You won't pull ahead, I'll keep up the pace
and reveal my strength to the whole human race
-Muse, Survival

Dan

When the door opens, the first footstep echoes like a gunshot in the room.

"Phil!" I scream before I can even think. I can't see much through the doorway beyond a grey, spotless hallway, the door leading to the room where I know Phil is has been left slightly ajar. The man who dragged me out of there grabs my arms when I try to to get up and reach him, pinning my wrists behind my back.

It's agonizing, how he's so impossibly close to me but I can't reach him. I can't see him, can't even even move to the other side of the goddamn room. They just threw me in here with a guard holding me tight, helpless to do anything as the person I loved more than anything screamed.

It's been less than an hour since they took me away from him, less than an hour since he pleaded for my life and begged me not to go. He didn't even know I was still close when they took me, probably feared for me while the Confederation closed in on him. My hands are tied and I can feel the frayed rope burning into my wrists, the pain the only thing that grounds me between sanity and going completely mad.

The room I'm in looks like a neglected, abandoned office. The walls are painted grey but the paint is peeling and the floor has been stripped down to the bare concrete below it rather than carpeting, a single desk and two chairs occupying the opposite wall. The lone window has been boarded up. It must be night by now but I can't see the city, the room is lit by a white fluorescent light. Everything about the room screams interrogation, and I feel like I've fallen into some sick nightmare.

"Dan." I hear cordially. "How wonderful of you to join us."

My eyes lift to see Wirrow's peering back at me cautiously from the doorway, unnaturally silvery in a way I don't remember seeing before. But he doesn't look like a half life, his skin is still slightly coloured and there's a horrible array of bruises on his neck, though he doesn't appear to feel them.

I look him right in the eyes as he slowly enters the room. His expression reveals near nothing about his actions and his hands are weaponless.

Phil isn't with him. He probably knows that I've noticed that and rebels in the terror it must make me feel.

There's another guard behind him too but he waves that man away. The man leaves the immediately, leaving just us and the one who separated us in the first place. It feels like it's been seconds. They dragged me away, and now I'm here.

I want to kill them. I want to kill all of them. I kick the man holding me in the shin and my heel bounces off of some kind of body armour under his clothes, earning me a harsh yank back.

It's like he's mocking me, the way Wirrow steps up to me slowly and deliberately, taking his time to meet my eyes and smirk at me stuck in place. His hands are empty and somehow that unsettles me more than a weapon would have, the silence thrumming in my mind and making wonder if I'm going mad.

I don't know what's coming. I don't know if I should predict fear or pain. Words or fire. I don't know. I don't know, and my heart is pounding. It's classic to the confederation- terror and uncertainty.

They've taken Phil. They've taken Phil away and I don't know where to, what they're doing to him as we speak. All I know is that he screamed and I couldn't reach him. He screamed and then he didn't scream again.

I'm afraid. I can't pretend not to be, I'm so angry I want to strike Wirrow down where he stands, but all I can think of is Phil. They wouldn't kill him, would they? They can't make me comply if he's not there. That's what they always said.

But that was the thing about me and Phil. Call it a deep connection or call it deep-set fear, but when something bad is happening, if one is without the other, it's not a matter of question. If something is wrong I feel it, just like in the junkyard, in times of desperation there's this horrible feeling and deep down we just know.

And I know right now. He's not okay.

Wirrow steps closer. He contemplates me for a moment, silent. My breaths are stilted and ragged and I pull against the hold, repulsed by Wirrow's eyes dragging over me as if he's dissecting me. It's like he can't believe I'm here, taking in my features with an almost victorious air. The look on his face is emotionless, but I wonder how long he's waited for this moment. I wonder what he's itching to do.

He smirks just slightly, silent for a moment more, and then very abruptly meets my eyes.

"Your blood could be the end of this apocalypse."

I stare at him, not daring to move or speak. The bruises look even worse up close, deep and dark purple against his neck, and he sees my eyes go to them.

He nods and the guard behind me drops his grasp on my wrists, making me gasp as I stumble in surprise but regain my footing quickly, clenching my fists. I don't trust the reasoning behind their letting me go. Wirrow holds his gaze and I glare at him harshly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response. I take a step back, seeing the sadistic amusement in his eyes as he closes in on me, stepping right back in.

"Do sit down." He says, voice quiet but tone clearly not leaving me any choice.

I stare hard and bite my tongue to keep from lunging at him even as the guard grips my shoulders and forces me down when I don't immediately move. The chair is hard and cold against my back and before I can even struggle my bound hands are forced behind me, tied to the slats of metal behind me.

I can feel Wirrow's inhuman eyes on me still, waiting as my hands are bound.

I break the gaze. He doesn't get to see my fear. I don't answer him and I think he's amused by that. He just lets the silence hover unbroken, smirking at me without actually touching me and staring to pace a circle around me that makes me feel claustrophobic. Terror is coiling in my chest and every flight response in my body is telling me to run. I can't though, I can't run. If I run, Phil dies. If he hasn't already.

"You know, Phil attacked me." Wirrow says matter of factly, as if reading my mind. It's as if this is nothing of interest.

I fight to stay expressionless but my eyes widen, and I can tell he knows he's gotten what he wants. Without meaning to my eyes whip up to stare him and I see the bruises along the side of his neck again, just below his jaw in the shape of fingertips.

My mind connects the dots. Phil did that.

Perhaps I should feel exhilarated, but all I feel is dread. Dread at what he did to him for attacking. It hits me then what's happened- it all fits together far too well.

Wirrow stops right in front of me and I catch the flicker of annoyance in his expression when I don't reply, his eyes going narrowed and hard.

"If I were you I'd speak, Dan." He says darkly. "If you don't this will be so much worse for everybody involved. Especially if you ever want to see him again."

Evil. He's evil. He knows exactly what saying that is doing to me, he thinks it's funny that I react when he uses Phil's name.

"Don't fucking touch him." I finally grit out, swallowing the terror that threatens to constrict me as I get out my next words. "I'll tell you anything you want. You can do anything you want to me. But let him go."

Wirrow chuckles and pauses for far too long, and dread seeps in at once.

"It's a bit too late for that, I'm afraid." He mutters.

My heart thuds against my chest.

"Why?" I snap.

"Worried about him?"

I stare at him incredulously. "Tell me where he is."

"Have you ever seen someone turn before, Dan?" He asks instead.

