Hatchetfield Stories

Two In The Head, One In The Heart

Why did PEIP want to kill Paul, but they saved Emma's life?
This question has been bothering me for a while now, so I thought I'd write a fanfiction about it!

TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-Injury
-Blood
-Hospitals
-Gun violence
-Death

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Emma cried softly as Paul walked away. The pain in her leg was unbearable and she just sent the one person keeping her sane away. He'd probably die from the explosion and she would bleed out.

It was fine. She had lived a good life. Backpacking through Guatemala had been a fun thing to do for a couple of years, and despite how much she hated her job, being back in Hatchetfield had been more fun than she expected.

She laid her head down, trying to distract herself from the pain. It became harder to think and her vision started to blur. Shit. She was really going to die here, wasn't she? Bleeding out on a beach in Hatchetfield. Great. That definitely wasn't on her bucket list.

She could vaguely make out a person above her, trying to get her attention. But before she even realized that this might be the one chance she'd get to survive, everything went black.

*** *** ***

Emma slowly opened her eyes. After they had adjusted to the bright room, she noticed she was in a hospital.

It didn't take long for her to figure out that she was on some strong medication. Her head was kind of fuzzy, but the pain in her leg was nothing more than a dull ache.

A soldier walked into the room. He grabbed a chair and put it next to her bed. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Emma. Emma Perkins." She looked at him. "Look, I don't know who you are, but do you know if Paul Matthews is alive?"

"I don't know, but I'd like to ask you some questions. Why were you bleeding out on the beach?"

Emma sighed. "Oh. We were going to Clivesdale in some military helicopter. Long story short: the pilot was one of those alien fuckers. My coworker, to be more precise. We crashed and some metal pipe got stabbed through my leg. My friend, Paul, went away to blow up the meteor because it's the life source of those things."

"How do you know that?"

"Oh, I had this biology professor, and before he went completely crazy we found out that the meteor was the 'mothership'."

The man wrote something down in his notebook. "And what do you mean with 'he went completely crazy'?"

"I dunno, he just started singing. He wasn't one of them but apparently he wanted to be. Fuckin' crazy. Anyway, we managed to escape after he kidnapped us, but then the crash happened and now I'm in a fucking hospital."

The man nodded. "I have some bad news for you, Emma."

Emma sat up. "Oh no, please don't tell me that I'm-"

"Can you let me finish, miss Perkins?" he interrupted. "I don't know how to say this, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to kill you."

"What the fuck? You're not one of them, are you?"

"No, we just can't have any survivors spreading the news of the events of the apocalypse. We're telling the world that the meteor wiped out the entire city."

"I won't say anything, just don't kill me."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"So you saved my life just to kill me?"

"Indeed. I just wanted some information. My orders were to ask you why the fuck you were alive. You see, by the time we found you, the entire population had been infected. We wanted to know how you managed to survive."

"You should've just let me die."

"I'm sorry, Emma. Orders are orders. And my orders tell me to kill you." He took his gun from the pocket of his vest.

Emma stood up from the bed, but her leg buckled under the pressure and she fell to the ground.

"I'm sorry."

"Dude, you're just gonna shoot me? That's not something you'd do to 'protect your country'."

"Those are my orders."

Three gunshots sounded through the room and the world faded away.

Two in the head, one in the heart.

*** *** ***

"Emma!" Paul shouted, climbing over the ravage of the helicopter. "Are you still here?"

He walked towards the puddle of blood where Emma lied before he left to blow up the meteor. She wasn't there anymore. He could see footsteps in the sand. She was infected, wasn't she? All that work for nothing.

Paul fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. She was gone.

Someone approached him. A hand on his shoulder pulled him around. He faced a man, who was pointing a gun at him.

"Wow, no, I'm not one of them!"

The man slowly lowered his gun. "Who are you?"

"Paul Matthews."

"Emma asked for you."

Paul's face lit up. "Emma? Is she alive?"

"She's not."

"What?! But you just said-"

"John told me about you, how he let you go. He should've killed you."

"Yes, but he said-"

The man aimed his gun again. "I'm here to get the job done."

Two in the head, one in the heart.