When a stranger says we look good together, we just laugh.
If you only knew how it hurts, because you're my other half.
This nightmare has become my favorite dream.
-Betty Who, Wanna Be

Phil

The first thing I feel when I wake up is cold.

Cold, and an emptiness next to me. 

I blink, feeling slow and groggy as the last dregs of my dream fade from my memory, whatever I'd seen already being slowly forgotten. My heart is racing and I can't even remember what the dream was about anymore, my mind feeling like it's just surfaced from beneath deep water.

It should be unsettling that something I can't even consider tangible is causing so much fear, but most fear exists that way. It's what we can't see in the dark that we're afraid of. While I've been asleep the temperature has dropped considerably, seeping into my skin and making my breath appear as visible puffs in the air.

My body redoubles in shivers, fully feeling the chill now that I'm conscious. The duvet I usually wind around is myself mysteriously gone, serving as some explanation for the chill which has obviously been here for a while because it's that deep-set cold, the one that settles into your bones and leaves you curled in on yourself.

While this in itself is unpleasant, it reminds me as I tilt my head blearily that an easy solution to this problem lies only a small reach away, available to me in the form of another body.

I squeeze my tired eyes shut and my fingers stretch out, seeking Dan's warmth, but my hands grasp nothing. My palm comes into contact with empty air, landing flat on the ground rather than a soft shoulder.

At first nothing registers nothing but confusion, but then it seems to click what's wrong.

Dan.

My still-sleepy mind panics, thinking I've somehow lost him, every nightmare I've suffered through somehow coming to life.

I push myself onto my elbows, reaching around desperately for my best friend. I scramble to sit up, tiredness gone.

In a normal world maybe, my friend not being next to me immediately after waking wouldn't be such a strange thing. But this world isn't normal. Him being gone could mean absolutely nothing or it could be devastating and there's no way to tell until it's too late. Where is he?

Something could have happened in the night. Something I missed, all because I slept through it, let my guard down, leaving us both vulnerable. It would be good retribution for letting myself relax without considering him.

I sit up straight, gaze darting anxiously around the small, dim enclosure. Any trace of sleep is gone.

As my eyes adjust, there's no obvious sign of anything amiss but that only makes me more anxious.

Worst-case scenarios enter my mind without permission, imagining a world without him where he's gone- vanished from my life just as quickly and easily as everything else had gone, stolen away in the dark of night. The sun has barely risen but it's light enough that I can't see anything next to me, where just last night he'd been curled just a small space away.

It's still too dim to make out much other than some glowing embers from last night's fire a few feet in front of me. My heart is racing for another reason now, my eyes casting hopelessly around the room which is mostly empty, no other rooms to reassure me that maybe he'd just gone into one of them. Even if there were, he wouldn't leave me anyway.

I'm about to get up and start calling his name, when a sudden shadow in the corner moves, letting out a long huff of a breath that almost makes me jump right out of my skin.

An embarrassing shriek leaves me before my eyes really settle and focus on the mass, adjusting to the light. It stirs at my outcry, but doesn't react any further.

Almost immediately I relax, the tension in my shoulders ebbing away.

He's here.

Now that I'm focusing I can discern the slope of his narrow shoulders from the mass of shadow near the wall, easily missed when it's so hard to see. As my heartbeat returns to a much calmer rate, I can't help but smile despite all of the built-up fear and stress we've both experienced since this all began.

Dan's actually asleep at this moment, it's a good thing I wasn't any louder.

I look up and see that it's still dark outside too, I can see the black silhouettes of trees and the dying light of stars against the early morning sky, scattered haphazardly and visible through cracks between the wooden slats overhead, even through my half-open eyes.

This has become a relatively normal and dependable sight upon waking recently, a good sign that I'm finally adjusting to life in this shelter. Sometimes it takes a while whenever there's a change of location because change means starting over again, but just the fact that I've been able to sleep at all is reassuring in itself.

