THE SIMPSONS ARE A CREATION BY MATT GROENING
When Bart saw Martin walking out the mall dressed in such a way, wearing a red tunic, a black peaked hood, and pointy felt shoes, he couldn't suppress a smile.
"From which century have you escaped from, man?" He asked him, then gave his ice cream a lick.
"From the fifteenth!" Martin proudly proclaimed, opening his arms so that he could be seen better. "I am a minstrel who goes from town to town delighting crowds with epic poems and stories of courtly love."
"Now seriously, why all this?" Bart smiled, amazed that he had the nerve to show himself like that in public.
"The new Assassin's Breed game has just been released for pre-sale, and I dressed in Renaissance fashion to get in the mood and..."
"Wait, you already got it?"
"Yes, my father gave it to me for my birthday."
He stared at him, the envy oozing from every pore of his body.
"Ahem... Maybe you want to try it with me?"
"Are you serious?" Bart raised his eyebrows.
"Sure. You like it, don't you?"
"I love it, but why...?"
"Because you are my friend, aren't you?"
Bart wouldn't have called him that. A boy he knew, he put up with, with whom he sometimes had fruitful agreements... But friends? That was going too far. But anyway, if it allowed him to play Assassin's Breed before anyone else, he was anyone's friend.
"Yes, of course," he finally smiled.
Besides, how could he look at that lamb's face and break the illusion that he had created for himself?
Oh oh. There come the bullies. And he had his pockets full of coins to buy candy with. He could only be saved if they found them a juicier victim.
Bart looked at Martin and found them.
He was so happy talking to him that he was at their mercy and everything was very easy.
"Nice dress, Princess," Dolph mocked him, and tripped him as he passed by his side, causing him to fall right into a puddle of mud.
Martin's joy and pride vanished. He looked at Bart with a confused look and gazed at him pleadingly. He felt a pang in his chest. But he did what he had to do.
"Yeah, what a weirdo. You're such a sissy!" He said out loud so they could hear him well.
The bullies laughed and chanted his remark before continuing on their way to the shopping center.
"You were asking for it." Nelson said to Martin before following them.
Martin continued to staring at Bart. He acted like he wasn't looking at him and quickly kept on walking, leaving Martin to get up from the mud alone. If he was a little embarrassing before, now it was difficult to look at him.
He was perhaps a little hurt by his dirty distraction tactic now, but he knew Martin, he knew he didn't have any friends besides him, and would let him play the game anyway. He always forgot everything right away.
He entered his house and found his father sitting on the sofa expectantly like a child.
"What's on?" he asked Lisa, who was sitting next to him.
"They've released a new burger at Krusty Burger," she answered. "Cow squared or something like that."
The day had started like any other Saturday...
Just one day later, it became clear that they would have to turn their house into a fortress and stockpile all the food they could. Many in Springfield, seeing the infection raging unstoppable, had hurriedly packed their families and pets into the car and rushed out onto the highway. They were so many that a traffic jam formed. It only took a couple of munchers to show up, following all these victims, for it to become a death trap.
While Homer secured the doors and windows with boards and Marge helped because he had already stabbed his hand three times, the children took the old telescope out of the attic to keep an eye on the streets.
It had been six days since Burger² had changed people. Far from being just a scare, two or three isolated cases at most, everything seemed to indicate that things could only worsen. There were rumors that the Army was going to enter Springfield, but it seemed that their efforts were focused on making sure that nothing and no one came in or out, in order to prevent the virus from spreading throughout the state and the entire country and becoming the end of the world. Just six days and Springfield was in chaos. Springfieldians barricaded themselves in their homes and only ventured out when food became scarce. Marge had always been very far-sighted and they had a lot of cans stored in the house, but with a greedy pig like Homer, the supplies barely lasted and had to risk their necks more often than they would have liked. The children stayed glued to the telescope praying that they would not have to watch their parents join the horde of infected that roamed the streets feeding on human flesh. They also hoped to find Santa's Little Helper with it, since they had not seen for three days. Snowball had been more sensible and stayed in the basement, refusing to move from a corner.