He leans forward in his chair, as if to ensure I'm paying attention. Out of the corner of my eye I see him nod at the guard, who tilts his head in acknowledgement and moves to leave, leaving us alone in the room.

"Because I have."

I stay silent and it seems to irritate him ever so slightly.

"Would you believe me if I told you that none of this power was actually intentional? My creation of the virus was a fluke."

I lift my head, wondering where he's going with this. As soon as I look in his eyes I find I can't look away away, gaze locked on the merciless ones of the man who I couldn't escape after all.

Wirrow nods, expression cool. "The first time it happened, I was like you when you shot that man. Oh god, I've killed a living, breathing human. But then I turned another. And another. And I thought- what's one more man? What's ten, a hundred, a thousand?! Nothing. Man is nothing."

How the times have changed. I've killed more than one man now, his words washing over me numbly. He's still gazing at me with that unsettling stare, eyes roving over my vulnerable form.

He holds up a small syringe that shines with a clear liquid, holding it poised and cautious between his fingers.

"See this?" He asks quietly. He holds it in front of my eyes and then stands up, stepping over to the side of me and taking hold of my chin. I jerk away from the touch.

He leans forward and I can feel his breath ghosting my ear, breezing over it as he laughs darkly.

My eyes widen and I strain against the binds, immediately sure that whatever it is, I can't have it anywhere near me. He turns it over slowly in his fingers.

"This is what you've really been running from all these weeks."

There is no label. No marking of any kind or any distinct appearance. But just from his words, I know what's in that cylinder. I know the deadly power it holds. Contained within that small unassuming vial is the disease that decimated humanity.

I know without being told. The liquid inside that needle is the pure form of the virus.

My heart begins to pound and I feel panic shoot through me even as he leans back, beginning to pace around back and forth to continue the story.

"You'd be surprised how many prisoners asked me why. Why did I do this? Why am I looking for immune people and killing ten times as many others? Why am I so heartless? We as humanity are so strange, always assuming there has to be an endgame."

I feel confusion and glare at him, trying to silently twist my fingers until my hands find the knot, doubled and pulled tight. I hook a finger through it, trying to tug my way out.

"You created the virus." I say coldly. It's not that I'm entirely surprised, but now I know.

"I think that as we speak here together, Dan, we should maybe come to an agreement on something." He proposes, folding his arms. "And that is that we're going to agree not to lie to each other. So I'm going to tell you now why, and you're going to answer my questions. We both have something the other wants, so why waste time with pain or manipulation when this could all go as smoothly as you please?"

I can feel the threat in his words, the or else sitting just beneath it.

"What an honour." I spit. My hands are shaking, my heart is pounding but I try to garden my gaze. I'm not giving him the satisfaction of seeing my fear. "You're giving me a choice?"

He shrugs, smirking at me. "Contrary to popular belief, the Confederation isn't completely heartless."

It's true that this is new. Negotiation has never been Wirrow's game, it's always been about holding Phil and I in front of one another, turning us against the other. It's interesting that he wants to create an even playing field, it shows me just how much he wants what he thinks my blood can give him. But it's not just about my blood.

"You must really need me then." I shoot, mocking him. "Funny that one kid is this big of a concern to the Confederation. Really makes you look powerful to all those survivors."

I see his eye twitch then, just a flicker of annoyance. I don't know why but he's restraining himself, as if he's determined to convince me of how much power he actually has.

"You have no idea what scale the virus has reached." Wirrow cuts in darkly, snapping his gaze back to me from a few feet away. "With control of the human mind came great power. People revered me, followed me. We went global a long time ago. I watched the monsters spread it from city to city as people tried desperately to escape it, it used to set in slower back then."

I remember when the apocalypse began, how hundreds of cars had flooded the freeways the same way Phil and I had tried to just to escape the city. Many of them were probably already infected and by fleeing to their families, it probably just spread it further.

"Before I knew it there was a vastness of brilliant minds standing behind me." He recalls. "I suddenly had impossible leverage, manipulation like never before. You'd be amazed, Dan. If you let go of guilt you learn that humans are so susceptible. You want to know how the Confederation came to power?"

I'm shaking, but his words still resonate right to my core. I'm thinking of Phil again, though I try not to let it show on my face. Maybe if I keep talking someone will find him and save him.

Wirrow seems to be waiting for a response from me and I feel inclined to say some things, mainly urges to take his pride and shove it up his ass. Somehow though I know that giving that answer will sooner get me killed, the silvery syringe still within my vantage.

"You used people against each other." I guess, my voice dark.

"Yes." He exclaims, voice booming like I've discovered the grand prize. "I could threaten the government, taking hostages or families. Someone didn't do what I asked? What a shame, suddenly their whole family was turning. Their best friend became a monster. Reduce man down to their most primal, strip them to the primary layer of fear, and you achieve total control. Or better yet, make them think it can happen. If you keep that fear alive but never act on it, the fear takes root in their minds. Prolong it for results."

He creases his brow, looking troubled for a moment.

"Of course, the fundamental flaw came when the virus got out of hand. It took some time to realize that government was breaking down, there was nothing to control anymore."

He shakes his head and my heart begins to pound, seeing the giddy way he's looking at me. No human being should ever be proud of manipulating others.

"But it wasn't a setback. It was just unexpected. I stepped in and the world was now mine. The new world, full of mindless shells and living survivors. Half-lifes who worshipped me and my confederation. Mine. The world didn't belong to them anymore, people far less deserving than someone like me who has created a rare utopia. No governments who restrain with rules, no longer useless. Useless power is expendable, it's better just to set the flame and watch it burn. All that remains now are the strongest of survivors and immortal beings. Name another man who has ever reshaped humanity."

His smug expression darkens suddenly and he looks down at me, almost as if he's remembering I'm here.

"Only you and Phil ever escaped us." He says slowly. "Undermining our control doesn't fit the set plan. As you could probably imagine, the uprisings have been burning ever since you escaped us that night, there's an invasion going on right now, even I can see that. The confederation is breaking down as we speak."

I can't stifle the sudden hope that flares in my chest, my eyes widening in disbelief. He glares darkly, stifling the thoughts with disbelief at my audacity.

"But the resistance can't survive without immunity." He says flatly. "More forces will band and this era will resurface. You're the last of your blood left and you're here which the rebels can't possibly know, your inborn immunity the final thing standing between me and the new world. And fortunately, that won't be an issue any longer."

