He stood for everything she was against and he wouldn't be caught dead befriending someone like her, but when the worst happens and they find themselves in a similar situation, only then will they realize they need each other to discover the anatomy...
My belly was on fire. Ironic seeing as there was a puddle of something cold pooled around me. I couldn't actually see it, though. The room I woke up in was pitch black, like a blanket was wrapped around my whole body. I was cold, shivering despite the jacket I wore. When I got up to move, quietly as possible, instinctively cautious, a sharp pain went through my core and my attempts at being quiet became futile. I let out a gasp of agony which I tried to swallow back, to push down my throat and unchain the reaction it was going to cause.
Sure enough, I heard footsteps coming my way and a light turned on somewhere outside the room I was in. A sliver of space under a door illuminated and I could just make out boxes and coats hanging from a bar above me. I was in a closet, then. I didn't have energy enough to investigate whose because the pain in my belly was steadily throbbing and with it, a fresh wave of blood seeped out of me.
I pulled up my shirt to see a clumsily wrapped bandage around my stomach, painted red with my blood. When I lifted that, I saw a gaping wound the size of my thumb slashed just to the right of my bellybutton. Through my mouth, another moan of horror escaped. My hands trembled as I tried to cover up the wound with the shitty bandage and I heard footsteps draw near once again. Before whoever was coming for me reached the closet, someone knocked on what I assumed was the front door.
The sound of the knock sparked something in my memory. Images came back to me in nonlinear flashes: The gun dropping from my hand; the crunch of gravel beneath my feet; the ringing of the bell above the door when the room exploded; Jasper hitting the floor, unmoving.
"Leave now or you'll join your girlfriend underground." I heard King's voice so close to me, spewing his wannabe macho lines that always fall flat.
Suddenly I was back at the gas station, crawling through a nightmare. King's voice whispered in my ear, "He's dead, now. You're mine, now. It's over, now."
I'd dragged myself across the floor, through the rubble of the garish scene of tossed-aside bodies and debris. I didn't know who I was climbing over to get to the safety of the counter where I knew I could hide and maybe be found in the fallout of the firefight. The lights had blown out and I was crawling blind, through dust and tears and absolute horror. Johnny lay on his side like a beached whale, belly gutted like a fish, and I had to climb over him to get to the other side. My boots squelched in the river of blood draining from his open belly. I would have mourned for him if every instinct in my body wasn't selfishly trying to preserve only me.
I knew Jasper was out there still, on the floor somewhere, but I didn't want to look. I didn't want to think about him or what would become of him. My eyes shut tightly while the shouting crescendoed and an image of a smiling boy was my only comfort. It was absolutely absurd that in the middle of the end of the world, I would think of Caleb. Smiling, beautiful, Caleb. But he was all I could think about as I felt myself fading.
Then, I was being dragged across the floor by my feet and swept up in the bony arms of someone who was decidedly not Caleb.
I didn't know what all that meant or who was speaking though I fought to see. My eyes wouldn't move for me and soon my whole body was going under until I heard nothing at all.
My head rang with the sound of gunfire, pop pop pop. I didn't know if it was inside the room or inside my head, still in the vivid memory, but when I heard yelling outside, I realized the shooting was coming from outside.
Someone was shuffling towards the closet and the door was flung open, practically off its hinges. A bloody figure stood above me and suddenly, my heart started beating again. Truly beating. But I'd never realized it had stopped at all until it did, pumping life blood through me and I could feel everything again. See and smell and who I could see was beautiful. Caleb. Blood pumped right through my open belly, taking me asunder once more.
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Isn't it funny that instead of longer, my final chapters become infuriatingly shorter...?
