The cabin was supposed to be safe.

We fortified it, boarded the windows, stacked shelves with scavenged supplies.

It had clean sheets—actual clean sheets—and a bed that didn't creak like it was mourning.

For two nights, it was paradise.

Then we let them in.

They were strangers.

Two girls, soaked in rain and desperation.

The younger one had a stuffed bear and glassy eyes. The older one said she used to be a nurse.

We gave them soup.

We gave them warmth.

We gave them the bed.

Because that's who we were—still human. Still trying.

We slept on the floor that night.

My head on his chest.

His arms around me like armor.

The fire crackled softly. I could almost pretend the world was healing.

Until the screams.

Blood sprayed against the walls.

The younger girl convulsed in the sheets—eyes rolled back, mouth wide, teeth already blackening.

She'd been bit. This chapter first appeared on M|V|L^EMPYR.

The older one must have known.

Must have lied.

He shot the little one.

I stabbed the nurse with a kitchen knife.

She bled on the clean sheets.

Her blood mixed with the child's.

It soaked the mattress where love had just bloomed.

I didn't cry.

He did.

Not loud, but I felt his body heave next to mine as we burned the sheets outside in the rain.

We didn't speak as ash floated around us like snow.

"Did we do the right thing?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

Just stared at the flames, eyes hollow.

His fingers brushed mine—instinctively, not lovingly.

It was the first time his touch didn't bring warmth.

Only guilt.

We moved to the floor again that night, too afraid to lie in that bed.

Too afraid of dreams.

I turned toward him in the dark, tried to pull him closer.

But he flinched.

"I see them," he whispered. "When I close my eyes. I see her clutching that bear. I see you… stabbing…"

"I didn't want to," I whispered back.

"I know."

Silence.

"But we still did it."

We made love the next night anyway.

It wasn't passion.

It was survival.

Like two ghosts trying to remind each other they were real.

But I couldn't stop seeing the blood.

On the walls.

On the floor.

On us.

It wasn't washed away.

Not really.

It lived in the fabric of that cabin.

It lived in us.

Morning came with silence.

No birds.

No walkers.

Just the stink of burned cotton and two people too broken to call it love anymore.

Still, we held hands.

Because if we didn't…

we'd fall apart.

And maybe becoming monsters together…

was better than surviving alone.