, though, huh?" He clears his throat, wanting to shift topics away from Liv because thinking about her, talking about her hurts more than he'd really care to admit. It's rare to go a day without her cropping up somewhere in his consciousness. "I wouldn't want you to waste your alcohol child on me in that sorta scenario, though. A punch to the face should do it."

Shit, he was weird. It worked for him. Anyone that gorgeous could be as weird as they fucking wanted to be.

But still.

"Okay, noted," she said. "Does that go for all future opinions I don't agree with? Because I'm not gonna lie, I really like punching people in the face."

Major squints in thought, as though seriously considering it. Truth be told, he is giving it some serious thought. After a few moments, he shrugs one shoulder and then lets out a quiet laugh.

"I mean, not if it's like, "I like blue and you like green, so you get a punch in the face" kind of nonsense. But if it's something really bad? Like, if I suddenly think we should start sacrificing people or that kind of thing, yeah, I give you full, outstanding rights to punch me in the face 'til I come to my senses."

"I should have you sign something for that too," Sam replied. Her kingdom for a notary. Or, you know, a society where finding a notary was your biggest problem.

But she gave Major a smile to let him know she wasn't serious.

Of course not. She was Sam fucking Moon.

No one ever took her seriously, anyway.

"I hope I never have to punch you." And with that, she gave him a stiff salute.

"Right." Major returns the salute with equal stiffness before relaxing.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Sam. As the one who'd be getting punched in the face, I also hope you never have to punch me." He gives her set up a glance before looking to her again. "I gotta go check some traps before we lose daylight. But come and find me to let me know how this all turns out, yeah?"

"You're my best customer," she replied. "You'll be the first to know, if I ever get it right."

Well, in all fairness, more like the second to know. Once she got it right, Sam intended to get good and drunk.

It had been too long.

Reason says I should have died three years ago... | OTA

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