Cured [ManxMan]

Chapter Twenty-Five

Much to my dismay, things did not improve over the following days. Or they did, but not as much as I had hoped they would. I could keep down small amounts of broth, but it still didn't taste right, didn't taste like blood and flesh and—

I cut the thoughts off, nausea threatening the meager contents of my stomach. That, at least, was still good news; as much as my body craved human flesh, I was also still repulsed by the idea of actually going through with it, so at least my mind was still intact. How long would that last, though? How long could I continue this way, pushing away and ignoring the compulsion to eat someone?

I wanted to eat someone. And inevitably I would. Someone would get too close, I'd be hit by a particularly strong urge to take a bite out of them, and before I had the chance to squash it, I would have already followed through.

And it wouldn't be like when I ate people before, as a zombie. I had those memories, sure, knew what it felt like to tear flesh from bones and have thick warm blood trickle down my throat—I shuddered at the thought even as my stomach growled—but I had been a pretty terrible zombie, so the humans were always dead by the time I got to them. I had never killed someone, never infected someone. I was just eating to survive.

This time would be different. I knew it was wrong, I knew I didn't have to hurt people, and my mind was present enough to understand that if I bit someone, even if I didn't kill them, I would be infecting them, dooming them to my fate. Worse, the only person who regularly came close enough to be in danger was Mattie, the most important person in my life, and I couldn't bear the thought of hurting him at all, let alone either killing him or dooming him to the life of a zombie, to my life.

Just days ago, I slept curled against him, feeling peaceful and at home, right where I belonged. Now I slept on the edge of the bed if I slept at all, which only worried me more. Zombie's didn't sleep, so if I stopped sleeping, that was just another way I was becoming more zombie every day, losing what little humanity I had managed to get back.

When I did sleep, it was just a few hours of nothing with no dreams, which meant I hadn't regained any more of my memories. I hadn't realized how much I'd come to rely on those glimpses into my past until they were gone. I could ask Mattie to tell me, but that wasn't the same as remembering, and besides, there were at least sixteen years' worth of memories he wouldn't know about, very few of which I'd actually recovered.

My fever also came and went, often keeping Mattie awake with me, worrying over me even when I told him I'd be fine and he should go to sleep. The dark circles under his eyes were worse than I'd seen them, and I was starting to think Mattie was sleeping even less than I was, afraid if he went to sleep something would happen and he wouldn't be able to react fast enough.

He had finally dozed off when Kiara came in to check on me. She'd been at least once a day since I'd woken them both in the middle of the night, and every time she looked a little more concerned as my condition continued to deteriorate. She'd stopped bothering to knock or wait for someone to let her in, which in this case I was grateful for because the slightest noise might wake Mattie.

I held up a hand to draw her attention, then held a finger to my lips before gesturing to the man sleeping beside me, always close but rarely touching. I'd been doing my best to keep my distance and he'd been respecting that, though I couldn't imagine what he might think the reason for it was.

She paused in the doorway, her eyes going from me to Mattie before her expression softened and she nodded, tiptoeing around the bed so she stood next to me and could see his sleeping face. "How long has it been since he slept?" she asked in a whisper.

I shrugged in response. I'd had a mild fever the night before and hadn't been able to sleep and Mattie, in turn, hadn't slept either. He usually didn't allow himself to lay down during the day to prevent the possibility of falling asleep, but I'd convinced him to after I'd managed to drink almost an entire bowl of broth and shown I didn't have a fever anymore.