Dead End [#Wattys2016]

CHAPTER 10

I was in shock. Tears welled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks carelessly. Some fell into my open mouth that was agape in horror, leaving an unwanted salty taste on my tongue. The temples of my head started to ache, quickly becoming a powerful pressure that was squeezing from either side of me, so it felt like my brain was being compressed. My heart pounded violently in my constricting chest, punching me with useless adrenaline and urging me to go do something helpful. But there was nothing to help.

I watched in mere horror and trauma as I saw the zombies – the demons sent from hell – rip into Alice's pale flesh as if they hadn't eaten for days and were suddenly presented with a buffet of delightful food. Their yellow teeth and grey fingers stained a pure red. All I could do was stand, paralysed with a deep emotion that churned my stomach and made my ears ring, something too deep to find a word that could fit it. I doubt a dictionary could be any help to me here.

I hated that this was a familiar sensation to me.

Then, the ringing abruptly stopped, shortly leaving me in a shocked stupor. Next came the screams. They rang louder than the ringing ever could and left permanent marks imprinted in my brain. They were Alice's screams of complete and utter torment. Nothing had been this agonising, ever, since James. It was then that everything came back to me and I jumped into action without hesitation, the previous adrenaline that coursed through my body spurring me on. Quicker than I could comprehend, my katana was wrapped securely in my hands and aggression was drowning my eyes, blurring my true sight. I marched over to the chaos with a mission in mind.

My arm jerked violently as soon as I was in arms reach of the nearest monster, cutting its head in half and letting the top of it, along with the mushy brain, fall to the ground before it had a chance to mark Alice with another bite. As soon as my sword had left the touch of the first zombie, it settled on the next. The blade stabbed through the vacant eye of the zombie that was greedily about to take another bite of Alice's shoulder.

Her screams never ceased, getting more rough and rugged at her lack of oxygen and the tiring of her throat muscles. She was in so much pain.

Finally, I stood before the last attacker, and without out any hesitation, plunged my weapon through its skull and let it carelessly fall to the uneven ground with a soft thud. I stared at it in disgust, my mind a whirlwind of distressful thoughts that flung harmfully in my head. My glare as sharp as a shard of glass and as penetrable as loneliness. I probably looked my most intimidating in that moment than I ever had been in my life. My eyes so blinded by revulsion that even the darkness of reality couldn't reach me. For a few seconds of my life, it felt like I was nowhere and no one and nothing existed. For a few seconds of my life, I was utterly and truly lost.

Then I found myself.

It was Alice's body colliding painfully to the ground and her suppressed whimpers of agony that pushed me out of my mind and back into the cage of trees where I resided. My mind had an irritating buzz of confusion as it tried to piece out the puzzle of my odd moment in nothingness, allowing an annoying headache to arise. But my impaired mind was nothing compared to the torturous tearing of my heart. It was slow and agonising and all I wished in that moment – not for the first time either – was to be dead.

I rushed to Alice's side immediately, guilt oozing from every ounce of my skin. I regretted not catching her as she fell, not being myself in her time of need, not waking up earlier. I regretted not taking her place. I wished I had pushed aside my selfish tiredness and taken first watch so that I would be the one to encounter the zombies while she soundly slept.

I kneeled down gently beside her despite my shaking body and carefully cradled her in my arms, her dark blood staining my hands in more ways than one. She was heavy, all her weight had been pushed upon me as she had no strength to carry any herself. Tears rushed down my cheeks in rapid movements and travelled down my scrunched up face with horribly contained sobs. My throat made an ugly gurgling noise as I tried to get some words out of my mouth, anything to comfort her in her final moments upon this god-forsaken earth.