𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙢 𝘽𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨

Chapter Twenty four

Roo

I've never been one for getting sentimental. It's a waste of time and all it really does is make you weak.

There's no time for being weak, not with the way the world is nowadays. It's not easy out there for anyone, Living or Corpse. Weakness gets you either eaten or shot, respectively. I never get sentimental.

It's probably why I've lived so long.

Y/N, on the other hand, is incredibly sentimental. She's not like others.

She might be dead but the kid still has a heart. She's soft; prone to sentiment and emotion and nostalgia and all those other things.

I think that's why she collects all her little trinkets, because she likes to think about how things must've been before. She feels things more than any of us.

Y/N was that way before too. I still remember that day when I found her. Or rather, she found me. I was alone in the station, like always, and I heard the gunshots first. Then she came barrelling in like hell was on her heels - which it was, in retrospect, since those gunshots had attracted a crowd of hungry Corpses.

She had been shouting but the moment her eyes fell on me she went still.

Now I'm never one to turn down a fresh meal when it stumbles into my path, but I'll admit I did hesitate a second before going after the kid.

Y/N just looked so heartbroken. I remember she said "Chief" before I charged and I could smell the salt of tears over the warmth of meat.

She didn't fight me. That was the weirdest part. Y/N didn't fight back even though she had a gun in her hand and another across her back.

I should've eaten her brains and been done with it. The kid just wasn't built for this life, she didn't deserve it. Y/N wasn't hard enough.

But in the end I just couldn't do it. I felt bad for her, maybe. It was the first flicker of anything that I'd felt since waking up as a Corpse and it was so overpowering I couldn't fight it. So I ended her as quickly and painlessly as I could.

Between my hands at her neck and the blood pouring from the arm I'd taken a bite out of - I tried to apologise for that later when she woke up but I don't think she understood me - she didn't last long.

The last word on her lips was "Mom" before she faded out.

After Y/N woke up - scared, Hungry, and with no memory of me trying to eat her - I took her under my wing.

I told myself I was just going to keep an eye on her for a bit, make sure that she'd acclimatised to being a Corpse well enough, but it became apparent pretty quickly that Y/N wasn't like the rest of us.

Whatever it was about her before had stuck around in a way and she stayed naive and soft despite her new species. So I stuck around. I was there when she needed someone to talk to - or grunt at, rather - and I never let her go into the Living populated areas without me.

I could never explain it, but I felt protective of the kid. It might've been because I was the one who turned her - she's the only one I've ever turned instead of just killing - or maybe just because I felt sure she needed the protection, but I was determined to keep her safe.

Then Y/N had to go completely insane and pick up a Living friend and all that hard work went to shit.

I watch the blue truck drive off into the night, carrying Y/N and her Living companion away from the place we've made our home. It's hard to make sense of what the hell is happening, really. I can feel that there's something big going on though, something that's centred around the two of them.

We all can feel it; I can tell by the way the other Corpses backed away and let them escape instead of eating her - Jennie, Y/N had called her - and her as well just for good measure.

Well there's no reason to be standing around in the road. I turn and start on my way back to the station. Perhaps the madness is over now and we can all just go back to the way things were before.

I glance up as I pass a building with an elaborate marquee that's missing half its letters and something in one of the windows catches my eye. It's a poster, probably advertising some long ago film but I can't read to be sure, and it shows a couple holding hands in front of a sunset.

An image flashes behind my eyes - Jennie slipping her hand into Y/N's, their fingers threading together like the pieces of a puzzle. And then they all start coming in a rush, one after the other: another pair of hands, one thick and rough and grizzled while the other is smooth and tiny, smaller than the palm of the first hand; a little brunet girl with a blue cast on her arm, sleeping in a big bed with a flannel blanket; Y/N, her eyes unclouded and her face unmarked, younger and more alive even than she'd been the first time I saw her and a faint smile on her lips.

The flood of images is broken by a sudden sharp throb in my chest and I take a step back, pressing the heel of my hand against my ribs. What the hell?

I look sideways and there's another Corpse standing beside me, his dull eyes fixed intently on the poster. He is also rubbing a hand over his chest.

"F-f-feel it?" I ask because I have to know. Have to know that it isn't just me cracking up finally, that there is something real happening.

The other man turns to me, his brown eyes gold beneath the fog, and blinks. "Y-you, f-feel it?" I press, almost desperate now.

A crowd is forming behind us, a handful of other Corpses all clustering to see what's going on.

And he slowly nods.

My eyes widen and I turn back to stare at the poster, at the hands that are intertwined - just like Y/N and Jennie, just like the hands I somehow know belonged to me and the little sleeping girl.

What is happening to me? Are these memories? I don't have any memories from before, nothing from before the moment I woke up in the station without a heartbeat but with an overpowering Hunger.

Am I starting to remember my life? And if so, why now?

A growling from behind makes me and the other Corpses turn and we find ourselves facing three Boneys. One of them walks straight up to us, clicking somewhere in the back of its throat, and it leans in right to my face. It sniffs me suspiciously and I can't stop the shudder of fear that rolls through me as I stare back into those hollowed out eye sockets.

This is new. This has never happened before. Boneys have never shown an interest in Corpses before, apart from snarling at us to stay away from food.

The Boney shrieks and I jump in surprise. As it continues to advance on me I back away. I wonder if maybe it's one of the Boneys that was chasing Y/N and Jennie, if maybe it's mad at me for helping them. Do Boneys even think of things like that? Since when do I think of things like that?

More Boneys start showing up, backing all of the gathered Corpses out onto the main road and not letting up. After a block of them hissing and snarling at us every time we try to stop or wander off, I feel like I've gotten the general idea.

We're not welcome here anymore.

I exchange glances with the Corpses on either side of me, and then we all turn on our heels and get the hell outta dodge.