Archive of Our Own

Lewis was running before he had fully decided where he was going.

The parking lot stretched out in front of him, people pushing past one another without so much as looking back. Somewhere behind him, there was screaming. More than one person screaming, actually, their voices blending together into something incomprehensible that Lewis refused to turn around and look at. He already knew enough about what was happening behind him. He didn't need to see it again.

His rental car was only a few metres away.

The keys dangled from one of his hands as he ran, his fingers already pressing down on the unlock button before he had even reached the car. The familiar chirp of the doors unlocking was almost swallowed by the noise surrounding him, but Lewis heard it anyway. He reached the driver's side, yanked the door open and practically threw himself into the seat before slamming it shut behind him.

For one second, Lewis just sat there. His hands shook around the key. Then another scream sounded somewhere outside, much closer this time, and whatever moment of hesitation he'd allowed himself disappeared. He shoved the key into the ignition and turned it once.

Nothing.

His breath caught.

Lewis tried again, his hand slipping slightly as the key refused to turn as quickly as he wanted it to.

>>Come on. Come on, come on.<<

The engine finally roared to life. The sound was almost comforting. Familiar. Normal.

The automatic locks immediately jumped to life with the motor, each door clicking shut one after another, and Lewis let out a breath that barely had time to leave his lungs before something slammed violently against the passenger side window.

Lewis flinched so hard his hand jerked towards the gearshift. A pair of hands were pressed against the glass.

“Lewis!” Charles's voice cut through everything else.

Lewis turned his head.

Charles stood on the other side of the window, both hands desperately trying the locked door handle. His face was speckled with blood - Lewis couldn't tell whose - and his eyes were impossibly wide, filled with the kind of panic that made a person's entire face look unfamiliar.

“Lewis, help me!” Charles screamed, his voice cracking around the words. “Please, let me in!”

For a moment, Lewis didn't move. The car was running. The road out of the parking lot was right there. All he had to do was put the car into gear and drive. He could leave before whatever was chasing them reached him too.

But Charles was looking at him through the glass.

Lewis reached across the centre console and unlocked the door.

Charles didn't waste a second. He practically fell into the passenger seat, pulling himself inside with enough force that he nearly landed halfway on Lewis's side of the car. The door slammed shut behind him, and the automatic locking system clicked back into place almost immediately.

Lewis didn't wait to see if Charles had even managed to sit properly. He put the car into gear and floored it.

The parking lot was pure chaos.

Lewis had barely managed to get the car moving before they were forced into a maze of abandoned vehicles and people running in every possible direction. There didn't seem to be any order to it. No one was heading towards an exit or following anyone else. People simply ran, driven by the same blind instinct that had gotten Lewis into the car in the first place. Get away. Keep moving. Don't stop.

Charles couldn't stop looking.

His hands were curled tightly around the edge of his seat as his eyes followed the people rushing past the windows. He watched someone stumble only a few metres away from the car, their hands hitting the asphalt as they tried to catch themselves. For one horrible second, Charles thought they were going to get back up.

Then someone was on them. And then another.

Charles turned away too late. There was blood everywhere. Across the pavement. On people's clothes. Splattered against car windows they sped past. Charles didn't know who was hurt and who was doing the hurting anymore. From inside the car, it all blurred together into flashes of movement and colour, screams disappearing beneath the sound of the engine.

Charles's head snapped around just in time to see someone appear in front of them. Lewis must have seen them too. He had to have. But his foot didn't leave the accelerator.

“Brake!” The word tore itself out of Charles before he could stop it.

Lewis didn't. The impact wasn't as loud as Charles had expected it to be.

There was, however, a sickening thud against the front of the car, the body catching against the front right corner before being thrown sideways and disappearing from Charles's view. Charles gasped, his entire body twisting around in his seat as he tried to look through the back window.

“Lewis- we need to check on him!”

But they were already too far away. The car was moving impossibly fast now, weaving through the chaos as Lewis desperately searched for any opening wide enough to get them out. Charles couldn't see the person anymore. He couldn't see anything clearly. There were too many people, too many cars, too much movement, and eventually the parking lot disappeared behind them completely.

Charles slowly turned back around.

Lewis's hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had gone pale. His breathing came in shallow bursts, his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead as though looking anywhere else might cause the car to stop moving.

“I had to do that.”

Charles looked at him as Lewis swallowed.

