Chapter Text
When the stranger pulled the trigger of Clementine's gun that day, she didn't just lose Omid. In every way that mattered, Christa was buried in the dirt beside him; just a walking husk.
Omid's name, that had been marked right across Clementine's leg (that same leg and place where Omid had gotten injuried just a year ago), had burned away. Not immediately, not fast. It was slow, starting right when Omid was buried and the moment Clementine tried to close her eyes for sleep.
The whole night was spent alone, muffling her pained crying and watching his name disappear. This was the first time she ever actually brought herself to watch a mark disappear.
She felt the pain of her parents' marks burning the day Duck died, hidden and buried underneath the pain of feeling the small, yellow duck on her wrist burn away. That was the day she nearly accepted that her parents were most likely dead, but it was right around that time the Stranger had contacted her again.
She was so desperate, choosing to believe a Stranger over what her parents' souls were telling her. She was childish, and pathetic, and dumb and that was why she deserved to watch Lee's nickname for her--Sweetpea, jagged and scrawled in his exact handwriting above her heart--simply turn into an everlasting scar.
She felt bad for the person with the violet flower, curling and glowing purple across her collarbones. She felt bad for the owner of the tiny brown handprint, marking her left cheek. She felt bad for the speaker of "you're not dead, that's good" plastered against her palm in a bright green.
She felt bad for anyone who had to call her one of their soulmates. At least the one with the red string was lucky; she could just avoid ever following it, and they'd never have to look her in the eyes.
Many months later, she held onto that belief, right up until she was separated from her only protecter and chased into the woods. She still clung to it, when the dog ripped her arm open. She held onto it until two men, who she'd later come to know as Luke and Pete, picked her up and carried her after the trail that they couldn't see.
She could refuse them: kick them, fight them, and run. Then she'd be alone, and she'd die from infection before she even got anywhere in her search for Christa.
However, despite all odds, Clementine didn't want to die: the only way she was going out was from a bite, or if someone else pulls the trigger.
Doing the deed herself would be a last restort. That was the promise she made: sitting on that log with an empty gun in hand, tracing Sweetpea over and over: numb to the blood that coated her fingertips.
Clutching her arm, sending a silent apology to the poor person on the other end of the string, she allowed herself to be carried down the path Fate had always intended for her.