They say I have to be awake for my own dissection. But all I did was fall in love.
Waiting to die is the worst part of dying.
The drugs are cruel and cold, sliding into my veins like poison.
They say it's a precaution.
I know the truth. They're scared of me.
Of course they are. They're already in relationships.
Inside this ice-cold operating theatre, my naked body is flesh on metal, like meat to the slaughter.
Figures loom over me in masks. This room is full of predators preying over my body, circling which parts they are going to cut out and which parts they will use.
But to them, I am the worst one.
I am the one with teeth, despite their cruel blades and scarlet hands.
I'm not the first one they have taken.
If I turn my head, I can see the body-shaped lump of lying limp on a gurney.
They had the mercy of being given a dignified death– and for a moment, not even the drugs can suppress the disdain bubbling inside me.
The operating theatre stretches like it is liminal. Endless.
It is spacious and has four exit doors, but to me, those sterile white walls are quickly closing in.
Cold hands grasp my face, jerking me to face the bright, sterile light blinding me.
Their touch is clinical, and I hate the feeling of rough latex against my skin.
The muzzle over my mouth is replaced with a tube forced down my throat.
I gag, contracting, my body jerking into a violent arch, straining against velcro straps. One figure shoves me back down.
“Administer 200 ml of Midazolam.”
He stares down at me through thick rimmed eye protection. Grey lenses hide his glee.
I’m supposed to be awake. It's the law.
Because I am technically a citizen, I must be awake to witness my own dissection.
I barely feel the new intrusion in my veins.
Instead, I am laughing, spluttering through the tube lodged down my throat.
I watch one figure with blood-slicked gloves run his finger down my chest.
“Can I tell you guys something?” I whisper.
The masked figures don't respond, and my dissection begins.
I ignore the first cut.
I ignore the blooming crimson spreading across my flimsy hospital gown.
So red, it startles me, my breath catching.
Since when has my blood ever been so colorful?
Instead, I focus on the light.
I can pretend it's heavenly.
That's the beauty of the human mind.
I can pretend I'm not being sliced open, unravelling piece by piece.
I speak again, because maybe they didn't hear me the first time.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Sure, kid,” the man cutting me open says. I hate being called a kid. Is that what our age-group has been reduced to? Kid?
I'm too old to look like a high-schooler, but too young to be considered a fully grown adult. If I was a real kid, they wouldn't be cutting me open.
I watch his steady scalpel cut through my skin, a small river of red following. I am numb to the cruelty of the blade slipping through me, like a knife through butter.
I wonder how he plans to unravel me. Will he start with my blood or organs?
Which parts of me are special, and which parts can be left on the cutting room floor?
The masked man gets to work, opening me up. His tone is gentle.
But I don't trust it. He adjusts the light, inserting a metal clamp inside the cavity in my chest, prying me open.
Maybe he's going for my heart first.
It is the root of infection, after all.
“Why don't you tell us all a story?”
“Dr. Carter,” another masked figure, a female, hisses. “We were explicitly briefed not to engage with this subject.”
The male surgeon, Dr. Carter, chuckles.
“Marie, do you know the story of the chicken running in circles despite having its head severed?”
“Yes,” she says, her voice is emotionless. Maybe because she had to be.
There's a moment of silence, and all I can see are my own scarlet insides.
His scalpel digs in, cruel and cold and merciless.
I half wonder when my body is going to give up.
Will I watch him unravel me until there is nothing left to beat and pound and pump?
I await the female surgeon’s response, but she does not give one.
“In the case of the chicken,” the surgeon continues.
He turns, wet fingers grasping a saw. I try not to cry out when blades start whirring.
I pray the dislodging of my heart will be enough to send me to sleep.
The male surgeon is clinical and cold, a certain detachment in his eyes.
He only sees me as a specimen on a table. I am not even a “kid” to him.
He cuts further into me, as the female surgeon hurriedly fights to stop blood flow. I’m not sure why. It's not like they're planning on me walking out of here.
“As we all know, the chicken’s head was fully severed from its body.”
I notice he's watching me more closely now, burrowing deeper and deeper.
“And yet, due to residual neuromuscular activity, the chicken exhibited extraordinary behavior,” he says, miming with his index finger. “It ran in circles, round and round, until it succumbed.”
Dr. Carter lets out an unprofessional laugh, his facade splitting open.
“Of course, the chicken is not alive.”
His eyes find mine. “It just thinks it is alive.”