It can't be much later than five a.m., it's far too dark and far too cold. Despite how long I've lived like this now, I still feel incredibly strange waking up before the sun, considering that back when life was mundane and normal Phil of the past never rose before eleven unless there was some sort of national emergency, like a Buffy box set marathon needing to happen.

As soon as I was out of high school things like productivity and waking up early sort of flew out the window, seeing how they were no longer necessary. Back then, I was the definition of the classic university student, the very epitome of what lazy mornings and free-spiritedness should embody. I was a whole other person back then. Now, productivity is this least of my worries. All the worries and deadlines, none of it even matters.

As I slowly blink the sleep out of my eyes I consider this, feeling so detached from him, from that Phil. It feels like a lifetime ago.

I wonder vaguely if old me would be impressed by who I am and my ability to rise now, considering how much older I am. Best to always look on the bright side, to pretend that any of this was in any way a choice. Being older doesn't really equal being wiser, I'd be a lot better off if that were the case.

I take a deep breath to calm myself, settling my gaze now on Dan. He's facing me right now and I hadn't even realized it through the tangle of dark sheets, his eyes are shut but he's very evidently still here, still safe. I think of us before any of this had happened and it makes a a strange feeling flit through my chest, comparing it to now. Phil of the past worried about Dan too, but for totally different reasons.

I know all too well how painful it can be to care so much about one person, to the point where you feel like your heart might swell and let it all spill over with how much you do. That feeling hasn't left. As my heart has so eloquently reminded me that feeling never leaves, just sits in a knot in your chest to be hidden away with no way to express it, not even when just living is life or death.

He's asleep right now, and that in itself is a relief considering all the hundreds of nights where I've woken prematurely in whatever shelter we've found for the night, roused from some nightmare, only to see him already alert, sat straight up with his eyes glowing in the makeshift firelight.

If he knew I could see him like this, he'd probably kill me. He's one of those guarded kinds of people, the ones who hide their pain behind not entirely convincing smiles and conceal exceptionally gentle hearts behind rough, calloused exteriors.

He thinks he has me fooled, scoffing at my concerns for his wellbeing in consciousness as though he wasn't the boy who meant the world to me, as closed off emotionally as I am an open book. But I've known Dan for far too long, and I know better than that.

By the time I'm awake most mornings he's usually already calmed down from whatever thoughts have terrorized him, acting all the while like they haven't. It's like he wishes he could convince me that he doesn't have nightmares, as if he can stop me from worrying just by denying he feels at all.

He can't help it. My eyebrows crease as I think about my own nightmares and how his are far worse. I know they're awful, I know they're why he hasn't slept a night through in months and it hurts beyond belief because unlike many of his troubles, there's nothing I can do to stop the dreams from coming. He looks so innocent in sleep, it's deceptive because I know Dan is far too complex, far too damaged for that.

There's a lot I can do for him, but I can't save a him from his own mind. That's one thing he has to face alone, and life isn't kind enough to make it easy.

He's too proud to tell me what happens in the dreams but considering how terrible mine have been, how they've only gotten worse as fear keeps growing and death looms down around us I can scarcely imagine how much worse his are.

Ever since this whole ordeal began, the End of The World as I have come to call it for lack of a less cliché name, it's been acknowledged but not spoken about that while none of us had an easy time of it, the beginning of it for him was far more awful than most people's, and it's become an unspoken rule that we don't recall it, try to forget it even. Really, that's what everyone is trying to do these days. Forget.

He looks so content right now. In sleep, his tense features are completely relaxed, the lines and creases soft and the dark circles less visible. His mouth is open slightly and he's breathing softly, suggesting that for the first time in ages, this dream must not be so bad. In sleep, he's rolled himself into the corner of the room, to the far end of the folded tarp we've been using as a makeshift mattress with both my blanket and his tightly wrapped around him, loosely gripped by his hands.

It at least accounts for my current state. My winter hat is on his head, curls spilling out across his forehead from beneath it. Now that he has no access to a straightener, his natural curls are the constant norm, one small miracle in this hellscape.

