A/N: Hi guys! So this is chapter 4, but it won't be the last one as I'd said previously, there's still one more chapter + the epilogue left. Otherwise this would've been wayyy too long. Enjoy!

We kept pushing ourselves deeper in the forest and it must've been the more cruel thing I'd ever done. Shepard had been shot in the back but refused to stop walking; the only times he'd rest were at night. We kept our schedule for watch but I extended mine for a few hours to allow him to sleep some more and forget about the pain.

I knew he was badly hurt and we didn't have the medicine to help him feel better, but he kept on pretending that he was fine every time I offered him to take a break. He kept pushing himself farther and tried to hide his pain from me – even though I was perfectly aware of it. Then we slowly ran out of food and had to ration what was left to make it one more day.

After five days Shepard gave up on his hiding and we stopped our journey in the timber. I made him sit with his back leaned against a tree and gave him a gun so he could watch for walkers while I was setting up a perimeter like we'd done the last time with barbed wires.

I took care of him as best as I could with what we had left during his last hours of agony. When he felt like his end was at the corner he asked me to hand him his pack and took out of it a plastic bag inside of which was a green mixture tied with some sort of rope and rolling paper.

"Please," he said on a weak tone. "Burn my penis, add the ashes to the mixture and smoke them."

"What!?" I frowned in disgust. "Bro, that's fucking gross!"

"Do it for me, as a reminder of all the good times we shared together."

"Don't you prefer to keep it in case you need it in Heaven? I could burn something else… what about your ear?" I proposed, hoping he'd accept.

But of course he didn't. He chuckled at my words. "You know, I ain't going to Heaven, bro. Look what's left of me." He rolled up his sleeves to show me the wounds he had there. "Ain't no God will accept me with these devilish marks," he pulled back on them to hide his bloody forearms and looked up at what we could see of the sky through the foliage. "Ain't nobody will ever go back there anymore, anyway. This world's changed us in such ways that we've become monster. We've all done the worst kinds of things just to stay alive, so we don't deserve a place up there. We've evolved into violence, my friend."

Shepard turned back his attention on me and his eyes caught with my tears. "I'll never forget you, bro. Your words will forever remain an inspiration."

He smiled. "I hope to see you wherever I end up someday." I could only nod at his statement. "Now would you please finish it so I ain't dying in sufferance? See, I think I've had enough and although I ain't ready to die yet, better do it quick once and for all than wait and suffer."

Again I nodded and he gave me his gun with a small smile. "I trust you on this, bro." He placed the canon of the gun against his forehead and looked me straight in the eye as he waited for his end to come.

I shot my eyes tight and pulled on the trigger. A loud sound exploded at the end of my arm and my brother's body remained against the tree, but lifeless. I curled up in a ball and sobbed as reality slowly found its way to me: he was the only one I had left from my past life, from what I used to be before all hell break loose. He was the last person I could've laugh with about things we've done when the world was still in one piece. All our memories had now died with him and I was left alone.