A/N

Hey guys, just wanted to apologize in advanced- this chapter is mainly dialogue. It's necessary for plot progression though!

If you notice any medical inaccuracies please feel free to let me know :)

Hope you enjoy!

CH. 4

The second he said that the air in the room seemed to completely disappear.
I choked on nothing. Viktor let go of my hand and leaned in eagerly. The tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"You have a diagnosis?" Viktor's warm voice filled the suffocating room.

"Yes." Yurio answered back.

The silence of the room was deafening, pounding into my head like waves. A vicious ringing erupted in my eardrums.

"What... is it?" I choked out, looking down in my lap.

I held my breath.

Viktor held his breath.

Yurio took a deep breath.

"Well for starters you have social anxiety. Just in case you wanted to know..."

"But what about his heartbeat?" Viktor asked bluntly.

"Ah well," Yurio shuffled from foot to foot, staring down at the clipboard in his hands. "This is all purely theoretical of course, I cannot guarantee any of this is correct."

"Just tell us." Viktor sounded on edge. I could see his fingers curling around the hard metal table.

Yurio nodded his head shortly. A small gesture that seemed to encompass the entire room. He parted his lips to speak and the ringing in my ears faded away slowly.

"I believe I have found a diagnosis. Based on the zombie's symptoms, answers, and the information given to me by the medical books I read. At the time of the apocalypse- January 17th 2031 the zombie was in a hospital for a serious brain injury. Without the proper medical equipment I can't be 100% sure, but it is my opinion he was classified as a patient with PVS."

As if he knew we would question what that was, he continued.

"PVS stands for Persistent Vegetation State. It's a disorder of consciousness in which a patient with severe brain damage, namely Yuuri, is in a state of existence rather than true awareness. It is possible for patients to recover partially from this condition. Which explains why he has been slowly healing over time. However it is impossible for him to recover fully. It is my belief, as a medical expert, that the zombie Virus is an infection of the dead or dying brain. Yuuri must have been on the brink of brain death while suffering from his PVS at the time of the outbreak- causing him to become infected while not being entirely dead."

The room went silent after Yurio's declaration. Nobody moved a muscle. I could hear Viktor next to me, breathing rapidly, obviously trying to process the new information at our finger tips.

I was in too much of a state of shock to question any further, but Viktor however was not. He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat, ruining the silence and stillness of the harsh grey room.

"You mentioned him being on the brink of brain death," Viktor called out weakly, "but I remember reading about a huge discovery for a cure for that like 5 years ago- before the apocalypse started."

It wasn't a question exactly, but it hung in the air as one. It was Viktor's subtle way of asking if there was a cure.

Finally finding my courage, I looked up from my hands and into the blue eyes of the intimidating boy in front of me. He sucked in a breath and sighed, rubbing his face as if he knew that question was coming and it annoyed him.

"There is technically a cure, yes. It was discovered by a Japanese neurologist in November of 2026. It's similar to reviving a stilled heart. Multiple short electrical surges are applied to the brain in an attempt to get it to start up again."

I felt a laugh of shock bubble out of my body. There was a cure. There was a cure!

"But the apocalypse only started 3 years ago! They had the technology to save him back then!" Viktor, however, instead of sounding joyous, sounded angry.

"Viktor, he was probably in some dingy small town hospital when it happened, they only have that technology in the bigger cities."

"So they were just going to let him die!"

"Viktor this was three years ago, calm down" he shushed him with a glare.

Viktor shut his mouth.

Yurio continued talking, "There are several problems with this situation. Firstly, there is no guarantee that the treatment will work at reviving his brain after it's been in PVS for long. There is also no guarantee that the treatment would reverse the effects of the zombie virus."

"We have to try." I finally spoke out determination setting in. If there was a way to cure me- to make me human, than damnit I was going to try. Viktor smiled at me softly. Placing a warm hand on my shoulder supportively.

"There's more." Yurio said darkly, a complete 180 from the optimistic tone I had developed. "There is a slight chance the treatment would kill you. Even before the apocalypse, in a safe, clean environment, the procedure only had a 58% survival rate. And only the largest hospitals had the technology for it. I checked some maps while I was in the other room and determined the nearest one is in Tokyo. Which is nearly a weeks walk away. So you would have to venture into dangerous zombie infested areas for an attempt at something that might ultimately kill you."

I felt the smile on my face slowly fade away as the elation I'd previously felt melted into despair. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"I'll let you decided what you want to do." Yurio said formally, and then left the room.

I turned to Viktor. His face was contorted in deliberation. He looked at me, his eyes full of sympathy. I opened my mouth again.

"I want to try,"  I said, determination setting further in my voice, stabilizing it. "If there's... a chance I can be-become human I want to try."

Viktors face fell. "I want to try too." He whispered, his voice soft and sad. "But there's a chance you might die Yuuri. I don't want to risk you dying. I don't know what I'd do if you died."

"You'd move on." I told him simply, "you've known me... for two d-days."

