UNITY

Chapter 12

I don't know how much time has passed since we holed ourselves up here. The black curtains I didn't have the time to replace blocking most of the sunlight from outside, making my room a bit dim, causing me and the twins to be shrouded in darkness.

Onyx was quiet, even his brother, the ever-loving and jolly Quartz stopped crying a few minutes ago, but I'm still in between them and on the floor. The three of us looking like we just escaped from hell only to be stuck in a more hellish one.

My shoulder wasn't bleeding anymore, but Onyx did try to bandage it as much as he could. I knew that they accepted this, my death, but they really had no right to.

They were prepared to kill me, given that Quartz was about to before his brother stopped him. But I didn't hold a grudge. How could I? It's supposed to be that way. An unspoken rule among survivors is that once you are bitten, either you'll have to kill yourself or let someone do the job for you.

I figured it was time for me to break the silence on my own.

"Guys?" Onyx has his head on my non-wounded shoulder while Quartz's was on my lap, my blood-crusted hands playing with their hair as they hummed in unison.

"Can you leave me alone, from this moment on? I don't want you both here while I suffer from the infection spreading."

I continued. "And then one of you could kill me--"

"If it makes you feel any better," Onyx lifted his heap from my shoulder and looked me straight in the eye, "We've liked you ever since the moment we laid eyes on you."

I breathlessly laughed, "It does, but--"

"She's so fucking beautiful, isn't she, brother? She's breathtaking."

"Is this a eulogy?" I raised my eyebrow at them, "If so, I--"

"This isn't a eulogy. We're telling you what we know of you from the short period that we've been together."

I shrugged. "Sounds like a farewell to me."

Quartz sighed, "Well, it isn't." His eyelashes trembled as he looked up at me, "You know that I was planning to amputate your whole arm before it spread, right? I wasn't trying to kill you."

Oh.

"But then I realized," his Adam's apple bobbled up and down, "There was no point. For all I know, the infection might have started already. I didn't study the virus enough, I'm sorry."

"No." Onyx intervened, "It was Sylvia's fault. She didn't assign you to the scientific ward where you were supposed to be stationed. Instead, she paired you up with me."

Quartz was crying again.

"It was my fault." He hiccuped.

"I didn't want to be separated from you, so I begged her to be with you, my twin. Even though I had the opportunity to perform trials and shit, I didn't. I'm worried about you, especially since you were scavenging, alone. I couldn't let that happen to my younger brother."

What the fuck?

I didn't stop the bubble of laughter I made when I made a discovery. "So, Onyx is younger than you by how many minutes?"

I tried to lighten the mood, and it worked. A rare pout has shown itself on Onyx's lips as he was the one who answered. "It was only by thirteen minutes!"

"Best thirteen minutes of my life." Quartz relaxed further into my legs, and it took everything in me not to just force his face down my--

I shouldn't be thinking about that right now, God damn it. I'm about to die.

"Now that our heart-to-heart has finished," I looked at them alternately and affectionately, as if this was the last time, I'm going to see them in this life.

"I want you both to grant me two favors. One," I held up my pointer finger, and said, "Kill me once I turn, which I won't, but you don't know that, The second one. I only held up my middle finger before I realized my mistake, and said, Wait, that's not right--they both chuckled at my muddled mind, The second one! Take care of Tootsie for me? She's all I have, you know? I'd greatly appreciate it from Heaven if you took care of her."

They were both quiet once I finished asking for my favors, but I thought that I needed to lighten up the mood before really making them leave me in my room.

"Who am I kidding? I'm going to hell."

Our boisterous laugh filled the entire room, making it less somber but more nostalgic. Once we felt as if we've exhausted everything we had, I made them leave me in solitude and instructed them to kill me by tomorrow.

Both of them hugged me and said their final goodbyes and asked me if I wanted to see Tootsie as well, but I declined.

Now I lay here on my unkempt bed with my blankets haphazardly thrown to the side, in a fetal position. I'm fighting hard to get rid of this virus, this parasitic infection shit to pass through my system.

As I feel my body getting all flushed with fever, my eyesight blurred until I couldn't see a thing anymore, it took a while before I realized I passed out, but by then it was too late.

What a life I have lived.

Only to die because of a fucking zombie bullet.