Dead.

Ah, There I Am.

A feeling of normalcy surprised me so much I stood up and patted myself.

"Didn't I die?" I questioned. I looked at myself still in underwear. My skin looked a little weird but not bad. I wasn't really too sure what was weird about it. I looked around and gasped.

A body was laying curled at the base of the willow tree. I backed away slowly. They could be one of them or about to become one. I stayed on the edge of the Willow tree's shade before I called out to the sleeping or dead form on the ground.

The body didn't have alot of clothes covering them, an ominous sign.

"Hey!" I called loudly.

"You alive?" A stupid question but it felt polite. I waited for any kind of response. I wanted to try poking the body or even throwing a rock at it. A quick scan didn't show anything that'd work for that plan.

I tried to make a decision:

I could get close enough and try to check their pulse, even if I'm ok now I did still get bitten. It's not like I can expect this to last, so what did I have to fear?

Or I could head back to my group. Maybe I'm cured? We'd need to find a doctor or someone who could test me and make cures or something.

I looked for the footprint left behind to check the direction they headed but once my eyes slid over the lone body huddled at the tree I paused again.

I felt sad for this possible corpse and I wanted to help. It was rare for me to pity another human and that also convinced me to check on them.

I slowly made my way and thanked my clumsy feet for being quieter than usual. The closer I got the more I realized this body seemed familiar; like someone I knew even before the world ended. I bent down over the body to reach for their wrist and noticed something very strange.

They had my same birthmark on their neck. I reflexively grabbed my neck and went to press my fingers on theirs. My fingers couldn't make contact with their skin.

That was strange. I pressed harder. Harder. Harder! Finally my fingers broke through the strange invisible barrier but then plunged through the skin of the neck.

"What the hell?" I tried to pull my fingers out but it was as hard as getting them through. I had to place my foot on the body before I could yank my fingers back out.

Something was very strange about this body. I inspected it more closely. There weren't any holes left where my fingers plunged through.

"We are wearing the same underwear." I shared alot of similarities with this body: the same t-shirt tan lines, the same hair color, even the same scab on the knee.

Her face was covered by her hair and I couldn't move it out of the way. Like her skin, there seemed to be a barrier. I sat with her for a while and tried to see if her chest would rise and fall or maybe she would twitch.

~ ▪︎ ~

It seemed pretty obvious at this point that this body was dead but I didn't want to walk away from it. I just felt a weird attachment. I felt like if I left her here it would be like leaving behind my best friend.

I kicked my feet out on the ground infront of me and wrested my weight on my hands. I was starting to get bored. I looked around for my clothes.

"Oh." My clothes were under the body.

Weird. Did they come up shove me off my clothes and lay down to die on them? That seemed almost rude.

"Maybe they were hallucinating. They probably thought I already died..." I reached my hand up to touch the caked dried blood under my eyes.

My skin felt smooth.

Before I could catalogue this as part of my list of strange things the body suddenly twitched. Not in a normal restless sleep way, but like something inside of her jerked violently and the body moved in response.

I sped my way back to the edge of the shade. I noticed that I seemed to get to my distance very quickly for hardly moving my legs but the body distracted me once more as it spasmed again. Then it was on its hands and knees. It sat there for a moment like it didn't know what it wanted to do or was staring at the ground right infront of it.

Then it stood up and looked at me.

"What the fuck!?" The body was mine. That was my face still caked with dry blood looking right at me.