There was a tendency at war, natural disasters, and infectious apocalypses: children always dropped like flies. They saw many of their friends and classmates succumb. Inspector Wiggum, in charge of the operation that tried to contain the infected at the town square, welcomed Ralph in his arms, believing that he was running towards his father scared, seeking protection, without knowing that he had eaten the cursed hamburger until he pounced on his fat neck. Allison was among those caught in the highway mousetrap; they saw how the munchers broke the window to grab her and saw her disappear in a tangle of claws and teeth. Üter was too fat to run. Five people fought for the unibrow baby. The Spucklers had defended their house reasonably well thanks to the arsenal they kept, but a cousin of theirs became infected and quickly spread the infection to the rest of the cousins, uncles, brothers-in-law, and thus a pack of relatives was created, was impossible to control; once Cletus and Brandine ran out of bullets, their numerous offspring didn't stand a chance. Poor Milhouse had an asthma attack at the worst possible moment, when he and his parents tried to cross the street posing as munchers.
"They are crazy! Completely crazy!" Lisa exclaimed, shaking her head and placing her hands to her cheeks at what she was seeing through the telescope.
Bart, on the other hand, could only admire Jimbo, Nelson, Shauna, Kearney and Dolph's courage. Knowing from first-person shooter games that in times like these a weapon was as vital to survival as food and water were, they had quietly made their way to Herman's armory, setting off firecrackers to create distractions. They were lucky that along the way only old Jasper noticed their presence and went after them: although the munchers ran a lot, they were seventy years younger than he was and their hips worked fine.
"They could make it," Bart said, fighting with her to able to watch their feat.
Lisa kept the viewfinder for herself. She was watching Nelson.
She wanted to believe Bart, told herself that he was a resourceful boy and that he always managed to get his way. But she had seen the entire police force fall in a wink to the horde of cannibals despite being armed...what could a child do with the only help of his fists?
There were a large number of munchers on Main Street, and the majority were young and adult people free of the ailment of old age. They wouldn't be so easily to fool. They had no firecrackers left to distract them or to throw in their faces. Kearney pointed something out to his companions. The stroke of luck. Or the misfortune, from the point of view of the family whcih tried to sneak around corners.
"Oh, geez, it's the Princes..." Lisa murmured.
Despite her intellectual rivalry with Martin, she didn't want to look. She handed the visor to Bart and he almost refused to see this too. He felt that his heart was beating wildly after hearing that last name. Finally, he forced himself to see it all.
The bullies had a chance of getting out of this alive, but that delicate little flower Martin was, and his family, more intellectual than physically competent...
Bart prayed. He hoped that, despite of all odds being against them, a miracle would happen and what seemed foretold would not happen.
All hope for the Princes soon faded, as soon as he had begged for Martin to get out of this.
He saw them grab Mr. Prince first. His family wanted to help him, he yelled something at them, he could figure what: "Go away without me! Save yourselves!" Those things they say in movies. Montaigne had to pull his mother to make him obey. She was holding Martin's hand.
He had the same look as all the other children. The same eyes full of terror, the same mouth open to scream and swallow air, the same trembling of limbs that made it difficult to run. He was holding his mother's hand with both hands. He was screaming. Even with an IQ of 216, when you're ten years old and your neighbors want to eat your guts, you cling to your mother.
Once again, it was a stumble's fault. He let go of his mother's hand and fell on the ground. He couldn't get up in time. They surrounded him before he could do so. Mrs. Prince screamed so loud that the Simpsons could swear they heard her screams from their house. Not Martin, not my boy. She would have rushed after him had it not been for Montaigne, who, with all the pain in his heart and after hesitating for a split second, forced her to continue running. There was no way to save him, they already had him in their clutches, and if they stayed they would get them too. Crying inconsolably, Mrs. Prince had to turn her back on Martin and flee. Martin shouted at them, but they turned a corner and he didn't see them again. Now that the munchers were entertained with that morsel, the bullies ran like they never did in their lives towards the armory. "Come on, come on!", "Now!" Only Nelson turned his eyes toward what was happening for a second. He heard Martin scream. It wasn't like the other squeals he had heard from his lips in the past, when they pulled the elastic band of his boxers and let it go suddenly, or shoved ice cubes down his shirt, or slapped him in the face. A woman had sunk her teeth into his skull, dyeing his hair red. He saw no more. He refused to look. Bart also turned away from the telescope, feeling sick.
"Have they...? Is Martin...?" Lisa asked.
Bart nodded slowly. Lisa sighed.
"What about Nelson and the others?"
Bart turned the telescope away from the stomach-churning scene and pointed it toward Herman's place. Surely the one-armed old man was still alive and had probably barricaded himself in there. The corpses surrounding the store confirmed it. The question was whether Herman would be more benevolent towards the uninfected. People could become very paranoid in situations like that. They didn't hear any shots. Maybe they were wrong and Herman was gone or dead. After a few eternal minutes, they saw Jimbo emerge first with several Glock guns in his hands, Kearney and Shauna with two rifles each, Nelson with a crossbow and Dolph who followed behind with a huge sports bag full of ammunition, not counting what he carried in his hands.