“You understand that, right?” Lewis’ voice was quieter now, but there was something desperate underneath it. Like he wasn't really asking Charles to agree with him as much as he was begging him to tell him that he hadn't just done something unforgivable. “I needed to keep going. To keep us safe.”

Charles stared at the road ahead. He could still see it when he closed his eyes.

The body disappearing beneath the edge of the car. The way Lewis hadn't stopped.

Slowly, Charles nodded. Because Lewis was right. They couldn't stop for everyone. They couldn't save everyone. And if they tried, sooner or later they would end up being the ones left behind on the ground while someone else made the decision to keep driving.

It didn't make it feel any less horrible.

But Charles nodded anyway. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I understand.”

And Lewis kept driving.

—

The track hadn't been the only place swallowed by chaos.

At first, Charles had thought it was contained. That whatever had happened there - whatever had made people turn on each other so suddenly and so violently - was something they could escape if they just got far enough away from it. Get into the car. Get onto the motorway. Keep driving until the noise disappeared behind them.

But there had been no escaping it. It was everywhere.

They had passed towns where cars stood abandoned in the middle of the road, their doors left hanging open as though their owners had simply vanished halfway through their journeys. They had driven past houses with broken windows and streets that were far too quiet, and other places where the silence was broken by screaming that neither of them dared investigate. Every now and then they would see people.

Sometimes those people were running from something. Sometimes they were the something everyone else was running from.

People were killing people. Biting them. Tearing into them with their bare hands as though the person underneath them wasn't another human being at all. Charles had stopped asking Lewis to slow down whenever they passed something happening on the side of the road. Lewis had stopped looking, too.

It had been going on for days now.

Days of driving until the fuel gauge got too low and they had no choice but to stop. Days of sleeping in the car with the doors locked and every noise outside making Charles's heart jump into his throat. Days of surviving on whatever food they could find without having to spend too long out in the open.

When they finally pulled into the gas station, neither of them said anything about how exposed it was.

Lewis parked beside one of the pumps and immediately got out, moving with the sort of urgency that had become second nature by now. He kept his head turning as he worked, his eyes constantly flicking over his shoulder and towards the empty road behind them. Even something as ordinary as filling up a car had become something that needed to be done quickly.

Charles stayed inside at first. He watched Lewis through the windscreen, watched the older man scan the area between every few seconds of looking at the fuel gauge. The gas station was eerily quiet. No voices. No cars pulling in. No one behind the counter complaining that they were paying too slowly.

Just the low hum of the pump.

Eventually, Charles opened his door and for the first time in days, he actually stepped outside.

The air felt strange against his skin after being confined to the car for so long. He stood close to the passenger door, not moving too far away from it, his eyes instinctively searching the surrounding streets in the same way Lewis's did. Everything looked normal.

At least until Charles spotted something.

“Lewis.” The older driver immediately looked up. Charles was staring past the car, his arm slowly lifting as he pointed towards the far end of the gas station. “Look.”

Lewis followed his gaze.

Two young people were running across the street towards the narrow alleyway beside one of the nearby buildings. Both had backpacks slung over their shoulders, bouncing against their backs as they ran. They kept looking behind themselves.

Charles couldn't see what they were running from. “Should we help them?”

For a second, Lewis didn't answer.

Charles looked at him, expecting the same tired expression he'd seen so many times over the last few days. The one that said ‘we can't help everyone’. The one that reminded Charles why they had kept driving.

Instead, Lewis abruptly pulled the petrol nozzle from the car. “Stay there.”

The words were firm enough that Charles immediately froze. Lewis was already moving away from the pump.

“Lewis-”

“Stay there,” he repeated, turning back just long enough to look Charles directly in the eyes. Then he tossed the car keys towards him. Charles barely caught them, fumbling for a second before closing his hand tightly around them. “If anything happens, get inside and lock the doors.”

And then Lewis was gone.

Charles stood beside the car with the keys pressed into his palm, watching him run after two complete strangers.

For all Lewis's talk about not being able to stop for everyone, apparently there were still some people he couldn't bring himself to leave behind.

That thought, however, didn't survive Lewis's return.

Charles saw him coming from the direction of the alleyway and immediately straightened up. For one brief, hopeful second, he looked past Lewis, expecting to see the young couple following behind him.

They weren't.

Lewis was alone.

One of the backpacks was slung over his shoulder, the dark navy material bouncing against his side as he hurried back towards the car. Charles stared at it for a moment, his brain struggling to catch up with what he was seeing. Maybe the couple had gone somewhere else. Maybe they had split up. Maybe Lewis had told them to hide while he came back for the car.

