Chapter 15

? days since last feed

You aren't sure how long you lay there.

Everything is a symphony of screaming, your abdomen leaking acid into your wounded gut, sending sparks of pain so bright they take your breath away. It takes days for you to drag yourself through the mud and the entire time it hasn't stopped raining, and you don't think you'll ever be dry as you crawl your way to the side of the road. Your legs trail uselessly behind you, paralyzed by the pain, and the only time you look back you see a reddish-brown stain follow you. You try to forget, but it makes itself known always.

The sick ones came at first. Intrigued by the sound of the tires as they left they came out of hiding like stray dogs on the prowl, their mouths open and gaping, their teeth like broken razors waiting for a hapless stranger to fall right inside. But the trucks left you alone and they absently retreated, walking away on rotting legs so they didn't have to watch you die.

Except, you aren't dead.

Sometimes, with your face half-buried in the mud, you'd beg for the death that didn't take you the first time—pleading soundlessly to take you away from the body that betrays you and turns you into something far less than human. Whatever's out there must think it funny that your heart keeps beating, pumping blood into your broken vessels that dribble out of the hole Puck tore into you. It doesn't bleed much anymore, but your belly is sore and swollen where the acid has eaten at you. It burns more than you thought anything could.

You had torn mentions of yourself out of the book, placeholders for a girl that isn't you anymore; they don't deserve to know, not after what they've done to you. Quinn's offering burns in your pocket but you can't sum up the energy to pull it out—it's probably ruined anyway, soaked through by rain and dirt. Your hair has lost its blonde hue and if you could guess you probably don't look human anymore, a lump of flesh left to decay just like countless others. Rotting footsteps come and go, and you're alone.

Until one day, when the footsteps stop by your head. You blink open your heavy eyes, covered by mud and grit, doing your best to focus blurry vision on stained white sneakers. It takes you a moment but when the smell hits you it's like a train running over your heart, weakly wrapping one hand around the wanderer's ankle.

"John?" you choke, and a moment later he clumsily falls to a sitting position—more because of your force on his legs than his own will, but he's there all the same.

With a grunt of effort you drag yourself up his body to rest your aching head on his thighs, cold and starting to rot, but you don't care as you curl up next to his form. He sits passively, allowing you to drape yourself, fisting your hands in the loose fabric of his jeans. He mumbles his agreement as you sniffle, turning into a ball so tight you swear it stops your guts from leaking from force alone.

"How did you f-find me?" But as you look up, searching his face, you remember your dreams of white-washed walls and flying and falling, of going down in a ball of smoke and fire, the other person gripping your hand coming into startling clarity. The face that was once a smear in your thoughts realigns with a suddenness that has you gasping, and you see echoes of the boy he used to be before the sickness took him, too.

You remember him being by your side for three long seasons, all your friends slowly vanishing until you were the two left standing amidst the dust. It seems you're the only one now, the victor of a game you never wanted to play, but... there's something missing. A piece of the puzzle you've thrown under a table, just out of reach.

His hand brushes your shoulder, like he's asking you to forget.

"W-what did they do to y-y-ou?"

(To us?)

John doesn't have an answer, and yours still refuses to be found.

You rest by his side, willing the questions away. It hurts too much to remember.

(You're afraid that once you know, you can never take it back.

But... what else do you have to lose?)

The sun is bright and hot and it stings your little eyes as you charge across the open plain, running from the monster you know is behind you. Your lungs burn with the effort of propelling you further, every leap and bound a masterpiece, and though defeat comes in hands wrapping around your waist and lifting you high in the air you still consider it a success.

"You're getting too fast for your old man, Britt," wheezes your father, and you giggle as he tucks you into his chest. Your seven year-old legs are getting too long to sit comfortably around his hip, but you wrap your arms around his neck anyway.

"You aren't old, silly," you tell him, and he taps your nose with a smile.

"You always know the right things to say, don't you? We raised such a smart girl."

Your grin fades for a moment as you remember your school and the teacher's disappointed eyes staring at you from across the room.

"I'm not smart," you mumble, and he frowns as you look away.

"Of course you are."

Your father debates for a moment, scanning the area before bending down and plucking a plant from the edges of the forest that eats away at the grassy plain you were bolting across. He holds it in front of your face, and your eyes fuzz as you struggle to focus.

"What's this?"

You squint at the little white plant.

"Sorrel?"

"What type, Britt?"