I now know why I woke up so cold, but I can't say I mind. This calm, blissful appearance on him is like a massive weight lifting off my mind and my heart. He looks so much older than the boy of nineteen that he is, an uncomfortable reminder that he's been through so much.

Maybe it's our age difference, maybe it's how close we've been for so long, but I feel immensely protective of him even though he's proven many times over just in our day-to-day lives that he's tough enough for twenty Phils. I want to shake him awake and hold him close to me until the lines vanish and the dark circles fade away, see the the smile that is now such a rarity, the one that makes his eyes crinkle in a different way and the dimple in his cheek so prominent that more than once I've reached out and poked it.

But I don't, of course.

I'd like to see the day where I actually manage to do anything when it comes to him. He'd probably shove me off anyway even though deep down he loves hugs. Some of the best moments are the ones where he relents enough to allow me to hold him, those tired, gentle nights where we're half-asleep and the edges are softer than usual.

I allow myself to sigh deeply, quietly. He means so much to me. More than he really knows probably, more than I could ever explain to him. I shuffle to the left, closer to him until my knees are brushing his side, just assuring myself he's here too. I don't know what I'd do if I woke up without him.

In his unconscious state he seems to feel the warmth that I offer because he turns toward me, pressing himself into my side while still sleeping on, oblivious. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips as I cautiously stretch out my hand, gently brushing the soft brown curls off of his forehead.

I run my fingers through them to make a clumsy quiff, a gesture I wouldn't dare to attempt if he were awake. I don't even know how he'd react to the fondness that must be blatantly spreading across my features, especially when I'm not exactly free in displaying this expression when he can see it. I blush a little, embarrassed at the prospect. It doesn't matter. He can't see it, so it hardly matters.

I wonder what he's dreaming about. When the nightmares first began I used to cautiously ask him if he wanted to talk about it, wishing I could somehow erase them so that he wouldn't wake up every night screaming and shaking until he got a grip on his surroundings, not that this reality was something to write home about.

More than once I've turned to see him wiping away tears so determinedly and viciously that I would pretend not to see them to spare his discomfort, acting like my heart hadn't just shattered. He'd just brushed me off all nonchalantly when I'd finally asked him, his voice so full of characteristic indifference you'd have thought he believed it too.

Trust me, Phil. He'd said. You're better off not thinking about it. I'm fine.

I'm fine.

It's sad to think about, how vastly different our two ideals of fine must be. He knows as well as I do that he isn't, we both started in the same place. We were there together when everything went downhill, escaped our old lives when they came crashing to an end. There's no real secrets between us, we were right there in the heart of it, tainted by the blood and the flames when the world ended.

It feels so stupid to say that the world has ended, seeing how we're still living on it. The earth still exists, there's still plants and drinkable water and a normal climate which is unfortunate, I would have preferred an apocalypse with warmer weather to the  seasonal changes that are still happening. It's getting onto late summer now and the new creeping chill is hard to ignore, I've no idea what we'll do once autumn comes, then winter.

There's still cities and seasons and people in small populations so yes, the world is still here. As for the state of it, there's really no other way to describe it but the truth.

The zombie apocalypse, something massively exploited in all varying levels of creativity in all sorts of different platforms, whether it be video games, books or the media, is real. I don't know the exact date it started, I don't really care, honestly. Knowing won't make it any better, knowing won't bring food or make Dan happy.

In my mind, I always pictured zombies as the way they appeared on-screen; glazed-eyed, slow-moving corpses, vaguely human but also monstrous, hell-bent on feasting on the flesh of the living. The difference is imagine it versus seeing it for yourself in real life.

What the screens cannot express is how awful they smell, unsettlingly recognizable and now all-too common in this world. How fast some of them are; just like living humans, how they have different levels of skill and ability and how gets so much more complicated than just sinking an axe into its brain when it lunges forward relentlessly.