His brow furrowed and his nose scrunched up.
"You don't understand Yuuri. Around here, I'm famous. People adore me, I save them, I bring them supplies, I help them survive. It's always been such a burden. Everyone treats me differently, everyone looks at me with either pity, jealousy, or gratitude in their eyes. But not you. You're different from all of them. I owe you my life, you're the one who saved me. Sometimes it's so tiring to be the hero all the time, and you gave me a break from that. When I'm with you I don't have to worry about the town, I don't have the weight of everyone's survival resting on my shoulders. Because when I look at you, I don't see pity or jealousy or gratitude in your eyes. I see hope. I see joy. I see wonder. You're so different from all of these people I'm surrounded by all the time and it's so utterly... refreshing. You're the best thing that's happened to me in the past three years Yuuri. I want you to stay close to me, if you left- if you died... I don't know what I would do."

He spoke with such a passion, such ferocity that it left me speechless. The fact that he really cared that much about me, about what happened to me almost left me in tears.

His eyes were boring holes into mine, they were bright and desperate.

"But don't you... care that I'm a m-monster." I spat out, "That I'm a dirty and ugly and dead. That I'm a bloodthirsty zombie."

"No. I don't care. Because you're not like them Yuuri. You're not bloodthirsty. You're not ugly. You're not dead. You have a virus- a disease- that's all! It's no different from having the flu or something!" He was practically yelling at this point.

"It's not the flu. It's not a disease. It's who I am- it's what I am!"

"You're more than that!" We were both almost in tears now.

I didn't respond at first. I just looked back down at my lap. At my cold grey dead hands. At my newly scrubbed fingernails.

"My flesh is rotting off." I pointed out.

He shrugged unbothered, "Beauty is only skin deep."

I sighed, "that o-only counts... if you have skin."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You do have skin." He said.

I snorted. He sighed.

We stayed like that for a few minutes in a hushed silence. Both weighing the options we'd been given.

Finally Viktor spoke up, his voice soft and melancholy.

"Ok. I'll help you. But only on one condition."

I looked up at him again, his soul piercing eyes meeting mine.

"Anything." I whispered

His hand moved from my shoulder to my face, the pad of his thumb slowly moving in circles along my cheek, a lock of my hair brushed against his hand and I shivered. It felt good. It felt so good.

"You can't die." He said.

I sighed, "Viktor, I'm already-"

"No." he cut me off, "you have a heartbeat Yuuri Katsuki you are not dead, and you will not be dying anytime soon." His voice was stern and his eyes were sharp.

"Ok." I said softly, giving in.

A smile etched it's way on his face. A soft pastel pink smile that reminded me of sunlight. Of joy.

Just when I was wishing he'd never stop massaging my face, that we could stay like that forever, he took a step away. I felt a rosy blush tint my ears.

"Yurio, we've decided." he called out.

The blonde boy entered the room again, looking agitated.

"Don't call me that." He spat out.

"We're going to do it. We're going to cure him."

Yurio blinked in surprise, his lips folded into a thin line.

"You've been warned about how dangerous this will be." Yurio said.

"You forget you're taking to Victor Nikiforov, the best Zombie killer in the world."

"You're not the best in the world."

"You don't know that, we could be the last human colony on earth, and if that's the case then I am."

"Victor..." yurio sounded exasperated

"Just listen to me, I can do it. I will do it. For Yuuri."

"You're going to get yourself killed for a half dead zombie with social anxiety?

"No, I'm going to save a half-alive zombie."

"Fine if you wanna get yourself killed, then who am I to stop you."

Viktor nodded, "we talked it over. This is what Yuuri wants."

They both looked over at me, Viktor with a grin, and yurio with a sneer.

Viktor cleared his throat, "anyways, we're gonna need you to lend us a book or something on how to work the medical equipment. I figure I can bring an electrical generator to power up the machines but I'll need you to tell us how to work it."

Yurio looked down at his shoes.

"I'll come with you." He said, not sounding happy about it.

"Really?" Viktor asked.

"Yeah, if you're going through this much trouble I'd hate to see you devastated because you fucked it up not knowing how to work the machine."

Yurio grimaced, looking disgusted with himself. "But you owe me big. I expect new supplies ASAP, I'm almost out of bandages."

Viktor grinned, "Of course," he promised. "Lets all get packed- Yuuri and I will meet you at the entrance to the walls tomorrow at 8:00am."

He smiled back at me, "let's go home, Yuuri."

I hopped down off the examining table as he walked through the door to leave. I couldn't wait to be free of this horrid building. But before I could leave the room, Yurio stepped in front of me, blocking the way. He was wearing a look of pure unadulterated anger. Hatred and malice practically dripped off of him.

He grabbed my arm.

"Listen here zombie, I don't like you, I don't trust you, and I certainly don't want to help you. The only reason I'm doing this is because Victor would get killed if I didn't, and if he dies, so does our colony. Victor is worth a million of you. You're not even human, you've got the same worth as a pig to me. Mark my words if you get Victor killed I will kill you myself."

I took a step back, unsure how to respond. He dropped my arm and turned, waking away from me.

"Don't forget you're nothing more than a fat, dead, pig. You're a monster. You're all monsters."

I felt my mouth drop open in shock. How could this guy hate me so much?

"Yuuri?" Viktor called from outside the building.

I shook my head, trying to forget Yurio's spiteful words. Instead, I walked into the fresh air of the outside, focusing on how warm the sunlight felt dancing against my skin.