AM13 Outbreak Shorts

One Year On - Forty Two (Emma)

Emma

Humans...I can sense them at long last.

I've been searching for other humans ever since I left my parents all that time ago, not that I can even remember when that was anymore, it's all just a distant memory, something that happened a long time ago.

Sometimes I even think it might have happened to someone else.

I'm not me anymore, that much I can be sure of. Trust me to find other humans the moment I'm no longer myself, no longer able to mix with them and find safety as I'd like. After all, this time when I greet them, I'll be the danger.

Even though the virus is eating me alive, I have a tiny bit of rationality left. Just enough to know this isn't right. But the only human aspect of me won't win out, not this time. My primal, animal instincts are driving me, my deep-seated hunger which overshadows everything else. I had cravings when I was myself, a need for chocolate or spaghetti bolognaise now and again, but it wasn't ever like this. I didn't need anything this bad.

This is indescribable. This is on another level.

Soon, my hunger will be quenched as well, and everything will be better.

Perhaps just these humans need to die to keep me alive. Maybe once I've followed the crowd of infected through the hole in the wall, into the camp which smells full of human flesh, once that's all over I may well be able to think straight once more. To focus on my morals rather than my desperate desires once more.

Perhaps one human killed will be enough for me.

But, oh my, they smell so damn good. I might as well be salivating because I'm so excited to wrap my teeth around whoever I can get my hands on first. I know, deep down, there's no going back after this. I'll lose myself completely, the girl I once was will be no more. I'll succumb completely to the AM13 virus and be no more.

The blackness might be better, the blankness may be welcome. It has to be better than this in between stage anyway, where I'm not quite human and I'm also far too aware of all the disgusting things that I've done. I will be glad to say goodbye to that...

But it's still sad, isn't it? Giving up, losing my life, knowing it didn't have to be this way. There are so many ways I could've dealt with this so much better, so many questions I'm left asking myself.

What if I never left my parents?

What if I didn't meet Rachael and didn't try to help her?

What if life was back to how it was?

As my teeth sink into the first piece of human flesh I can get my hands on, I slip away like grains of sand. I can't keep hold of myself however hard I try. Finally, there is no more me, I'm just another one of them.

Evil.

The enemy.

Death.