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"Forget-me-nots… They're flowers." Julie whispers, her fingers rubbing between the blue petals softly. "People… Put them on graves of loved ones… To remember them." She peels a petal away from the delicately structured flower. It floats down to the brown dirt below our shoes, landing gently on the grave. My eyes follow her fingers as they caress the new petal that has captured her attention. She lifts her gaze away from it and looks at me, a small smile lingering on her face. "My mom would've loved you." She mumbles, her tear ducts offering a new supple of salty water.

"Don't… Cry." I croak, my hand falling upon hers. I don't want another petal taken from the flower. This flower is her life line. It connects her to her memories, allowing her to float along in her own world. Her own limbo. Her own oblivious state, questioning only the things in her head.

She flips her hand, curling her fingers around mine. "I'm not." She whispers, using her free hand to set the broken flower on the unmarked grave. Is this flower symbolizing Julie? Slowly falling to pieces? Broken?

I feel a tug on my head. Julie is sitting in the dirt, her legs crossed. She continues to grip my hand. I sit beside her, watching the tears dry and stain her cheeks. Julie's eyes close, her eyelashes binding together.

"Why?" I ask, squirming uncomfortably in my worn, possibly moldy, red hoodie.

She looks up, her free hand managing to push hair from my forehead. "Why what?"

"Why… Would she…?" I contrive to say with my less than kindergarten vocabulary.

"Because I do." Julie whispers, sighing in defeat as she leans over the crumpled, sun dried flowers, left to die by the many who came before us. "She was like me, you know. But… Stronger than me. Until she... Gave up."

I study her. I can't take my eyes off her. Julie Grigio. I imitate her sigh as I lift a dead flower, silently wishing life into it. I want it to blossom, to have a second chance.

"She… Just walked out. Just couldn't handle it anymore. I don't think I could have handled it much longer, really." Julie whispers, her voice cracking with pressure she couldn't hold back any longer.

Who is this girl? Full of mystery and shadowed memories? Craving for a second chance, like the dead flower hanging limply from my hand? Maybe she needs hope. Maybe something in her needs to remember what it means to be human, even if I don't remember myself. Can a dead thing breathe life into another?

"Sometimes I wonder if anyone can handle this. Or if we're just all turning into something close to zombies. Not really human because it's better not to feel." Julie says, squeezing my hand gently before settling back, dragging me down with her.

Our shoulders touch, our arms intertwine. I feel her body heat and I realize she must feel none radiating from me. But she doesn't acknowledge this as she rests her head on my shoulder. How can a living, breathing human do such a thing? Accept someone who's dead? I'm a monster. I'll kill her. I'll be the end of Julie and she won't get a second chance. Because I can't resist the part of her that will light up my head like a picture tube.

I feel her hand on my neck. "R," she says, a calmness in her voice that nearly gives me shivers.

I never did get around to asking who R is. Is that me? The one syllable name? How is that to capture who I am? One letter, because all the others ran out on me. I want to know who I am, but how am I to start with no real name? Yet when Julie says it, I can't help but accept this. I am R and that's okay.

It fades. The graveyard, the blue sky, the dead flowers, the Stadium City at our backs. I am left with a cold ground below me and bars at my sides.

I am a prisoner. I am a monster. But my cage is unlocked. I crawl over, tapping it lightly to watch the final latch release. It's too rusty to even hold a baby in.

I stagger to my feet, unconsciously shoving my plaid shirt down in a horrible attempt at getting rid of the wrinkles. Julie's blood is on my hand, but I choose to ignore it as I shove the cage door out further.

I need to get out. I need food, no matter what the consequences are. My throat burns as if I hadn't had air in years. My stomach feels empty, dried out from normal food just not being enough. I thought Julie had killed me; shooting me straight through the heart. How am I not dead? Truly dead? It hurt. I felt pain from it. But was the pain ever really physical?

I want explanations, but I don't think anyone will talk to me in this state. I am nothing. I am the scum at the bottom of the barrel. I am the mud clinging helplessly to the bottom of your shoe. I am the clouds over the sun, casting sorrow to the humans below.

I am hungry.

I shut my eyes. I sniff. I move my feet, dragging them along through the soil. My eyes reopen as I hear a gun cock. An oversized man stands before me, sweat dripping down his sunburned face. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing more red skin. He has no shoes, but I see the sandal outlines imprinted between his toes and around his ankles.

"You're… You're one of them good ones, right? Not eating us humans anymore?" He questions hesitantly, his green eyes shifting uneasily from the rifle to me. He can't decide if he shoots or not.

I wish he would. But he doesn't and I lunge. I go for his throat first, my teeth ripping the skin from his bones. I bite through the tissue and destroy the cells. I let the blood flow freely down my chin as I devour his muscle, his meat, his essence.

I move to the arm. There is more meat there, hidden behind a thick layer of fat I quickly maneuver around.

I am not proud of this. I don't like hurting people. I don't like to see their pain. But I'm starving. And why can't I try and survive as humans do? Am I not human anymore because I live in a dead host?

I change positions again, finally snapping his neck and watching him fall to the ground. I smack his head against the concrete platform several times. He's already dead, but I find a small pleasure in hearing his skull crack open. More blood flows out.

I dive in for the feast, filling my mouth with his memories and emotions. With his humanity.