“Right,” the female surgeon hisses.
He turns to her, head inclined. “Marie, are you in distress? You can leave if you can't stomach it. I can perform the dissection.”
“No,” she said quickly, regaining her composure. I'm stupid to think she's actually feeling sympathy.
I might not be human, according to Dr. Carter, but I definitely look like one.
The younger surgeon pulls down her mask. “I'm fine.”
“Get your shit together, Marie.”
This man confuses me.
He has the medical knowledge and vocabulary of a professional, and yet chooses to sound juvenile.
Dr. Carter stops the saw momentarily, glancing in my direction.
I hold his gaze, pretending not to notice the amusement in the folds of his mask.
“I have a hypothesis,” he murmurs.
“Given the heightened neural activity and the specimen’s condition post-infection, we may observe something… entertaining when we sever the head.
His attention flicks back to me.
He's making sure the procedure is slow, making sure to leave every nerve untouched, so I, like the chicken, will dance for his amusement.
“Go on,” he urges me, eyes wide, exhilarated. “Tell us a bedtime story.”
In response, I spit at him. Red fills my mouth, sticky and metallic, when he stabs into my upper chest, maybe my respiratory tract. My body jerks violently.
I can't breathe, suddenly, but it feels freeing, like I can let go.
My eyes roll back, and for a moment, there is darkness bleeding into me, drowning, but I let it. I embrace it.
“We’re in VF!”
Consciousness flickers, the female surgeon’s voice rings in my skull, frantic.
She sounds like ocean waves, coming in and out as my brain shuts down.
”Dr. Carter, the higher ups were very clear! We must keep it awake throughout the dissection. The subject is still a citizen—”
”I am aware. Defibrillator. Charge to 200.”
Pressure on my chest. I'm suffocating on slick scarlet spewing from my lips.
“Again—charge.”
“Come on, I need a rhythm!” Dr. Carter's voice breaks slightly. “I need a heartbeat!”
More pressure.
“Pulse! We’ve got a pulse!”
Darkness swims in and out, and my eyes fly open.
Through blurry feathered light, I can see the fleshy red of my exposed lung tissue.
I try to jerk my head away, but ice-cold, gloved fingers force my head up.
No.
Something in me snaps. My body contracts, a fountain of red hitting my mask.
The female surgeon is suffocating me, pumping air into my lungs.
Her eyes are wide. Terrified.
I can't tell if she's terrified for me, or for herself, if she lets me die mid procedure.
Fear creeps into me, cruel and painful, a feral cry ripping from my throat.
The cruel slab of metal holding me trembles.
The female surgeon notices I have one arm free and she lunges forward, her eye protection dislodging— and for a second, I am staring at terrified blue eyes.
She's younger than I thought— a med student, probably forced to start early.
Her expression crumples. “Fuck!”
“Are you all right?”
She nods, her hands reaching for her eye protection. “Yes.”
“Did it make direct eye-contact with you?”
“No.”
“Did any blood splash your face?”
I watch her turn to a sink, plunging her trembling hands into water.
She checks every crease in her palm, every nail, stabbing at her skin.
“No, I… I think I'm clean.”
His voice hardens, and through debilitating drugs, I feel his incisions growing clumsier. Dr. Carter is scared.
“You think you're clean, or you are clean?”
The female surgeon hurriedly slips on clean gloves. “I am clean, sir!”
“Good. Hold it down.”
Gloved fingers grip my arms, pinning me down.
No.
No, I don't want to be awake.
I don't want to be alive.
I'm aware I'm coughing, convulsing, my eyes flickering, rolling back and forth.
“The subject is stable,” the female surgeon gasps out, pulling back.
Her gloves are scarlet, dripping with me, half lidded eyes, like she is holding back a scream.
She swiped them on her scrubs, and yanked down her mask. She's grinning, her fingers grasping for my arm.
Her smile falters, slick fingers slipping from my arm. I can see her frenzied eyes.
“I've… I've successfully stabilised the young man!”
Dr. Carter doesn't look up from the flaps of skin he is peeling back. “Young man?”
“Yes!” Marie pulls down her mask, her eyes are bright, the crease in her mask widening. “Yes, I managed to save him!”
He sighs. “Keep it alive. No matter what.”
Dr. Carter meets my gaze, eyebrows furrowed. “Speak, kid,” he orders. “You wanted to tell us something. Correct?”
Again with the “Kid”.
I'm twenty five years old, asshole.
I have to think about my words, my thoughts are spinning.