In appearance, it's almost laughable how accurate we were. We actually used to get enjoyment out of imagining alternate realities where such a horror existed. And look at us now. Now it is reality.

More than anything, I wish none of this was real. I want to wake up one morning and find myself huddled on the bed of my uni dorm, warm and safe and bored out my mind, blissful to what life is without an apocalypse situation. What would I do, if I could have it all back?

It's a question I like to torture myself with in quiet moments like this, when the world is asleep and I have nothing more to do. Homework would be so preferable to this fight to survive.

All the things that seemed like such a huge deal at the time seem so meaningless now. I'd eat all the popcorn I could find, probably. Go outside more and answer all those texts from my mom. I'd tell Dan how I really felt, because life is too short and it would be so easy in the the land of the happy and the privileged teenager. Not like it is now, when love seems like something so mundane and irrelevant when the need to live is so dominant.

It's all so hard but in some ways, it's easier than it's ever been because now, all we have is each other. I know without a doubt that despite his more reserved behaviour I'm incredibly important to him too, he's still my best friend and he's promised hundreds of times over that that will never change. Maybe for now, that's all I need. It's been so long since things changed for me, from something felt to something more. I'm an expert by now at hiding my heart.

I'll keep this particular part of me quiet for as long as it needs to be because even in this hell dimension of a world, there is so much to be grateful for. In a way, this moment of quiet is a blessing beyond anything I could've hoped for. It's calming to see him still and slack in this way, swathed in blankets with my hat on his head.

It's an important thing for both of us, because we depend on each other no matter how difficult we make it to express it to one another. Just the way he's naturally shifted near me is indicator enough that I'm doing something right, and I try to push away that fearful feeling that had hit me so unexpectedly earlier. Maybe when he wakes up I can tell him about it and we can both laugh about it later. It's better than the alternative.

I'm snapped from my thoughts when Dan suddenly lets out a string of incoherent mumbling, shaking me out of my reverie.

I retract my hand from his hair, afraid he'll wake up and catch me at it. It's best for now that he doesn't know, I can handle pulling him into a squirmy hug when he's awake, anyway.

I'm happy with even a fraction of his affection, it's always been enough for me. I grin stupidly thinking about doing it, imagining him pretending he's annoyed but secretly loving it because he loves hugs, he just doesn't want to look vulnerable in front of anybody, not even me.

I mentally remind myself that this is the apocalypse, that there's food to be found and I need a plan ready for how today will go, but even so I continue to stare a little longer at the quiff my fingers left behind in his hair, almost wanting him to sleep contentedly for hours longer even if it means not being able to talk to him because I haven't seen him this content in weeks.

I sit still and quiet, listening to his soft breaths and taking warmth from where he's leant against my side, relishing in the peaceful atmosphere and letting all thoughts of zombies and nightmares ebb away as I settle back against the rough concrete wall and cease to think about much at all.

I stay like that for a while. The sun is finally beginning to peek over the treetops by the time anything really happens.

I'm still sitting quietly next to Dan, my eyes on his face as I wonder just how long I'll be able to get away with it. He never sleeps long once the sun is up, so it's likely that this comfortable state will only last about half an hour longer before the light hits his face and he stirs awake, and the next day of our life begins.

I'm about to lean into his side when all of a sudden he shudders, his eyebrows creasing and his lips turning down in a frown.

I start at this, at how unhappy he suddenly looks. His fist clenches the blanket wrapped around him tightly, and he whines softly, unhappily.

Oh no.

Whatever peaceful dream state has graced him for the past few hours, it's clearly morphed back to the more common nightmare ground. It hurts to see how truly unhappy he is, to know this moment is familiar. The lines and creases are back, the dark circles enhancing his blatant discomfort.  My stomach sinks at the sight, hand hovering uncertainly as I try to decide what to do.