"What does the fate of the resistance have to do with me?" I ask lowly.

"Do you not consider yourself an ally of the resistance?"

He looks at me and I see the realization, one that I might not have even known myself.

"They tried to use you." He exclaims, fitting the puzzle pieces together. "You don't know where your loyalties lie."

"We're agreeing not to lie to each other." I tell him flatly. "Pretending is bullshit. I cared about keeping Phil alive. I cared about keeping my friends out of danger. I don't give a shit about your politics."

"Oh, that's sweet." He drawls insincerely. "You never did get the easy lot in this life, did you? Life uprooted, one friend to your name and you fell in love. What a story. You finally make more friends and one turns out to be a spy.

"No matter what you say," I grit out, "My loyalties will never lie with the confederation."

I finally realize the conclusion he's drawing from this, eyes widening as I feel the rope loosen at my wrists just slightly. I yank back my hand desperately, trying to pull back.

"You'll think twice about the opportunity to let the confederation show you mercy."

Anger and fear builds up inside me until can't take it anymore, my voice rising up and surging out.

"Mercy?!" I spit. "How are you showing me mercy?! I have nothing to give you!"

"You'll suffer so much more if you don't cooperate." He threatens. "The resistance will die at our hands even if this war is won. As long as I'm alive your life will never be content or safe."

I look away from him and he grips my shoulder hard, the ropes sliding loose of my wrists.

"So tell me, Dan." He growls, stepping forward once more. "If you had to make the choice between winning this war for us or dying right along with Phil, which decision would you make?"

Just as he finishes his questions my hands fly free. I lurch up out of the seat and kick it in front of me, gasping in fear and bolting for the door.

Without warning he yanks me by my shoulder and I feel it- a sharp, sudden prick in my back. His free hand grips me in place and the injection feels almost like a punch- an impact in my back that makes me gasp in pain.

It's like I've been shot at high speed, the pain shoots outward from the point and I double over, much to Wirrow's amusement. It's over almost as quickly as it starts, the hands releasing me and pushing me forward, but before I can regain my footing dryness floods my lungs and my chest contracts, and then my vision suddenly goes dark.

It happens instantly. I gasp, but for a moment no air reaches my lungs. It feels like I'm being pressed by a hundred weights, the burdens forcing me to the ground. And it's then- quite suddenly- that I know what this is, the air rushing back feeling overwhelming as nausea hits.

No.

My eyes fall shut and then my knees give way, buckling beyond my control before I can cry out. A searing heat hits me suddenly, bursting through my veins and buzzing in my fingers, but it's not gentle. It hurts.

And then just like Phil did, I'm screaming too.

I feel Wirrow's eyes boring into my back. With nothing to hold me up, my arms burn.

My hands hit the concrete and I grit my teeth, squeezing shut my eyes, unable to repress the choked sound as I'm hit with a feeling of dizziness so instantly it's impossible.

"Ah-" The sound leaves me and I barely hear it, too overwhelmed as I forget who and where I am and panic, my skin alive and crawling with what feels like invisible insects.

Crawling. Insects. Like there's something alive in my veins. Like something's taking over my body. Making me feel weak, making me sick, taking over my blood and my veins and reducing me like-

"Not very fun is it?" Wirrow hisses. He sounds triumphant- somewhere between laughter and euphoria. "So sorry about your boyfriend. It was so cute, how he told me not to hurt you and kill him instead. He said that, Dan. He had no way of knowing. It would have been easier if you died that night in the junkyard, I could have taken your blood without your pain. Inserting the virus is the worst part, though. This will all be over soon."

He pushes me to the ground and the sound I make is inhuman, tears trickling down my face as I moan, gritting my teeth. My hands and arms are shaking and I'm trembling so hard it's a feat suddenly to hold myself upright, and I'm trying.

Stop, I want to beg him. He's using Phil to mock me, tears building in my eyes.

Phil had begged them not to hurt me. He'd said to take him instead. First I'm hurting like I anger have before and then I can't think at all, because heat has flashed over my body again. I gasp as white hot fire explodes in my flesh.

The virus. He's injected the virus into my blood and the effects are instant, stronger than any pain or any illness I've ever known. It's like nothing I've ever felt, I feel like I'm disintegrating, being inhabited by millions of burning beings beneath my skin.

a cough leaving my lips as my throat starts feeling far too dry and it's then, and only then, that I see the blood on Wirrow's hands.

My body begins to tremble, the knowledge that I'm infected hitting me but overshadowed by the sheer agony of realizing why Wirrow must be weaponless, why he hasn't used him against me.

"What did you do to him?!" I scream, my heart shattering with every word. All I can think of is how I told Phil to get out. I try to tell myself that he did and Wirrow is lying again. He has to be lying. All he ever does is manipulate and I promised Phil he would live. That was my last promise to him ever.

Wirrow stares at me blankly, without a shred of remorse. He's looking without seeing. All I can see is the blood. It looks redder to my feverish mind.

"Are you sure you want me to answer that?" He allows himself to stand as closely to me as he pleases now, tracing the line of my jaw with the tip of his finger and grinning sweetly as I feel the drag of his fingertip, cold and blunt. "Or would you simply like to feel-" his hand grips my chin tightly, forcing me to look him in the eye, "-all of it?"

My neck gives out and my head falls onto my chest, I breathe heavily with the excruciation and the refusal to scream again. My eyes are burning and I don't conceal the tears that fall, because they're falling for Phil, for Phil. I hold myself up even though I'm on my knees, fighting with the last bit of life I have in me.

For what?

Phil. I didn't see it but I heard it. There was no mistaking that scream. It can't be real. It isn't real.

I can feel my breaths shortening, my mind spiralling into panic. All I can hear in my ears is my heartbeat, loud and maddening, all I can see is the pronounced veins in my arms and on my hands. I'm alone entirely for the first time ever, without hope and without a chance of survival. I didn't save Phil and now the Confederation has us both, I don't even care about what will happen when my blood doesn't save me. I'm going to die here, right here and right now.

"The immune blood needs to bond with the virus to reach its full potential." Wirrow says coolly as if he's read my thoughts, discussing the injection like a business proposal. "That's what the last man taught us. He died before we could perfect it though, this time there will be no mistake."

I can feel the virus in every cell, every drop of blood in my veins. The sensation is like a thousand parasites, creeping from the base of my hand, killing every bit of my body as they go. The sensation of turning is like nothing I've ever felt before. I can still hear my heartbeat pounding and I'm straining, trying to slow their ascent to my brain. Because as soon as it reaches my brain, it's over.