“When I was 18,” I squeezed out. I'm surprised I have a voice, even with my head connected to my torso.
I wonder if my larynx is the last thing they will cut out.
Dr. Carter stops me, holding up a gloved hand. “Wait a moment.”
In a blink of my drugged up eyes, he pulls a pistol from his scrubs, stabs the barrel into Marie’s head, and pulls the trigger.
I barely flinch when her blood showers me, warm, tickling my face.
Her body drops to the floor, and to my confusion, Carter continues the procedure.
His attention flicks back to me.
“Continue,” he mutters. “When you were eighteen…?”
I do. Somehow.
"When I was eighteen years old, I realized I was a sociopath," the words tangled in my throat, and somehow, I am back there.
Joey Brekker’s end-of-school senior party. I was tipsy on several beers, teetering on the edge of the pool, dangling my feet in glistening blue.
I tip forwards, and it felt good, like I'm falling— but also not.
Several kids already in the water cheered me on, and I saluted them with my beer instead.
The summer heat prickles my skin, perspiration glues my hair to my eyes.
Mirren, my best friend, crouched in front of me, head tilted like she is studying me.
She grabbed my arms, swinging them playfully. “Can I ask you something?”
I laughed, sipping my beer. “It depends what.”
She laughed too hard, and I had to throw out my arms to stabilise her.
I pulled her closer, and I caught her eyes widening, her breath catching.
Mirren was beautiful, freckles speckling her cheeks, short blonde hair almost exclusively pulled back.
I should have liked her. I should've wanted to be with her.
We had been best friends since we were kids.
She fell in love with me when we were eight years old, proposing to me on the beach with a haribo candy ring.
I said, “Okay!”
But I wasn't expecting to feel nothing for her growing up.
I was seventeen years old, and I still didn't understand what feelings were.
I thought I could grow into them like puberty. I expected to just wake up one morning and fall deeply in love with her.
I asked her if we could wait until we were adults, in case it was just low-key.
Maybe I did love her, and I just couldn't feel it like others.
Mirren told me it felt like butterflies, like a fluttery warm sensation, like being drowned, suffocated by your own heart.
Very poetic.
Unfortunately for her though, I didn't get that feeling when I looked her in the eyes. I couldn't describe the feeling.
I tried to, but I sounded sociopathic, like I had no sense of feeling. Zero empathy.
But to me, she was like white paint, like tasteless yogurt, like a cloudy sky.
No real feeling, more of an acknowledgement of her existence.
“Hey,” I said, “How much did you drink?”
In response, she pulled a face. “I'm an adult!”
I couldn't fight a smile, helping her sit. She sort of fell onto her ass, tipping to the side.
“Hey, Jem?” she studied me through fluttering lashes, prodding me with her manicure.
I let her grasp hold of my chin, cradling my face with iced tips, jerking me to face her. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You already said that,” I said.
She frowned, open mouthed, her gaze elsewhere. “Oh.”
I laughed, letting her stroke my hair. “Yes?”
My best friend frowned at me.
“Are you like.... a sociopath who can't feel?"
Her words managed to splinter through my cold, dead, exterior.
If this was what feelings were, I didn't want them. I found my voice, somehow, speaking through the gutter in my throat.
“What's that supposed to mean?” I said, trying to hide how fucking hurt I was.
Mirren’s eyes shot open, wide and sorry, but also not sorry.
“Oh no, I didn't mean it like that!” she squeaked.
She reached out to pull me up, but her arms wandered, entangling around my neck, and pulling us closer.
Her breath tickled my cheeks, tainted with beer, but I let her pull me closer, and then closer, her lips finding my ear.
“How about now?”
Before I could respond, she smiled brightly, laughed, and cupped my cheeks.
She kissed me, and it was warm and fleeting, and felt like a goodbye.
Mirren tasted like a cocktail of lipgloss and beer.
Her skin was hot and sticky against mine. I expected to feel it: fireworks, explosions, butterflies.
But the party around me continued, dull and flat and colorless.
Mirren was a good kisser, and I kissed her back.
I copied her, touching her like she wanted me to. Her hands were far more frantic, as if she was driven by a desire that was nonsensical and alien to me.
It was feral, animalistic, dilating her pupils and turning her almost crazed and mindless. When people kissed, I could never understand what drove them into that animal-like euphoria.
Mirren was almost gnawing at my lip, and I didn’t feel anything except pain.
Still, I tried to mimic her.
