His heart pounded furiously in his chest, as if it were trying to force a lifetime's worth of beats into these last few minutes. He heard a muffled groan from beside him and forced his head to turn. A single arm was protruding into his line of vision and twitching slightly beside his own arm, the whiteness of the sleeve covering the arm tainted by the blood seeping from the lacerations visible on the exposed skin. Wishing for an escape from the pain, and fearing he would be alone, he stretched his fingers to pull the other hand into his. Only the terror of the situation could have forced him to reach out to the other. Neither showed weakness or fear while fighting for their lives, but now that the fight was over and lost, they could show their true feelings. Slight pressure in return proved that he would not be alone. Trying to use this thought to banish the terror seeping through his veins, Ellis closed his eyes and focused on the pressure n his hand telling him he would not be alone through this.

…

Four hours previously

"Coach, no!" Rochelle's shrill cry pierced the night as she lost her grip on the blood-soaked hand she had been clutching. Coach had released his hold on her hand after realizing that his weight had been pulling her off the rooftop more than she was pulling him back up. He landed on his feet and swung his chainsaw to demolish the infected around the bottom of the ladder before kicking it away. The infected that had been climbing it fell onto his chainsaw and died.

"Find Nick and Ellis, Ro! Get out of here!" He was leaning on the wall for support, barely able to stand by himself. "I love you, Ro. Don't let them change you."

Rochelle held back a sob. "I'll never stop loving you, Coach." She turned and ran after the infected that were surrounding Ellis and Nick.

Unseen by Rochelle, Coach put a gun to his head and closed his eyes. "I will never become one of you!" He growled at the approaching infected, throwing several molotovs at them before pulling the assault rifle's trigger and blowing his brains out. The fire consumed the bodies, making Coach's form indiscernible from the hoard of dead infected around him.

While Coach's corpse burned beyond recognition, Rochelle reached Ellis and Nick and killed dozens of infected by swinging her katana in great, swooping arcs. Ellis was firing a shotgun almost nonstop, while Nick chose to annihilate hundreds of infected with his machine gun.

"Where's Coach?" Nick called as he kicked an infected away from him while he reloaded.

Fighting tears as she slashed madly at the teeming bodies around her, Rochelle managed only one word: "Dead."

"Shit." Ellis said. Fear was threatening to take over his face, but a jockey jumped Rochelle right then and he and Nick leaped into action to rescue.

They finally got the jockey off of her, but she could hardly stand anymore. "Nick!" She grabbed his hand. "I don't want to be one of them!"

"You won't be, Rochelle."

Ellis grabbed Rochelle's other outstretched hand and knelt beside her, keeping watch for more infected all the while. "Don't want to be alone…"

"You're never alone, Ro." Ellis said to her as Nick aimed his gun and pulled the trigger. They left her there with a hole in her chest and a smile on her face. "Shit, Nick, was that the right thing to do?"

"If you let the infection kill you, you become one of them. She asked me not to let her be one of them. If she had been in any condition to move, we might have been able to save her. She wasn't." He fell silent after what Ellis believed to be the longest speech he'd ever heard the conman give. They ran in silence, hoping beyond hope that there would be help for them around every next corner, every next building. Ears straining to hear anything unusual, both men ran in silence for a long time. Only when the pain in his thigh became too much to bear did Ellis finally slow down and speak.

"If we don't get to a safe house soon, I'm not gonna make it." He gestured at the slash on his leg one of the common infected had opened before Coach had died. "Without the antidote in those health packs, I'm done for."

Nick crouched beside Ellis to get a better look at the cut. "This won't kill you, Ellis. You have to keep moving."

Ellis slid to the ground. "That will just make it worse, you know it." He looked up at the older man and an intense feeling self-loathing burned in his chest. By resigning himself to death, he was also condemning Nick to the same fate. The conman would never take the risk that he would make it alone; he feared becoming infected too much.

"You're going to make it, Ellis. The safe house… it's right around the next corner."

Ellis tried to push himself up, for Nick's sake if not his own, but he hardly had enough air to keep breathing, let alone stand up and run for several more hours. "Unless you can drag me there, Nick, I'm not gonna get anywhere." He closed his eyes and said the words he had sworn to himself he would never utter. "I can't do it. It's impossible."

Nick's silence was almost too hard for Ellis to bear. He knew that Nick knew that Ellis would never say that he couldn't do something unless there was less than no chance for it to be possible. As long as there was an ounce of fight left in the kid, he would never give up. Admitting his own defeat cost Ellis the remainder of his dignity. Now, slumped in front of Nick and giving up like this, Ellis knew he was going to die in shame. If there was an afterlife, Ellis would never ever forgive himself for being weak when Nick could still have lived with Ellis' help.

"Don't worry kid, the pain's going away now." Nick mumbled, pointing his gun at Ellis. Ellis finally opened his eyes and stared into Nick's face, wanting nothing more than for it to be over. Would it hurt? Was there going to be a white light? Would he go to Heaven? Or Hell? Did they even exist or were they just figments of humankind's imagination? Would he just be… gone? Nothing left but a body to be eaten by infected? Ellis wanted to scream at Nick to get it over with, but the older man hesitated a moment too long. "I'm glad I met you, Ellis. Even though we're about to die-"

A Hunter's scream pierced the air and Nick spun around to find it. It launched onto Nick's back and sent him face first into the ground. "No!" Ellis screamed and, using the strength he didn't know he had anymore, tackled the Hunter. It snarled angrily and dug its claws into Ellis' flesh. He screamed in pain and tried to push the Hunter off of him. Gunshots exploded in Ellis' ears and the creature flew off him.

"Shit… dropped… ammo…" Nick's voice was weak and Ellis heard him trying to drag his body toward the ammunition. It was too far out of reach and Ellis heard Nick's body fall onto the ground a final time. A defeated sort of cry emanated from his lips. "Don't… want… to… be… one… of… them…" He took rasping, scratchy breaths between each word. Ellis could feel his fear gathering. Nick coughed, spraying blood everywhere. Ellis forced air into his lungs and his heart beat frantically.

He heard something that nearly made him die of shock: Nick began to cry. Really cry. Choking and sobbing as he fought to reach his ammunition again. Ellis lost control of rational thought and nearly began crying too as he felt rather than saw Nick collapse close by, his hand just barely brushing the younger man's as he fell.