"There they come," Bart announced.
Lisa hesitated, and then she fought over the telescope with Bart. She wanted to see, needed to see the critical moment when they got to safety...
"Get off! I want to see too!" His brother protested.
"Ouch! Stop!"
The dispute made the telescope dance. They almost hit Maggie in the head. Finally they left it still for a second, focusing on...
"Oh my God..." Lisa gasped.
Martin got up from the ground like he always did. Never unscathed, but always getting back up. It seemed that the munchers had lost interest in him after having tasted him a little bit, just as the bullies used to let him go after giving him a few bruises as souvenirs, as if tormenting him was a mere item on their to-do list. daily. His look was so pitiful that he inspired compassion, or he would have, if the survival instinct did not drown out that feeling.
He stopped with his back arched halfway, motionless. A shudder shook him to the core and made his eyes widen. His pupils dilated to their maximum for a few moments, and then a mist covered them. His skin had lost all color, concentrating on bags of a necrotic color under his eyes. They saw with their own eyes how his effeminate manner, his delicacy, and his exquisite manners, along with the terror and pain he had experienced moments before, disappeared all suddenly. He opened his mouth and bared his teeth.
Seeing him like that made a very uncomfortable weight settle in Bart's stomach.
The newly transformed Martin turned his head back and forth quickly, letting out a roar. He saw the bullies and did not hesitate for a second to run towards them. Perhaps deep inside his soul he remembered everything they had done to him over the years and found the perfect moment to get even for every hit, every insult, every humiliation.
Maybe they could have been able to contain him if they had seen him coming, but Martin came almost out of nowhere. Dolph, being loaded and in the rear, was the easiest target, and Martin, who had always been good at calculation, went for him first. Dolph let go of what was bothering him and tried to hit him with the bag. He hit him and sent him rolling to the ground. Just when he thought that gave him a few seconds' advantage and was turning around to run, Martin stood up incredibly quickly and jumped on him to bite off a piece of his shoulder, which he swallowed without chewing.
Lisa covered her mouth. Bart swallowed.
Shauna didn't stop and kept running. The boys didn't do so. After all, they were friends, and friends don't abandon each other. Kearney grabbed one of the guns he was carrying and looked for a way to shoot without hitting Dolph. But it was too late to save him. The boy, standing up and removing his hair from his face, revealed dead eyes in contrast to a mouth that was salivating excessively, with teeth clenched in rage. Along with Martin, he pounced on him. Kearney tried to use the rifle as a bat, but he didn't have the time. Bart and Lisa watched as he opened his mouth wide to scream. Nelson hesitated whether to fire his crossbow or not; he finally decided that Shauna's decision would be the best. He grabbed Jimbo's arm and forced him to move. Jimbo, who had always been a tough guy who was not intimidated by anything, was paralyzed. He listened to Nelson and accepted that he had lost his mates and it was better to save his own skin. However, with Kearney infected, so big he was, their chances of making it out of this alive were slim. With the force of a train, and completely forgetting all the good times together, Kearney jumped on Jimbo and bit him on the arm as if he wanted to take it all away. Dolph went for the other one. Jimbo, howling in pain, kicked, shook his head, and then went very still, spasmed slightly, and his face contorted into a rage as sudden as it was immense.
Nelson had been left alone with them, not counting the munchers who were still in the area and Martin.
The Simpson kids and Nelson couldn't help but notice that Martin had it in for him. His eyes were fixed on him as if all the rest had been nothing more than getting rid of the obstacles that prevented him from approaching him. Nelson could have sworn (perhaps it was the fright of the moment) that his lips were slightly curved into a smile. The tale of Nelson and the boy he loved so dear.
"Run, Nelson, run!" Lisa couldn't help screaming as if Nelson could hear her.
With no prior warning, due to the tension she was feeling, she began to cry. He couldn't end up like them! I couldn't die! He had to live!
Nelson looked around him, looking for a way out. He didn't take his eyes off the munchers for too long. And he did right, because they were not patient creatures at all. As soon as they found a victim, they went for them without thinking. The four boys did the same thing. Nelson had to be faster than them.
