I can’t lie, Things for me have been anything but normal lately. One moment, I want to be away from everyone, and the next, I’m going insane because I’m all alone, it’s like my mind was breaking down on me. Of course this isn’t the first time I’ve had this happen. It’s just the first time it’s been like this since everything changed. I decided that the carnival was feeling a bit cramped so I packed up and hit the road, move around, explore Arklay a bit more, despite my time here, I haven’t really been around and become familiar with what it had to offer, I saw this as an opportunity to change that.

It was pretty dull at first, just kind of walking about, cigarette in hand, I stopped by The Eights, not a soul in sight, Typical really, people there slept, or went on supply runs, at least that’s how I saw it. So lucking out there, I started heading toward the hospital, and on my way, I ran into Nikki, It wasn’t a heartfelt reunion, considering she stumbled into the carnival the night before. Now THAT was a heartfelt reunion. I pulled a gun on her, it was dark, I was just being careful, but all was well, no one got shot. Anyway, So Nikki, I ran into her we started just chatting, which was good for me, my social skills were never great so practice never hurt. I guess we were catching up, I hadn’t known her all too well from The Eights, just knew her name and what she looked like, we were basically acquainted by simple nods as we passed one another by. However, a familiar face was always good to see, so why the hell not? We hung out for a while, until that Sheriff showed up, Mike was his name. The way he looked at me made me want to bust his knee caps in, Glared at me didn’t smile, didn’t seem friendly at all. What he did do was ask me for my I.D. (Who the fuck does that anymore?) In the end he wasn’t all too bad, just a sheriff, with a vision, and a dream, he wants to bring order to Arklay or something like that. He asked me a bit about me, noticed my badge, so we got into my history a bit, my military career, my law enforcement career. Long story short, he asked me about becoming a deputy.

Hell yeah I wanted to, but in the mean time I put the offer on ice. I wanna be sure that’s what I want to do. Can hope I didn’t burn that bridge if I go looking later for it.

Anyway, after all that, Nikki offered me a place to rest for a while. I was reluctant to do so, I felt like I was invading her space, but I eventually gave in when she started to sway my interest with talk of food that wasn’t beans from a can. So we headed to her place, had some food, we ran our pasts by one another, where we were from, where we had been, how we wound up in Arklay, hell we even talked of our career choices before the outbreak. Next thing I knew, I woke up the next morning and forgot where I was. It turned out alright though, Nikki decided that maybe I could stick around for a while, she enjoyed the company, and I thought it’d help me get through what ever it was I was dealing with. So we’re partners now, I watch her back, she watches mine. It was like she threw me a life line, a helping hand, and I’ll be damned if I don’t take it. Shit, the worst that could happen is it doesn’t help me at all and we part ways, but so far it’s been good, we went scavenging today, and unfortunately I found nothing, but she did find some dried mangoes sealed up still nice and fresh. Once I tried one I ignored the fact that they came from a trash can. I’m confident that she’ll pull a lot of good out of me, in two days I actually made a few jokes, and let out a few smiles. We’ll see how it all goes though, if I can fix myself, then maybe things aren’t as grim as they would seem?

-Slade DeLamuerte