INFECTED

I walked side by side with my loyal friend, Kenneth. Kenneth and I have been friends since birth, and I have never met someone as loyal and brave as him.
“Are you sure about this?” He asked as we walked up the stairs to an old, isolated asylum.
I could only nod.
I have to admit that the facade of the building was terrifying, let alone in the circumstances I was entering it. I took a deep breath as I came face to face with a humongous, wooden door.
I looked at Kenneth, who looked brave and defiant at the monstrous building. The single sight of him made me stronger, braver; and seeing him standing there looking fearless gave me the confidence necessary to break into the isolated, private property. The door was locked, so we chose an easy way to open it, kicking it open.
If the looks of the building terrified me, its insides made me feel as if all the blood in my body had drained, leaving me white as a sheet of paper.
The reason for me (and Kenneth) trespassing at the asylum (which I had refused to do before), was very simple, we were trespassing to find survivors. A few weeks ago, a corporation, which dealt with viruses, let loose a very destructive virus which ended up destroying half of the city of Perses. The virus was supposed to make people age slower, but instead it ended up making the dead reanimate. The virus was highly contagious; only a bite or scratch of an infected could lead to death and later in the process reanimating your corpse.
All this came to my mind, hitting it like a tsunami: the infected, blood, dead, screams...it was bizarre!
We walked through the asylum’s isolated, dark, halls only illuminated by the gory neon colored lights. Some of the lights flickered around us, making the place even scarier. The walls were covered in dust and cobwebs while the air in the halls smelled like old clothes put away for a long time, combined with the sickening smell of chlorine, mixed with the putrid smell of dried blood and rotting flesh, spiced with a bit of dust. The perfect combination to make my stomach turn, do a backflip and a split.
Kenneth noticed my disgust at the place and immediately tried to help.
“It’s not that bad; we have gone through worse.”
True, I thought.
We made a turn in one of the halls, only to find something that terrified me- two different halls.
My eyes widened, remembering what had happened the last time we had separated.
“It’s okay,” Kenneth’s soft voice rang and echoed in the walls of my mind, “I won’t let anything happen to you, Helen.”
“I know you’d give your life to protect me,” I replied hurriedly, “But you also know that I would never accept such a sacrifice.”
He knew I would never accept his life for mine, simply because without him I didn’t know who I was, I felt alone, incomplete, forsaken.
“Helen, we have to separate.” was all he said. I knew he was right; we needed to see if there was any survivor (which I sincerely doubted).
I took a deep breath and nodded.
“Okay.” My reply was cold, dry, but that was all I could manage. Kenneth, however, smiled at my dry reply.
“You are brave,” He said kissing my forehead, “I know we can do this like we have done since we were small.”
I let out a long frustrated breath. “But we-”
“We are a team, and sometimes a team has to split to cover more ground, but we always comes back.”
I nodded, surrendering to him.
“Okay, but promise that you’ll be okay,” I said in a shaky voice that I’ve never heard from my own self, “Promise that you’ll not be infected, that you’ll come back to me safe and sound.”
He smiled. “I’ll come back to you, like I’ve always done.”
And with that he walked down one of the halls and I to the other.

It never occurred to me that I was in love with Kenneth, but the circumstances proved me wrong.
I’m falling head over heels for Kenneth. I thought, as I walked down the hall, the air around me drowning me with it’s sickening smell.
“Just look around, find survivors (or not), and get the hell out of here without getting infected.” I told myself.
The air around me, which was thick with the smell of blood, grew colder by degrees as I walked deeper and deeper into the obscure halls. My heart beats grew faster and louder by each step I took.
Just look for survivors, just look for them, look for them...
I walked deeper and deeper into the hall. The air impregnated with the raw smell of dried blood, and rotting flesh, the air cold as a moonless winter night, but I kept on walking, walking gun in hand, ready to shoot any of those whom we call the infected.
I opened a door cautiously, afraid that one of the infected might jump out of the nowhere and attack me. I studied the room. Deserted.
Good, no survivors, no infected. I thought, relief filling me.
A sound brought me out of my daydreaming. The sound came from one of the far corners of the hall; it was between an animal grunt and a growl. I stopped walking and aimed the gun at something I didn’t know was there. The sound was like one the infected would do, and that terrified me.
I stood still, letting my breath release slowly. Nothing happened. None of the infected had attacked me, no Kenneth trying to scare me, no survivors.
I started to relax, my gun by my side. Biggest mistake ever!
Out of the corner of my eye, something- no someone, moved at the speed of light, running toward me.
I stopped myself from releasing a scream that was building in the back of my throat. I looked at whatever was coming towards me. It used to be an old man. The infected who now was running towards me was bizarre. He had only one eye, his skin was rotten, torn..his smell was putrid, his hands were covered with blood and under his nails you could have found human blood and flesh. I raised my gun and shot the thing between the eyes. The infected fell to the ground dead, finally dead. I stood there, wondering about where the infected had come from. Another animal grunt was heard, and another, and another. All sounds were coming from the corner of the hall, my only exit was the room before me.