"Um..." you chew your lip, unsure. Hesitantly, you put it in your mouth, cringing as the dry, sour taste washes over your tongue. "Wood sorrel?"

"That's right!" He smiles and it's contagious, the curl of your lips bashful as you swallow your mouthful. "Most of the world wouldn't be able to get that," he lowers his voice glancing back over the field, "let alone your dumb teacher."

"Roger!" comes a voice, and you can see your mother with her hands on her hips. "Are you being a bad influence again?"

"Don't tell mom," your father winks, before starting to jog back to the tent you've pitched in the middle of the clearing. You grin and promise yourself to secrecy.

The rain finally stops but you're still chilled to the bone.

The sun's light is cold and distant and your joints ache like you're as ancient as the earth, but John stays though you sometimes don't move for days. His useless breathing calms you, makes you remember to do the same as though you'd otherwise forget. The wound in your stomach burns as it has for weeks (how long has it been? Days? Months? … years?) but you've stopped being so distended; it settles but turns a color you remember only in your first few delirious days at the morgue. Fever undoubtedly runs through you, gnawing at the lining of your veins, making you shake with the misfiring of your mechanical heart.

All you can do is wait and wait, seeping infection and disease; things start blurring together, thoughts you're sure didn't come from you inching into your head, vivid dreams of things that don't make sense but seem so real you aren't sure if they happened or not. Eventually, your grip loosens on John's jeans, and you sense more than know the quiet sigh of your lungs as they give out.

The lights make you sweat off your makeup, deep eyeshadow like the older girls, and you feel so out of place but at home all the same. Though you're much younger than the girls around you, your lanky body fits in against their willowy frames, and the shadow the four of you cast must be striking in their starkness. Your hair, gathered into a ponytail so high it aches, tickles the arch between your flexed shoulder-blades like the budding wings of a newly risen angel.

When the music starts all discomforts seem to disappear; you twist and arch your body like you've been told, your ribs sliding in your chest in a way that makes the audience gape. You know the other girls feel the rhythm with the way their hair flies about, halos of all colors, but you're special. It seeps from you in every breath you take to perform another movement, a grace that seems almost misplaced for someone not even a teenager, but as you slide to the front of the stage with a sweeping aerial that makes the world swim past in a blur, you know it's the best thing you've ever been gifted.

After the performance is over and the four of you are heaving, sweat-slicked skin and beaming smiles, the audience erupts into cheers so deafening you think the earth is shifting. You see your mother front and center, a beaming smile on her face, and your seven year old sister whooping and bouncing about, shaking random people to tell them that that's my sister, isn't she great in a way that makes you burst with satisfaction.

The seat next to her is empty—he promised he would come, but it's too late now. Your smile falters, but you don't let it sting too much. He's busy doing important things.

At least, that's what you tell yourself.

You don't remember who you are or where you are, only that it hurts when you roll onto your hands and knees. Everything sways in and out of focus, surreal and hazy, and John's shoulder is the only thing that keeps you upright. Your chest aches like it hasn't been used in months.

Your swallow is dry and sticky, hot pants of air coming from your sore lungs inflating your head until it rolls on your neck—you distantly notice crackling brown leaves in your hair that flew in with the changing of the winds. Isn't it summer?

The freezing mud in your shoes squishes as you try and stand and John rumbles as he, too, gets up, much more solid on his feet. It must be morning, the grey shroud over the sun low in the horizon, but even that puts the world in such a dull, washed-out glow that it's hard to know which way is up. You try to speak, but all that comes out is a rattling moan that hurts your abdomen, stretching after eons of disuse. How did that happen, again?

You clutch onto his elbow for support and your intent must move him—you don't know where you're going, but it needs to be away from the drag marks and the tires in the muck. Things flash through your memory but you can't focus on them in a way that makes sense, thoughts from what must be your childhood meshing with recent day until it's hard to discern what's important against background noise. Everything in you feels wrong, heavy and weak and cold, but still so sharp it cuts.

"You always ruin everything."

The voice makes your entire body stutter and John stumbles at the change in pace. Your head swings around and despite the way the world dips out of focus the person who spoke is crystal clear, her bare feet sunk into the muck that covers every inch of you. Her blonde hair, so much like your own when you used to be pretty, flows over her shoulders in a way that reminds you of sunlight on the waters of your former home.

Sophie.

She frowns like she heard you, turning away. Her white dress is stained dark and dismal.

"I knew you were dumb, but look at you. You can't even stand by yourself."

