"If the light in your life is snatched away and you see only darkness, what's the point of opening your eyes?"
***
Droplet after droplet of blood was dripping from a scratch on my gege's forehead, it was bleeding way more than I expected, and my urge to band-aid the bleeding was worsening even when I knew that danger was lurking behind us and waiting for us to make a misstep.
"Gege, it might leave a scar if you don't treat it." I sighed, and my gege caught my eyes through the rearview mirror. His gaze filled with something I could not bring under words, but it made my heart churn.
"Then let's leave it to become a scar; we have to get away here first before the zombies catch up," my gege said, still sounding breathless; I watched his chest go up and down.
And, of course, he did; my gege was the one who fought off the horde of zombies that appeared out of nowhere.
We were busy packing up, and I didn't remember making any sounds, yet that big group of the walking dead appeared from the forest behind us.
My gege immediately sprung to action, and I wanted to help him, but I knew the risks, and my gege wouldn't let me even come close to a zombie, so I had no choice but to run to the car my gege had luckily found.
All I was able to do was cower in fear like a coward while watching my gege fight with a strength that didn't seem human.
I shook the memory away and focused on my gege's wound. I sighed again, knowing there was no way that I could fight my brother on something like this when he was determined to get us to a safer zone first.
"Gege?" He sighed, the dark circles under his eyes making him look older than he was.
"Why don't we get to a safe zone?" A sharp inhale all I heard, my eyes wandering to the rearview mirror where my gege looked back at me, his eyes unreadable.
"Didi, the so-called safe zones aren't safe at all. It's like society before the outbreak; there are different levels, the richer or more influential, the more protection they get, the ones lower will live poorer and risk more chance to die by infection than an actual zombie attack," my gege said.
I frowned, closing my eyes as, out of nowhere, a splitting headache intruded my mind.
A soft groan escaped my lips.
"Didi?" I don't remember if I responded, but time passed by, my gege continued driving because I felt the bumpy road.
In the end, it might have been a few seconds, but it felt like centuries in which the headache rushed over me like waves.
At some point, I took a sharp inhale and opened my eyes, shaking my head, leaning back into the seat, and trying to relax the tension of my shoulders.
"Gege? How do you know so much about the safe zone?" I asked, trying to breathe as it felt like someone was cutting air off me.
"Didi?" Suddenly, my gege's voice seemed laced with concern, and I couldn't place the expression visible on his face.
"Didi? Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?"
What was I supposed to remember, gege?
***
Xiao Zhan's POV
I closed the heavy sliding doors behind me as Tracer stood next to me, his figure towering out on me by a few centimetres as he watched my movements with an unreadable expression.