“Better to say, ‘here she ran’, than saying ‘here she died’.” I thought, as I ran inside the room, slamming the door shut behind me. I looked around the room for an exit and I found one- stairs that went up, up into the attic. I took a deep breath and tried to decide what to do.
“Arghhhh!!!” The animal grunts and growls rang in the walls of my mind, those grunts made my decision. I was going up.
I ran up the stairs to the attic, wondering what was (or wasn’t) up there. As soon as I got inside the attic and shut the door close, the infected ran inside the room below me; growling like mad animals, trying to reach the attic, but unable to. My whole being was shaking with fear and anger. Kenneth was down there, maybe trying to find me, maybe already infected.
I took a deep breath and looked around the attic. It was old, dusty and bloody; that meant I was not safe here either. I moved boxes trying to find something,something that might help me get to Kenneth.
Here in Perses, all buildings had a passage to another room, another building; all of this for “safety” reasons. I looked around and found nothing. Then I stepped on some rotten wood and fell into the room under me, I failed at trying to suppress a scream building up in my throat. The infected came to me, slowly. I shot a couple in the head. I jumped, hung myself from the metal bars above me and with my legs, twisted their necks. I broke their necks viciously and shot them between the eyes fearlessly. I wanted to finish them. I wanted my life back to normal. I wished that the infection had never reached Perses, that it had never killed and reanimated my family, that it had never existed. I ran swiftly through the halls; killing the infected by twisting their necks or by shooting them between the eyes.
Kenneth, where are you? My mind screamed as I waited for Kenneth in one of the halls. Where?
I felt sweat cover my forehead. “I’ll come back to you, like I’ve always done.” Kenneth’s words echoed in my head. I wanted to believe him, I wanted to believe his words, but it was impossible.
A scream broke the silence in the asylum; a scream that sent chills down my spine and made a single, hot, salty tear roll down my white, bloody cheek. It was Kenneth.
I ran swiftly down the halls, some of the infected blocking my path, but I sent them to a better place. I didn’t run like a human would; I ran like a shadow, at an inhuman velocity. I was running to save something more precious than my own life...Kenneth, my life little mattered to me now. He would have given his life to save me. He would have accepted a place in hell only to spare me the suffering; Kenneth loved me and so did I. I broke into the room where Kenneth laid there, lifeless.
“Kenneth.” A whisper escaped my quivering lips. He looked asleep. I wished him to be asleep not infected.
“Please, Kenneth,” I mumbled, walking slowly to him. “Tell me you’re asleep, that you will wake up and be mine..”
Kenneth didn’t move, his chest didn’t raise nor fall indicating that he was alive because he was dead.
I sat next to his body not caring about the danger an infected represented.
“Kenneth, I never had the chance to tell you what I really felt toward you.” A cold, salty tear rolled down my cheek. “I thought you were like a brother to me, but you were much more than that.” I broke down sobbing hysterically. “I don’t know what is going to happen to me without you.”
Kenneth’s blue eyes opened. My hand raised, pointing my gun between his eyes. I felt dirty for pointing the gun at his head, craving his death. I shook my head and wiped my salty tears away from my face.
“Don’t come any closer to me!” I shouted hysterically at someone that was once Kenneth but now was an infected. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He didn’t back off; he didn’t stop approaching me. His beautiful sky blue eyes held my gaze. I couldn’t look at those blue eyes while pointing a gun at his head. I was shaking and trying to quiet down my sobs.
“Please go away, Kenneth.” I pleaded in a voice that sounded weak, sad, small, like a whisper. “Please Kenneth.”
Kenneth, or the now new infected, didn’t back off. He didn’t answer my pleas, he was Kenneth no longer.
He was so close to me I could smell his life escaping his body. I could see him, well, only his facade, but not his soul. He was an infected, I was to shoot him between the eyes, I was to destroy him, but I couldn’t. I lowered my gun and let it drop to the ground.
A sob escaped my lips, and a cold, salty tear rolled down my cheek.
“I love you.” I whispered; I didn’t want die knowing I didn’t let Kenneth know about my feelings toward him.
His dead cold hands grasped my wrist violently. His mouth and teeth sunk into my pale flesh. I let out a scream as his hands started to tear me apart, his mouth to devour me.
I sobbed but didn’t fight him. I let his hands tear me apart. I let his mouth devour me.
I died, killed by an infected that once was all I fancied. I died and my corpse reanimated, I “died” infected.
I like to think that I died infected, but not by the infection that reanimated the dead; I like to think I died infected with love. I was made by love, and died by love. It looks like life made love my fate, my doom. I learned that even in the worst of the cases love is present, that love never vanishes, that love takes a sacrifice; and my sacrifice was my life.