He's beginning to shake and groan weakly, looking suddenly small and vulnerable, the sort of thing he would hate to be. Something snaps in me at the distress and I can't stop myself. It's not about dignity or my nervousness. This is Dan, and Dan is in pain.

I lurch forward and take hold of one of his cold hands, squeezing gently and pulling it close to my chest. With my other hand, I begin once again to gently brush my hands through his hair, my heart hammering in my chest as I hope to god that he doesn't  wake up and see what I'm doing. I just want to help him, to calm his heart without even waking him up.

"It's okay, hey?" I whisper softly, feeling him tense and then slowly relax as I speak and continue the motions. "It's not real, Dan. It's just a nightmare."

I brush through his hair and he goes still then, groaning softly before sinking back against my side. I consider retracting my hand then as he settles, not sure how to explain this reaction.

I've never previously attempted to comfort him like this while he was thrashing because I knew he wouldn't want it. I'm half expecting him to wake just for the sheer monumental fact that I'm holding his hand but he only sighs, his features going slack again.

Unbelievable.

I've just begun to relax, pushing a strand of black hair out of my own face and keeping hold of his hand with my unoccupied one when I hear a chuckle from behind, nearly jumping out of my skin for the second time this morning.

I let out a tiny shriek and drop Dan's hand, causing him to huff irritably at the sudden change. This elicits a less-subtle burst of laughter, firing me to realize I've condemned myself entirely.

I feel a hot blush flood my cheeks and I drop my hands over my face in shame, delaying the inevitable but not for long. I sigh, lifting my eyes  to glance at the intruder even though I'm pretty sure I know who it is already.

My suspicions are confirmed as I take in the pale, bluish skin and short, dark hair, the wide silver eyes and the knowing smirk that makes me flop against the wall in defeat. Just my luck that I've happened to befriend what is probably the only sentient zombie on the planet. Only she could have approached so quietly.

"Cat," I breathe, trying to gloss over the embarrassing exchange we'd just had. "What are you even doing back yet? I thought you were going out until sunrise."

She grins at me, and I know this is not gonna go the way I'd been subtly hinting I wanted it to.

"I did get food, you dork." She teases. "There were practically no zombies in the village down there so I didn't even have to work too hard to find it. Besides-"

She raises an eyebrow for emphasis and I shake my head, a silent plea to just get it over with.

"-Technically, the sun is up." She adds, smirking. "It's light enough that even my crappy eyes can see you. You're hopeless, you know that?"

I roll my eyes at the jab but against my wishes a smile still spreads across my face, bemusement winning over my irritation at my friend's teasing.

"What if he wakes up and sees you staring at him like that?" She quips. "Honestly, are you even trying anymore?"

The smile drops from my face instantly.

"He was having another one of his nightmares!" I argue defensively, my cheeks flushing. "He slept so well tonight, you should have seen it! He actually looked content all morning, I couldn't let him slip back into that, he can't see or feel me doing it anyway, I had to do some-"

I stop short, seeing the doubtful expression on her face.

"I'm not trying to stop you, you know." She says gently.

Cat is the only other person besides me who knows about how I feel towards Dan. This is the apocalypse mind you, so the list of people still alive that I know is, granted, very short, so maybe that isn't as impressive as it sounds. But while she's annoying as hell sometimes, having a half-zombie friend, even one who knows your deepest secret, is very helpful in this life.

We ran into Cat back in the early uncertain days. It was gray and cloudy and I remember I was so, so scared, thinking I only had a matter of days to live because I was nothing more than a lanky nerd whose best friend was a lanky nerd and I thought it was only a matter of time before Dan and I were overwhelmed by monsters.

We were hiding in an old horse barn, sitting up in the hayloft because we were too scared to be on the ground floor, vulnerable to anything that wandered in. We'd pulled up the ladder and we'd found an axe and a crowbar, the axe in my hands as I sat silently next to him, breathing a sigh of relief at finally having some illusion of safety.