But Lewis didn't slow down to explain. He yanked open the driver's door, got inside and immediately started the engine. “Get in.”

Charles didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled back into the passenger seat, locking the door behind himself almost automatically as Lewis pulled away from the petrol station. The tyres crunched against the gravel before they hit the road, and only once the gas station had disappeared behind them did Lewis reach over and shove the backpack into Charles's lap.

“See what's in there.”

Charles looked down at the bag.

Something about it felt strangely personal now. The straps were worn from use, and there was a small keychain hanging from one of the zippers. He couldn't help wondering who it belonged to. The girl? The boy? Someone who had packed it carefully before leaving wherever they had come from, deciding what was important enough to carry when there was no guarantee they would ever be able to come back.

Still, Charles opened it.

There were a few protein bars. Some individually wrapped waffles that had been squashed slightly beneath everything else. Several bottles of water. Nothing fancy, nothing that would last them particularly long, but more food than they had had that morning. More than enough to make Charles's stomach twist painfully with relief.

He kept digging until his fingers eventually brushed against something unfamiliar, and Charles pulled it out before immediately grimacing. Tampons.

He stared at them for a second before awkwardly shoving them back into the bag, his nose wrinkling despite himself. It was stupid, really. There was nothing wrong with them. They were just... not exactly useful to him.

But as Charles continued looking through the backpack, something began to settle uncomfortably in his stomach.

There were personal things in here. Not many, but enough.

The food hadn't simply been sitting around somewhere waiting for someone to take it. This had belonged to someone. Someone who was still out there.

“Lewis...” The name came out quieter than Charles intended.

Lewis's hands tightened around the steering wheel.

Charles slowly looked up from the backpack. He wasn't sure he wanted to ask. He wasn't sure he actually wanted to hear the answer, either. There was still a part of him desperately trying to come up with another explanation. Something that would make the uncomfortable feeling crawling beneath his skin go away. “Did you steal their backpack?”

For a moment, Lewis didn't say anything. Charles watched his shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly.

“I had to, Charles.” There it was.

Charles looked back down at the navy backpack in his lap.

“We need food and water.” Lewis's voice had that same edge to it that it had back in the parking lot, after the car had hit someone. Defensive. Desperate. Like he was already arguing with himself before Charles had even said a word. “They still have the other one. I didn't take everything. But I needed to take one.” He swallowed, briefly glancing towards Charles before turning his attention back to the road. “To keep us alive. You understand that, right?”

Charles's eyebrows drew together. Because he did understand. That was the problem.

Part of him wanted to say it was wrong. That they could have found food somewhere else, that Lewis had no right to take what someone else had packed to survive.

And then Charles looked at the food in his lap. At the bottles of water. His stomach hurt with hunger.

The world had apparently become a place where you could be kind or you could survive, but nobody could always be both.

Charles hated that he understood Lewis's logic. He hated even more that, eventually, he found himself nodding.

“Yeah, Lewis,” Charles said quietly, closing the backpack. “I understand.”

And Lewis's shoulders loosened slightly.

Charles held the backpack a little tighter in his lap as the road stretched endlessly ahead of them, trying not to think about the two people they had left behind.

Because Lewis was right. You didn't survive by being nice.

—

Lewis was gone again, leaving Charles alone with the car.

They had parked a little outside what looked like a suburban area, the kind of place that had probably once been filled with people walking their dogs and children riding their bikes along the pavement.

Now the streets were empty. Houses stood with their curtains drawn, some front doors hanging open, others looking almost painfully untouched. Charles had watched Lewis disappear between the buildings nearly twenty minutes ago, promising that he would be quick.

Charles had been trying not to count the minutes since.

He was leaning against the side of the car, arms wrapped loosely around himself as his eyes kept wandering towards the street Lewis had disappeared down. Every now and then he would hear something in the distance and his entire body would tense, only for the sound to turn out to be the wind moving through an open window or something knocking against a fence.

He hated being alone. Especially now.

“Excuse me-”

Charles snapped around so quickly that his shoulder bumped against the car.

There was a man standing several metres away from him with both hands raised in the air. Charles's eyes immediately travelled over him, searching for blood. For a weapon. For anything that would tell him to get back into the car and lock the doors.

The man looked human. At least, as human as anyone could look these days.

“Sorry,” the man quickly continued when Charles didn't say anything. “I- I don't want to scare you. Do you have any water? Please.” His voice cracked slightly on the last word. “I haven't had anything to drink in days.”