I'd never thought to imagine what self sacrifice really felt like. It isn't empowering and I'm not thinking about the greater good. All I can think about is how I'm dying, how Phil's gone. The confederation doesn't have us after all, but I hardly care anymore. No matter what people say or what I do, what I'm told, I'm only human.

"Please." The words leave my feverish brain before I can stop them. He looks far too satisfied by the response, overjoyed by the fact that I'm begging for the pain to end.

"What you're feeling right now, this is a power that even the strongest nuclear missile could never obtain." He murmurs, eyes never leaving my face. "We decimated countries with this. The whole world is powerless in the face of the deterioration of the human mind."

Deteriorating. That's what I'm doing. I'm being broken down from the inside out, cells dying one by one until eventually my body will be reanimated. Undead. I'm writhing against the discomfort and yet fighting it, an animalistic urge to survive prolonging my pain.

"Once your immunity is bonded with the virus, we'll have found the true cure." Wirrow says. "It'll be a matter of mere medicine then. We'll sample your blood until we've found a virus to defeat it, and then there will be no chance of defeating us again."

I barely hear him, don't care about his words. The colour is draining from my skin, and still he doesn't seem to notice.

"You're going to be the reason I kill the resistance for good!" He shouts. "This is it. This is the moment where it all falls into..."

His voice trails off as my breath stutters out. In my ears it sounds like glass shattering- a sharp blade of air, ripped from my lungs. I don't know how far I am from the end now anyway, but every noise is cacophonous and I know it won't be long.

The room falls deadly silent. I realize with muted horror that my fingers are curling without command- twitching and spasming beyond my control. My palm opens, fingers splaying oddly, then twisting, closing, opening again. And I can't feel any of it. I'm dying.

Wirrow's smug expression has vanished. Nothing pierces the air but the jagged sounds of my desperate breaths. His eyes are wide and for the first time he looks horrified, voice coming out a gasp as I meet his eyes, lifting my head with everything in me from where I'm half-conscious on the cold concrete, glaring at him defiantly.

"You're not immune." He mumbles. His eyes go wide. For the first time, I see genuine fear on Wirrow's face. "You're... but how are you not immune?"

My lungs are on fire. Nothing matters to me any more but the swiftness of death. I want it to come sooner, I don't feel any fear. My vision bends and warps, my heartbeat so loud I feel as if I'm going to go mad.

Oh, now you know. I think victoriously before pain creases my face and my eyes shut again.

A pounding silence.

"I-" I croak, fire in my chest and pain in my heart. "-I guess neither of us won in the end, did we?"

"But-" his gaze is frantic, he yanks me up which causes a scream to leave my lips and pushes me, slamming me back against the desk table. His eyes rake over my skin, over my pallored face and dry lips. "This is impossible. I saw you get bitten. All my sources and witnesses said it was you. My spy said it was you."

Earring. Maybe he did lie for me after all. Wirrow drops me suddenly and backs up and I grip the edge of the desk to stay upright, my legs begging me to just give up already. His eyes are panicked, I see his mind connecting the dots as some of the pain in my chest eases slightly, the emotional weight rather than the physical.

It feels like there's a hole in my heart. A space where love should be but instead is devoid and dark. Perhaps it's just that I have nothing left, but I'm no longer afraid as I was.

I look him in the eye, a weak smile managing to make its way to my face as I look this man in the eye, pleased that I can make him feel even a shred of the loss and hopelessness that he's put upon me.

"It was Phil you know." I get out. "It was Phil that was the immune one all along, and you killed him yourself. The immunity isn't yours. Neither is the cure."

It takes a few seconds for my words to sink in. I can see the moment they do, Wirrow's expression contorting into something terrifying.

He surges forward inhumanly quickly and grasps me by the collar of my shirt but I don't feel it. I go limply, a faint smile on my face even though he yanks me hard and pins me back against the wall.

Kill me. I think viciously. You've taken everything from me. You won't be helping yourself, you'll be doing me a favor.

"You-" he spits, breaths heaving and impossible terror on his face.

He lurches forward for my throat and I force myself to jerk out of the way, kicking my foot out when he reels around and pushing him back even as I'm pressed against the cold wall.

"I'll kill you!" He screams. "I'll fucking kill you before you stop feeling the pain! I had everything, everything this world had to offer."

His chest is heaving and I see angry tears in his eyes, devastation written on his features.

"And what are you going to get from killing me?" I croak. "I want to die. You've lost, Wirrow. There's nothing left for you to take from me."

I can tell he wants to say something. To hurt me and make my last moments in this world agony. It's written in every feature on his face. His inhuman eyes are inches from mine and I brace myself for it to be the last thing I'll ever see, barely even struggling as his fingers surge forward and close around my throat.

But just as I choke and jerk back there's a knife flashing through the air, his fingers wrenched from my shirt as it sinks into his side.

Wirrow's mouth falls open and he curls on on himself, collapsing on the floor as a blade is yanked from his body. There's no small sound when he hits the ground and I see the wielder grab him before he's even lifted his head, yanking him back and making him crumple. I just slump against the wall, blurry vision watching the attacker who crept in through the open door when we were distracted.

I'm stunned, my trembling hands going to my neck.

Wirrow's pulled back roughly, causing him to scream as a gun is lifted to his head.
He gasps, clutching at the the blade embedded in his side, blood spreading from the point of impact at an impossible rate. In the haze of my mind I think to notice how satisfying it is to see him so helpless, his hands scrambling to staunch more than he can cover as his face goes pale.

It takes me a moment to comprehend what I've seeing, looking at the gun more closely and feeling my heart drop in my chest.

That's my gun.

Wirrow's breath is shuddering the same way mine is now, his eyes going desperate as he grabs the attacker's wrist, yanking the knife from himself with a gasp and lunging to attack with it. The man with the gun stumbles back and my uncooperative eyes strain desperately to focus, to see who's saved me, hoping to see them kill Wirrow before I myself die. He's breathing heavily, whoever he is, they're both weakened in different ways.

He kicks Wirrow's hand and the knife is sent skittering across the floor, leaving the man with nothing but a slowly bleeding out wound. Wirrow tries to sit up defiantly, looking his attacker in the face.

