The Heart of the Virus

Chapter Nine: Prophecy

He slowly put each piece back together, not realizing along the way that he had stole her heart and won the the day.

 "You know you could save them, you could cure them all and they could live out the rest of their miserable lives doing whatever boring things they do. Or you can leave them the way they are, giving you a great many assets in time of need." The all to familiar voice inside said, playing devil's and angel's advocate while giving me my options.

"Or, I could partially cure them and spread it with even more people until I could rule the world. Or I could leave them alone after curing them unless absolutely necessary, like creating a special pass only I have that lets me hunt whenever I so desire, or so I can't be caught, or blah blah blah." I responded sarcastically, looking down the hill I was sitting on at the people playing near enough to the stronghold to flee back if zombies came but far enough out in the open area they could play bigger games without being crowded.

 I had come with them, not to play, but to watch. I would've loved to play but I didn't want to risk getting to competitive and letting my strength get out of hand. Watching was fun though because it was people I knew, which made it much more fun then the competitive national game.

"Hey Ash, why don't you come play with us?" One of the boys asked, I was pretty sure he fancied me, though it might've been my imagination.

"No thanks, I like watching, it is quite fun seeing you guys duke it out." I responded, grinning at the thought of their banter over who was cheating minutes ago.

"You know, you could just lessen your abilities and play with them, or stay at the sidelines and watch, keeping your abilities higher just in case an unlikely attack were to happen." The voice grated in my head, always being the optimist and the pessimist at the same time.

"Yes, thank you for your terrible output about what I can and cannot do, it's really inspirational. I'm not going to lessen my abilities, that makes it unfair others who can't do that." I voiced internally at them.

"Alright then, mind if I sit by you?" The boy asked, glancing at his friends who were attempting  to silently help him. 

I chuckled at there actions before saying, "Sure, I don't mind, but what about the game?"

"We just finished a round, so it should be fine, right guys?" He turned his head to the guys around him, who all nodded their agreement. I rolled my eyes and smiled, he was going to be a hard one to deal with. 

"Don't you like him? you know you could..." the internal voice questioned before being interrupted by me,

"Yes, I get it, I can do a lot of things, you don't need to tell me about every single option when it comes up and you should know how I feel about him, I don't see love in him and nor do I want, like, or need to kiss anyone anyway. I don't even want to think about the other option Delves so don't even go there."

"Delves."

"Yes, Delves." I said. Delves shrugged their approval, looking back at the scene in front of us.

He had sat next to me by now, watching the game for a little bit, "Wow, it's a very good watching spot from here." 

Delves who was upset about the close proximity, puffed a little with pride at the mention of our instincts while I commented, "Yeah, I get all the best views of the game and I can still here the banter, it's great. So why did you stop playing, it looked like you were having fun." I knew why, but I thought I would act oblivious for him while slowing working to make him realize I wasn't really interested.

"I needed a break and I thought I'd sit by you, you looked like you might like the company."

Delves hissed a few choice words while I mentioned it was their fault for even attempting to give me the options, at this point I was very tempted to pull the boy's heartstrings a little just to upset Delves more. I decided against it though for the poor boy's sake but I wasn't about to take the chance to annoy Delves go to waste. "Oh, alright. So, I saw you were working on something in the workshop earlier, what was it?" I asked, waiting for an answer to a question both Delves and I were interested in while also keeping away an awkward silence.

"I didn't see you there, where were you?"

"I was just passing by and I saw you so you probably wouldn't have seen me." I responded, looking at him for an answer.

"I was just making something as a gift to someone, it's a secret though, so I can't tell you the specifics, sorry." he rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed about me catching him while I just sighed in disappointment and looked back to the game.