At least until we heard a shuffling sound and a zombie lurched up out of the hay about fifteen feet behind us, causing us both to scream and me to to slam the ax right into its torso, where it stuck comically. The zombie was unaffected, the only way to kill one being to either destroy its head or cut it in half. I thought we were done for, waiting for it to lurch forward and kill us, seeing how close it was.

But unlike every other zombie we'd encountered, this one just stood still, them lowered its head, staring at where my ax had hit it with too much intelligence in the gaze, almost as if we'd offended it. It slowly reached down and pulled the axe out if its side, holding it in a strange, contemplative way, before looking up at us, taking in Dan with his crowbar and me behind him as he struggled to cover us both.

Our eyes met, and out of nowhere it opened its mouth, and a perfectly comprehensible human girl's voice said "dude, rude."

Then it walked over, handing the axe back to a dumbstruck me and frowning irritably, as if she hadn't just been struck with a freaking axe. She'd stared at me as if I'd done something completely irrational.

"For god's sake, say something! I'm not gonna eat your brain or anything. I'm not into that." She had said casually, running a hand through her hair awkwardly, something seriously out of place looking on a zombie. Relief crept into me even though warning bells were blaring in my brain and Dan was gripping my arm uncertainly, not sure how to take in this fluke of reality.

"You-" Dan had choked, deciding to speak up, "you're a zombie? I think you're a zombie. How are you not trying to eat our brains right now?" I cringed, almost expecting the mention of brains to suddenly transform her into the flesh-eating beast her body resembled, like a trigger.

But she didn't, just laughed and took us in, not even looking offended at being told she looked like a zombie, which I would hardly consider a compliment.

She went on to explain to us how she'd been bitten back nearly a year ago and run away, falling unconscious only minutes later. When she'd woken up, she was a fully transformed zombie, but her thinking was still clear and the only differences were that her eyesight was now terrible, her hunger gone, and most importantly, she couldn't feel pain.

"W-What makes me think we can trust you?" I'd spoken up, inwardly cursing at my obvious stutter.

"And what are we supposed to do with you now?" Dan added, sounding so strong and confident, making me wonder which one was really four years older than the other.

She had just laughed, saying not much at all, other than "trust me, you can."

Presently, Cat grins at me, knowing as well is I did that while I'm telling the truth, there's really no excuse I can make for what she's just witnessed. She's seen me, caught me in the act, and she probably won't stop pestering me till I fess up. I'm not going to give her the satisfaction though, two can play at this game.

"Shut up" I whine, slumping against the wall dramatically. "He could wake up any minute now!"

"I'm aware of that," she replies, smirking again. Then her expression softens, and suddenly I realize she isn't  teasing me anymore. Her words are soft and careful, almost tentative, catching me off guard.

"Phil, why don't you tell him?" She whispers, gazing at his relaxed expression while some sunlight slants over his cheek.

My heart skips.

"What?"

"What's holding you back?" She elaborates. "This is the apocalypse, god knows there's nothing wrong with a little more love in the world."

I groan, not wanting her to realize how many times I've come so close to doing just that, how hard this is for me. She has to know, we've had this conversation before and I always say the same thing.

I clear my throat, choosing my words carefully.

"I can't. I will one day- I will!" I add defensively upon seeing the look on her face. "I just don't think I can do it yet, I don't even know if I really love him like that or if it's-"

I stop as sunlight suddenly floods the room, the concrete walls lighting up with a warm glow, every crack visible. I can see Dan clearly now in his blanket pile, I can see every detail of Cat's pale complexion. Morning.

"Never mind. We'll talk about it later." Cat says hurriedly, and I nod, saved the need to say anything at all.

As the sunlight continues to stream in, Dan begins to stir, just as I'd predicted he would.

"I will though, " I add quietly, speaking as much to myself as to her. "I promise."

She doesn't say anything, just nods slowly and then wanders over to poke Dan in the side, causing him to shout out in confusion, making me smile warmly at his protest to wake up.

As far as I know, we still have lots of time left. I can take as long as I like.