Winner!
Third Place Sci-Fi Winner on The Dream Awards July 2020.
What would happen if one day you were infected with a virus that ate at your brain, your skin, and all your internal organ all while you were self-aware?
Would you still feel? Want to...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The complexity that is Teal was about to unravel. She wasn't sure she was ready to share with someone else, Marc, a stranger, and a male who unnerved her senses.
This zombie could forever judge her based on her story. For the most part, these were things she had no control over. However, she was petrified to be so intimate with someone, who wasn't part of her family. Maybe it was her human side speaking, but she believed zombies and people, were more alike than different.
She wasn't the best judge of character because she wasn't a social being. However, she hoped, with all her might, he would feel compassion towards her. Listen, and not throw her out of his club after she was done telling him her story. He already looked pissed off enough by her presence earlier, finding out she was half-human? Mostly human? A little bit human? Who knew how well he would take news like that.
Lifting shifty eyes to his, Teal took a deep, slow breath. "On my birthday; ergo the night before you and I met, I found out my mother and father were scientists in their human life," she began. "They were the people who were assigned to come up with a vaccine when the outbreak first started."
Without hesitation, Marc's eyes rounded in surprise. By the looks of him, Teal understood him to be a zombie who thought he'd seen it all. Heard it all. Knew it all. Obviously, he hadn't.
"My mother was pregnant with me when she and my dad contracted the virus. They'd been working on a serum with much potential. Threatened, the military destroyed everything my parents worked so hard for." Breathless, Teal paused for a gulp of oxygen and in one breath continued. "My mother hid the vial from them and administered it to us ... me, as a fetus."
She watched his eyes. They were big, but less surprise and more understanding reflected in them.
"At the time, Jax was still human. My parents had him in the care of my aunt. He got infected at school a year later. Desperate, Aunt Rita asked him to infect her. That's when she found out she's immune."
"Is she now?" The green in Marc's pupils changed hue as if the lights in the room reflected in them at an angle. His index finger rubbed his lower lip and he hung to every word she'd said.
Teal nodded, stood, and paced the room wringing her hands. His eyes heeded her every move.
"My parents observed many oddities in me. They hoped they wouldn't develop further, but they did." She looked down at herself, then briefly at him settling down on the couch. "For example, I can breathe a warm breath."
