The Dead Don't Bleed

Forget

Word Count: 2,063

Keith felt numb.

Detached.

Gone.

However you wanted to say it.

It had only been hours when he finally convinced himself to get up, and that was only because it began to rain like nothing else, and he was shivering so bad he couldn't stand it any longer.

He didn't remember making his way to an abandoned building that had still been fairly intact.

He didn't remember curling up on his side in the closest room he could find, his fingers still numbly clutching the gun in his hands.

He didn't remember killing her, watching her be filled with life one moment and gone the next

Maybe if he repeats it enough, he'll finally believe it.

...

He awoke to voices.

Loud ones.

And quickly getting closer.

Cursing under his breath, Keith scrambled from his position on the floor, almost tripping over the forgotten bag of scavenged supplies he had thrown by his exit the night before. His fingers soundlessly touched the door, his breath going still as he strained to listen to what was happening on the other side of the cracked open slab of wood he was currently pressed against, mind running with the question of fight or flight, fight or-

"Pidge, we can't just wander into every building you feel the need to explore, there could be zombies in here."

"Undead, Lance."

"Yeah, whatever, you know what I mean, the undead could be hiding in here, waiting to jump us you know how much they don't like getting out in sunlight, I wouldn't blame them either, I mean, can you blame them? Just, the smell, gross."

Keith couldn't resist the urge to roll his eyes at the voice. He doubted zombies cared much about how they smelled, although he did notice that the city was relatively clear when the sun wasn't obscured by clouds.

"It's cloudy outside, all of the undead will probably be out in the city roaming around, especially after that rain last night." The sound of footsteps grew nearer.

"Whatever. But Allura and Coran sent us out to be looking for supplies, not poking around useless buildings that clearly don't have anything we could use." As if to emphasize his point, the sound of something kicked across the ground was heard, painfully loud in his ears. If they were this noisy all the time, Keith was surprised they weren't dead yet.

"This clearly used to be a hospital, Lance, besides, any medicine we can find in here can help with my experiments, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, when was the last time you actually had results on something?"

"A few days ago actually, and if you help me look, I'm sure we can find something for your cut."

A few beats of silence, and then: "I- I didn't think about that."

"See, I told you so." Keith could hear the voice he guessed was Pidge, smirk.

The voice identified as Lance groaned, "Fine, but I'm still asking our commanding officer on his opinion, what do you think we should do, Shiro? You are the babysitter after all."

Shiro? His heart jumped to his throat at the name, his mouth suddenly going dry. Shiro couldn't be alive. Keith had seen him die, he remembered him falling off a building, there was no way he could have survived. It couldn't be his Shiro.