Charles hesitated. The man's lips were dry and cracked, his face pale beneath the layer of dirt that covered it. He looked exhausted. And Charles still had enough water.

He thought of Lewis stealing that backpack. Of the way Charles had told him he understood. Maybe this was his chance to be different. To make up for it.

“Yeah,” Charles said after a moment. “One second.”

He opened the car door, reaching inside for one of the bottles. When he turned around again, the man was closer.

The bottle slipped slightly between Charles's fingers before he caught it again and tossed it towards him. The man caught it with both hands and immediately twisted the cap open, bringing it to his mouth.

“Thank you,” he said between gulps.

Charles nodded awkwardly, his attention drifting back towards the empty street. Lewis should be back soon. Surely.

“Are you alone?”

The question pulled Charles's attention back. The man had lowered the bottle now. He was watching Charles carefully.

“Maybe we could team up,” he continued, taking a step closer.

Something uncomfortable settled in Charles's stomach. “No,” he answered quickly. “I'm not alone. My friend is checking the buildings.”

The man nodded slowly, as though considering that. “How long do you think he'll take?”

Charles's gaze snapped back to him. The man was closer again. Close enough now that Charles could see the water still clinging to the corner of his mouth.

“We can ask him if he'd be okay with me joining,” the man said, his voice still soft. Friendly, almost. “Do you think he would be?”

Charles didn't answer immediately. There was something wrong about this. Maybe nothing had actually changed. Maybe the man was just desperate for company, desperate enough that he didn't understand how close he was standing. Maybe Charles was being paranoid because the entire world had given him enough reasons to be.

But Lewis had told him to stay at the car. And suddenly, Charles wished desperately that he had listened more carefully when Lewis had told him what to do if something happened.

The man took another step forward.

Charles's fingers slowly tightened around the car keys in his pocket.

Charles barely had time to decide what he was going to do before someone came running around the corner.

That someone being Lewis.

Charles's entire body reacted before his mind could catch up, relief flooding through him so suddenly that his knees almost felt weak. Lewis wasn't walking, though. He was running at full speed, his eyes fixed on Charles and the stranger as he crossed the distance between them.

“Lewis-”

Lewis didn't stop to answer. He skidded to a halt directly in front of Charles, putting himself between him and the stranger so quickly that Charles instinctively took half a step backwards. For a second, he could only stare at Lewis's back. At the way his shoulders had drawn up with tension, his entire body positioned like a shield.

Then Charles saw the knife.

Lewis had one hand raised slightly, the blade catching the dull afternoon light. It looked like something he had picked up from one of the houses rather than something he had carried with him all along, but that didn't make the sight of it any less unsettling.

The stranger seemed to agree. The moment he noticed the weapon, his hands went up again and he took several steps backwards.

“Back off.” Lewis's voice was low. Not loud. Not panicked. That was somehow worse.

He took one deliberate step towards the man, the knife still held firmly in his hand. Charles understood the message immediately. ‘One step towards us and I will gut you.’

The stranger stopped.

For a few long seconds, nobody moved. Charles watched the man's eyes travel over Lewis, taking him in the same way Charles had done earlier. Calculating. Measuring. Trying to decide whether whatever he might gain was worth the risk of fighting for it.

Charles wanted to tell Lewis to put the knife down. He wanted to tell the stranger that it was okay, that they didn't have to do this. But the words remained stuck somewhere in his throat.

Eventually, the man seemed to come to his conclusion. He turned around and ran.

Lewis didn't follow him. He simply stood there until the stranger had disappeared down the road, his knife still raised even after there was nobody left to threaten. Only then did his shoulders loosen.

He lowered the blade and turned around. Charles was still standing beside the car.

“Why did you do that?” Charles asked.

Lewis blinked at him. It wasn't anger, exactly. More like disbelief.

“People are dangerous, Charles.” Lewis finally said, dragging a hand through his hair. The knife remained in his other hand, hanging uselessly by his side now that the immediate threat was gone. “What if he wanted to steal from us? Huh? Take all our food and the car and leave us with nothing?”

Charles opened his mouth. Then closed it again. Because he didn't actually know the answer.

“What if he didn't?” he eventually asked, although there wasn't much conviction behind it.

Lewis let out a long breath, looking away from him for a second. “But what if he did?”