Her words hurt in a way you'd forgotten, the girl you used to be recoiling at the way it brings up a lifetime of doubt. You aren't anything anyone would remember, not anymore, but it doesn't mean who you used to be is gone entirely.

Does it?

"They'll be better off without you."

You stare as she disappears into the forest, her form shimmering with her departure. The hole in your heart hurts almost as much as the one in your stomach, and John barely makes a sound as you sink back down to the ground.

Against the coolness of the ocean, you feel your skin burning.

Weeks out in the scorching California sun makes you bronzed and beautiful, your hair nearly white and your muscles supple, glistening with water droplets that welcome you home. It's all a side-effect to your newfound love, second only to dancing, and your new board is smooth under your touch as you shiver in anticipation for the next big wave.

The ocean's been restless of late, giving you ample time to practice your form, and you find yourself once again swept up with the current and carried high above the sea. Your laugh is exhilarated as you will your exhausted body to get up, crouched and cautious, feeling the power of the sea surge beneath your feet. Wind licks your body and you feel so very alive as you sail forward towards the beach, hair streaming behind you.

You know you're starting to turn heads at only the tender age of fourteen, bringing with it rules to a game you don't yet know how to play, but out here you can shed what your new body is giving you and retreat into your head—a place not even your family truly knows how to venture. They try, you know they do, but with Sophie being so, so smart, you're starting to fall behind.

The thought jars you and you lose your balance, swept under the waves as quickly as it takes to hold your breath. The current spins you about, losing your bearing, and though the quiet embrace of the water could be soothing it only brings a panic when you can't find which way is up. You flounder, twisting around on yourself, but the loop wrapped around your ankle tugs you back up to the surface.

When you break and drape yourself onto your board, no one cheers. You're just another surf bum trying to catch as many as they can before real life so rudely interrupts, and you sigh, resting your cheek against the board. If only you could stay in the water forever.

Your eyes open blearily, spread out on your front. The first thing you notice is that it's not nearly as wet, and you don't feel permanently soaked like a cat thrown into the river.

The second is the little pair of feet by your head.

You frown, mouthing at words that taste like cotton, weakly shifting your hand until you can brush against the pale, pristine skin. Your fingers run through her like quicksand, yielding to your touch, and your brain blanks out to save you the pain of thinking about it.

"You should get up," says your sister, eyebrow raised in a stellar impression of someone you think you know. "You'll die there."

Let me die.

She rolls her eyes and turns, disappearing down the ditch into the trees. "Use your words. You might get somewhere."

You feel like a disgrace, crawling on your hands and knees, one torturous step in front of another to follow the ghost of your sister. John is on your right and you sense him more than see, but the animal you've become knows with a sort of sixth sense you can't explain. The heartbeat that booms in your head can't be your own, not when it's so loud and out of tune. Since when did your body become such an awkward machine?

A misstep over the gulch has you tumbling down in a flail of limbs, the thought knocked from you entirely as the roll down the wet ledge strikes your broken belly, sending a wave of pain so sharp it actually brings a sound from you lips. You feel something burst inside of you, something precious and important, not even the fading silhouette of your sister can keep you in this world when it even hurts to exist.

You try so hard to forget how difficult everything is for you.

Some things come naturally, like dancing and laughing and cats. Always the cats. But almost nothing else. The teachers at school talk to your parents in soft voices born from condolence, telling them they should get you checked out. Just in case, they'd say. She shows a lot of the signs of a learning disability. But your father always knows best, smart and stoic in his laboratory coat, and he'd sniff at the teachers who watched you grow up with brows pulled taut in confusion.

She just thinks differently, he'd always insist, she'll get it. I was a late bloomer too.

But you haven't bloomed at all, not in the places that count. Math makes your head spin like you're caught in a whirlpool, history makes dates and places bleed out of your ears, and english puts you to sleep. Science scares you, sometimes—you like biology, watching things cycle through life and death only to return to the state they were many lifetimes ago when suns blew themselves apart, but you'll never be as good as your father.

As you got older you stopped asking for help, hiding your report cards and directing phone calls. You aren't even sure if they care anymore, and maybe it's for the best, because you haven't gotten any better. Sometimes you dance yourself so raw you fall asleep on the hardwood, waking up in the middle of the night to cramps in your calves so strong you have to drag yourself up the stairs, bumping your knees in the dark. Your homework lies untouched in your bag.