When the pale face turns to face him, I don't even recognize it. His skin is bruised and battered and deathly pale, his eyes red-rimmed, all but concealing whatever was there before.

I see blood staining one whole side of his T-shirt, his walking altered and his hand pressed to his side. But he's moving in on Wirrow determinedly like his life depends on it, as if he could hardly care. I take all this in halfheartedly, not even clinging to the false hope that I actually want out of this.

But then his arm comes down and the butt of his gun cracks against the side of Wirrow's head and I remember who this gun belongs to, remember Harley handing it to me before we made a break for it to catch Earring in his truck.

I groan and he turns at the sound, his head lifting enough to reveal his eyes. They're vibrant, piercing the darkness with a shocking, impossibly bright blue that's so overwhelmingly familiar that I cry out, a choked sound leaving my lips.

Phil.

The air leaves my lungs, but not because of the virus this time. There's a broken cry clawing in my throat but it's not because I'm withering. The whole world is moving in hyper-sped time and there's a whirlwind in my chest and my heart.

Because Phil is fucking alive.

I choke out a sob, not even caring about the pain. I don't care about what I feel. I don't care about the virus or what Wirrow said. All I care about is Phil, a shiver wracking my frame that chills me right to the bone.

He's alive. My whole being cries again and again. Oh god, he's alive.

I don't know how it's possible. I try to scream at him to get back but I can't get the words out when my chest feels pressed and pained. My arms are still crawling with the horrifically unnatural sensation. He hits Wirrow again and the man collapses immediately, crying out in a way I've never heard him do before.

And no guards come to stop it. Wirrow has sent them all away.

It's surreal, to see the Confederation man who has taken everything from us, who has always seemed untouchable, just fall like that. He was caught by surprise but I wonder if there's ever been a situation like this where he hasn't had the upper hand.

He tries to sit up again but almost immediately pain wracks his face and his hands go to his side, grasping at the hilt of the weapon and curling around it. Phil steps up to him and I hear my heart pounding, rapidly racing so much that in this state my being trembles with it.

"You made me lose him once." Phil says suddenly, his face dangerous and unforgiving, unlike any expression I've ever seen on him before. He grips the gun without a hint of compassion or mercy, eyes devoid of anything but dark. "Now you're going to lose everything."

His breaths are shuddering and tinged with pain. I can't tell if it's physical or emotional. I thought I'd seen every expression Phil's face could form. I thought I knew ever curve, every smile, every expression of pain or grief or bliss. Between the two of us, Phil was the one who stayed steady, the one who never denied me of seeing love in tenfold.

But I've never seen Phil look like this before.

He drives the gun towards Wirrow's head and I hear the man cry out a second time, the concrete is running red and his lips are turning blue. I can see his lips parting with the effort to get enough air to breathe.

"Do it quickly." Wirrow spits unexpectedly, glaring at him through spikes of pain. "Please, Just end it. Don't ruin yourself in the same way."

Phil's eyes burn with hatred and he takes in a shuddering breath, hands shuddering around the weapon.

"What do you mean, don't ruin myself?!" He screams. "I didn't have a choice. I lost everything two years ago because of you. My family, my home, I was ruined a long time ago."

"We're all ruined." Wirrow spits. "You just had the audacity to get in the way of the confederation. You're no better than I am if you're killing too."

"You killed people to destroy the world." Phil retorts. "You didn't have a reason. We're not in any way the same."

Wirrow's expression, though pained, looks almost disappointed. I don't know if he's pretending he knows something Phil doesn't or he's just being manipulative, in any case it's clearly a last resort.

"I appreciate the notion that you think you can preserve humanity." He says flatly. "You're nothing in the face of this world."

"I can't preserve humanity." Phil says evenly.

He shakes his head and I finally see Wirrow's expression waver, confusion at the admittance of uncertainty. Silence hangs as he desperately tries to keep staring hard at Phil.

"Then why am I asking you to kill me?"

"Because I can change it."

They stare, a deadly silence pounding in my ears as my lungs begin to burn and I feel my skin going cold, contrasting sensations that make flickers of haze cross my vision.

"I'll be a martyr." Wirrow snaps. "The resistance is nothing to the size of my following. They'll rally, and there's still millions of zombies. You're nothing."

"You aren't a martyr."

"And you aren't going to live long enough to get out of here!" Wirrow shouts. His hand grasps at the knife weakly and he whips it up, wincing for only a moment. Phil's arm tenses, anticipating an attack, but Wirrow's arm is pointing the knife at me, rather than Phil.

"You aren't in time to save your precious Dan anyway." He spits. His eyes are wild and his face is dangerously pale, his trembling fingers betraying his loss. He's lost everything, afloat only on the smallest shred of sanity. "Go on, shoot me. I dare you! I'll put this knife into his back before you can even pull a trigger."

Phil looks at me briefly and I can't even fathom the amount of emotion I'm seeing. He doesn't even know yet what's happened to me. He looks at me and his expression softens, and suddenly I'm looking at Phil again. Somehow this realization in my dying mind that he's saved me and he loves me, it's suddenly much more bearable.

"You're scared." He realizes quietly, observing Wirrow again. "You were scared then and you're scared now too. You made a mistake with your work and nearly destroyed humanity, then you didn't know what to do so you justified it instead."

And it suddenly makes sense. The man hadn't intended for any of this to happen. The disease was his work but it spiralled out of control.

Wirrow's face contorts, his eyes gone wide like he's been dealt a physical blow. I can see it in his eyes that he wants to deny it, but for the first time ever, I remember the newscasts from the days and months before any of this had ever happened.

"Quarantine zones in London will likely only be restricted to small areas. The unknown disease is under control and there's no need to worry..."

"Biologists in line with Confederation Labs have taken to calling the disease Virus X, due to its lethal tendencies. A breakthrough in modern science, the virus is claimed to be a stepping stone towards the reversal of death..."

"Confederation Lab's heads of department have been suspended and taken in for questioning last Monday after investigation evidence suggested illegal activities..."

Him. All of that was him. All those bioexperiment reports that had meant little more than anything back in the normal days, This was something he'd never meant to do.

"I don't need your pity!" Wirrow screams. "I'm going to reshape the world and destroy the old humanity!" He's bleeding worse now. His hands are shaking and his own blood stains the knife, but his eyes are dangerous even through the madness.

"Why did you do it?" Phil protests. "Why did you let your work get out of control. What could you possibly gain from what you've done."