Lewis looked tired. Charles could see it properly now. There was dirt on his clothes and something dark smeared across one of his sleeves that Charles didn't want to look at closely enough to identify. His eyes kept moving, checking the street, the houses, the spaces between them. Like Lewis hadn't stopped looking for danger even while he was talking to Charles.

“I had to do that, Charles,” Lewis said again, quieter this time. “To keep us safe.”

Safe. The word was becoming something Charles wasn't sure he liked anymore. Lewis had said almost the same thing after hitting someone with the car. After stealing the backpack from the couple. Every time he made a choice that left Charles feeling vaguely sick, there was always the same explanation waiting at the end of it.

‘I had to. To keep us safe.’

And usually Charles understood. Usually, he nodded because he could see the logic in it. The world wasn't what it had been before. Maybe kindness really was something they could no longer afford. Maybe Lewis was simply better at accepting that than Charles was.

But this time Charles couldn't stop thinking about the stranger's dry, cracked lips. About the way he had asked for water. About the fact that Charles had been perfectly willing to give it to him.

Maybe the man had been dangerous. Or maybe Lewis had simply decided that he was before giving him the chance to prove otherwise.

For the first time, Charles didn't understand. Not completely. But he was tired. Tired of arguing, tired of trying to decide which of them was right when neither answer seemed particularly good. So instead, Charles looked down at the ground and nodded.

“Okay.”

Lewis seemed satisfied with that. Or perhaps relieved. Charles wasn't sure which one was worse.

He climbed back into the passenger seat when Lewis unlocked the car, pulling the door shut behind himself. As the engine started and they drove away from the quiet suburban streets, Charles watched the houses disappear through the window.

He couldn't help wondering whether they had just driven away from a dangerous stranger. Or from someone who could have needed their help.

—

They had decided to split up for once in their search for food.

They still had the goddamn protein bars. Charles was starting to think those things were going to outlive them all. Every time he opened a bag or rummaged through one of their supplies, there they were there, crushed between other things or shoved into the corners of backpacks, always the same overly sweet taste waiting for him. They kept them alive, technically. That was more than Charles could say for a lot of things nowadays.

At least, that was what Charles kept telling himself whenever his stomach twisted painfully around another half eaten bar.

But they weren’t sustainable. They needed something else. Something warm, preferably. Something that didn't taste like compressed cardboard and regret.

And Charles had actually found something this time.

Two cans of soup sat heavily in the stolen backpack hanging from his shoulder, knocking gently against each other every time he moved. It wasn't much, but it was food. Real food, even if neither of them had a way of heating it up properly. Charles was fairly certain neither of them cared anymore. He would have eaten the soup frozen if that was what it took.

More importantly, though, he'd found a map.

It was old and folded so many times that the creases had nearly worn through, but it was still readable. Charles had spent several minutes standing in the abandoned building he'd found it in, tracing the roads with his finger and trying to work out where exactly they were. There were places marked on it. Towns. Highways. Roads that could potentially take them somewhere safer.

A military zone.

Charles can’t wait to tell Lewis about this.

The car was parked a little way off the road, tucked towards a forestry area where the trees swallowed most of it from view. It wasn't perfect, but nothing was anymore. The further they got from civilization, the more abandoned cars and bodies they seemed to find. The closer they stayed to the roads, the more likely they were to run into people.

And Charles was beginning to understand that this wasn’t particularly comforting.

At least the car was easy enough to run back to if they needed it. Far enough away from the buildings that they wouldn't immediately draw attention to themselves, but not so far that either of them would have to wander through the forest looking for it.

Additionally, it was far enough away that the rumbling engine wouldn't attract every single infected in the area the second Lewis turned the key.

It always did. Charles had no clue why. Maybe it was the sound. Maybe they were simply unlucky. Maybe the infected were drawn to anything that reminded them of the world they'd lost. Cars. Voices. People. Whatever the reason, they couldn't afford to stay anywhere for long.

Him and Lewis had agreed to meet back at the car in two hours. Charles had checked the time three times in the last ten minutes alone.

One hour and thirty three minutes.

And since Charles had absolutely no clue how long it would take him to get back to the sleek rental car, he had already started making his way back. The backpack weighed against his shoulder, heavier than it should have been for two cans of soup and a few scraps of paper.

His legs ached with the particular kind of exhaustion that came from never really getting to rest. Sleep didn't count when you woke up every hour convinced someone was trying to get into the car.

Charles kept walking.