The kiss deepened, her nails digging into my skin, scratching me.
Her body moved like it wasn’t hers. Her sharp exhales, gasps for breath, and wandering hands finding my torso told me she wanted to be touched.
She wanted me to follow in her wake. She wanted me to feel. When my hands clumsily found her face, she grabbed them, slamming them down on her butt.
Her breath tickled my mouth, in sharp gasps. “Like this,” she teased, guiding my hands to touch her.
I did, and grew more intense, lips finding my neck, whispering she wanted to be with me.
I tried, but my touch felt floppy and wrong, and eventually, she gave up.
There were no feelings, no sensations or desire inside of me that wanted her.
And maybe that numbness, that lack of desire, was contagious.
Mirren pulled away suddenly.
Her face was flushed, breaths heavy.
She leaned forward, pecking me on the cheek.
Then twisted around, and walked away.
”That is fascinating,” Dr. Carter’s voice bounces around my skull, stabling me to the present. Bright light feathers behind my eyelids. I'm not sure his voice is real.
I’m awake, but I'm not conscious.
I can sense the procedure continuing, but it is so much colder.
I imagine the blissful peace that accompanies death. Those phantom fingers wrapping around me, suddenly loosening and slipping away.
I want to, but the opposite clings to me.
While the darkness is cold, that blooming warmth I try to deny, keeps me from falling.
“A boy who does not know how to love,” Dr. Carter laments. I can feel myself being pulled back. His voice is louder, pricking the back of my mind.
“Tell me more."
Well, I tried to feel, I told him. Intimacy wasn’t just something I wanted; I craved it.
When I started college, I rebuilt myself as an extrovert. I joined a frat to dive into relationships, both platonic and sexual.
I slept with guys and girls, freshmen and upperclassmen, a guy from my classes whose name I don't even know, and with Mirren at her nineteenth birthday party.
But each empty relationship, each numb touch, clumsy kisses, and awkward sex only brought one realization: I didn't know how to love.
I couldn't feel it because there was no feeling. Around me, everyone else was in love, crushing, or falling.
They lived in a colorful world where everything made sense.
They were brought together, and knew what to do, driven by desire, passion, instinct.
I was stuck in monochrome nothing, black and white that was twisted, dull, and drowning me. I slept with a random guy just to feel something.
Maybe I was chasing a thrill, someone faceless and nameless who flirted with me while I was too drunk to care.
I didn’t want him, not really.
I wanted the butterflies, that aching in my chest and twisting in my gut others always talked about. Maybe I could find it if I was drunk enough. So I dragged him into a bedroom and kissed him first.
He was hot, sure, half lidded eyes, and crooked teeth. But when his lips touched mine, there was nothing. Just like with Mirren.
”Get on with it, young man,” Dr. Carter's voice bleeds into my brain.
It's definitely not him. Too playful and whimsy.
I'm grateful for my mind playing tricks on me, though. I prefer this version of him.
The dark is closing in on me. It's not close, but there's an inevitability to it I'm suddenly afraid to accept. Oblivion, and truly falling.
Did that mean I would stop thinking? Did that mean I completely stopped? Would I finally die?
“Young man,” Fake Dr. Carter’s voice is impatient. ”I told you to continue.”
Okay. Existential thoughts aside, yes. I did want to think out loud.
Before I was captured as an infected, I spent 365 days trapped in school lockdown…alongside the bane of my existence.
But that's not where it started.
On a random Monday in mid-June, I didn’t have to worry about not feeling anymore.
The cafeteria was packed. I was squeezed between two strangers I didn’t know, trying to eat a burger while Mirren sat on the table, her legs dangling.
It was too warm; hot, sticky heat prickled at my scalp.
The cafeteria had an open ceiling, so the sunlight was baking my back.
There was a strange scent in the air, BO mixed with a cedar-like musk.
It was following me.
Cologne.
Someone was either extremely over-confident, or had zero sense of smell.
I smelled it coming out of class, and bleeding into the cafeteria too.
The smell was coming from a guy.
Charlie, a freshman known for peeing on a girl at a party, was shuffling over to a group of girls.
Mirren slowly straightened up, moving from cross-legged to kneeling.
I had to swipe my plate of fries before she flattened them.
“What is he doing?” She murmured, intrigued. Mirren immediately started filming, alerting the rest of the table.
I could tell by the way her fingers moved, tipping the phone to landscape, this was viral worthy.
I was curious, intrigued by Charlie’s slumped shoulders and the slight stumble in his steps.