He finally used his crossbow. He fired as quickly as he could. Perhaps deep down he was still remembering that until a few seconds ago he had been friends with three of them and that he and them had managed to remain unscathed until that moment. That's why he didn't aim at the head or any vital organs, but at the legs. Kearney, the one he was most worried about, fell to the ground, unable to get up. Jimbo got too close. Nelson fired and the arrow pierced his hand, drawing a protest from him, but nothing more. He started to run, knowing that if he didn't put distance now between them, they would catch him for sure.
"Run! Run!" Lisa screamed with her soul in suspense and tears falling down her nose.
Bart had never seen him run so much in Gym class. Against chubby Martin, and Jimbo and Dolph, who were injured, it shouldn't be difficult to escape. But the munchers in the screen had come, lured by the commotion, among them Mr. Prince, who had been left intact at the cost of getting turned into one of them. Too many pursuers, too many. They saw him go into the alley behind Moe's Tavern, and they saw him no more.
Lisa grabbed the telescope once more, eager to find him, but there was no use. Buildings blocked his view.
Surely it was delusional to think that he could...
"...Everything will be okay, Liz..." Bart murmured, while Maggie gave Lisa a hug.
He said it just for the sake of saying something. He was aware that it wasn't going to help Lisa stop crying.
He also said it to try to calm the bad feelings inside him. The voice which told him: «Martin went thinking that everyone has abandoned him. You among them, the worst of all; you made him believe that you were his friend and ruined him the last happy day of our lives.»
Thank goodness, some high-pitched screams distracted him from those bad thoughts and helped Lisa stop lamenting what she had just seen.
"That sounded very close!" She exclaimed in a choked voice.
Marge ran into the room to grab Maggie from Lisa's arms and pull them away from the window.
"They broke into the Flanders' house," she said in a whispering, fearful voice. "Stay away from the windows, kids...Don't make any noise...Let's all stay quiet and calm until they pass by, okay?"
She hugged the three of them very tightly, as they tried to ignore Rod and Todd squealing. More to their anxiety than to their peace of mind, they soon fell silent.
Bart had eaten a contaminated burger and was still the same...Doctor Hibbert believed he could be immune to the virus...That would make him the key to ending this situation...They risked a lot to leave their house towards the area safe. They lost Apu on the way and Homer became infected. Luckily, he was too much of an idiot to be a threat. By simply locking him in a precarious cage, they were able to contain him.
Lisa found herself alone with Maggie in that small town while the researchers, a couple of scientists, in addition to Professor Frink, who had managed to escape in time on a kind of flying bicycle, carried out immunity tests with Bart's body fluids. There was always the option of eating him, but anyway, since Marge insisted so much that they tried other methods... The girl sighed, thinking that she missed the way things were last month. She had a school to go to, a house she could leave whenever she wanted, friends, pets, kind neighbors (at times), a father who was a little less stupid...
"Lisa!"
That voice... It couldn't be... Was her brain playing tricks on her, reminding her of what she had lost in a painfully real way?
No, that was Nelson behind her, all dirty and with his clothes full of scratches, but alive!
Lisa gasped, smiled, put Maggie down, and ran to give him a hug. She hugged him as if she wanted to be sure that he was real.
"Nelson!"
She soon realized that this was perhaps a bit embarrassing and moved away from him. Nelson, however, seemed to wish she had embraced him a little longer.
"You're alive!" and she sounded so happy...
"I'm glad to see that you've made it too..." Nelson admitted.
"How have you...?"
"Springfield is full of good muncher-proof holes, if you know where to find them. I tried to sneak into Moe's, but he wouldn't let anyone in and he almost shot my head off. Willie found me and told me that I would be safe in the school's basement, and distracted a bunch of munchers by beating them up; it was really cool, and the best thing is that he made it out alive; he's somewhere around here. I went there and found other children, and we were fine, until the munchers came to sniff around, one girl got so scared that she went nuts and came out because she thought they were going to come in and eat us all if we didn't get out and they ate her, and they went in for the rest of us. Luckily I found a hockey stick and could defend myself. Look, I got this tooth. I then hid in the Blockbuster. Not even the munchers went there, and they had a lot of popcorn to eat and movies to kill time with. Then I saw some guys in a caravan coming this way and followed them."
"I'm so glad! I was afraid that you...!"
Nelson smiled a little.
"...You were...worried about me?" he asked.
Lisa nodded, making his smile widen.
"Bah, but wouldn't hadn't been a big loss..."
"Don't say that. A lot of people would have been sad if something bad had happened to you..."
A small cloud of sadness marred Nelson's radiant smile as he questioned that statement.
