#zombiepocalypse

But that’s okay because he knows Ran is still there. All he has to do is cheer her up. He’s just waiting for her to wake up from her beautiful slumber. And when she’s up and about, he’ll have a scrumptious plate of breakfast for her to start the day well.

“Smells delicious. Absolutely delectable,” Ran praises dreamily, walking into the dining room and taking in a whiff or three. There she is, Shinichi grins.

When she proceeds to feast on the food he prepared, Shinichi whips out his faithful shotgun and sets it on the table, just in case.

These days, he trusts his shotgun more than anything. He’ll survive as long as he has it with him—and his girlfriend, his childhood friend, the only person he’d give anything up for. It hurts to think that their tomorrows have been stolen, that they have to grow old without their family and friends, if they even survive this. But this is after, not before. And even though it hurts, it’s for the best that Shinichi learns to keep his finger steady on the trigger.

“Maybe you can do more cooking from now on,” Ran jokes light-heartedly, because she knows he doesn’t like to cook, nor is he good at it. He only does it today because Ran has fallen so deep in her sleep. She doesn’t get much sleep nowadays, nor does he, not with the nightmares that lace even the brightest of their dark nights. So when he sees her sleeping so peacefully, how dare he wake her?

“I’ll do my best,” Shinichi says earnestly, extending his left hand to intertwine it with hers. If it makes her happy, he’ll do it. There’s nothing much that can cheer her up nowadays.

All he’s been trying to do is to make her smile. And it’s strange because Ran looks like she’s about to cry, her eyes foggy and her mouth twisting into a protest. 

The dead don’t cry. Their bodily functions, like tear production and activation of the visceral motive system, stop working. That’s what being dead means.

But not Ran. She’s not dead. She’s very much here, and Shinichi is grateful that he’s still able to feel the warmth seeping from her presence.

It’s hope that will end up killing him. He’s sure of it. At night he counts his blessings carefully, however little he has left, pocketing his hopes of keeping Ran’s dissolving remnants of humanity and sanity intact. So far, someone or something up there is listening to him. But for what price?

He stands up to collect their dishes and silverware to be washed, but not before slinging his shotgun back around his shoulder. After he turns around, he hears her. “Shinichi, you wouldn’t really shoot me, would you?”

He pauses in his steps. The question weighs heavily on his blood-stained palms.

Would he? Does he have to? Can he?

“You know I can’t.”

Even if Shinichi no longer believes in anything, he believes in Ran. 

“I know, but I want you to,” She whispers so quietly that he almost mistakes it for a breathy exhale.

Is he hearing her correctly? After all, his ears have been ringing since the last time he fired his shotgun at a herd of those monsters.

“You know you have to,” Ran presses on. Her eyes are shining with sincerity. If Shinichi is no longer certain about anything, this conversation makes him certain of one thing. 

And the words ring so violently until his heart threatens to shatter along with his composure. The last thing in this entire apocalyptic world that he can control.

He yells, “Stop the nonsense, Ran. Why are you saying all these?” He can feel his heart beating so fast against his ribcage that it hurts. 

They both know the answer already, but they’re reading the lines of their script because this is what Shinichi needs—closure. This is their arabesque melting into a finale.

“I’m scared.”

He hears her whimper. My God, Shinichi realizes with a thump. Of all the things in the world that she’s scared of, Shinichi never wants to be one. He drops his shotgun to the floor, so now Ran has nothing to be afraid of. He thinks Ran doesn’t seem to notice anymore, but maybe she does, because she picks it up and slings it on her shoulder with much ease. 

“Zero rate of survival, right? That’s what you told me. I don’t want to be one of them.” Her fingernails dug their way into her own arms, sinking into the flesh. Shinichi feels lightheaded at the sight of her sputtering blood. He makes his way back to the table to halt her movements before she injures herself even further. She stops him in place with the shotgun pointing at him. “I’m already becoming violent, Shinichi. Can’t you see that I’m turning?”

No, Shinichi wants to say. He still thinks she’s as beautiful as ever. Even though Ran may have dark red sclera encircling her foggy irises and pasty mottled skin, and purplish, blood-caked fingernails, she is still the one to brush the hair out of his eyes when they’re about to go to sleep to dream of their previous lives.

Contrary to her words, Ran’s cloudy eyes brighten, and she becomes increasingly more animated.

She continues, blood dribbling from her arms, dripping and staining the ivory carpet. Shinichi is momentarily distracted. He remembers his mother reprimanding him for almost spilling his juice on her newly-bought carpet, but that was years ago. Still, nothing but good memories here.

“You have to end this, Shinichi, before you plead with me to stop. Before you beg me to stop. Before I have flies following me around in swarms and maggots squirming in my ears.” Ran stands up, body violently jerking with her every word.

“I don’t want to be the one who tears you apart!” She shouts pleadingly. It’s ironic, because every part of him has already been ripped into pieces anyway. “I don’t want your last memories of me to be the me who can barely speak other than with gurgles. Not when I won’t even be able to see you.”

When Ran pulls the trigger, a loud bang erupts, and everything around Shinichi is muffled. Even Ran’s face is muffled, a burst of red distorting what had once been gentle eyes, jawline kissed with maroon butterflies.

As he bends down to clean her face, (Ran has always been a neat person, Shinichi clicks his tongue), he wonders how she could have decayed so much suddenly. He cleans the barrel of his shotgun and tries to recall when Ran’s eyes stopped shining and turned frosty. But Shinichi must remind himself:

Ran is dead. She’s been dead for about a week now.