Bittersweet

Theo

They had been traveling all day, and Theo could tell that Taqiqq was getting tired. She had paused to catch her breath five times in the last three minutes. He didn't want to push her anymore, so he suggested that they stop for the day and get some rest.

"I'm sorry babe, I know I'm slowing you down. I wish the car hadn't run out of gas so soon, we've still got at least two weeks until we reach Lanford," Taqiqq said as she sat down by the tree.

"Don't say that, I'm just glad that I can be here with you and not by myself. I love you babe." He leaned over and laid a gentle kiss on her forehead.

A small smile graced her lips. "I love you too Theo." She laid her head on his shoulder. He grinned like a fool. By the butterflies swarming his stomach he'd be tempted to believe this a new relationship, but the two had been a couple since Junior Year of high school. They had just finished their second year in college when the plague hit.

Theo was thinking about asking her to marry him. Sure, they were on the run, trying to find their way back to Texas, but what if he lost her? He wanted this woman to be his wife, she was perfect. So intelligent and kind, and her beauty was beyond compare. Her family loved him, although her brother Miki had anger issues. Theo had never been so sure of anything in his life.

They slowly fell asleep like that, and he was taken away to dreams of living with Taqiqq in the real world, with no flesh-starved monsters on their heels at all times. Sleep was the only time Theo ever felt peaceful after the apocalypse started. But even just to get to sleep he had to suffer through sometimes hours of being tired, his body not letting him sleep for fear of being attacked by the dead.

He awoke with a start as rain poured on them. Taqiqq awoke as well, and they both stood, no sleeping would be done in this. The sky had gotten darker, perhaps a little before dusk. Theo looked at the sky. A storm was brewing. That's when they saw them. Legions of the undead. Walking towards them, shambling. They hadn't been able to hear them with the storm going on, and they were close. It seemed they came from all angles, leaving only one way to escape.

Theo and Taqiqq immediately sprinted in that direction. Theo had never seen so many undead before. They kept running, but they couldn't run forever. Then Theo heard the river. The river that stretched fifteen yards wide, cut off the only possible escape from the hoard. The two of them looked down at the water, churning violently, splashing them even from where they stood.

"What do we do?" Taqiqq asked, panicking. Theo looked behind them. They had maybe thirty seconds to decide before the hoard would catch them.

"We have to cross,"

"We can't!"

"No, I know, but we have to, it's the only way out." She looked at him, horrified. How did he possibly think that they were going to escape across this river? They'd be swept away.

"Maybe we can climb a tree..." she suggested.

"No time, they would get here before we were high enough, and the trees are soaked, it'd be too hard. We might slip. This is the only way. I'd rather drown than be eaten by them. I'll hold you, I won't let go, I swear!" He grabbed her by the wrist and took a step into the river.

Surprisingly it wasn't as fast as he thought. He struggled to stay standing, but he hadn't been pulled under yet. The zombies were close now, so he pulled Taqiqq along, a yard into the water. Maybe they wouldn't enter the river. They did.

Taqiqq was panicking. He kept pushing forward, the river pulling harder and harder on him. The zombies that had followed them in were close, somehow not flowing away. They could still make it. He kept pushing on.

Suddenly Taqiqq tripped on a rock and paused, just long enough for the corpse behind her to grab her arm and bite it, ripping away a chunk. Theo stared at her in horror. She'd been bit. She looked at him with a look that could only be described as loneliness.

"I love you Theo," she said before jumping up, letting her feet be swept out from under her, dragging her under the water, the current violently pulling her away. Theo could barely register the pain before he was forced to keep pushing. He successfully made it to the other side, watching as the undead that had followed were finally swept away by the strongest currents in the middle of the river.

He fell to his knees and screamed. She was gone, dead, or soon to be undead. If he had gotten a few more feet she'd have lived, but he hadn't, and so she was gone.

He slowly got to his feet and sludged on, barely looking around him at all. A steady stream of tears poured down his face in torrents. He felt so hopeless. What could he possibly have to live for in this world without Taqiqq, they had been together so long, she was a constant, he couldn't remember what his life had been like without her. She had been omnipresent, and now she was dead.

A/N: This is a really short chapter, but they will get longer once the characters/plot have been introduced. Please leave feedback in the comment section!

Theo

Taqiqq