The road was quiet around him, unnaturally so. The kind of quiet that made every small sound seem too loud. The crunch of his shoes against loose gravel. The rustling of the backpack against his side. His own breathing, a little too quick whenever he thought he heard something moving between the trees.

He tried not to look over his shoulder too often. Lewis would be back at the car soon. Probably. They still had twenty seven minutes before they were supposed to meet. More than enough time.

Charles repeated that thought to himself as he walked. More than once. Yet he couldn't stop himself from picking up his pace, as he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched.

At first, he tried to ignore it. There was no point in letting himself get worked up over every little thing anymore. If he did, he would never get anything done. Every abandoned house had felt like it was watching him. Every dark window. Every car with its doors hanging open. Sometimes he thought he saw people standing in the distance, only for them to turn out to be trees or broken signposts once he got closer.

So when the uncomfortable prickling sensation began crawling up the back of his neck, Charles told himself it was nothing. Probably his hunger. Or the exhaustion. Or the fact that he hadn't slept properly in what felt like forever.

He kept walking, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder as he glanced behind himself every now and again. Every single time there was nothing there. Just the road stretching out behind him, the buildings he'd already passed, and the trees moving slightly in the wind.

Nothing.

Charles let out a quiet breath and turned back around.

Then, a few minutes later, he looked over his shoulder one last time. And there was someone standing there.

Charles stopped so abruptly that the cans inside his backpack knocked together with a dull clink.

The man stopped too.

For a moment neither of them moved. They simply stood there in the middle of the road, staring at one another as if they had both been caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing.

Charles couldn't tell where the man had come from. One second the road had been empty, and now there was a stranger standing behind him.

The guy's eyes were fixed on Charles. Not just his face. They moved over him slowly. His clothes. His hands. The backpack slung over his shoulder. Everything Charles had.

A cold feeling began settling somewhere deep in his stomach. Charles was still trying to work out what exactly was wrong when his eyes dropped down. The gun was almost casual in the man's hand. That was somehow worse than if he'd been waving it around.

Charles's breath caught.

The man seemed to notice where Charles was looking. “Give me the backpack.” The words were barked out sharply, without hesitation.

Charles didn't think. Maybe that was stupid. Maybe it was the worst decision he could have made. There were probably a hundred things Lewis would have told him to do differently. Give him the backpack. Don't provoke him. Keep his hands where he could see them.

But the backpack had food in it. Food that they needed. And the map. The stupid little card in Charles's pocket suddenly felt heavier than it had before.

So instead of listening, Charles turned around and ran.

The first few steps were clumsy. His body hadn't expected the sudden movement, his legs already aching from hours of walking, and the backpack bounced painfully against his spine as he broke into a sprint. Behind him, he heard the man shout something.

Charles didn't turn around to listen. There was nothing he could do except run.

Get to the car. Get to Lewis.

Please let Lewis already be there. Lewis would know what to do.

The thought repeated itself in Charles's head with every desperate step he took. Lewis had always known what to do. When there were infected, Lewis drove. When they needed food, Lewis found it. When strangers got too close, Lewis stepped between them.

Lewis would know what to do. How to keep them safe.

Charles's lungs burned as the trees finally began thinning enough for him to see the small clearing ahead.

The car came into view. For one brief, wonderful second, relief crashed into him so hard that his knees nearly buckled. Then he actually looked at it. The rental car was still parked exactly where they had left it. Empty. Lewis wasn't there.

Charles slowed down despite himself, his chest heaving as his eyes immediately darted towards the driver's seat. Then the passenger seat. The surrounding trees. The road leading towards the buildings where Lewis had gone searching.

Nothing. No Lewis.

The realization hit him with a sickening kind of weight.

He was alone. And somewhere behind him, there was a man with a gun.

Charles's fingers tightened around the strap of the backpack as he stood there, staring at the empty car before he looked down at his watch.

They still had sixteen minutes.

More than enough time. Except suddenly, sixteen minutes felt like a very long time to survive on his own.

So Charles did the only thing that seemed even remotely plausible. He let the backpack slip from his shoulder.

It hit the ground beside him with a soft, disappointing thud, the cans of soup knocking together inside. Charles took a stumbling step away from it, his hands raised instinctively as he stared at the stranger.

>>Take it,<< he thought. >>Just take it and leave.<<

The food wasn't worth dying over. The map wasn't worth dying over. Nothing in that stupid backpack was worth dying over.

Charles had spent the last few minutes running for it, convinced that if he could just get to the car everything would be alright. That Lewis would be there. That Lewis would take one look at the situation and somehow know what to do.

