Never Close Your Eyes

DTM 🐊 : C. 17

|| Chapter Seventeen ||

When he looked to his left and his right, his hopes were to find (Y/N) on one or the other, but instead he found no other than Sketchy himself.

"Where's your buddy?" He asked before coughing up more of the polluted water from his lungs, sitting up to get everything out of his system.

How anyone survived drinking in that river water will remain a mystery to the ones who question the logic behind the highly contagious virus; since 10K had yet to transform into a beast.

You're drinking water from decomposing bodies and other bacterias, so purifying it over a 100 times is simply not enough.

In the back of his head, he hoped that Sketchy had just sent Skeezy and (Y/N) away to find the rest of the group, but he also knew better than to think Sketchy would be such a leader.

Skeezy and Sketchy seemed to have a tight bond, so they wouldn't necessary go out of their way to split up. Plus, he knew (Y/N) would've picked a fight to stay by his side.

He knew who was behind him. The loyalty in her was unbeatable.

"Curtains. Saw him go down." Sketchy acted mournful over the lost of his best mate, but tried to act like it was a open opportunity waiting to be grasped, "He chose to sink while you and I chose to swim."

"You know, they say drowning is actually a pretty way to go, which I would hope for him. Even though he's a coward for leaving me in the lurch." He continued the small, informal obituary as he twisted the bottom of his shirt to remove excessive water.

In all honesty, he didn't actually know if Skeezy was as good as dead like the half-truth, half-life he just told the kid. For him, it was better to assume the worst and forget about whatever it is than become curious and hunt for a ghost.

10K on the other hand, was bound and determined to find his ghost mate, feeling like she was still out there.

"Did you see (Y/N)? Where she swam?"

"After her head hit the water, it never came back up, I'm afraid."

Now, that was the truth in his head. He had swam enough distance, far away from the jam to see the kid shove the (H/C)-haired girl away from the Zs but not once did he see her float back up.

Not alive, at least but that was a comment he needed to keep to himself. In the end, 10K may become useful since he's missing a part of him. He believed she wasn't that good of a swimmer from all of the thrashing and splashes around her and heading towards her ripples.

10K felt a sick feeling in his stomach at the words he didn't want to hear. He knew if she had sunk to the bottom, she somehow grabbed his heart and took it with him.

To trust a stranger that he knew only had main connections to Doc seemed something he shouldn't have done, but here he was scrambling to get back on his feet.

His plan? Get back into the water and at least find her Z body. Before he could follow through, Sketchy jogged to grab his arm.

"Whoa, where do you think you're going?"

"You said she never came back up." 10K refined his statement, never straying from the story-teller's deceiving eyes to show how serious he was about the matter, "That means the Z's got her; she's still in the jam."

"Unless those starving beasts ripped her to shreds!"

Mentally, he winced at the harsh reality since her dying was a strong possibility if her body stayed in the water. He stayed strong, for the hopes she was somewhere close.