I was basically dragging my feet only an inch above the ground, trying my hardest not to just give up on walking altogether. The only reason I was still walking was that Felix was still clinging on to me, his ankle hurting too bad for him to walk on. He relied on me right now, so giving up definitely wasn't an option. I shouldn't even consider giving up at all. We had to keep pushing forward.
"Russ will totally laugh at me for falling when we find him," Felix suddenly spoke up, his voice barely above a whisper. I smiled a little, appreciating how he'd said 'when' and not 'if'.
"Yeah, he totally will," I agreed, chuckling a little. "And he'll probably make another bad joke about shoes or something."
Felix nodded and looked up to the sunny sky. "Damn, I miss his jokes."
"Me too."
The both of us fell silent after that, the crunching leaves under our feet being the only source of noise around us. I heard Felix sigh, but he didn't speak up, just looking ahead of us with a faint smile on his face. I was about to ask him to share his thoughts when he decided to talk again, the silence probably becoming too much for him.
"Jund will probably be angry at us for disappearing like that," he said, but he still had the fond smile on his face. "He'll probably find a way to blame you for my sore ankle."
I laughed but instantly shook my head. "Nah, I don't think so. Scott and I are passed the point of our pointless fights."
"Yeah, I'm glad you two have gotten closer," Felix said sincerely.
"I am, too," I told him. "Though you have to admit he was a giant asshole to me at first."
Felix laughed. "He was a little bit of an asshole, yes."
"'A little bit'?" I copied his words, looking at him skeptically.
"Alright, alright. He was a huge dick to you," Felix finally admitted, his smile growing. "He only did it to protect the ones he cares about, though."
It was now that I saw him talk about Jund with such fondness that I realized Felix had a much stronger bond with the group than I had, because he'd known them for so much longer. I'd never asked him about when he'd joined he group and I was very curious about it, so after hesitating a little, I changed the subject.
"How did you and the group meet, exactly?" I asked, hoping I wasn't pushing a touchy subject or anything like that. The way Felix's eyes seemed to light up proved that it wasn't something difficult for Felix to talk about. That, or he was very good at hiding how difficult it may have been for him before he found the group.
"I stumbled upon Snake one day," he started his explanation. "I was completely out of any kind of supplies, wandering down the streets of a small town in search of food when I saw him come out of a house just behind me. You know how intimidating Snake looked, so when I saw him, I had to admit I was scared and I tried to jump out of his sight. I hadn't seen the zombie that was standing behind a dumpster, so right after I jumped to the side, the zombie grabbed me."
Completely engrossed in the story, I asked, "What happened then? Did Snake find you?"
"He did, yes. At first I believed it was some kind of miracle he showed up right when I needed him, but Snake later told me had long been aware of my presence and had decided to tail me to make sure I wasn't a threat," he said, chuckling a little at the memory. "My first impression of him was definitely wrong; I had no reason to be scared of someone so kind. He saved my life back then. Not only by killing the zombie, but also by taking me to Jund and allowing me to join them from that point on."
"The group was only the two of them back then?" I asked, frowning. Felix nodded.
"I don't know how they had found each other, but the three of us were doing alright. And slowly but surely, our group got bigger," Felix told me.
"Who joined next? Russ?" I asked.
"No, Minx and Krism were the next to join us." Felix seemed deep in thought, trying to remember how the two partners had ended up joining the group. His eyes widened when he suddenly remembered. "Ah, that's right, Minx was very ill and Krism came to us searching for medication. Luckily, we had exactly what they needed and Minx miraculously survived the illness. We never discussed them joining the group, they just automatically stuck around and never left."
Felix seemed to know I'd ask about Russ next, so he continued his story immediately. "Russ joined the group only about a month after Minx and Krism. He was together with his brother at this time."
"His brother?" I asked, surprised. I knew he had had a brother because he often talked about him, but I didn't know he'd been a part of the group back in the day.
"Yeah, although I'm not sure I remember his name correctly. We'd barely known him for a week when he got killed by some assholes who'd stolen our supplies. He'd tried to attack them, but only ended up getting shot because of it." Felix's expression suddenly turned very sad and he looked away. "I still remember Russ' cries and screams when it happened. To this day, the moment his brother died was the most heartbroken I've ever seen him."
My heart clenched tightly at all this information and it hurt to think of Russ losing someone that important to him. I had no idea his brother had died this way, because although Russ did talk about his brother often, he never clarified when or how he had passed away. He'd also never mentioned his brother had been in the group for a short while. From all the stories Russ had told about him, he always seemed at peace with his death, but now that I heard the full story I was starting to think that maybe he was faking it. Or maybe he really was at peace with his death now, I had no idea.
"What was his brother like?" I asked, to which Felix frowned again.
"Like I said, I'd barely gotten to know the guy. What I do know, though, is that he was always the one making the jokes. Back then, Russ hated jokes and always told his brother they weren't funny. Ever since the guy died, Russ took the job of making jokes upon himself because his brother is no longer here to do so."
A long silence followed. Suddenly, remembering all Russ' jokes had become a sad thing, because he was probably reminded of his brother with every joke he made.