Now you watch your sister across the table, sucking your lip into your mouth as you watch her fly through her work. She's only twelve but she's so, so smart, making your parents proud with A after A, medals adorning her room for science and math and even dreaded history. Your father hunches over her shoulder and watches her work with a pride that makes your chest hurt, his gaze never wavering from her advanced grade problems.

(It's been three years since he's made it to your dance recitals. You've gotten better since then, but he has important things to do.)

You quietly hide another D in your bag and head down into the basement to dance until you're so tired that even your jumbled thoughts won't keep you up at night.

It takes a while for you to realize you're moving.

You're hunched so awkwardly it's a miracle you can move at all, but your consciousness returns to you mid-stride, almost making you faceplant in the brush. John is there, keeping clumsy step, and you grip onto the bony protrusion of his shoulder for balance. Your breath rattles in a way you swear you've heard before.

"Keep up," floats the voice you've been chasing for what seems like forever, and your feet stumble on themselves as you struggle to move forward. Periods of time black out from existence and you can't remember how long you've been walking, only that you are and every second step makes your stomach feel strange, like there's something sloshing in you around the pain. You wonder what would happen if someone pricked you with a needle. Would you burst?

There's a small clearing and you pause to take a breath, whimpering when it sends vicious rings of a blacksmith's hammer through your ribs. Through your eyes hazed over with a shroud you can't will away, you see your sister standing in the middle. The few steps it would take to reach her are so far away.

"S-s-so," you try to stutter her name, but your vocal chords fail out on a cough. She smirks.

"I don't know what you're trying to find. There's nothing here."

Where here is remains to be seen, but you force yourself forward, limping ever so slowly, clinging onto John for balance. The pair of you finally manage to stop in front of the shadow of your sister, and you can't believe you could ever forget her face.

"You forgot a lot of things," she agrees, flipping her hair that looks so much like yours over her shoulders. "Me, Mom, Dad."

Dad.

You feel your lips twist into something you think is a snarl, betrayed and so very wounded, but she arches a brow at your discomfort.

"You were the one that offered to go with him, you know. It's your fault."

You blink slowly, watching her features melt like wax only to snap back into place.

"You were just so desperate to get him to pay attention to you. Not like I can blame you... you were always pretty dumb. Especially compared to me."

This isn't your sister, you mind wants to whisper, but it's drowning under all the memories of you being replaced by someone with a brain that speaks to them in languages they can understand.

"It's okay," she placates, her little face not wavering in expression. "You're probably the only one that made it out alive. Well... sort of. You're pretty dead now, too."

For the first time you notice your heart's so very faint, and you try to turn away from her. Your ankles refuse, rolling in a way that nearly sends you sprawling, and only John's constant presence saves you from faceplanting in the muck. At this point, you aren't sure if you could even get back up.

"Are you trying to run away? That's cute."

You hear her footsteps behind you and you snarl, your reddened teeth showing through your twisted lips. Everything whites out for a moment with an anger that comes out of nowhere, but it soon drains from your exhausted body like a stream struggling to run. It almost physically slips out of your spindly fingers, and if you could you'd mourn the first thing you've felt in a long time.

"Just give in, Britt. It'll hurt less."

You aren't sure what she's talking about, not anymore, but you cling onto John for support and hope she's right.

The first thing you remember is heat.

It sears along the side of your face, crisping the skin, making your eye water uncomfortably behind your closed lid. When you finally blink yourself awake, mouth coppery and wet, you find yourself pinned to the twisted seat you occupy by a sheet of metal pressing itself into your chest. You swallow, heart beating loud in your ears when your lungs barely inflate.

"John?" you whisper hoarsely, skating your fingers across the seat until you find his hand. It's limp and clammy, grip lax and unmoving. Your touch flutters to the junction of his wrist and finds his pulse beating light but steady. "John, wake up."

The heat beside you intensifies and you roll your head along the seat, flinching back at the brightness that hits you. Fire crackles outside of the ruined chassis that was once a helicopter, and through the smoke you can see vague shapes materializing like shy wisps, only to flicker out a moment later. The other side of the helicopter is shrouded in darkness and you can't see into the cockpit, only that there's a pale hand hanging out of the side—upon further inspection it's dangling, suspended by a thread of flesh. Something in your stomach churns, horrified, but you have bigger problems.

There are footsteps and your heart leaps as the figure of a man comes into view. Relief floods you, turning your limbs to rubber.

"Hey," you start faintly, clearing your throat of the smoke, "hey! Over here! Help!"

