Burden.

Part 1: Father

John was different from the other adults, no one knew why or would ever know why. Maybe he was the first adult infected, maybe he had a mutated version of the disease. One thing that was certain was that John had been affected differently by the disease, he had never turned skinny, though his body had gotten muscular from chasing and tearing apart the kids that smelled so delicious to him. His skin had turned a sickly mix of green and yellow, bloody boils only having just started to form along his body. His hair had yet to completely fall out, though his scalp was crimson slick from the constant itching at his skull with his sharp nails.

John could feel them, the tendrils in his brain, he could feel them digging deeper and deeper into him. John scratched his head, bloody flakes of flesh and small strands of hair falling like snow. John knew that if he just dug deep enough he could grab the tendrils and pull them out like roots of a weed. John didn't remember who he was, not really, he just knew that he existed, though he still remembered that girl, the first one he had ever eaten; she had tasted so sweet, the sweetest of all, no other kid had filled him up quite as much as she had. What had she called him? It was a name, he wasn't good with names or words, they hurt his head, made the tendrils burn hot and push against the back of his eyes, but he liked to remember things like that, words and names, they were precious little things, part of what made him different from others.

Dad.

That's what the girl had called him, 'Dad.' Was that his name? No, he could remember it meant something, it meant another word. John scratched at his skull again, it felt amazing for him to scratch, plus it helped loosen his brain, got the gears in his head going, turning. Gears? He had never thought that word before, but he didn't care, he wanted the other word. John kept scratching, it was almost there, right in front of him. There! John snatched the word... father. Father, John held the word in his mind and looked at it, it was a strange word, it seemed important to him, or what used to be him, an old part of him, a part gone, a part that the tendrils had swallowed. John looked at the word and tried to remember why it was important, he struggled, banging his head against the cement, each time harder than the last.

What. Did. It. Mean.

Then it hit him. He was a father, and the girl was his daughter, it had been his daughter, but... he had killed- No, it wasn't him, it was the disease. Wait, wasn't he the disease? No. What was he? He was dad. No; father. No; he was both, but neither... not anymore, there was a sort of weight to that thought. He had a name though, a name he went by. He remembered he'd say it when he'd meet people. "Hi, my name's-" What? What was his name? He tried to grab it but it slipped through his fingers. John gritted his teeth, "Hi, my name is-is... John." Yes, his name was John. He'd have barbecues and would shake hands with other dads. "Hi, my name's John, nice to meet you."

John smiled, flashing his decaying teeth which were stained red from blood. He knew his name, he held it high in the air in his head, his brain singing it loud through the numbness of the pain. John looked around him, all the adults looking up at him, he could feel them, they looked at him and he could feel the disease buzzing around in each and every one of them. This was why he was their leader, he was greater than any other adult, he could still think, he could still remember the days before the ball was in his stomach, he was John.

John tried to say his name but all that came out was a mere groan that seemed to scratch at the air itself. His brain may still be able to remember words but it was far too gone to actually speak them. However, the adults around him shifted as if they understood what he meant to say. John frowned, he hated it, the words were always stuck in the back of his throat, never wanting to come out. He just needed to get rid of the ball, the one in his stomach, it was always in his stomach, the adults were in his way though. John merely thought out the command for the adults to move and, like Moses commanding the Red Sea, the adults parted, making way for him.

John smiled. He was still a father, and the adults were his children.