Blood For Blood

Don't Forget to Bleed

Kellin sprinted through the field of dead sunflowers, feeling their leaves cut across his skin as he gasped for breath. There were growls and screams everywhere around him in the darkness and he knew they were gaining on him. He didn't dare look back. There wasn't time to wonder how it had come to this. He could only run.

It was the terror that kept his numb legs moving but he cursed them for not carrying him faster. He knew he couldn't keep this up forever. As if to spite him, his feet tripped over each other and he fell through the thick sunflower stems. His fear spiked and he knew this was it for him. He would die out here, alone and afraid.

Strong arms caught him before he hit the muddy ground and the world went quiet. The walls of twisted, lifeless flowers had ended and Kellin looked up to his familiar savior in the light of the opening. Vic. He felt relief flow through his chest and quench most of the panic. Even so, he could hear the monsters nearing. He tried to tell Vic that they had to move but his voice wouldn't work. Damn it all, why the fuck couldn't he say something?

Vic supported Kellin's arms easily. He had looked surprised but soon smiled as he recognized his friend. A little more of Kellin's terror melted away. Somehow Vic always made him feel okay. They would figure something out, everything would be all right.

Kellin almost moved to embrace his friend but paused as he saw something different in Vic's eyes. A glint of menace seemed to shine from their brown depths. A cold knife of fear pierced Kellin's chest again as Vic's smile grew unnervingly.

"Save yourself."

Vic shoved Kellin backwards toward the sounds of the undead and a long moment of shock paralyzed Kellin as he fell into clawed hands tearing at his hair. The pain of betrayal filled his heart and overflowed to the tears in his eyes. He struggled in the reanimated arms of the dead but only seemed to plummet through a bottomless throng of rotting bodies ripping and scratching anything they could reach. His view of Vic began to fade to darkness, an ever-present look of disdain and contempt staring down at him as he felt his body finally giving out.

One last wave of panic rushed through Kellin and he let out a loud desperate cry, gasping as his eyes flew open.

Arms were around him, grabbing his shoulder. Kellin immediately threw them off and tried to push himself up from the sleek muddy ground, tangling his legs in sunflower corpses he couldn't get free from. When he fell again and felt the bounce of springs, the ground became soft cushions and the sunflowers transformed into wrinkled sheets. Kellin's vision cleared a little. He was in bed.

"...Kellin?" Vic sat a few feet from him on the same bed, holding his hands in plain sight to appear as nonthreatening as possible.

Kellin could only stare. The image of Vic's terrible smile as he pushed him into death's arms was burned into his mind. He looked his friend up and down as if expecting him to lunge and start strangling him any second and his heart still beat hard in an attempt to escape his ribcage.

Vic shifted slowly but froze when Kellin flinched away from him. "It's okay," Vic soothed, "it was only a nightmare."

Vic had woken up to the comforting sight of Kellin wrapped in his arms and noticed that they were the last two in the bedroom. He'd adjusted his arms to keep them from falling asleep and then reveled in the rare feeling of safety, but before he could enjoy it for too long, Kellin began to whimper in his sleep. Vic had contemplated waking the other up but never had the chance to. Kellin had no sooner opened his eyes with a shout when he started scrabbling his way out of Vic's embrace in a frenzy and crouched like a caged animal on the edge of the mattress.

As much as Vic had been wishing he could hear Kellin's voice again, hearing him with so much desperation and fear was almost worse than not hearing him at all.