"Don't leave me." she begged. "Please! Don't leave me behind!"

It was the last thing I ever heard her speak.

It had always been the four of us. Rachel, Quinn, Britt and me. We were a team and wherever our paths would lead us, it was a matter of course that we'd go the way together.

Our road lay free ahead of us. We were best friends through thick and thin.

They say time will heal all wounds. I'm not sure I want these wounds to heal, though. I want to keep them as a reminder of better times. They are the only thing that connects me to what life was like once. Back then when it was just the four of us, on the road, being free.

Quinn was a born leader. When she was eleven she won her first gymnastics competition. It was the beginning of a winning streak that only ended when the big silence began. She was classy and mature, unlike me. Where I asked for trouble she found a way to safe my ass. Most of the time she tricked me into acting like an adult like her, though. She was the type of girl who can convince you of anything if you just give her the chance to talk for long enough. At some point her words always got through to me.

She made me mad. I loved her. And she loved Rachel. Rachel, the girl who only quit talking briefly so she could listen to Quinn. Rachel, the short girl with the big heart and the loud voice. Rachel, the girl who kept us together on the road when times became tough. She found food when we were starving and she had comfort in her for us when we started fighting and thought we were going insane. Rachel, who died first and who I will always be indebted to.

It had always been the four of us. "Santana" Britt would say "We four have been made to be together, don't you think?" Yes, Britt, that's true. I see that now.

I don't know all the hows and whens and whys. It was a morning like every other. The sun rose into the sky, birds were singing, grass was growing and Britt and I were eating our cereals for breakfast. Nothing seemed peculiar until I switched on the radio and couldn't get a signal. "Probably nothing." Britt said. Oh, how I wish she had been right.

Rachel called and I didn't want to pick up the phone. I never liked talking to her. Now I miss her voice and her cocky attitude. I miss how she would boss me around. Now I know she only meant well. I think I knew it back then, too. I'd give a lot to be able to tell her, before she started to cough. I want to go back in time and tell her that I appreciate her friendship and that I love her, too. I want to tell her all that in a time where it doesn't seem like a pathetic promise to someone who's dying. I want it to sound honest. Like I mean every word. I want us to have our lives ahead of us, together. Just the four of us with the road lying freely before us.

Britt dragged me by the hand that morning and told me we had to leave. I didn't understand why she forced me into the car without giving me the chance to even lock the house. "That's not necessary anymore, San." she said and the way her eyes went dark I didn't dare to argue. She had already packed a bag and put in the trunk. She was always the smart one, even though most people doubted that. But most people's opinions never counted and they surely don't matter now.

As we drove by Quinn's house I only knew something had happened, but my guts told me not to ask. Maybe I was afraid that once the words were spoken reality would hit me and I'd have to face the truth. And the truth was that nothing would ever be the same again.

Of course there had been warnings. The signs had been too obvious for quite a while, but one of the greatest abilities of people had always been to ignore crucial hints. So when the day came everyone acted surprised when in reality none of us were.

Quinn's face was red and her eyes were swollen when she threw her backpack onto the backseat. Britt pressed her lips together and nodded at her reflection in the rear view mirror before stepping on the gas again to pick up Rachel.

It was only then that I saw the first caravan of military trucks and police cars. I remember how my heart sank when I saw them picking up our neighbors, friends as well as strangers, pulling and pushing them into the vehicles. We all held our breaths and prayed we'd be granted free passage. And I remember how I bit into my hand to suppress my shriek when I saw Mrs. Daniels' son Kevin fight himself lose from an officer and take a run. His mom's cries still ring loudly in my ears and the picture of the coughing little boy, falling to his knees before being shot in the head is something to fill years of nightmares. Through the turmoil and confusion as other people started to scream and someone lit a house on fire, through the noise of a nearby police car exploding we somehow managed to drive past unnoticed.

"There is no ambulance. They are all sick and there is no ambulance."

I understood then that we could never go back home. It was just the four of us with the road ahead.

We drove a couple of days without an aim, just staying away from cities and other people. Every now and then we encountered a parking car and accelerated whenever someone waved for us to stop. We stole food from empty drugstores and gas from deserted gas stations and abandoned cars. We slept together in the car with the doors locked and a knife or a machete within reach. The road was our home now and we were our only family.