But Lewis wasn't here. And Charles was alone.

So he stood there, trying desperately not to cry, waiting for the man to grab the backpack and disappear back into whatever part of the world he'd come from.

Instead, Charles was suddenly shoved forward. The impact knocked the breath straight out of him.

His chest collided with the hood of the car hard enough to make his teeth clack together, the cold metal pressing painfully against his ribs as his hands scrambled for something to hold onto. Before he could even understand what was happening, there was a weight against his back.

Then something cold pressed against the side of his head. Charles froze.

“Where is the key?” The man's voice was right beside him.

Charles could barely breathe.

Hands began fumbling through his pockets, rough and impatient, pulling at the fabric of his clothes as the stranger searched him. Charles flinched at every touch, his eyes squeezed shut as if that could somehow make him disappear.

There was nothing there. The man's movements became more frantic.

“Where is the fucking key?”

The gun pressed harder against Charles's head.

A small, broken sound escaped him before he could stop it. His entire body had begun shaking now, his fingers curled uselessly against the hood of the car.

“I don't have it,” Charles choked out. “Please. I swear, I don't have it.”

And it wasn't even a lie. Lewis always had the keys. Lewis, who wasn't here. Lewis, who had warned Charles about strangers. Lewis, who had told him that people were dangerous. Lewis, who had looked at him like he was naïve for thinking they could simply trust someone. Lewis, who had been right. Lewis, who-

Suddenly, the weight on top of him disappeared.

It happened so violently that Charles didn't immediately understand what had changed. One second he was trapped against the hood, unable to move, and the next there was nothing holding him there anymore.

Ironically, it had been the only thing keeping him upright. Charles slid down the side of the car and collapsed onto the ground in an uncoordinated heap, his back hitting the front of the rental as his legs folded awkwardly beneath him. For a few seconds, he could do nothing except gasp for air.

Then he looked up. And everything inside him seemed to stop.

Lewis was there.

Lewis was sitting on top of the man, keeping him pinned to the ground with a kind of desperate force Charles had never seen from him before. The knife in Lewis's hand rose.

Then came back down.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Charles couldn't make himself look away.

The front of the car dug painfully into his back, but he couldn't move. He wasn't even sure if he remembered how to. His arms felt disconnected from the rest of him. His legs had turned heavy and useless. All he could do was sit there on the ground and stare.

Lewis didn't seem to notice him. Or maybe he did and simply couldn't stop.

Charles had seen Lewis angry before. Everyone had. He'd seen him frustrated, exhausted, scared. But this was something else entirely. There was something frantic about every movement, something terrified underneath it, as though Lewis wasn't just trying to protect Charles anymore. As though he was trying to undo the fact that Charles had almost been taken from him.

“Lewis.” Charles didn't recognize his own voice. It came out quiet. Small.

Lewis didn't stop.

“Lewis.” A little louder this time. Still nothing.

Charles swallowed around the lump in his throat, watching his friend with wide, horrified eyes. His heart was beating so hard that it hurt. “Lewis, please.”

That finally did it. Lewis froze. His shoulders rose and fell with his breathing. Slowly, almost mechanically, he turned his head towards Charles. And Charles didn't know what frightened him more.

The fact that Lewis had saved him. Or the expression on his face when he finally stopped.

—

Lewis was breathing hard by the end of it.

His entire body felt like it had been wound too tightly, every muscle aching with the aftermath of adrenaline. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small and increasingly persistent voice was telling him that he could have stopped sooner.

He was pretty sure of that now. The man had stopped fighting before Lewis had. But in the moment, that hadn't mattered.

Lewis had needed to make sure.

He had needed to know that when he stepped away from him, the man wouldn't get back up again. Wouldn't reach for Charles. Wouldn't pull out another weapon. Wouldn't come stumbling after them and take away the one person Lewis had spent the last days trying to keep alive.

So he had kept going. Because he had to. That was what he told himself as his hand slowly loosened around the handle of the knife.

He had to.

Lewis finally turned around. His eyes immediately found Charles.

The younger man was still sitting on the ground where he'd fallen, pressed against the front of the car as though he'd somehow forgotten that he could move away from it. He looked impossibly small like that. His backpack lay abandoned a few feet away, one of the straps twisted awkwardly beneath it.

Charles himself barely seemed to notice any of it. His eyes kept darting around. To the forest floor. To the trees. To Lewis. And then, inevitably, back towards the man lying behind him.

