I stood there, demolished stalker bodies lay motionless all around me in pools of their own blood. I breathed slow, deep breaths, trying to get rid of what was left of the adrenaline that was making my ears ring.

"I, I think it's clear" I choked.

"Ellie," I opened my heavy eyes, Riley, now sitting against the cement wall, with a concerned expression and beginning to tear. "Ellie, your arm."

It was covered in blood. The knife I held, slipped from my limp hand to the ground.

"No, no, no, no, no…" I grasped my right arm, wiping the blood off, partially hoping the mouth shaped wound, gaping into my skin would just wipe away too. I see Riley look down and then raises her left hand covered in blood, barely noticeable, she too, had a bite mark, between her index finger and thumb. Rage boiled underneath my skin, I grabbed the nearest thing I could find, which was a small wood post, and smashed everything around me.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" Scattering clay pieces of pot everywhere. I stopped for a second and caught my breath, my chest heaved up and down, begging for air. I eventually dropped the post and sat down next to Riley, scooting closer to her.

"There's some more stuff over there you can break."

I face palmed my forehead and anxiously rubbed my left eye. "What are we gonna do?" I asked looking back down and rubbing my arm.

Riley sighed heavily "The way I see it, we got two options. Option one." She grabs he gun and caresses the top. "We take the easy way out, it's quick and painless." She sat the gun on the floor, "I'm not a fan of option one. Two, we fight."

"Fight for what? We're gonna turn into one of those things."

"There are a million ways we should've died before today. And a million ways we can die before tomorrow…But we fight, for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it's two minutes or two days. We don't give that up. I don't want to give that up." She shrugs her shoulder "My vote, let's just wait it out, you know, we can…Be all poetic and just lose our minds together."

"What's option three?"

Riley rolled her eyes in regret, "Sorry." She tapped my shoulder "C'mon, let's get outta here."

As we reached the entrance to the mall, I noticed that it was becoming dark, we had been there all day long. We decided to head back to the dorm room for the night. Running from the lights of military trucks, evading all soldiers and going about cautiously not to come across any more stalkers, until we reached the dormitory. We ran to my floor, slammed and locked my door shut, if we turned hopefully nobody would be able to get in, or out, for that matter. We climbed to the top bunk and sat with an old, disgusting pillow between us and the cold wall. Riley looked over to me, trying to lighten the mood with a smile. I glanced down at the bite gashes in my arm, blood dried all around my arm and hands. Riley grabbed my chin and pulled my face over, staring into my eyes.

"Ellie, everything's going to be okay, like I said before, we'll sit this thing out, together." I slowly nodded as a tear trickled down my blood smeared cheek. She bowed her head in shame, feeling guilty that she had even brought to me to that mall, that fun, stupid mall. Again she reached across my body and grabbed my hand, intertwining our dirt and blood covered fingers. We both knew these were our last minutes. I leaned against her shoulder and she rested her head on mine, eventually falling asleep.

I woke up in a panic. It was now 7:37a.m. Personally, I felt fine, but I looked over and let out an exasperated noise. Riley's were completely red and blood fell where a tear should've come from. She was long gone within the infection.

Why wasn't I turning? I thought. I looked down at my bite mark, which was still red and runny, unlike Riley's which was almost greyish in color and started to blister. Her cheeks were twitching as if in pain. I looked over to the gun lying beside her.

I need to end her misery. I grabbed it, cocked it back and held it up to her right temple. My hands were shaking as I turned away. BANG! Blood now was splattered along the wall. I leaned in and pecked the corner of her mouth and whispered "I 'm sorry, but I loved you too much to watch you suffer like that." Minutes later military soldiers pounded at my door.

"Open up!" But by that time I had already jumped through the window, down the fire escape and running as fast as my legs could take me from that place and I knew exactly where I was headed, to Marlene.