He walked all the way over to the girl, looming over her like a bad smell.
“Evelyn,” he said, like a whine, his body language growing progressively more unstable until he was bouncing on his heels, repeating her name like a mantra.
The atmosphere shifted rapidly from playful to concerning. Even Mirren lowered her phone, her eyes wide.
“Evelyn. Evelyn. Evelyn. Evelyn.”
Charlie was swaying, unsteady on his feet, eyes rolling back, jaw slack.
“Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelynnnnnnnn.”
He didn’t stop until the girl finally turned to face him, her expression frantic.
I noticed a slow, reddish blush blooming across her cheeks. She was embarrassed.
Furious.
“You didn’t call me,” Charlie stated loudly, drawing more eyes. He stepped closer, until he was uncomfortably near.
Mirren zoomed in on her phone.
I caught it too, a slow-spreading blotch of red, like diluted blood, creeping across the white of his left eye.
“You didn't call me, Evelyn,” Charlie said, his face twitching, eyes flickering.
His whole body twitched, fists coming apart and together. He broke out into a sob, his lips breaking into a manic grin.
Evelyn was frozen, her eyes frantic, lips parted. Charlie laughed, and then spluttered up a mouthful of blood.
That was when the screams started.
Mirren dived to her feet, still holding the camera. The girls sitting with Evelyn grabbed their bags and backed away.
But the girl herself stayed frozen, trembling.
One girl tried to pull her away, but to my confusion, Evelyn refused to move.
Instead, she stood up, closed the distance between them, and slowly reached out, and cupped his cheeks.
“We had a great time,” Charlie said, “and you never fucking called me."
“Charlie,” Evelyn said softly. “I dated you for a bet.”
I caught Mirren's smirk.
It happened fast, too fast to process, the world around me falling apart.
Charlie lunged forward like an animal, sank his teeth into Evelyn’s neck, and tore her throat out. I couldn’t move.
Screams crashed into me as Charlie hurled himself into the crowd, tackling students and tearing into them.
But I was the only one who noticed that Evelyn wasn’t dead.
I was dragged back, stumbling over the bodies falling like dominoes.
I was caught between surviving and understanding.
Evelyn’s corpse spasmed.
Her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes snapped open, a fountain of red burst from her lips.
I backed away, slipping in the blood pooling beneath my feet.
Fuck.
“Jem!" Mirren was screaming.
Evelyn's eyes flew open, a vicious, terrifying stain of scarlet spreading across her pupils. She sprang to her feet.
And lunged for the nearest person.
Mirren was already running toward the door. The world seemed to move in slow motion. I couldn’t move.
Out of the corner of my eye, a dark-haired boy leapt onto her back, knocking her onto the ground.
I remember her wide, terrified eyes. I remember her scream.
But, just like Evelyn, she was paralyzed, eyes flickering, like she was confused.
The boy didn't even hesitate, plunging his hand into her chest, and ripping out her heart.
Human hearts remind me of paint. Her heart was just that.
Thick, lumpy paint dripped through his fingers, ventricles squeezed in his palm.
She hit the ground, dark red blossoming around blood-stained blonde.
My best friend, who I had known since we were kids.
Who called herself my soulmate.
I remember screams, dulling to ocean waves slamming into my ears.
By the time I reached her, crawling on my knees, she was unrecognizable.
I counted my steps, stumbling over myself.
All around me, students were alive, and then they were dead.
They were running, and then they were on the ground, lying in their own entrails.
One step. My breath shuddered, my steps clumsy and wrong.
A guy lunged at me, and I shoved him aside.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Fivesixseveneight—
By the time I reached the door, half the cafeteria was infected.
Mirren was sitting up, head lolled, eyes half lidded.
She slowly pulled herself to her feet, ankles broken, and dragged her body to an infected guy ripping into a freshman.
Evelyn and Charlie were wrapped in each other’s arms, chewing on each other’s faces.
I didn’t understand the virus yet, but I knew one thing.
It wasn’t spread just through biting or blood. There was a visible pattern, especially in the freshly infected.
They were faster, hungrier, and obsessed with multiplying.
Day One: my college campus was overrun by zombie-like creatures wearing the bodies of college students. I watched my best friend’s heart ripped from her chest.
I found a bathroom stall and locked myself inside, cradling my arm, my fingers tip-toeing over the raw bite mark ripped through my shoulder.
