Heartless

prologue

She removed the bloody blanket from her leg. Her face turned ghostly pale. The injury was blood red, her bone almost showing. She was bitten in the night. Soon the infection would spread to her brain and she wouldn't be herself anymore. She would kill anyone she saw. Her little sister wouldn't be safe. She mumbled something to the small girl. Tears formed in her eyes.

"I won't kill you," the little girl cried. "I can't."

"You have to," the older girl said sternly, her misery shining through. "I want you to be safe."

"W-we can fix this, you won't have to die."

The older girl looked away. She knew she could cut the limb off, but that was too dangerous. They could barely treat the common cold, plus it would be too hard to get around. They couldn't stay where they were, again too dangerous. She had gotten bitten in her sleep, she didn't want her sister to get infected too.

"We can't fix it," she yelled. "It's too risky, I don't want you hurt."

The tears on the young girl's face fell as she picked up a gun laying beside her. She started to whimper as she raised the gun to the girl's head.

"Can't we just cut your leg off?" She asked, desperation in her voice.

"We don't have enough supplies to cure a paper cut, do you think we could heal a limb being cut off?"

The young girl closed her eyes and raised the gun once more. She knew it was the only option. She could save herself. But she didn't want to. She wanted to stay there with her sister, walker or not. She reminisced about the time before this all happened. Before the infection was even a thing. She remembered how her parents would prop her up on their shoulders and run around the yard, her dog barking vigorously and chasing them. She remembered all of her friends from school. She remembered when everything was okay. Now everything isn't okay. In this world they had to kill to survive and kids were trained to yield weapons. Nobody was safe in one place, either the walkers came and killed, or they lost food or went insane. They had been traveling to another supply cabin when they met someone who said they had a safe shelter. They had been walking for days and they finally decided it was a good idea. They hadn't been too careless, though. They always kept a close eye on their stuff and what the owner of the "safe place" did. They had nearly died, but because they paid attention, they didn't. It turned out that the "safe place" was actually a place where cannibals trap their prey and eat them. It isn't ethical, but it's something they had to sacrifice to live. They escaped the cannibals and fled south of the supply cabin, the cannibals would assume they would go towards it, but they were clever enough to not do that. When they assumed it was safe, they began to venture to the supply cabin, steering clear of the way they went before. Then the bite happened. The world was crashing to the ground, as her sister slowly began to turn. Though she would regret it, the little girl pulled the trigger.