It's so raw from the smoke that you don't recognize yourself, growling and low, but none of that matters when the man stops and his body shifts towards the sound of your voice. You continue calling, even kicking at the helicopter chassis when your lungs fail on you, squeezing John's unresponsive hand tight when the stranger gets closer and closer.

Eventually he's right outside the warped entrance of the helicopter and seems to stop, debating how to get inside. The silence save for his shuffling makes something strange pang in your chest, something soft and suspicious; your father always said you had a gut instinct better than anything he's ever known, and you swallow as the stretch of quiet persists.

"Hello?" you whisper, tentatively craning your neck to see outside. The man makes a quiet sound, almost like a snort, but it gets louder until it sounds like a groan. He almost sounds hurt.

"A-are you okay? What's going on?"

Fingers wrap at the corner of the threshold, and even with the fire burning he stays—the light cast show how battered and bloody they are, leaving smears on the metal, and you take a quick glance to the hand dangling in the front cockpit.

His groaning gets louder and he manages to shove part of his shoulder through the entrance, and you've have to be blind not to see his state of disarray. You could overlook the ripped clothing, the blood, everything, but you refuse to ignore the massive chunk of metal protruding from the front of his chest. It doesn't even seem to bother him, clanging on it as he struggles to get to you, and you start to try and shift away.

"H-hey, what are you doing?" Your voice trembles and cuts out completely as his head pops through; his eyes are wrong, clouded and white, mindless and sightless and senseless. Sores mar his complexion, weeping yellow and black, and you shriek as he reaches for you.

He swipes and misses but you're trapped under the metal, your bruised ribs aching from pressing against your restraints. You kick at him with your shoe, his nose crackling and dribbling blood all over your leg, but it doesn't seem to slow him down at all. The stranger grabs your ankle, his cracked nails pricking your delicate skin, and you watch in horror as he attempts to guide it into his mouth. He doesn't reach in far enough to take a chunk out, and you manage you rip it away as he tries harder to force his way inside.

"Get away from me!" You're kicking at his chest, each hit reverberating solidly through his ribcage, but he continues. The metal sticking out of him impedes his progress and gets jammed, but he's so close you can feel his fetid breath on your face and you're going to die here, and then John's next—

Something rips the man out of the cockpit and you hear the distinct sound of blunt impacting flesh, bones splitting apart and soft tissue compressing. You hold your breath, sweat beading down your feverish temple, and a moment later a familiar head of head pops into the space.

"D-dad?"

His eyes glitter in the dark, worried.

"Britty? Are you okay?"

"Dad, w-what's going on? Who was that?"

He takes a breath, looking further inside. When his eyes land on the pilot with the missing hand, his whole body posture seems to shift into something harder.

"Did he bite you?"

"What?"

"That man. Did he bite you anywhere?"

"What? No! Why would he do that?"

He nods, running a hand over his hair. It's smeared with blood.

"Good. What about H— John. Is he alive?"

"Yeah. I can't help him, I'm stuck."

"That's okay, sweetheart. We'll get you both out. I promise."

"You don't even understand me anymore, do you?"

You stare blankly at the girl you used to remember, her words swirling like mist around your head. The letters fall to the ground, weighed by your incomprehension, and her ethereal feet stamp them into the ground. Everything hurts, from the roots of your hair downwards, and you've forgotten what it feels like to not be hungry. It's like another heartbeat in your body, only it's the one that moves you; your own has long since given up, its beating so feeble sometimes you lose track completely. It wouldn't be much of a loss.

The boy mumbles his agreement with her but you don't remember his name either, just that he keeps you standing. Sometimes your body shuts down, sends you sprawling in the dirt, and he waits patiently until you claw yourself up again. He's lopsided from the way you hang on him, but he doesn't seem to mind. One of his eyes has fallen out and you often find yourself staring into the socket, thinking thoughts you can't put into tangible form. It yawns like an abyss you remember from your fondest memories, of a girl with hair dark like the void between stars.

The girl says something else but you turn away, shambling through the trees. It's an endless canopy of the same thing and nothing catches your hazy attention anymore, each and every detail blending together into a monotony that never ceases. You find yourself struggling to put names to things you wouldn't give a second glance, and often do you wake in the night, snarling at a foreign limb by your head, only to realize it's your own.

Words are difficult, so you stop using them. There's no one human here. Even the girl that follows you has her moments of terror, her face drooping and running like sap from the body of a wounded tree. You stopped being sure if she was real a long time ago.

"I bet you wouldn't even recognize yourself anymore."