I remember Wirrow muttering to me about all the whys. He'd hated them, and now I know why he didn't have answers.

"Nothing!" Wirrow's voice is peaking, breaking as if he's lost his mind. "I've already done it now, there's no going back. You're going to die and I'm going to die, it doesn't solve anything. They were going to imprison me for life for creating a deadly virus. Zombies, they called them. Like this was something out of a movie. And do you think they listened when I said I couldn't find a cure? No, they tried to find it. Sooner than you could blink, it had gone around."

My legs are numb. I don't know why the virus is moving so slowly in my veins. It had taken Marzia so quickly, so mercilessly. I can feel every part of me where it's spreading.

"I turned one of the policemen just to escape them." Wirrow says darkly. "And they made the mistake. Even after I escaped, the government still tried to follow me. So you know what I did? I turned them too. But not before I turned their families so they could see what they had done. After that it became exhilarating, and it wasn't about preserving life anymore."

"You had the chance to save this." Phil gasps. "You know how to find the cure. Tell us. We'll tell everyone that you have."

Wirrow stills and I see Phil lower his gun, disbelief striking me simultaneously as the confusion seems to appear on Wirrow's face in equal measure.

"You're offering me mercy?" Wirrow spits. "After everything I've done? After my creatures murdered your best friend and your families?"

And still Phil keeps the weapon down. I can't believe it.

Wirrow is the one chance we have to understand this. He created the virus, but he knows how to stop it too. I know it could never happen in time for me to survive. But it's not about the virus. It's not about the world. After all that this man has done, Phil is suggesting he can forgive him.

"I've killed people too." Phil says quietly. "But this can't keep happening. You're never going to live in a world where you'll be free but you don't have to destroy it. You asked me to think about your words when you said to join you. Why don't you work with me, and neither of us have to die?"

"I don't need your mercy." Wirrow snaps.

"And I don't need your help." Phil answers. "But I don't want to kill you. No matter what you do, you belong to the rebels either way. I'm offering you a chance at decency."

I see something change then, feel it even though my aching mind is half sunk in a world of hallucination. It's hazy but I wonder if I don't see a hesitation in Wirrow's eyes, a moment where he's frozen, caught between then and now.

Now in this moment, I know that he hadn't wanted this either. I'm not as kind as Phil, I can never forgive him. But to see the crack in Wirrow's composure, this moment near death that has exposed this regret and terror, it makes me think for a fraction of a moment that he does feel some kind of remorse.

I see Phil staring at him and I see the man staring back. His knife is pointed at me anymore. His body shudders when he can no longer hide the pain and I see his head lower, defeated as he gives in.

Phil is hesitant, but he steps forward. He doesn't say anything else, doesn't reassure the man or show implicit trust. He doesn't trust him, but he still takes that step.

Wirrow looks up at him coolly, as if in question. The stark white lighting throws a shadow over him and I wonder what's even real anymore. Seeing him blink up as if in a haze. His fingers curl over the knife, grounding to it when his life is imbalanced. He looks up at Phil, and I see his expression shifting.

Then he lunges forward with the knife in his hand, staggering to his feet and aiming it straight toward Phil's heart.

He screams, the sound borne of rage and delirium and my best friend doesn't have nearly enough time to move back.

That's when Phil fires the gun, freezing time and then speeding it forward so quickly it's a blinding rush of red and black and grey. It's like a moment out of focus, I don't see it so much as hear it. The bang echoes off the walls and ceilings, the recoil stuttering Phil's hand.

Black. Grey. Red.

Like a rip in the universal fabric.

Grey. Black. Red.

It's chaos, the sound is like a punch as my breath halts and I blink.

A matter of moments, sudden. Like the wolf attack. Like mine and Phil's first kiss. Like the moment we decided to run.

The bang sets my vision out of focus, shattering it into shards and then reassembling them in seconds. I watch transfixed as Wirrow collapses, crumpling to the floor with a blank expression. His lips parting, his fingers falling slack and then stop moving entirely, there's a crash that happens elsewhere that makes the building rock. It knocks the air from my lungs, makes moments disjointed until it all builds up and then shatters, and suddenly time moves again.

The events and pain of days, months, years, they amount in a second as he slumps onto the concrete.

I see blood being to pool on the floor. In the vague, back part of my mind that isn't yet succumbed I think of my old school days, when a health teacher told us how head wounds always bleed worse than most others. The confederation leader's eyes are open but they aren't seeing, blood trickling from the impact in his forehead and outward in a way that doesn't look real.

In the span of a split second. Like all the moments in Phil and I's life, it happens in an instant.

And even still, at first, it doesn't really register what's going on. What's happened.

He's dead. My feverish mind mutters. I don't know what it means. He's dead.

There's a frozen, unbreakable silence in which nobody moves and nothing matters. Time ceases to move on in space. Blood runs stagnant. The virus stops pulsing in my skin.

Then Phil is at my side, and I gasp in relief and pain as he grips my by the elbow, taking in a shaky breath as I feel his touch again and fully allowing myself to realize that he's okay. I find myself leaning towards him and aching for support, feeling like I'm about to fall any second if I shut my eyes.

Phil. Phil. Phil. Phil.

A shiver wracks my body and my throat feels far too dry, I cough and as my body heaves my eyes lock on the sight of Wirrow, eerily still in the shadows.

He's dead. I realize dully. Wirrow is dead.

The Confederation leader. The one who took our life. The reason for broken hearts and destroyed families, the reason Felix lost Marzia and James lost his parents and I lost myself and who I was, everything. He had millions following him, monsters who took his side. We were drugged because of him, bitten, burned, beaten. I'm transfixed on him, reaching out for Phil as he reaches for me and still time is moving too slow. It happened so quickly, this monumental moment which feels oddly like nothing to me.

The world has ended because of him. He let it get out of control and then owned it, yet now he'll never hurt anyone again.

Everything, all of it. He's gone. It's over.

It's like I can't look away, my whole body going still as my vision glazes over and, quite suddenly, my mind goes blank.

"We did it, Dan." Phil breathes emptily, the moment and the sound of his voice equally surreal. He isn't happy, just in disbelief. "We... did it." His voice sounds distorted and his words feel numb. Perhaps he should be happy, but he's not.

I'm hit with a wave of nausea suddenly. I feel a wave of blistering heat washed over me like fire, clutching Phil's hand for support and yet not feeling it. I feel his hand go to my face and then I stop feeling anything, swaying on the spot because the fire isn't in my blood now. It's in my head.