Britt had tried to reach her sister, but never got an answer before the battery of her phone went dead. Quinn and Rachel had objected saying it was too dangerous and that we could be spotted through the signal. We were never spotted, though and at some point I started to doubt anyone was even looking for us. Somewhere along the way we quit existing.

None of us ever shed a tear. Even though we didn't have anyone else we still had each other.

After a while there was no one waving for us to stop anymore. I turned my head and looked away each time we drove by another body lying to the side of the road. Animals apparently were immune to the virus. The birds kept singing every morning as if nothing had happened and each morning I woke up wishing they were right. I envied every cow on every field we passed.

We kept each other alive by telling stories, carefully avoiding digging up memories that would trigger any hint of nostalgia or sadness. Our lives had started with that one morning when Britt dragged me by the arm and pushed me into the car. It was that moment when all our stories began. Everything else was just a fantasy, a fairy tale made up by someone happier than ourselves.

I could see the memories of music and glee in Rachel's eyes and I could see the remnants of ballet in Britt's. But even though Quinn's eyes told full sagas of books that would never be written I never made the mistake of asking her about what I'd be missing out on. It was a silent agreement among the four of us. The road was the only story that mattered from now on. Only the road and the four of us.

Rachel was strictly opposed to the idea of hunting and to be honest, I didn't exactly fancy the idea, either. But we didn't really have a choice.

The first time was a true mess and the meat I gathered was barely enough to feed one of us, yet we divided it into four equal parts like the family we were.

Killing a living creature is a lot harder than you'd think. The rabbit I caught was hanging by its foot, helplessly flailing and shrieking in despair. I apologized and almost cried even before I had fully convinced myself of that it had to die to keep us alive. It was quite ironic actually. I had never even cared about people, no one but us, and yet there I was being sorry for a stupid rabbit; just because at that very moment when it glanced at me through perfectly black eyes, it seemed like the most magnificent creature I had ever seen in my entire life. It's funny how life and death are really connected to one another, how they almost intermingle.

It scratched me and I panicked before remembering that animals aren't carriers and I could just disinfect the wound with vodka later. It took an eternity to figure out how to hold the fighting little beast so I could tie up all four legs at once. Then I covered its blaming eyes with one hand and hesitated for another eternity. I felt my heart pound in my chest as if it was me who was about to be slashed. The first strike missed. I don't even know how that was possible. Maybe I had turned my head and looked away to avoid the terror. "Just make it quick." I reasoned with myself.

Thinking about what I had once heard in a theatre play Rachel had forced me to see I went through the steps that are supposed to enable you to do what's necessary: I made my face a cold mask that I could hide behind. I held my breath and cut the rabbit's throat. I had hoped it would be dead immediately, but I must have made a mistake and despite the floods of blood that kept pulsing out in an even sequence the rabbit didn't stop dithering beneath my hands. It was the thought of the poor creature suffering that gave me the strength to end its life eventually. As it finally stopped fighting I removed my trembling hand from its face and for the first time ever I closed my eyes and prayed to God.

All those time kneeling beside my bed, whispering lines from a book I had never even read, I wasn't talking to God. I wasn't talking to a higher power. I was a child obeying her parents. That couldn't compare to the desperate plea I sent up into heaven that day when I was kneeling beside that rabbit, asking God to take care of its soul.

It became a little easier over time, but my hunting trips were another topic we quietly agreed on being a taboo. As long as we were alive death wasn't something we'd talk about.

There was only one occasion in which someone acknowledged what I was doing for the group and of course it was Brittany. One night she snuggled up to me, even closer than usual, if that's possible. She kissed my cheek and then my lips and stroked my head. "Thank you." was all she said and it was enough. We both knew what that was for. We both knew none of the others would have had the guts to do it.

It was much later that I truly wished I was a wuss like the others.

"Please don't leave me behind."

But of course it had to be me who dragged her by the arm and forced her out of the car and pushed her away and abandoned her. I was the only one who'd have the guts to do it, even though it was for our own safety. If I had been a weak coward at least we would have died together. It would have been the four of us forever.