The dappled sunlight fell on the box. It was simple in appearance and made of plastic in her favorite pink color. The vibrant food doodle stickers that decorated its lid were already worn, their colors faded.
Lucille's fingers trembled as she took it from Regina. Her heart thumped wildly. The clasp was the same tiny white latch she remembered fastening long ago, almost broken.
Back when the apocalypse began, Lucille remembered grabbing this box while packing for things before fleeing with her father. The soldiers rescued them as they left the fresh corpse of her mother, dead as a zombie.
She simply followed where the soldiers brought her and the other survivors, unsure of where they would end up. Then, she learned to survive, whether in the claws of the zombies or the hands of malicious humans.
If not for her father's protection and insistence, she might have given up and died so soon.
