44 Chapter 44

- Xenon -

The rest of the day was pretty boring, to be honest. I threw some knives with Jim, we made it a bit of a competition, and I ended up showing him a thing or two about how to throw knives. He was terrible at it, which wasn't surprising, as he never tried to learn before, and it's not the kind of skill you pick up in an hour. But we got tired quickly, thanks to the hot weather, so we stopped after a while.

For my part, I took one of the books I brought back with me. One of the houses I looted belonged to a university professor, apparently, and he had a few interesting books. A math professor, judging by the books he had on display on a bookshelf he set up.

Even though he only had a few fiction works, which Amy and I would use to pass time if we had to, I took every single book with me. I was more interested in what "science" books had to offer.

The goal is to increase my INT and WIS stats. While they may not be immediately useful to me, it never hurts to have more, even though I didn't know what they truly represented. The only way I could think of to increase them is by reading books.

Now, I don't have an advanced understanding of mathematics. I do remember a few things from my previous life, but honestly, I wouldn't count on my knowledge at all. I do remember I was at university myself at some point, but I don't have the advanced knowledge that goes with it, because I was frankly not that invested in my studies. I only studied for exams to get the passing mark, but other than that, I was never truly passionate about what I was learning.

I don't know how things will turn out in this new life of mine either. Clearly, I don't have the time to focus on my studies here, but I will at least make an honest effort. It is one of the things I wished to change about myself, and contrary to what my previous counter part did, I won't just think of it. I will actively try to deal with the problem, like I am doing right now.

The book I picked up was about set theory algebra. The good thing about it is that it only required basic math knowledge, something I thankfully had.

I spent the rest of the day, reading my book slowly, not skimming through it. From my quiet spot under a tree, I saw Amy and Andrea come back with enough fish to feed everyone, something they were both praised for.

Carl and Sophia were getting taught by Lori and Carol, who didn't want them to grow uneducated, regardless of the state of the world, but to be fair, I think they still believe there is some form of government out there they would rejoin in time.

"May I join you?" Amy asked me with a smile, holding a book of her own. The books cover had a man and woman embracing each other, so I lost interest in it immediately.

"Of course."

"What are you reading?" She asked me curiously.

"Set Theory." she took a peek at the content, looked at me weirdly.

"Math?"

"Yes." She seated herself next to me, and proceeded to read her own book quietly.

**- Xenon -**

Everyone was seated around the campfire at night, except for Ed, who was laying in his tent a bit further away. We were eating roasted fish, while having meaningless conversation about why Dale cared so much about his watch. I grew bored in the first minutes, and opted to gaze at the stars instead, thinking about how to deal with the impending disaster.

"Is something wrong? You seem distracted." Amy was quite observant when she wanted to be.

"I was just thinking." I answered.

"About what?" she asked curiously.

"You know, life." She deadpanned, and I just chuckled. "I'm wondering what the next step is." She seemed confused, so I elaborated. "This situation of ours is clearly temporary. I'm thinking about the future."

"I see." Amy nodded. "But it won't do any good thinking about it. Better deal with each day as it comes."

"Really?" I frowned. "That sounds rather..." I wanted to say dumb, but I had a feeling it's not the right thing to say.

"Dumb?" She said it for me, looking rather amused.

"Thank you! That's the word I was looking for." I nodded sagely, she slapped me playfully on the shoulder.

"But it does make life much easier." She chuckled and shook her head.

"Au contraire. You can't have an easy life if you're not alive to live it."

"Geez, why are you such a pessimist." She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You can't live either if you're constantly in fear. That's no way to live."

I noticed a red dot appearing on the map, which signaled that I was within 250 meters of a walker. And a few seconds later, another appeared, then another and another...

"Walk with me?" I stood up, offered her my head to help her up.

"Sure."

We walked to the nearby woods, the opposite side of where the walkers from the campfire.

"Ever heard of Murphy's law?" I asked, to which she shook her head. "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Is what is basically states. The lesson to be drawn here is to always opt for a controlled environment with limited possibilities that can be easily controlled, not leave things to fate." She nodded in acknowledgement, but she was still obviously confused about what I was rambling about. "Take our situation for example. A lot of things can easily go wrong, and yet a great many of them can be avoided with easy fixes. Notice how everyone is sitting by the campfire, oblivious to the whole world around them?" she did take the time to look at them, happily chatting about whatever crossed their minds. "We haven't even thought about having one of us stand guard or a few of us patrolling the perimeter for walkers. We are literally asking for disaster." By now, the number of walker already hit the forty mark, 200 meters away from us."

"I get your point, but there hasn't been any walker nearby since we..." she stopped mid-sentence, seemingly remembering something important. "You're right. A walker was spotted nearby this morning, almost bit Carl."

"Really? How did you deal with him?"

"Well..." she looked even more uncertain now. "He was preoccupied, eating a deer Daryl was hunting..."

"In other words, Carl would be dead by now, if not for Daryl's deer, is what you're truly saying." I concluded, to which she nodded.

"Gee, I wonder if there was an easy way to avoid that kind of situation..." I remarked sarcastically.

"There is nothing to do about it." She sighed. "It has been peaceful since forever in here. You can't expect people to be alert when they feel so safe." Her eyes widened in horror. "I just jinxed it, didn't I?"

"No." I chuckled. "No you didn't. It's been jinxed all along." She gave me a "you're weird" look. "Honestly, I don't feel safe here at all. In fact, I felt safer when I was in the city, surrounded by walkers from all sides." The "you're weird" look intensified immediately. "Think about it. I knew I was surrounded by walkers, but I also knew I had big walls all around me, so they can't get to me no matter what. I also knew, that as long as I didn't make a sound, they won't be attracted to me. See? Controlled environment. But out here, in the open, with no defensive measures whatsoever... I'm surprised I ever managed to sleep at night."

I could see she didn't fully agree with me, but didn't have much to say in the matter, because quite frankly, there wasn't much to say. I knew their whole idea of "safety" was based around "let's hope for the best", and it won't be easy to fix it. But I know that after tonight, such ideas would be wiped out from Amy's mind, especially because of what's about to happen right after our conversation. I deliberately staged this conversation, to set a precedent. I know that working on Amy is the same as working on Andrea, because of how close the sisters are, and Amy was the only person I could interact with as directly as I am right now.

Amy was about to say something, when she noticed I was looking somewhere else with narrowed eyes. They were finally here.