You pass by a stream, and the face that glances back at you is one you've only seen once; a girl watching herself in a mirror mounted on the ceiling, crying for a death she was denied, her blood blooming onto the leather seat in a way some would consider a work of art.

You wonder where she's gone.

On better days, you dream of a garden.

The soil is moist and dark and smells like life that returns and returns, squishing underneath your feet and bringing peace to your head. It's always quiet here; not like the quiet that lends itself to death that used to lurk, but one you don't know if you remember. Your job is to dig and so dig you do, names of plants you've known your whole life turning into tangible things you can nurture.

She's always there.

The end of your dream is always your favorite; though you cherish every moment in your garden, your hands rough and red like the globe tomatoes you coax into being, nothing compares to gathering the fruits of your labor in your arms (so much stronger than you remember) and taking them to her. Her hands caress your own and weave magic out of your offerings, sauces that simmer upon the stove that she never lets you taste before their time.

When the food is ready, perfection made better by her hand, you feast. Her eyes on you and yours on her, savoring every moment that your efforts made. Her exhale breathes life into you in a way nothing ever could and her laughter is smoke snaking across lake water, deep and dizzying.

You can never get enough, especially when the night comes and she splits you down to your quick, tending you as you tend your garden, pruning you of your thorns that your troubled body grew when the world began to end. You let her, as you always will, soft and supple underneath her palms; she repairs the pathways your broken brain destroyed long ago, and you finally feel like a person again. The way she looks at you creates things you never knew could exist - stars, entire solar systems that bow to nothing but her will. They bloom in your chest, spiraling, spinning through the cavity that was once void of her, and a light burns that can no longer be taken away. She always kisses you after it's over, sweet and calm, bleeding a love you never thought you'd know into every vessel until you burst with it.

It never lasts, not with the embrace of death so near, but you cling onto it as hard as you can until your corrupted mind makes you forget.

(The taste of her mouth lingers, an echo, a reminder of a life that should have been. Your body always remembers.)

Snow comes, and with it brings your end.

Endless, unknown months of wandering has reduced you to nothing, bones held together by brittle sinew, and every step you take is an agony you scarcely understand. You've been walking on a path for what seems like eternities, the ground frozen underfoot, and if you could touch your skin you'd find it glossy and senseless.

Everything is tired.

The boy helps you along but his steps have gotten awkward of late; jerky, uncoordinated, he staggers along under feet that are disintegrating with wear. His shoes were lost a long time ago and now he's paying the price—you've lost the ability to walk on your own, and if you fall again you're never getting up. Breathing is useless, and whenever it does the cold air makes something strange sit in your chest like it's devouring you from the inside.

Sometimes the parts of you that used to speak in sentences whisper things that are more like feelings to you, weighing you down with a sense of uselessness. On those days it's harder to put one foot in front of the other when you start to realize there's no point doing it at all—it's just the same tunnel of hunger that never fades, never lessens, never pulls back the shroud around your head that makes you no better than one of them. When you were Full you'd be able to make sense of it, come up with a sort of solution, but that's done now.

The snow bites at your frozen fingers, but you can ignore it when something else catches your attention—like the quiet crunch of boot against ground. Your head rolls up, eyes bloodshot and sluggish scanning the surroundings, and you haven't even pinpointed the sound when John's head snaps backwards like someone's strung him by the throat. Blood splatters over the side of your face, cold and thick, and without his support you find yourself tumbling down too.

You hit the ground with a muffled grunt and lie on your front, unable to rise. Your entire body sinks into the muck like you could just disappear, decay and disintegrate until your broken body feeds the earth as it once did so to you. John crumples beside you, his patchwork corpse glossy with rot, and you find him staring back at you sightlessly. At least, what remains. Someone blew a hole in his forehead so wide he only has half of one socket now, and something very distant in you pangs with a brief moment of regret. He was all you had left.

The last wheezing sigh leaves your body as you hear more footsteps, converging on you, but you don't care anymore. You softly link your fingers with his, grey and cold and dead, and let your mind drift away from a body that has no more strength to hold onto it. Hands are on you, rolling you around, but you refuse to let go of his fingers until someone gathers you up in their arms and lifts you high above the earth.

Before it all goes dark, your gaze catches the nametag stamped onto the dark camouflage jacket that rubs harshly against your cheek.

Just like Quinn's coach, you mumble to yourself, unaware you've said it aloud and numb to the responsive flex of fingers around your shoulder.