Beside the Dying Fire

Sarah's POV

Kai and I continued walking, hand in hand, until nightfall. Kai had been losing a lot of blood. We should have stopped hours ago, but he insisted that we had to get further and further away. Further away from the destruction. Further away from the death. Further away from Danny's walker.

We found an old cabin in a desolate location. We had found it just in time, for once we got inside, Kai had collapsed in pain. I rushed to the kitchen, where kitchen rags lay all over the counter. I scooped as many as I could into my hands and ran back to him. I slowly lifted up his shirt until the point where the bloody wound was clearly visible. I dabbed the wound with the rags, but the blood kept coming. I was going to have to stitch the wound.

I searched the house until I had found the things that I needed: a needle, some thread, bandages, and Hydrogen Peroxide. I slid across the wooden floor on my knees back to his side and pulled out the bottle of Peroxide. Before unscrewing the cap, I gave Kai a clean rag to stuff into his mouth. Leo told me that having this stuff poured into a wound hurts like hell, so he surely will being screaming like a demon. Now for those of you who don't know, Hydrogen Peroxide is used for cleaning wounds, you know, making sure that they won't infect.

Anyways, back to the minor surgery on Kai. I poured a bit of the chemical liquid onto another rag and pressed it against his wound. I could hear a muffled shriek coming from beyond the rag in Kai's mouth. His hands became fists to fight the pain. This was only the beginning.

I carefully threaded the needle. Now, this wasn't your regular medical thread, no. This was sewing thread. Your probably thinking, "That will never work.". It might not, but I've heard stories from different survivors that they've seen people do this to themselves with fishing line. I think this would be fine. I pierced 1 side of his flesh that the knife had split apart. I punctured the other side as well and pulled the string through. I just repeated this process as if I were fixing a tear on a sweater. Once I was finished, I bit the thread since I lacked something sharp to slice the string. Finally, I wrapped the bandages around his gut a few times.

Kai sat up as he spat out the rag, "When did you learn to do that?"

"Leo taught me," I responded. "He thought that I would have to be the medic persona on runs."

"I'm glad that he did teach you, even though it hurts as if it wasn't healed," he complained.

"Wow, no 'Thanks for saving my life, Sarah'?" I teased him.

"I owe you my life," He held up his right hand. He scooted over to a couch that had been pulled out into a bed and slowly got on.

"Don't make me share a bed with you, you cover it in blood," I joked.

"Yeah, your blood if you keep nagging me," he chuckled.

"Well, excuse me for just saving your life!" I fell into the bed in laughter.

We both giggled for a while before Kai brought us back to the hell we're living in.

"Why didn't you shoot Yaaseen?" he asked as he turned onto his side to make eye contact.

"I wanted to save the bullets for the walkers," I lied. "Also, he deserved to feel the pain of turning."

"Hmm," he caught on to my dishonesty. "Sounds like something that you'd say, but that's not why. You can tell me, I mean, I'm your twin."

"Fine, if you must know," I rolled my eyes while telling the truth this time, "It takes someone truly strong to fight in this new world, but it takes someone even stronger not to fight."

Kai smiled at me, "See, that wasn't so hard."

I responded by elbowing him in the gut, forgetting that he had just been stabbed there hours earlier. He recoiled in pain, but still wouldn't wipe that stupid grin off of his face. Not until he dozed off with my sleepiness trailing right behind his.

I was awoken a bit later on by the sound of groaning. If the groaning was coming from outside, it wouldn't phase me. However this walker groan came from the body beside me. It was coming from Kai. I shook his shoulder, telling him to stop. When he shifted his head in my direction, his eyelids opened, revealing faded eyes. My gun was too far out of reach to kill Kai's walker, but I probably couldn't do it anyway. The reanimated corpse sank it's teeth into my shoulder. I screwed out in pain. I fell out of the bed, ready for the infection to set in.

I jolted into an upright position while screaming. I lay in the bed, the blankets covering my legs. The white blankets, the ones not covered in blood. Kai thrusted his torso up to see what was wrong. He wasn't a walker. I reached my 4-fingered hand to my right shoulder, where I was just bitten. No blood, no wound, nothing.

"Sarah, what's wrong?" Kai asked.

I finally realized what happened, "I just had a very realistic nightmare, where you turned and bit me."

"Look, I'm fine," he spoke to me as if I were Schizophrenic.

"Yeah, I know. It was just a nightmare."

"That's all it is," Kai told me. "This entire world is just 1 big nightmare. Anyways, we need some sleep if we plan on moving tomorrow towards San Diego."

At that moment, I heard the front door swing open. No walker groans were heard, but the cocking of a gun was loud and clear. I snatched my Desert Eagle and pointed it at the dark doorway where the figure stood. From the shadows came someone I never thought that I'd ever see again.