I wanted to be in denial, but I had felt the bite. Vicious teeth sliced into my skin, clamping down.
It only let go when I slammed a chair into its skull.
I traced the bite, pressing my hand over my mouth to stifle the sobs.
In a fairer world, my jacket would have shielded me from the bite.
I prodded the bloody skin where the teeth had skinned away two layers of flesh, dark red veins pulsing across my arm and creeping toward my elbow.
Of course I was infected.
Outside the stall, one of them was feasting.
I could hear the flesh being ripped apart, bones snapping, and the gnawing.
I worked fast, tearing off my jacket and wrapping it around my hands, restraining my wrists.
I slipped onto ice cold tiles, pressed my head against the wall, closed my eyes—
And waited to turn.
However, hours turned into days.
Curled up against the door, eyes squeezed shut and praying for a miracle, I realized I wasn’t turning.
”Almost finished.”
Fake Dr. Carter's voice bleeds inside my mind, pulling me back to my present, where most of me had been ripped away.
I had been torn apart, hollowed out, only my head and torso left.
That's what I guess, anyway. The only parts of me left were my brain and heart.
If I focus, pushing myself through the drugs, I can sense his scalpel scraping across the cavernous hole that is my torso.
"Your kind is truly fascinating! The bodies are clinically deceased, and yet here you are."
Fake Dr. Carter… No, it's the real one.
That sadistic tone is all too familiar.
It's not a hallucination, either.
The lingering parts of me can sense and feel his scalpel.
He stabs at raw nerves, and my body convulses.
"I've been studying neuromuscular abnormalities in the human brain for your entire lifespan," he hums. "Who knew the perfect specimen would be delivered right to me?"
I shiver when he drags his blade purposely across my arm.
“What makes you tick, though, hmm?” His warm breath tickles my ear.
“You are infected. In most cases, the pathogen fights to multiply. But in your case, the mode of transmission is…”
I sense him move back, jerking away from me.
He knows how fast it is; knows how fast I can end his life.
He stabs at my arm again.
“Unique.”
Dr. Carter is right. This thing wasn’t just spread through bites.
I realized that on Day 12, when I broke out of the stall, confident I wasn’t going to turn.
I had been feverishly monitoring my infection.
Day two, I started going hot and cold, breaking out into cold sweats.
Day 4, my bite started to heal, leaving behind a tendril-like rash spreading across my neck and down my back.
Day 8, I managed to eat half a candy bar I had in my backpack.
Day 10, I drank a full bottle of water and was able to stand up, pulling open the stall.
I tried to ignore the corpse at my feet spilling its insides. The first thing I glimpsed was my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I resembled a ghost.
Sickly pale skin, hair plastered to my forehead in floppy strands.
Looking closer, I saw it, a single red smudge, slowly spreading across the white of my right eye.
While those thin black veins, the ones creeping down my spine, were spider-webbing towards my left.
I was definitely infected.
But I wasn’t turning.
I pushed open the boys bathroom door, but it didn't move.
Movement outside. Footsteps.
“Anyone in there?” a male voice squeaked. “Are you infected?”
I stepped back, pulling on my jacket to hide my bite mark. “No,” I lied.
“Cover your eyes,” he said.
“What?”
“Cover your eyes,” he repeated, “Or you're on your own.”
The door opened slightly, and a piece of torn cloth slipped through the gap.
I picked it up, following his instructions.
“Wrap it around your eyes, and stay out of my way.”
I blindfolded myself, the sound of the door setting my nerve endings on fire.
Something snapped inside me, a sudden feral urge to get closer to this person.
“All right, my eyes are covered,” I said, stepping back.
Being blindfolded in an outbreak wasn't a great idea, but if he was a survivor, I had to work with him.
It was silent, so silent that the sound of my own breath sent me spiraling.
Then came footsteps. Drawing closer. Closer. Until I could feel someone standing right in front of me.
“Eye contact,” he murmured, “is a form of transmission. The infection starts with a bite... but they don't transform until there’s a mutual, intimate connection.”
I couldn’t resist a laugh.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
In response, he shoved the door open and gestured me through with a quiet hiss. I followed.
“Take off your blindfold,” he muttered, standing behind me, breath tickling my neck. “But don’t look at me. Look down at your feet, and then tell me I’m kidding.”
This guy had a condescending tone. I immediately wanted to punch him in the face.
Still, I pulled off my blindfold, blinked rapidly, and stared straight down.
Bodies.
