I apologize for this so much, Lily. I don't know what happened to my brain. But I like this, so I'm posting it, so if you hate it, let me know. If you ever check your five thousand emails and see it at all XD
To the readers, enjoy!
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She just... couldn't believe this.
The world wasn't fair; she knew that now more than ever. Terrible, horrible things happened for no reason at all, just because they could and because they did and because that's just how it was. It wasn't vindictive or cruel. It was just what it was.
But maybe she'd read too many stories before the world finally started to die. Maybe she shouldn't have brought those few books with her when she escaped, maybe she should've brought that extra dull knife instead, because Lord knows she might've found a way to use it two or three months later. Too much daydreaming, too much writing before people turned into monsters.
Too much remembering how it should be, thinking about other things, too much hoping in a hopeless world where luck didn't exist.
Because it felt like after everything they'd gone through- everything she'd gone through- to find Lily, to just find her again, it should've worked. After losing her parents, after stealing their guns and kitchen knives, after running through the streets covered in blood to cover their scent and figuring out how to load a gun just to teach her little brother how to use it; after killing people and learning how to not trip over her own two damn feet- after losing so many people who had tried to help her, after having so few left who would still help her find Lily- and then losing Noah- and just-
She was so close.
Lexi didn't know what was worse. Thinking Lily was dead or a Walker or who knew what after searching the entirety of her campus without a single trace- going on like that for nearly a week thinking her best friend was dead- or finding her for just a day, just one single day where she'd thought finally, finally everything was going to be okay, only to have her get-
She could feel them burning in her eyes, the tears, but she didn't cry, for whatever reason. It didn't feel real yet. Her ears felt like maybe they were ringing, shoulders completely slumped with shock, sat there on her knees on the floor of whatever dirty hole they'd deemed safe for the last few weeks.
And she stared.
She stared at the cracked brick just an inch or two from Lily's face, probably looking for all the world completely not present. And she wasn't, really, but they were wrong if they thought she couldn't hear them.
"- can't just let me turn into a fucking zombie. Jesus fuck, why is everything so-"
"We're not gonna kill you!"
"I'm dead anyway!"
"It doesn't matter!"
"I can feel it. Shit, it's only been a few hours; it's already fucking rotting."
Lily was crying, Lexi could hear it in her voice. She'd seen people turn before, after being bitten. Maybe if they'd gotten there as soon as it happened, maybe if Lexi hadn't lost her knife, maybe if the world was less complicated; maybe if one of them had gotten there in time to cut the arm off above the wound. Maybe then, she'd be okay. Maybe then.
But there was no going back now. Lily was going to die, and Lily was going to turn.
"You can't do this," Mark hissed. "We've been all over this damn state looking for you-"
"I'm infected!"
"Do you know how hard that girl has been-"
"Don't bring her into this!" Lily howled, but immediately quieted at Paula's frantic shushing. This, Lexi knew, was smart- just because a base seemed secure didn't mean you couldn't screw yourself over by attracting Walkers. The Undead, once they knew you were there...
They didn't give up.
"Look, just-... I don't know." She was in pain, her words strained. "Is there anywhere else-... or..."
"Lexi," Paula said from beside her, a sudden hand on her shoulder. It was meant to be comforting, but if Lexi had been more aware of herself- under normal circumstances- it only would've made her jump. "Are you okay?"
She didn't feel a single muscle in her face shift. Just the heat in her eyes, the ever-present sound of snapping jaws and scuffling feet just a few yards above. Lexi didn't answer.
"I'm not gonna take you outside and put you down like a dog somewhere Lexi can't see." Mark said, final. "She doesn't deserve that. I just- this is so messed up. Everything is so messed up. I'm not shooting someone who isn't dead. I just- I can't."
"It's gonna be okay, Lexi," Paula said, and now everyone but Lexi was crying, even Mark, who'd only ever shot at Walkers. Lexi had only ever killed Walkers. Everyone still alive in this little group had only murdered Walkers. "We'll figure this out."
She didn't think it was anything Paula had said, but all of a sudden, she was crying. Not much. Just a few of the burning tears slipping from where they'd been beading; she wasn't really even crying, just leaking a bit. Maybe if she started, she'd never stop.
"I don't want to fucking eat people."
"Then we'll kill you if you turn!"
"I don't want to turn at all, don't you get it?! I want to die exactly who I am!"
"I refuse."
There was a split second of silence, where Lily's eyes finally drifted to hers for the first time since she'd dressed the bite, the head wound. Such easy, fake conversation then. Her eyes were soft and sad, pinched in the corners like they were whenever she wanted to say please without damaging her pride.
Or, in this case, she guessed, Lexi's sanity.
Who would ask their best friend to force somebody to kill them?
Not Lily. But that was what she was thinking.
What she wanted.
And she was right.