He strokes my cheek and it hits me that I love him, and then my vision starts to swim.

"Oh." I breathe.

It's then that my arms give out, my eyes fall shut, and I collapse.

"Dan!" I hear Phil scream, his voice suddenly frantic. "Dan!"

I feel my vision going hazy, see Wirrow's limp form vaguely in the corner of my view before it's replaced for a moment with black. Another much more violent shiver rocks through me and I crumple against Phil, not missing the choked cry that leaves him as a surreal kind of ache crushes around my heart.

"What-" he chokes. His hands go to my face and I realize how similar this is to a night passed, his fingers trembling against my skin. "Dan!"

"You sound just like me." I mumble dazedly. It's weird how similar we are. We both react to death the same way. It's not him that's fallen this time but me like a cruel parallel, the same kind of virus in the same kind of way.

"What?"

"In the junkyard." I tell him, voice hoarse. "It's like when you were gone. He shot me with it, Phil. I have the virus in my blood."

The realization dawns on his face and I see his face fall, and only then does it finally dawn on him what has happened to me after Wirrow had gone.

"No." He cries. My skin feels so, so hot.

"Get out of here." I tell him. I'm getting sick of saying it.

It's a strange thing to realize you're dying, in your lover's arms no less. It happened so swiftly, I can see why Marzia wanted us gone. Nobody should ever have to see this.

"He thought you were immune this whole time." He realizes, words choked. "Oh god. This is all my fault."

"It's okay," I breathe weakly, my eyes already falling closed. It's not a bad feeling anymore, the burn has dulled and the parasite is stilled, settled in. The feeling is now soft and sweet, as easy as falling asleep on a feathery pillow. I nestle my cheek into his palm and smile at him lovingly, which is a lot of work but is absolutely worth it if I'm doing it for him. "You're alive." I whisper. "That's all that matters."

"No! Keep your eyes open!" He pleads, but it's all far away. I'm blurring around the edges, I can't feel any pain anymore. It's all just vanishing. Slipping away. His voice is so pretty. It echoes in my my mind and fills it with fondness, I'd be fine to know he's the last thing I'll ever hear. I cling to that, trying not to think of how he's hurting.

"Please!" He screams, his cold hand tightening on mine. He's shaking, and it makes my heart ache more.

"There's nothing you can do, Phil. I'm turning." I say, like this sort of thing happens every day. It does, honestly. I'm not sad to think I was able to delude myself for a while that it would never happen to me.

"I can't lose you." He chokes, voice breaking. "I can't lose you again."

I feel tears drip onto my face. One, two. Warm, but painful.

"I'm sorry." I hear myself telling him. "But you have to. Get out of here. Go save other people from the confederation, go finish what we started."

He goes to start speaking but then gasps, a pained sound escaping his lips as his legs seem to give out beneath him.

"I-" he gasps, gripping my hand painfully. My eyes widen as he sinks to the ground and his hand presses into his side, and only then do I really see it, see the crimson blooming beneath his fingertips, concealed before by his hands and my hazy vision. "I-I can't."

And that's when it hits me.

He's wounded.

"Phil." He tries desperately to sit back up and conceal the truth from me but he can't, collapsing against the wall but refusing to let go of me. My voice chokes and all at once a surge of adrenaline hits me and I can lift my head enough to look at him, miraculously able for all the wrong reasons. All at once, tears are burning in my eyes. "Phil no."

"I can save you." he gasps, ignoring me.

How could I have missed this?

"No!" I scream, awake suddenly, impossibly. There's adrenaline in my veins, pain shooting through my head as I try to sit up. "Get out of here!"

He doesn't even try to humor me. I flinch as he grips my hands hard.

"That's not fucking happening." He spits. "You don't just get to tell me that. I'm not going anywhere." There's blood on his hands. I can't tell if it's mine or his. Now it's stained both of us.

"I'm a zombie." I gasp. "I'll kill you if you stay. I can't do that to you."

Grief rips through my heart like an old, toxic friend. I remember that night in the junkyard, choking out a sob even though he's breathing right now.

"I left you last time!" He shouts. "I let them take you away from me tonight. I'm not leaving you ever again."

"What did he do." I shudder out. My voice breaks horribly and I grip his hand so hard our knuckles turn white. "What did he do to you?!"

"He stabbed me." He shudders, words rushed. "He left the knife by my feet because he was so sure I would die. He didn't even shut the door so I just- I just crossed the hallway. But he'll never hurt you again. I won't let him hurt you."

A lump rises in my throat and before I can think I've lurched towards him, pulling his head to my chest and burying my face in his hair with a broken sound. He yelps in pain, but he still leans just as closely.

"You have to get back to the rebels." I plead with him, trying to make his stupid mind see sense. "Your blood is the cure. It needs to be bonded with the virus. You have to tell them that, Phil."

They can save him. They can save him if he gets out. He needs to get it out of his stupid head that he needs to stay with me and get out of here already. Wirrow's body lies forgotten on the ground in the other corner of the room, but I don't even care about that anymore. The world can burn for all I care, humanity is ruined and dying as we speak. 

"Dan, you're dying." He gasps.

"You're so goddamn beautiful." I tell him, because I want him to know, I need him to hear it one last time. "The best friend I ever had." I smile even though the weakness in my voice is awful and is probably harder for him than anything beyond belief to hear. I set a palm on his cheek, using my thumb to brush away the tears there.

"You're the love of my life." He blurts brokenly. "Dan you fucking idiot. I love you."

It's the last thing I need to hear, the single pin that breaks the back of my resolve. He's said the one thing that I can't let go unheard, not with so much meaning and promise.

My eyes feel like they weigh a thousand pounds but with everything in me I open them, bringing down his face suddenly with my upright hand and kissing him hard. I try to put so many things into it, knowing that in a few minutes it's all he'll have left. I don't want him to hurt but I can't make it stop, so I hurt too, tasting his lips while I can and feeling the return that means everything.

This is a kiss unlike one we've ever had. We're crushed together and holding on so tightly there'll surely be bruises, shaking and yet never so beautifully harmonious with the other in our entire lives. I am his pain and he is mine. I kiss him like it's goodbye and yet forever, like now and also always. I kiss him like I'm dying.

And I am.

Then, he suddenly pulls away, a sob shuddering past his lips.

"Stop." He gasps. "No. This isn't happening."

