The Bridge

Change of Heart

As they walk, the hypnotized remain quiet, aside from their natural, strained breathing, which sounds as a groan. They walk slowly around him, with Kate in the front. 'She doesn't even bother to look at me...' Carson thinks.

As if on queue, Kate turns her head, and gazes right into his eyes. She slows her pace, and enters the circle of the taken to walk next to him. "You've been glaring at me this whole time...why?"

"There's no answer to give that you don't already know," he answers, before averting his gaze.

"In such a time as this, when I've returned...you're not happy to see me?" she asks.

"Not like this...no," he responds. Aside from the stench, as she's partially a corpse, her personality has changed, and there's no more light or life in her eyes as there once was. And her comments about his old friend, Micah, only tell him that she's his, now. "Kate?...Earlier, you said I didn't love you enough to search for you...I tried...for so long, I used boats, I swam, desperately trying to find you while the others stayed on the shore, fighting off the enemy. Any time I touched something in the water, a branch, driftwood, or even some seaweed, I had hoped that I would pull you up. But I never found you...I...I'm sorry I never found you..."

Kate stares at him blankly, her eyes still as dark, and filled with a lack of love for him. "Would it cheer you up to know that your other friends survived as well?-"

"They were your friends too," he corrects her. "We've known them for years...and no, it wouldn't, knowing they're probably going to look the same way you do now."

"But they're still alive," Kate responds. She leans forward a little, leaning her head in front of his a bit, and looks at his face. "I could make you an offer, one that we would all agree to..."

"And what would that be?" Carson asks, stepping to the side. His shoulder bumps one of the hypnotized guarding him, he turns with a groan and stares at Carson with an icy, blank look, before Kate's own hand pulls him back by the shoulder.

"Touch them, and they'll attack," she warns, her hand firmly gripping around the base of his neck. Then she lets go. "You could join us, and live as we do, free from being attacked...you could live in peace now, if you wanted."

"And become a monster? Like you? Working for an old friend who for all I know, is doing this because he has no care for anyone?" Carson asks.

"Deny my offer, and you will die," Kate tells him in answer. "But accept it, and maybe Micah will forgive you for what you've done."

"His death was not my fault..." Carson answers quietly.

"You sound uncertain. Why don't you think back? I'll hear what happened when you wake up," she says, before landing a swift chop on the back of his neck. Carson loses consciousness, and one of her guards comes over to pick him up, and another comes too, and they drag him across the floor.

His mind flashes with old memories, as it had a few times before. But not pleasant memories, as with Kate at the waterfall. But rather, recent memories, of the new Kate, and images of his old friends, whose bodies laying on the floor were the last thing he saw of them. Micah. Alex. Carley. And Brian. Friends he made, and kept as the broadcast was first sent out. Friends who protected him in the city. Friends who tried to stop him from bringing on another survivor into their group, a girl who at the time was weak, and fearful. Kate.

'It's been so many years...five, I think, since we first ran into Kate. Back then, she was weak, like I had been that entire time. We found her, starving inside an abandoned home. The pictures on the wall weren't even of her, or her family, I had assumed she ran there and hid. Much like the rest of us had over and over again. I spoke up to Micah, and Alex, and asked if we could take her with us. They denied me, of course. 'Too many mouths to feed, we don't need another, especially of a weak girl' they said. I told them off, and waved them away, and took the girl's hand. I learned her name was Kate, and I took care of her. I made sure she was fed, and that she got stronger. Before I knew it, she was stronger than me and Alex, and she started taking care of me...protecting me. I guess my good acts paid off, and she was returning the favor she never asked for.'