Pinch Me

His Last Day

Louis POV

I used to love to ask those 'What would you do?' questions.

What would you do if you heard a walker talking?

What would you do if you woke up one morning and you were opposite gender?

What would you do if I dumped a bucket of water on you right now?

One of my personal favorites was 'What would you do if you only had a day left to live?'

I never thought about having to answer that question myself.

I stared at my reflection in shock, the bite on my neck stabbing my eyes like a knife.  I gently touched it, wincing at its sting.  

"It's just a tree branch scrape!" AJ proclaimed.  "I saw it with my own eyes, the walker didn't get him!"  I think he was more trying to convince himself rather than the others.

"It was dark outside," Violet told him gravely.  "You might have just not seen it get him."

"We can just cut it off, right?" Tenn asked.  

"It's on his neck, Tenn," Willy answered.  "If we did that, it could kill him."

"It wouldn't work, anyway," said Aasim.  "We've tried it before, remember?"

"There has to be something we can do!" AJ cried.  "Let's go outside!  C'mon, Louis, we just have to rinse it off really good and make it clean.  That's all."  He grabbed onto my hand, tugging me toward the door.  "Let's go!"

I finally tore my eyes off my reflection, and replaced them on AJ.  "AJ," I spoke softly.

"We have to hurry!" AJ exclaimed, still pulling.  

"AJ, stop."  My voice was firm, but not scary.  It was enough to tell him I'm not going anywhere.  He let go of me, exhaling a shuddery breath.  I squatted down to be eye level with him, but he refused to look up.  "Look at me."

"No."

"AJ-"

"How could you get bit?!" He interrupted.  "You were supposed to take care of me!"

"I did.  I went back to save you, didn't I?"

 "What about now?"  He looked up, his distraught eyes spilling fresh tears.  "You're gonna become a monster!"  AJ's voice cracked on the last word.

Without hesitating, I pulled him into a hug.  He doesn't hug back; just lays his head on my shoulder, letting his tears soak my shirt.  I didn't care, though.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, squeezing him tightly.  He wrapped his little arms around me then, starting to ball.  "I'm so, so sorry, AJ."

While he continued to cry, Violet came down with us, wrapping her arms around the both of us.  Minnie joined the hug, too, and so did Tenn.  One by one, the rest of the kids came in.  Even Rosie walked over to us, nuzzling us with her nose.

Soon, we were all crying.  No shame in it.  Every single one of us was weeping, each of us creating our own little puddle of tears on the floor. 

That was how I spent one of my last hours.  

In a cry fest with my family.

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Everyone fell asleep at some point.  They all cried until they couldn't anymore, and they all just kinda fell on top of each other in a big heap.

I didn't fall asleep, though.  I wasn't going to spend the little time I had left sleeping.