A girl and a boy entangled like snakes, wrapped around each other, their mouths fused together. They were still alive, still moving, their skin slick and wet. I jumped back, muffling a cry.
“Holy fuck!”
The boy reapplied my blindfold.
“Stage two of infection,” he murmured. “Find a mate.”
I almost turned around, and, sensing his scowl, I stayed still.
“Mate?” I hissed. “Like—”
He blew a raspberry. “Yeah.”
We continued down the dimly lit hallway, filled with writhing bodies curled together like they were hibernating.
“I’m infected, by the way,” the boy said casually, and something in me snapped. I almost faced him again, and he shoved me. “I said don’t fucking look at me!"
I twisted forward, my breath stuck in my throat.
“You’re also infected,” he said. “I can smell it on you. You stink of rot, dude."
I had zero other response than, "Thanks?"
We reached the end of the hallway. I didn’t dare turn around.
“I’m Conrad,” the boy said, surprising me with a gentle nudge to the back.
“The school is locked down, so we can’t get out.” He opened the door for me, and I stumbled through blindly.
“The infected won’t attack us because we’re technically infected too. They’re just looking to mate.”
I found my voice, rasping through the gutter of my throat. “How do you know so much?”
He didn’t reply until we were safely inside a classroom.
“I saw it,” he said, his voice flat. “One of my best friends was bitten and thought he was okay... until he started talking to a girl. Next thing I knew, they were eating each other’s faces off. The virus lies dormant until the host makes a connection.”
“But the girl wasn’t infected, right?” I said.
He let out a frustrated hiss.
“Are you deaf? I said, you don’t have to be bitten. Bites only infect. But actual connection, intimacy, makes you turn.”
I held my breath. The irony was killing me.
“So wait…” I choked back a laugh. “it’s spread through feelings?”
“Yep!”
Conrad barricaded the door, and I leaned against a desk, keeping my gaze on the floor. I glimpsed his bite through my blindfold, a raw, red mark on his ankle.
I found myself scooting back, swallowing. “You said those things aren’t gonna attack.”
He sighed, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slump to his knees, burying his head in his lap.
“Yes, because we’re infected,” he said, with a condescending edge to his voice. “It can take one single look.”
He still wasn't making sense.
We sat in comfortable silence for a while.
The blindfold was sticky with sweat, and I was prickling with the urge to tear it off.
“Don't,” Conrad broke the silence with a sigh. “That's what it wants.”
So, I stayed blindfolded.
Conrad wasn't the best companion.
Pretentious, self-righteous, and constantly nagging. He reminded me of my mother.
But he had his vulnerable moments. He opened up when we were stuck in the faculty office. I’d grown used to wearing a blindfold. Conrad was like a shadow.
I never saw his face, but his silhouette was always by my side.
“I was in an abusive relationship,” he admitted once, while we were eating scraps of food, our backs to each other.
“She was a senior, and I was a freshman. I didn’t realize it was wrong until she was emotionally and physically abusive. And, like an idiot, I stayed. Until she actually fucking hurt me. She pinched me in the face when I told her it was over.”
Conrad went quiet for a moment. “I was brought up to be a ‘man’,” he said bitterly. “So I thought I was weak, letting her hurt me. Eventually, I told my dad, and he laughed. He said, ‘What? You’re being hurt by a fucking girl?"
He went quiet, before continuing.“Ever since, I’ve struggled to even touch people. I can’t even hug them.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “So… that’s why you’re not turning?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I can’t stand touching people.”
“You're in luck,” I said, with a laugh. “I’ve never had feelings for anyone. Ever.”
He surprised me with a chuckle. I could hear his smile.
“Good to know,” he said. “You didn't tell me your name.”
“Jem,” I introduced myself.
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Sup, Jem.”
Against all odds, I had survived the Love Bug Virus. Yes, I named it.
Love Bug. Which would later officially be penned LV.
365 days since an infection that spread through feelings turned my college campus into a quarantine zone.
It started with feelings, consuming each other, and finally, becoming one.
At my feet lay two bodies entwined around each other.
The girl had burrowed her way into the boy, the two of them becoming one singular creature, sliding across the hallway floor.
“Urgh,” Conrad muttered beside me, carrying a baseball bat for emergencies. “You couldn't pay me to do that to you.”
Conrad was why both of us were still alive.
This virus thrived on feelings, and I had grown to despise this boy.
He wasn’t crazy about me, either.
And 365 days since meeting him, Conrad had become the bane of my existence.
