Hatchetfield Stories

Infection

What's this? Three fics in the span of 24 hours??? Yep, I'm hyperfocussing on writing :)

I wanted to try something new, please beware of the TWs, because this is kind of a heavy one <3

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-Injury
-Infected wounds
-Gore
-Stabbing
-Kind of suicide to escape a bad situation
-Death

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As the days went by, Emma being conscious and aware became a rare sight. More often than not, she could only groan in response when Paul talked to her. The wounds in her leg were definitely infected, but in the middle of the apocalypse, there wasn't much they could do. They hadn't been found yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. He just hoped that help would arrive first.

They'd filled the bathtub when they still had running water, and Paul used that water to rinse her injury every day, before wrapping it up with some of the clean bandages he'd taken from a pharmacy down the street. He tried to do it first thing every morning, but often it took him a while before he could get himself to actually unwrap the bandage around her leg, knowing that what he would see wouldn't be pleasant, and often even worse than the day before. Plus, in her feverish state, she could barely comprehend what was going on, always weakly trying to pull her leg away when he worked. He felt terrible for hurting her.

When he woke up that morning, the first thing he did was look at their inventory. They were running low on painkillers, but they didn't seem to be helping much anyway, and after she'd almost choked trying to swallow one of the pills a few days prior, he was scared to give them to her. Scared that after going through all of this, she'd die by choking on a fucking pill.

He turned to her, and this time, she was actually looking at him, instead of staring at him but not seeing him. "Paul..." Oh. She was actually conscious. He didn't know if that would make cleaning her would easier or harder, seeing she would be aware of everything he did.

Paul drenched a towel in water and placed it on her forehead. "Hey, Em,"

"'M cold."

"I know, I'm sorry. But we have to get your fever down."

Emma nodded, closing her eyes. For a moment, he thought she'd fallen asleep, but her eyes fluttered open again. "'S alright."

"I'm going to unwrap your bandages, okay?"

She nodded again, reaching for his hand, and he offered it to her, letting her squeeze it as hard as she wanted as the last layer of the bandage stuck to the blood, pulling on the skin.

Blood and pus leaked from the badly-done stitches she'd given herself right after the crash, and the smell was horrible, but surprisingly, it didn't seem much worse than the day before. "I'm gonna need my hand back, okay?" he asked, carefully letting her hand go.

Pushing away his squeamishness, Paul grabbed a wet cloth and began to dab at the wound, wiping away the blood. He winced at Emma's pained grunts, but continued to wrap her leg.

By the time he was done, Emma was crying softly, tears streaming down her cheek.

"Hey, Em, look at me," he said, cupping her cheek after cleaning his hands with some hand sanitizer.

"Do you..." she started, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Do you still have the gun?"

"No? No!" Paul's eyes went wide. "Ted had it. And I'm not giving up on you, help will arrive sooner or later, and then-"

And then what? Everyone they knew was dead, and who's to say that there was someone left in the world to save them. And even if there was, he doubted Emma would have much more than a few days left.

"It hurts," she whimpered, and Paul nodded.

"Okay... Okay." He stood up, walked to the kitchen, and grabbed a knife he knew was sharp enough to do the job. "Okay"

Kneeling back next to her, he took her hand. "You sure?"

She nodded, her eyes fixated on the knife.

"No, Emma, look at me, okay? Don't look at the knife."

She looked up at him as he positioned the knife, the tip against her chest, but not yet digging in. She was trembling, but a look of determination crossed her face. "Thank you, Paul. For everything."

Paul nodded, not sure what to say to the woman he was about to put out of her misery. "You're welcome."

With that, he stabbed the knife into her chest.

Her eyes went wide, and blood dripped from her lips as she gasped in pain.

But the pain didn't last long.