I look at him, trying desperately to breathe in enough air to keep conscious. The crawling sensation has faded to mute, sealing my fate. I try to cling to memories, try to recall every moment phil and I have had together, because how can I ever let myself become a monster and forget him?

But it's happening. It's fading, feeling more like compression and less like pain. I just want to memorize his face, but meeting his eyes has him jerking back from me like I've burned him.

"Your eyes are losing colour." He gasps. "Dan-"

"Just let me hold you." I manage, feeling him tremble as he gathers me into his chest, sniffing into my hair as he pulls me into his arms the way he always did even before I even realized I'd fallen in love. The way I always wanted, even if I couldn't admit it there.

It feels odd not to have control of my limbs anymore, I snuggle into him gratefully and pretend I can't feel the way his arms tremble as time runs out, closing my eyes and leaving kisses gently on his neck. I wish I could comfort him for longer. We use the concrete wall as support, propping ourselves up like furniture.

"I don't want it to end this way." He chokes, painfully honest. "I'm not even scared to die, really, I knew it was coming as soon as he raised the knife but... God I don't want to. I don't want you to. I wanted to grow up with you and go everywhere and escape this hell, just for a little while."

He sinks lower and I can feel him trying to resist.

"Me too." I answer honestly, using a shaky finger to push aside his hair. My whole body aches. "Just once, maybe one more night."

"We promised to shoot each other." He blurts. "But I don't want to shoot you. I'm scared. I-I-"

I shush him and try not to think about when I'd been in the same place, holding my gun to his skin and pleading for things to be different.

"You don't have to." I whisper. "I just want you to be happy. God, that's all I ever wanted."

He says something else but it's dark and his voice is veiled, I don't know what the words are. I feel the tempting clutches of dark, painless bliss, sinking into it gratefully as the guilt and the sadness dissolves. Nothing but comfort, nothing but warmth. That's who Phil is and that's what I feel in his arms, this feeling of someone who loves me.

He sniffs in a way that's riddled with pain and it hurts so much, knowing that he's suffering. His body curls and I take his hand tightly.

"It hurts, Dan." He whispers, a shudder running through his body. Even through the weakness in my head the words are worse than the virus, because of anyone in this world, Phil deserves this the least. Gentle, beautiful Phil. He can't be dying, he has to live. "It hurts so much."

It's not a pain like one we've ever felt before. This is goodbye forever, the last one that's ever going to be said between him and I. He's not talking about the physical pain. This is something much, much worse.

I feel a sharp sting in my chest and cry out suddenly, my neck going limp as pain builds above my heart, trying to stop its beating.

"Shh. It's okay." He breathes, looking determinedly into my eyes even as a tear slips down his cheek. And he tries to hold my gaze, but we can't look for nearly long enough. I can't bring myself to look at the blood soaking through his sweater, I just want him to be happy in his last few moments, and though I know I can never hope to achieve this, I can let him know I'm here. I shift so that his head rests on my shoulder, trying to ignore the way his breathing is becoming weak gasps because he knows what's happening.

The virus is reaching my heart. In a few minutes it'll take over and then that will stop too. It'll pass form my heart to the rest of my body, and then it'll reach my mind.

And I can't let Phil see that.

I won't force him to stay with me when this world is such hell. I won't fill his waking hours with pain if I can't hold on. He's staying here for me and I don't want to leave him, so I need to let him know somehow that he can live without me.

And these will be the hardest words I've ever had to utter in my life. That doesn't escape me as tears build in my aching eyes.

"I'll miss you." I mumble.

He makes a weak sound and cries brokenly into my shoulder, squeezing my hand that can't even hold his back.

"It's okay." He whispers unexpectedly, making my throat constrict even as my eyes fall shut. He runs trembling fingers through my hair, keeping his arms around me so that despite the coldness in my blood, I feel warm. "It's okay, Dan. Just let go."

I hold him and I upright until it becomes too much and I fall without control, unwillingly handing the whole burden to him as our fingers remain linked tightly together.

And I know what he means. The longer I stay here, the harder it's becoming to hold on. My body is stilling and my heart is slowing, I'm dying and he's telling me it's okay. Of course he is. Because he's Phil, he knows. He's telling me it's okay so I don't have to make that choice. I don't have to assure him that he'll be fine because I know he won't be. He's the one who's letting me go, because that's what you do when you love someone.

But I haven't said enough. I want him for so much longer than we have, but that's not to say we won't meet again. Maybe I will see him in another universe. So with no fire behind my words, I try to say it anyway.

"I can't, Phil. I won't leave you." My voice is barely audible.

He lowers his head and presses a soft kiss on my lips, pushing my hair back with his hand.

"You can, I'll be here with you." He says. "You can do it."

I sink against him as he presses his lips to my forehead, and he's definitely crying now. I can hear the sharp breath and the choked sound after it, hear the pain in his voice because he's still hurt and bleeding.

He'll survive. I don't know how I know it but I do, he needs to go on without me.

But I want him to know I'll always be there, It's sad to have to break a promise to him, but I can't lie to him either. He has to let me go. I have to let it happen.

My body gives up and my head lies against my chest. I finally relent, relaxing into his hold, his are shoulders shaking.

"I love you." He says weakly.

"And I love you." I breathe. "I'll marry you one day."

Then there's nothing I can do as his strength gives out too. Unable to remain upright we collapse to the floor, my vision going empty as we hold each other, painfully aware that we are, the both of us, dying. It may be in different ways, but it's only when he stiffens that I realize my last words need so many more follow ups.

"I want you to know that-" He starts to speak but then cuts off, so deadly silent it strikes my mind to feel afraid. Except I can't feel. Oh, feeling is draining away. Am I falling?

I go to open my mouth, to reassure him that it's okay- and I realize I can't. My expression has gone slack, I can hear him still but I can't control my body anymore. My hands are a million weights, I can't lift them. I won't be able to ever again.

"Dan, no."

I love you, Phil. I think it with my final breath, he's panicking and I must have gone still in his hold, static is filling my vision and oddly all I feel is numb.

"Dan."

And then my eyes slip shut. My heartbeat stills. Sound fades. The last thing I feel is Phil, and then nothing.

So maybe we didn't survive this after all. But at least he doesn't have to face this alone. I'm not afraid as I feel his hand reassuringly one last time.

I'm not afraid as I fall into the night.

There's still one chapter left.
~A🌙