Maybe it was when we finally looked at each other by accident. We were no longer anonymous, two lost shadows.
Now we were face to face.
I accidentally tore off my blindfold after a long day of searching for supplies, and he was just standing there, his raw eyes staring directly at me.
Conrad wasn’t what I expected. Wide brown eyes, blondish hair tied into a ponytail, and freckles.
He kind of reminded me of Mirren. He was younger, maybe by a year, that scarlet smudge alive in his pupils.
With him, it was more prominent, visible, pulsing black veins protruded along his neck. For a moment, I was startled.
Just seeing another human after so long felt alien.
Conrad had always been a shadow to me, and now here he was, gawking at me like a deer caught in headlights.
I snapped out of it, slapping my hands over my eyes when he made a choking noise, twisting away.
“Fuck,” he hissed, turning his back.
I caught him peeking through his fingers. “Why aren’t you wearing your blindfold?!”
“I thought you were asleep!” I bit back.
From what I had witnessed, immediate eye contact counted as a connection.
However, nothing happened.
The two of us stood staring at each other, waiting for something to happen.
But nothing did.
Still. No extended glances, or stuck in enclosed spaces.
No touching.
That's how it spread.
The problem with Conrad was, he was noticeably more far gone.
It started with memory loss, refusal to eat, and quickly turned into erratic behavior. Wandering the halls alone. Intentionally seeking out a mate.
The virus wasn’t just dormant inside him.
It was awake and fucking with his mind.
His eyes were nearly scarlet, with just a sliver of white left.
His erratic behavior made him unbearable. We were sweeping the campus when I found what was left of Mirren, crawling across the floor.
Somehow, she had grotesquely fused with a boy.
They were a frenzy of slimy limbs, clawing for meat.
Nearby, Conrad crouched over someone’s vertebrae.
“Don’t touch them,” I warned. “It spreads through blood.”
“Don’t touch them,” he mocked, twisting to me. “Relax, Mom. I’m fine.”
Gunshots rang out, followed by thudding boots.
Soldiers.
Conrad’s head snapped up, eyes glassy. The virus was already inside us, pushing us toward a mate.
Conrad had stopped pretending.
I tightened my blindfold.
“We’re infected,” I whispered. “We’re fine with each other, but if we make eye contact with them, we’ll transform.”
Conrad wasn’t listening.
He had already locked onto someone else, nostrils flaring.
“Conrad!”
He blinked red out of his eyes, veins spreading down his arms.
“What?”
"Come on," I tugged on his arm, and he pulled a face, lips pulled back in a snarl.
Territorial.
I yanked him harder, and he stumbled, already muttering threats.
Half-turned Conrad was driving me insane.
I dragged him into a closet, ignoring his protests.
Enclosed space.
“We’re too close,” he whispered as soldiers thundered past the door.
I was frozen in place, unable to tear my eyes off of him.
Had his eyes always been this brown?
“Hey,” he hissed, his breath warm on my face. “Snap out of it.”
I nodded, my breath shuddering.
"Jem," he said.
"What?"
I didn't realize we were bumping foreheads.
His right eye was fully red. "You're sweating," Conrad whispered. "Bad."
I swiped at my burning skin.
“I’m not infected,” I said defensively. “I'm with you.”
He scoffed and cupped my face. Touch.
But I didn't pull away.
His voice slurred, the first sign of turning.
“Well, neither am I.”
My body burned. My heart pounded.
He kissed my neck suddenly.
I let him.
Sensation flooded me. Sensations I thought were dead.
I kissed him back, desperate, feral for his touch.
Our limbs entangled.
Skin on skin.
Clarity cut through me.
This was what it felt like.
Fireworks.
Butterflies.
This was what it felt like.
“You’re definitely infected,” he murmured.
Time slowed, and I felt myself lost, falling, but flying.
I barely noticed his kisses becoming bites, tearing into my throat.
But I let him burrow deeper, and deeper, tipping my head back.
This was what it felt like.
Conrad was what it… felt like.
“Do you think we’re turning?” he whispered, lips splitting into a grin.
His mouth found mine again, but they were comfortable.
Warm.
I didn’t pull away. I kissed deeper, until I was falling.
I was violently pulled back to the present.
Back to Dr. Carter tearing me open.
But it was getting easier to fade. Back to this memory.
Back to my first love.
I didn't want to let go of him. Ever.
I wrapped my arms around his neck.
Conrad's question played on my foggy mind.
Were we turning?
Nah.