The night was always the quietest time in the hospital. All the men had gone to bed, except the ones staying up to keep watch, which meant that all the girls were able to rest easy, not having to worry about any of the men coming for their ‘needs’.

“Avri,” A soft whisper suddenly called. My eyes fluttered open at the mention of my name. I looked around to where the voice came from when my eyes landed on Krystal. Furrowing my brows, she waved me over to where she was, not giving an explanation as to why.

I groggily got up from where I was up against the wall, moving the heads of Irene and Somin from my shoulders until their heads met each other, keeping them both upright. I stumbled over to where she was and took a seat next to her. I rubbed at my eyes waiting for her to speak.

“Sorry to wake you up,” She whispered, wanting to keep quiet as to not wake the others in the room. I yawned.

“It’s okay. What’s up?” I asked, blinking a couple times to regain focus and found Krystal smiling widely at me.

“I found a way out.” She said, holding up this map. My eyes widened at what she said, becoming immediately awake.

“Wait, you’re serious? How the hell did you even find this?” I asked, quickly taking it from her hands. It showed all the floors of the building, even indicating where the exits and rooms were. I couldn’t help but be amazed by the piece of paper in front of me.

“I had just been digging through the room for the last couple of days and I found it in the back of one of the drawers, hidden by dozens of medical papers from before zombies were a thing. I guess when they took over the place, the idiots didn’t think of looking when locking up their prisoners in a room,” she snorted, clearly making fun of our kidnappers. I instantly hugged her, feeling as if I could fly.

“How I ever told you how much I love you?” I said, creating a laugh from her at my over-the-top reaction. She hugged me back, the warmth from her arms extremely comforting.

“Nope, but I can tell you love me a lot,” She teased, not able to hide the smile growing on her face.

“The most obviously,” I replied, creating a smile wider than her own. I quickly let go of her shoulders and looked back down at the map in my hands. I couldn’t help but notice the markings drawn on the piece of paper, x’s and arrows drawn in accordance with one another. She noticed me looking at them and told me her thought process.

“When we were being dragged inside, I couldn’t help but notice the rooms we passed by on the way here. And every time they let us go to the bathroom I would take a little longer walk back, glancing at which doors and which hallways were lacking guards constantly walking up and down them. After the last couple of days, I came up with this. Of course I was only able to get this floor figured out but if you look here-” She paused for a second to point at little stairs at the end of one of the hallways on this floor. “It leads to the outside. Our way out.” She explained, done to the last detail. I couldn’t believe that in this short amount of time she was able to do all of this.

“Are you seriously even human?” I joked, not fully comprehending how she could have done this in such a short amount of time. I quickly looked over at her to see that the smile on her face was now gone, replaced with a frown. I froze at her sudden change and reached for her hand. She flinched at the gesture, but eventually grabbed my hand tightly, making me even more worried. It was a worrying silence between us, not really knowing how to address her sudden change, I waited for her to say something.

“Do you think they are okay?” She finally whimpered, her face buried in the crevices of her legs. “To be taken after such a horrible-” She stopped, exhaling slightly. “What if those men killed the rest of them and it’s just us? Where do we go now? How are we gonna make it through this?” She looked at me as if waiting for the words I was supposed to say. 'They are alive. They are gonna be here. We have a place to go to.’ But I didn’t have anything.

I remember this exact conversation from when we first arrived at the farm. We were scared and nervous, Krystal not knowing if they were going to be able to find us. I knew then that they were going to. That there was no way they wouldn’t be able to follow behind us, as if there was a link between the split group, pulling us together. But now… I don’t know. So much has changed and as much as I would love to say that they are coming…I had no idea.

She noticed my hesitation and in response squeezed my fingers gently, as if telling me it was okay not to answer. So I didn’t. We just sat there in silence, holding each other’s hands as we fell asleep, hoping that the answers would come to us, eventually.

~~~

The sun peaked through the one window in the room, the rays hitting my eyes just enough to make me aware that it was now morning. I slowly opened my eyes, stretching my legs out to see that I was still holding onto Krystal’s hand. She was still asleep, her head resting on her legs that were brought up to her chest. I glanced around the room to see that most of the other girls were still asleep as well, everyone except one.

She came crawling over to me, her jeans gently rubbing against the tile, making a small shuffling sound. She came to a halt as she sat in front of me, rubbing at her tiny eyes as she opened wide to yawn. I laughed at how adorable she looked.

“Morning Bomi,” I said, using my other hand to ruffle her hair, messing it up more than it was before. She whined slightly at the contact, giving me a glare.

“Morning.” She responded. “So, we are leaving today right?” She asked, leaving me a little shocked. How did she know?

“I…think so. I am not sure.” I said, taking a look at the paper placed to the side of me. Following my eyes, hers landed on the map of the hospital and she grabbed it with her little hands. She gave it a once-over and then looked up at me.

“Is this how?” She questioned. I nodded in response, amused as she scanned over all the little signs and marks. “Okay. I got it. How are we doing-”

Before she could even finish her sentence, a loud sound similar to that of an explosion came from outside the window. Startled, we ran to see that there were two cars out in front of the hospital. Guns were pointed out of the cars and bullets were flying both ways. And when the people started to climb out, we couldn’t believe our eyes. My breath hitched at the sight of the four of them, so many emotions floating through me at once. They are here.

They came to save us.