"...Would you have been sad?"
Lisa looked away, blushing.
"I've been thinking a lot about you. I kept wondering...if you were okay..."
For Nelson, whose mother had run out of the strip club without bothering to look for him to take him with her, whose neighbors had tried to save their lives without paying him the slightest attention, who after losing the only ones he could call friends had been forced to survive on his own, those words touched his heart.
"...I've also been very nervous thinking that they had eaten that smartass brain of yours..."
"Well, it turns out that the experiment has been successful!" Professor Frink appeared almost out of nowhere, scaring the children. Next to him came Bart. "98.7% of those who ingested Bart's fluids and were exposed to the virus did not develop any of the symptoms! We are saved!"
"That's great news, professor!" Lisa exclaimed. "Do you think it could be used to help those who have already been infected?"
"It is possible, we would need to carry out more tests. Your father is not very cooperative, but, luckily or unfortunately, if we have plenty of something, it is subjects."
Bart, who until then had smiled conceitedly because he knew he was the savior of humanity, saw his smile fade.
"But...It could work, right?" he insisted. "It could...make them back to how they were before..."
"I can't take anything for granted. It is also possible that, by killing the virus, they end up killed as well." Professor Frink answered.
Bart frowned, thinking.
"What are you thinking about, Bart?" Lisa asked.
"There is someone...who has done nothing but favors to me and whom I have treated badly...I have been a jerk to him and it is time for me to give him a hand..." Bart looked at them with determination. "I'm going out. I'll be right back."
"Bart! No! What are you saying?" Lisa exclaimed.
"Absolutely not, young man! Your life is too valuable for you to risk! No one is so worth such danger!" said Professor Frink.
«You're only nice to me when no one's around!»
Martin had never made him that reproach before, but he was in his eyes that day, when Dolph pushed him into the mud and he laughed...
He had been quiet about this for a long time, but not anymore. The world had gone to hell, what did it matter anymore?
"Martin's worth it!"
"If this works, Martin will be cured, and everyone else. He will be alright if we make him wait," Lisa tried to make him see.
"Bart is right."
She looked at Nelson with surprise.
"If it hadn't been for them attacking him... it would have been me," said the boy, looking at the ground. He raised his head and looked at Bart. "You must stay. Four-eyes is right: your life is worth too much. I'll go, I'm not worth much and it won't matter if they catch me."
"What are you saying? What nonsense is that?" Lisa exclaimed. "Don't go, Nelson! Let any of the soldiers with rifles out there do it! You do not need to...!"
Nelson silenced her with a hug.
"Now that I know that you're fine and that you care about me, I don't care about anything else," he whispered into her ear.
Something brushed against her ear. Was it his nose or his lips? Lisa never knew, because she couldn't ask: without waiting to hear anyone's opinion, Nelson headed towards the door.
"Be very careful, child!" exclaimed Professor Frink.
Yes, he already knew that Martin was not who he was before, but some things never changed. They were still opposite poles that attracted one another...
Lisa got them to lend her some binoculars to see. She couldn't just sit idly, merely figuring... If he failed and she saw it, she would surely feel like dying, but she had to see it and encourage him mentally, with all her heart.
«If this goes well, everything will go back to how it was before. Fishing for tadpoles in the river, stealing children's pay, drinking Squishee, sneaking into the movies... », Nelson said to himself as he left the safe zone and followed the road towards Springfield.
There were munchers around. They followed the survivors. Those who got too close to the fence were mowed down. Since there should be hardly any uninfected people left in Springfield, it was natural for the munchers to take risks to try to take the safe zone.
"Hippe, hoppe Reiter…" He hummed softly.
Martin was near. His bully instincts kicked in, warning him of the proximity of the one who had once been his natural prey.
There he was. Martin came out of some bushes, advancing towards him with a contorted face. After a month wandering in search of victims, his careful appearance had given way to the looks of a savage. His hair was messy, with dried blood from the bite he got stuck to his locks. His shirt was stained with blood, surely not just his. A trickle of drool ran down his chin. Nelson narrowed his eyes.
"Hello, nerd."
He tore off part of his shirt and protected his right fist with it from bites and infected saliva.
"I'm gonna help you this time. Don't get used to it." He spoke more to himself than to Martin, because he doubted that he could understand it.
Giving an animal-like scream, Martin pounced on him. But nature imposed its rules. Just as the rock breaks the scissors and the big fish eats the boy no matter what, Nelson knocked Martin unconscious with a punch. As he heard another muncher growl nearby, he immediately put his foot down.
