R I S E N

Chapter 9

You know that moment when you're about to die and your whole life flashes before your eyes, and it's like you're flipping through pages in a book only this book is about your life? That's not what it was like for me. It's not like there was any memories to even remember. All of them were wiped from my mind.

I was ready to die, I was ready to give up if that meant not having to kill this boy. I know how that sounds, it's like, "Elizabeth, what are you doing? This boy isn't a boy anymore. His humanity is gone. He's a walking corpse now being controlled by a deadly virus." I know that, but I knew what this boy was like before he turned and chances are it was probably against his will considering what Nancy and her crew were capable of.

I wasn't about to give Nancy that satisfaction. I wasn't about to be her pawn in a sick game. But then something happened. It was like a dream, only I was awake this time.

"Lance, get off of me!" I cry out as my brother tries ripping me away from my little sister once more.

She was moving, she was awake. Now I can hold her and tell her I'm sorry, that everything's fine now!

Lance didn't get that.

Serenity's breathing starts rapidly increasing with each passing second. The blood submerging her long dirty blonde hair dripped down her locks and onto the skin of one of her arms and overtop her fingers, to the hand holding her up.

She slowly turns around and her eyes lock with mine, her once light brown eyes covered in a dull, lifeless grey. A growl erupts from her and she pounces on me, her fingernails digging into my shoulders and she bites me.

I let out a shriek of pain but I don't fight back.

Lance tears her off me, forceful but gently because that was still his baby sister. She goes sprawling across the bathroom floor once again back into the pool of her own blood as we all watch in horror, when suddenly as she was about to make another run for me she stops.

She's coughing, but I could barely hear myself thinking as everyone starts panicking. There was screaming in the background, a girl screaming for Lance to do something.

Serenity looks up at me, a glimmer of those brown eyes flashing in her eyes.

I'm paralyzed.

But suddenly, a loud bang rips through my ears and a hole appears in the centre of Serenity's forehead, blood running out of it and she falls onto her back.

She was alive. I saw it with my own two eyes.

I couldn't breathe.

Feelings that had been locked away and hidden in the deepest passages of my mind, come rushing forth and suddenly I'm met with a powerful ache in my chest. It's ripping and gnawing at my heart, making it hard to breathe.

All in that same instant, with Angus rushing at me and the emotions I felt the night my little sister died, engulfing me. I suddenly had this strong urge. I didn't know what exactly, but somehow I knew it was going to work.

I look up, seeing the 12 year old boy with the strawberry blonde hair and freckles. His teeth were barred and ready.

The moment his body makes contact with mine, I grab at his wrists and push my knees out to keep the distance between us as he snarls viciously at me. The new hunger was a powerful thing.

He keeps screaming in my face, that same scream I heard when I was being chased in the streets by an infected woman. The short petite woman with the short black hair.