"I know what you're thinking and don't worry, Russ is no longer mourning the death of his brother. Making jokes is his way to commemorate him and he's able to talk about him freely," Felix reassured me. I simply nodded.
Now that Felix and I were deep in conversation, walking through the forest together wasn't that bad anymore. I was distracted enough not to be bothered by my exhaustion and even the cold didn't seem as freezing as it felt this morning. I was just so unbelievably thankful to have Felix by my side.
The two of us continued talking about first impressions of the group members. We had kind of purposely avoided talking about the impression we had of each other, but after we had mentioned every member but us, Felix decided to start off.
"The night we first found you I thought you were very sketchy. The first thing you said was something about not touching your mask and I'm fairly certain you almost broke Jund's wrist," Felix said, laughing awkwardly.
"Yeah, I remember that. I've changed a lot since then," I said, reaching up to feel my face, which was no longer covered by my mask.
"I'm glad we found you that night," Felix said quietly.
"Yeah. Me too."
I could see from Felix's expression that he was curious about what I had thought of him when I met him that night, so after letting out a small sigh, I decided it would be fair to tell him.
"When I met you I wasn't really in a very conscious state, but I do know you were one of the members willing to help me, and it really surprised me that you guys saved me," I told him. "Out of the group, you and Russ were the kindest to me. You also helped me walk for a long time while I recovered. I never really thanked you for that, so thank you."
Felix laughed. "Don't worry about it, Cry."
I was about to continue talking about what I thought of him, thinking back to all those times when I'd realized I had feelings for him, when I heard growling in front of us.
"Infected," I warned Felix, pointing to the moving bushes ahead of us. We came to a stop as we saw two infected stumble out of the bushes and towards us, having heard the sound of our conversation. They were still reasonably far from us, so I wordlessly sat Felix down on the ground so he could rest his ankle and took out my knife.
"I'll get rid of them, take this moment to rest."
I walked closer to the two infected and when I got close enough, I tightly held on to my knife and slammed it into the skull of one of the two zombies. It went limp immediately, but when I tried to pull my knife back out of its head, I realized it had gotten stuck again.
Right when I managed to pull it back out, the other infected reached me and abruptly dived forward, landing on me with its full weight and causing my to let go of my knife because of the shock. I stumbled and fell on the ground, my left shoulder blade painfully hitting a sharp rock, but I instantly raised both of my hands to keep the infected from biting me.
I could vaguely hear Felix calling out for me in panic but I was completely occupied with keeping the infected's face away from me. It couldn't bite me or I was done for. Luckily, it didn't have arms so it wasn't able to try and scratch me, but despite of that, it was still stronger and heavier than I'd first thought.
I turned my head to the right to see my knife was lying in a puddle next to me. I decided to risk it and let go of the infected with my right hand, quickly trying to grab the knife but not able to actually reach it. At the exact moment when my left arm was no longer able to keep the infected up, I heard an unknown sound and I tightly shut my eyes. Blood splattered all over my face, the infected going limp and falling on me. I immediately pushed the rotten body off of me and took a few deep, unsteady breaths. That was way too close; I'd barely escaped death this time.
"Cry, holy fuck, are you alright? It didn't get you, did it?!"
I took another few seconds before slowly sitting up, turning my head to look at Felix. He was holding his crossbow in his hands and now I realized what the sound was – an arrow zooming past right next to my head. He had killed the infected all the way from over there. It was a very impressive and accurate shot for such a long distance and he could've hit me if his aim was off only the slightest bit, but he shot perfectly.
I quickly gave myself a once over to see the infected hadn't managed to bite me, so I let out a sigh of relief.
"I'm clean!" I told Felix, to which I could hear him let out a deep breath he'd been holding.
"Thank god..."
I slowly got back on my feet and grabbed my knife, feeling moment of anger that it had gotten stuck. It must be getting dull because this was the second time this had happened to me, and both times had almost led to my death.
Walking back to Felix, who was looking pale and was taking deep breaths to calm himself down again, I suddenly realized something. I guess I'd realized it a while ago, but now that I had almost been killed I suddenly remembered that every moment in this world could be my absolute last. There was nothing letting you know how much longer you had until your death. If Felix had responded only a second later, I'd been infected right now and he would've had to shoot me to prevent me from turning.
I had to tell Felix something that had been on my mind for a while now, because if I didn't do it now, maybe I'd never have the chance to tell him.
Instead of picking Felix up so we could continue walking, I dropped myself on the ground next to him and without a word, I pressed my lips against his' and shut my eyes. He immediately kissed me back, raising his hands to cup my cheeks like he always did and savoring the moment before slowly pulling back.
"I love you," I told him, opening my eyes to see his reaction. He seemed surprised at first, but then a smile formed on his lips and he looked me straight into my eyes as he answered.
"I love you too."
Hearing him say it back made me so unbelievably happy and I couldn't stop the grin that made its way onto my face. I was about to kiss Felix again when I heard voices to our right and I froze, seeing Felix had heard it as well. We weren't alone.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, just very tired. Can't we walk a bit slower?"
"We'll walk slower as soon as we've found the others."
Felix and I shared a glance and I jumped up from the ground, spotting 6 very familiar people pushing through the bushes while looking around. I felt such extreme relief wash over me.
"Guys, we're over here!"