When Nelson returned with his classmate on his shoulder, he wanted to tell Lisa that if everything had turned out well, if Martin had not been able to beat him despite his increased strength, it was because the thought that he had to return to her side no matter the cost had given him courage. She didn't give him time to say anything. Lisa stepped forward and planted a long, deep kiss on his lips. She then hugged him and would not let him go anymore.
The next thing Martin knew, he was inside a cage with iron bars, surrounded by people. Scientists who looked at him with great interest and caution. Survivors who wanted to see where this was going. His eternal rival Lisa, who held onto Nelson's arm. Bart, who looked at him sadly.
"Attention everyone, he's coming back to his senses" Professor Frink warned.
Four soldiers aimed their rifles at Martin to end him if he even gave the slightest scratch to anyone present. No one was willing to reach out to him and make it easier for him.
Only one approached to look at him closely.
Martin fixed his gray eyes on Bart. He roared and extended his arms outside the bars to try to grab him. Bart gave him a look full of sadness. It seemed impossible that this being in front of him and the delicate little boy who delighted in geodes and butterflies were the same person, but he refused to believe that the Martin he knew was gone forever; he had to remain in there, and if he could rescue him...
"Well now, let's administer the antidote," Professor Frink announced solemnly.
They had considered injections, but they lacked the means to inoculate so many rabid people, not to mention the dangerous nature of the operation. They decided to try by offering them a lure: meat marinated with Bart's dead skin.
Martin took the bait. As soon as they threw the hamburger at him, he began to devour it in a flash, without breathing. Those damned people lived for meat, whatever it was from.
Bart began to get nervous, because at first there was no change in Martin. He still didn't say anything remotely sane. He kept spinning around, looking for a way to break the bars to attack everyone in the room. His breathing was very labored. And suddenly, he faltered for a moment and collapsed to the ground.
"He killed him! He killed him!" Bart shouted, clinging to the bars even though Marge tried to keep him away.
Protecting himself with an armor made of a very strong bite-proof material, one of the soldiers approached to check it out. He felt Martin's pulse.
"He is not dead. He's heart is beating like mad. It's going to burst!"
They stared at him for a long time. Martin didn't wake up. His chest continued to go up and down, like bellows fueling a very demanding fire. Nelson caressed Lisa's shoulder. After ten minutes or so, the soldier approached again. By then, his breathing had calmed down a lot.
"...It seems that he is calmer now. His skin no longer burns like before."
"There is hope! Hooray!" Sideshow Mel exclaimed, hugging his wife and his children. Thank goodness he was safe, otherwise moments like those, without his unnecessary comments, would have been tasteless.
It seemed to Professor Frink that Martin was regaining his color. That's why he decided to take the risk of taking him out of the cage and laying him down on a bed, cuffing him to the bars just in case. He sat on a chair next to him to write down on a sheet of paper any changes he noticed.
Apart from him, Bart also watched over him.
He also saw him stir a little, moan. He watched as he opened his eyes, then closed them and opened them again. Martin looked at him and Bart was afraid he was going to start growling again. Instead Martin murmured in a weak voice:
"...Bart...?"
Bart smiled at him.
"This really has been a trip and not the Renaissance, eh?"
Martin didn't seem to understand. He looked very tired, but serene. The smile faded from Bart's face.
"Martin...I'm sorry..."
"Hm?"
"I'm sorry..."
Martin closed his eyes again without showing any signs of having understood anything yet, but Bart didn't mind. He had told him, he had heard it, and that was what mattered.
He let him rest as much as he needed. He would soon meet again with the brainiacs to plan the healing of the thousands of infected who remained outside. But until then nothing would keep him away from his side. He took his hand to caress it, so he would know, despite his diminished mental faculties, that he was there with him. And Martin squeezed it.
Outside, Lisa looked at Nelson.
"It seems that everything is going to end well after all" she sighed.
"I hope so," Nelson said. "This sucks."
"...Weren't you afraid, Nelson?"
"Me? Of the fairy? Pfft!"
However, Lisa had been terrified. She showed it by not moving away from him. Not that Nelson wanted her to leave hisside.
"Everything is well, Lisa. It's over. It's all over," he whispered.
Although neither he nor she wanted this need to be attached to the other, to protect them and watch over them, to end...
They sat down to rest. Nelson rested his head on Lisa's shoulder and closed his eyes. She stared at the sunrise over the buildings, enjoying the warmth of his body.
THE END