The way she looked at me changed.

It wasn't sudden—no jolt, no monstrous scream. It was quiet. A subtle shift in the way her eyes lingered too long. In how her laughter came half a second too late. In how she started calling me "hey" instead of "Jace."

It began the day we found the abandoned radio tower.

We thought it was salvation.

Signal meant hope. Hope meant rescue.

But all we found inside was silence, decay… and something that made her bleed.

A broken antenna, a jagged edge—she brushed against it. A scratch, we thought. Again. Always the scratches.

But the blood didn't clot right.

That night, she slept against me under the signal lights.

Her skin was cold.

She didn't notice when I whispered her name.

Didn't twitch when thunder rolled outside.

And when I moved to touch her face, her hand caught my wrist—too fast, too strong.

"I was dreaming," she said. My Virtua.l. L#ib-r&a.ry. E-mp+i-re (M|V|L!E1MP@Y!R#)@ than&ks# you for re-adi$ng! at the sou@rce.

Her voice sounded like gravel soaked in honey.

"I was watching you sleep. You looked… delicious."

The infection moved fast after that.

Faster than either of us admitted.

She stopped eating.

Didn't blink as often.

And her breath—when it came—was heavy. Like she was remembering how to be alive.

But the worst part?

She still smiled. Still reached for me. Still kissed me slow.

Like she didn't know what was happening inside her bones.

"I'm fine," she'd whisper. "Just tired."

But her reflection wouldn't look back in mirrors.

She didn't cast a shadow under fluorescent lights.

And once—I swear—I saw her mouthing something silently… to the air.

To something I couldn't see.

I stayed. Of course I did.

Because she was my everything before the outbreak.

And love doesn't run just because something shifts.

Even when she started humming lullabies she'd never known.

Even when her touch began to chill instead of comfort.

Even when she forgot my name.

The final moment came during sunrise.

We sat on the rooftop, above the swarm's groans below.

She leaned her head on my shoulder.

"You're so warm," she whispered. "It's like… I can still feel."

My throat tightened. "You can still feel."

She didn't respond.

Instead, she stood, turned toward me slowly—and I saw it.

Her eyes were wrong. The color. The gloss.

She blinked without focus.

And for the first time, she looked at me… like she didn't recognize me.

"She's not the same," I whispered to myself, watching her silhouette in the soft red light.

She tilted her head. Something animal in the motion.

But she didn't lunge. Didn't growl.

She just sat beside me again.

Close. Familiar. Foreign.

I kissed her hand.

It was ice.

And yet—my heart still thundered for her.

Because sometimes, the hardest horror isn't watching someone turn.

It's realizing they already have.