Cured [ManxMan]

Extra 2

Takes place directly after the first extra.

I held my gun in shaking hands, tendrils of smoke rising from the end of the barrel, as I stared at my boyfriend on the ground with a dead zombie laying on top of him.

Everything had happened so fast I still hardly knew what actually happened. We were running from a herd of zombies, and Topher was behind us so of course I was checking on him and saw him get tackled by a zombie. I didn't remember drawing my gun or shooting, but clearly I must have, and by some miracle I had managed to hit the zombie instead of Topher.

Not that it mattered. As Toph shoved the zombie off and sat up, he swayed dangerously, his left arm dripping blood and fuck, fuck, that was a zombie bite. Topher was infected.

Topher was infected.

And he was barely reacting, staring in my direction, then glancing to his other side where the herd of zombies was still approaching. He drug himself to his feet, shaking and unsteady, his gun in hand. He fiddled with it for a few seconds, doing something I couldn't see.

"Hey Mattie?" he called, turning to look at me. My gun hung at my side, but I didn't remember lowering it, couldn't think of anything at all other than please, please let this be a dream. "Sorry we couldn't have that celebration." I could feel tears in my eyes, could see them in Topher's even across the distance separating us, and then he was smiling and I could feel my chest caving in. What if I never saw him smile again? "Don't watch, okay? And... I love you."

He turned away, but I called out, "Wait! Topher!" I took a few steps closer, tucking my gun into the holster at my hip as I went. I glanced at the quickly approaching herd before locking my gaze on the man I'd loved for six years and couldn't imagine living my life without. There was so much I wanted to say, but I could barely process what was happening and the only word that came out was, "Please."

Topher was calm, his blue eyes clear when they met mine as he replied, "Our time is already up." He held up his left arm, blood dripping from the bite there. "Please, let me finish this my way."

His eyes searched mine. He wasn't that far away—ten or fifteen yards, if that—but he'd never felt so far away, already unreachable, unsavable. I took a deep breath, my chest shaking at the effort of forcing air into the increasingly smaller space.

"I love you, too," I said, wondered if Topher even heard me because it was so hard to speak the words aloud knowing I would never get to say them again. Still, he smiled one last time, as if he had heard me, while Kiara and Ajay took me by the arms and turned me away.

And then we were running, leaving him behind. I jumped at the first gunshot and would have turned if Ajay hadn't caught my arm and hauled me forward. Each gunshot after that sent a jolt through me, and I couldn't resist counting them. Five... Six... Seven... Eight... My breath caught in my lungs when there was a pause, then one more, nine, and then... and then...

And then they stopped, the gunshots stopped, Topher was dead. Topher was dead, Topher was dead, Topher was dead. Please be a dream, please, please, please, please just be a dream, please be a dream.

I woke, my face wet with tears and my breath shuddering in my chest. It had been a dream, but not in the way I'd hoped it was.

I rubbed uselessly at my face, trying to wipe the evidence of the nightmare away. They had been a common occurrence in the four years since I lost Topher, but I'd finally started to heal. I hadn't had a nightmare in months, had made it days at a time without thinking of him, could even recall him at times without depression rearing its ugly head and now, for four days, he'd plagued my thoughts in every waking and sleeping moment.