So Lexi brushed off Paula's worried hands, unstuck her eyes from the wall, and pushed off the floor, standing, steadier than she would've thought, would've liked. But there was weakness in her knees, liquid in her limbs, like in a dream. She wouldn't mind if Lily turned- it wouldn't ruin her image of her friend forever, she knew the difference between a person and a Walker.
But Lily would die knowing she would turn- the one thing she didn't want.
If she'd been okay with it, maybe then.
But last thoughts- last words- last moments- those were important. Those meant everything. Her stories may have corrupted her, and maybe they'd lead her to the wrong conclusions, nurtured that one unbreakable strand of hope that it would work, that there was no way it wouldn't- but they'd taught her that. And without that drive, Lexi didn't know if she'd have made it this far.
She opened her mouth. Closed it again.
Mark turned around, following Lily's eyes. Her friend was tied, uninfected arm lashed to a bit of exposed iron skeleton; the insides of the wall.
"It's okay," she said, softly. "Lily. I'll do it."
"What?" There were shades of panic in Mark's eyes, in his tone. "No!"
"Fuck no," Lily snapped.
"It's okay," she repeated, and her friend hesitated. Knowing how her stories had affected her. Knowing she meant what she said, that she wasn't really being strong, just telling the truth, with only a little trying not to break down screaming. "It won't hurt me. Well. Not more than you dying any other way would."
Lily's eyes squeezed. "I'm sorry," she whispered, in that tear-hoarse voice. "I'm- I'm sorry."
Her hands went to the gun in her hoodie pocket, and she pulled it out, a weapon she hadn't known how to use four months ago. She didn't know how many bullets she had left. Probably, following routine, she would count them tonight, refill.
Or maybe not.
She didn't know what she was going to end up doing tonight.
"Lexi-"
"Stop it, Mark. You know she's right."
Her voice was soft, sympathetic. And Mark, without another word, merely closing his eyes, shifted away, shaking his head.
For a second they just looked at each other, she and Lily. Hazel on black. The gun was freezing, leeching all the heat out of her hands, as it was wont to do the colder it got at night. It felt like it should've been warmer.
"Mark." That was Paula. "Let's- let's go help Louis, okay?"
Lexi waited for them to leave, for the door to close tight, before she sighed, a long, terrible sigh, and knelt in front of Lily, knees to knees. Exhausted.
"I tried," she said. Suddenly her throat was tight. Talking had always been hard when she was upset- the more she talked the more it triggered tears. "I tried so hard, Lily. I came looking for you- me and Noah and Deven. Noah's dead. I don't know where Deven is, we- we got separated in Miami. He's- he's probably walking."
"I wish you hadn't," Lily said. "I was coming for you, too."
"I would've anyway."
"I know."
"I love you."
"Shoot me." Lily's eyes closed briefly, and then opened, hard. "Just- God, I'm sorry. Just shoot me."
"Yeah." She played with the safety, shifting it on and off. Not yet. "Do you remember when we met? Really met. In Success Strategies." God, that class name felt strange in her mouth. Too normal, too far away. "And- and do you remember the spi-" Her voice cut off from the strain of trying not to cry, a breathy hiss, before she took another breath. "The spider?"
Lily nodded, stiff. Lexi laughed slightly, for her. It was a funny story, after all.
To appease her, Lexi flicked the safety off, raised it up and to the side so it was facing Lily's temple, just out of her eyesight, if she looked straight forward at Lexi. She didn't touch it to her friend's skin, kept it just off. Lily was tense, bracing for the inevitable.
"And all that time we spent writing fanfiction? Poring over exactly what would happen if we were in all those worlds..."
"Yeah." Now Lily smiled a little, looking far away. Sick. The gunk had spread from the bite, turning her veins grey and black, monochrome.
"I missed you swearing. God, none of them swear. It's the apocalypse, and nobody swears."
"You would miss that."
"Yeah."
Finally Lily seemed to pick up on what she was saying- these last memories. "Can't believe my last few years were three hours away at college. Damn. When everything went to shit I was working on an overdue term paper. Wish I'd been- anywhere else."
"Same." It seemed like Lily was ignoring the gun, now, relaxing slightly. Tears came a little faster, but Lexi still didn't cry. This was Lily's moment. Whether there was an afterlife or she was just going to disappear into the Void, Lexi wanted the last thing she saw to be a happy face. A peaceful face. A friend she recognized. No guilt. She tried again. "I love you."
"Yeah, I love you too."
All of a sudden, though, she only had one clear memory left, couldn't pick out any ones that felt particularly more memorable than any of the others. And she knew it was the last one before she pulled. Her arm was starting to hurt, sore from fighting and malnutrition and just everything as well as holding the gun like this, but it was better this way.
One more conversation, between friends, or whatever they were.
They never had gotten the chance to clear that.
She wished they had.
"Do you remember the letter I wrote you?" Lexi smiled. Maybe in another life Lily would've blushed, but her face was sallow, pale, sticky with sweat from a fever she probably couldn't even feel. "And the poem book I made you?"
"It's in my bag."
Of course it was.
"Everything was true," she said. "I know you already know that, but I'm saying it again anyway. You're my best friend. The best friend I could've ever asked for, Lily. You're the strongest person I've ever met. You still are."
"Apparently not." It was dry, with that bite of dry sarcasm she never thought she'd hear again. It made her heart hurt.
"There are different kinds of strength, Lily."
"Not really. God. And here we always thought I'd be more likely to survive a fucking zombie apocalypse. Who knew."
"I wish you could." She leaned forward, keeping the gun steady, not letting it touch Lily's skin. Touched their foreheads, closed her eyes for a second but then opened them again because this was the last time she would ever see Lily's eyes again. The realization hit her in the gut. "I wish you could."
"Me, too."
"We would've made it."
"We would've."
"Can I kiss you?"
"Sure." It seemed so flippant, but her tone wasn't. Faintly amused. Mostly heavy with regret. "Nothing to lose."
So she leaned back, just enough, and kissed her. It was her first real kiss, and Lily's too, and it tasted like blood and decay, and neither of them knew what they were doing, so it felt just like pressing their faces together. Maybe if they had more time they could get that storybook kiss. Maybe then. But as it was, that was all they could give each other.
Lily tensed during the kiss, eyes clenching shut.
It would've been the perfect time to pull the trigger, the perfect distraction, and Lily knew that as a writer Lexi would find that poetic, but that was exactly why she didn't. She pulled back, barely, enough so that Lily's eyes opened, rimmed with red from tears and infection.
"Hey, Lily," she said. "Do you remember the poem I wrote you, about living in the stars forever?"
Lily smiled, let out something resembling a laugh, slumped at last, and opened her mouth to answer.
The gun kicked in Lexi's hand, wrenching her arm out in an arc, but she'd been close enough. Blood and brain and strands of red hair smashed into the brick and along the floor to their left. A lot of it flew at close range, hot drips splashed into her face.
Lily didn't really drop so much as slide away. Lexi closed her eyes.
A few minutes later, the door opened again, and her friends found her there, knelt on the ground with her gun hand lying on the stone and blood soaking her face and her hoodie and the corpse with half a face just inches away.
And they held her.
Lexi didn't cry.
...
It was hours later, after they'd found a spot with loose enough flooring to pry up and expose some dirt, that she'd finally had some peace. It was still too dangerous to go outside, but still, she couldn't just leave Lily's body like that, tied up and bloody and waiting either for the next poor souls who hid in here or the zombies when they finally broke in.
So they scratched out a deep enough spot and put her down in it, Lexi using a knife, however strange it was, to cut a bit of hair off the end of her ponytail, and tied it into a bit of ripped cloth before undoing the ponytail, letting Lily's hair free.
They searched her pockets, because that's just what you did in the world now, and because Lily wouldn't have cared, and because Lexi wanted to survive despite this, and they found two bullets and four dimes, but they left on the purple hoodie and jeans Lexi remembered so fondly, and then they buried her.
No words. Lexi spoke in her head and she'd spoken to Lily and she couldn't push herself, not now.
She gave herself four or five splinters, but she made up a cross out of rotted wood, and carved out a few dates, a few letters, stuck it in the dirt up against the wall she'd been buried near, just above where her head should've been.
Paula, Louis and Mark left her be. Louis brought her Lily's bag, and left her to her sleeping mat in peace.
Lexi rifled through it- just as random as ever, sketchbook, weapons, a few haphazard clothes and a half full bottle of expired aspirin, a few pens and a single crumpled piece of paper with some math equations scrawled across it, remnants of her last sane day at university. And then she found the notebook, bound in leather, with a few nicks and smudges, but no other damage.
She taped the lock of hair to the inside of the cover, then opened to the last page, did a quick, crude sketch of a map with as many landmarks as she could remember with one of Lily's art pencils, red; marking the building. Maybe someday everything would be over. Maybe someday she could come back.
Then, finally, Lexi flipped it to the one she wanted. Before all of this, Lexi had been fascinated with- horrified with- the idea of death, of dying without purpose, of meaning nothing in a universe that meant just as little.
Her own writing stared her in the face, and really, she just looked blankly at her own work for a few long moments before a piece of it finally caught her attention. And maybe later, she would cry. Maybe once she had some time to think. Some time to mourn. Or maybe when they finally left, and she had to leave the grave behind. Maybe then.
And someday soon enough I think,/
We'll have to go/
And the sun perhaps won't really miss our song/
The day was always much too loud to hear us anyway/
But the night I don't believe will ever quite forget/
How we pretended to be galaxies.../
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This is based off me and a friend, with some creative license taken. All poems mentioned and listed are actual poems I've written her, and all the brought up memories and things (non zombie related, obviously) are relevant to real events. Noah and Deven are my younger and older brothers.
Paula, Mark, and Louis are random names I came up with on the spot.
Review! This one kind of hurt.