Every time Charles's gaze landed there, his entire body seemed to tense. Even from where Lewis was standing, he could hear him breathing.

Too fast. Sharp little breaths that didn't seem to go anywhere, his chest rising and falling like his body had forgotten what breathing was actually supposed to do.

Lewis's stomach dropped. “Charles.”

Lewis pushed himself upright, his knees cracking painfully in protest. He ignored it. There were a lot of things hurting right now, and none of them seemed important enough to pay attention to. When he straightened completely, the sudden shift made the world tilt unpleasantly beneath his feet.

For a second, Lewis stumbled. The adrenaline was leaving him now. Blood rushing back through his body, exhaustion sinking into places where panic had been only moments ago. He steadied himself against the car before forcing his legs to move again.

Charles still hadn't looked at him properly. Lewis crossed the distance between them and crouched down. Only then did Charles seem to realize that he was there. His eyes snapped towards Lewis before immediately flickering away again.

“Hey.” Lewis reached forward without thinking, cupping Charles's face between both of his own shaking hands.

The movement was meant to be gentle. It probably wasn't.

Blood still clung to Lewis's fingertips, tacky and half dried already, smearing faintly across Charles's sunken cheeks when his thumbs brushed against them. The sight of it made something twist painfully inside Lewis's chest. He had wanted to protect him.

Instead, Charles was covered in reminders of what Lewis had just done.

Charles flinched. Then his hands came up, weak at first, trying to push Lewis away. His eyes were still everywhere but where Lewis wanted them to be. They jumped towards the trees as though he expected someone else to step out from behind them at any second. Back to the body on the ground. Back to the empty road.

Anywhere but here. Anywhere but Lewis.

“Calm down, Charles,” Lewis said, his voice softer than it had been moments ago.

Charles tried to turn away again.

Lewis tightened his hold - not enough to hurt, but enough that Charles couldn't keep looking over his shoulder - and gently tilted his face upwards until there was nowhere left for him to look but at Lewis.

“Look at me.”

Charles's eyes finally settled on him. They were wide and glassy. Lewis could practically see the panic moving behind them.

“You need to calm down,” he continued, trying to keep his own voice steady. Trying to sound like everything was alright. Like the forest wasn't suddenly much too quiet. Like there wasn't a body behind him. Like Charles hadn't just watched Lewis become something neither of them had expected him to be.

“Take a deep breath.”

Charles's mouth opened. Nothing came out. Lewis could feel his cheeks trembling underneath his palms.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Just breathe with me.”

And Lewis took a slow breath himself. In. Then out. Again.

He waited for Charles to follow. For the younger man to realize that he was safe now. That Lewis was here. That nobody was going to hurt him.

Lewis didn't know how long they stayed like that, kneeling in the dirt beside the car. All he knew was that Charles was still alive. And for the moment, that had to be enough.

“You killed him.” The sentence tumbled out of Charles's mouth before he had even managed to drag a proper deep breath into his lungs.

It was quiet. Almost lost beneath the sound of his own uneven breathing. But Lewis heard it.

Charles's eyes had finally stopped moving for a moment. They were fixed somewhere over Lewis's shoulder, somewhere Lewis knew perfectly well he shouldn't let him look. Charles didn't seem to be seeing the trees or the road or anything else around them anymore. His face had gone pale beneath the dirt, his lips trembling slightly as he tried and failed to make sense of what had just happened.

“You killed him,” Charles said again, as if repeating it might somehow make the words mean something different.

It was such an illogical thing to be upset about right now. The man had been holding a gun to his head. He had threatened him. He had tried to take the car. Charles had been terrified only minutes ago that he wasn't going to make it out of this forest alive.

And yet this was the thing his mind had settled on.

Lewis had killed him.

Maybe because it was the only thing Charles could properly grasp right now. The only part of what had happened that had a beginning and an end. A person had been standing there, angry and alive, and now he wasn't. Charles couldn't deal with the gun or the running or the way his knees had stopped working beneath him. He couldn't deal with the possibility of what might have happened if Lewis hadn't come back when he did.

But he could understand death. He'd seen enough of it lately.

“I had to, Charles.” Lewis's eyebrows drew together. His voice had dropped low, gentle in the same way one might speak to an injured animal that was still deciding whether to bite. His hands remained on Charles's cheeks, though he was suddenly aware of the blood on his fingers again. He wondered if Charles could feel it. If that was why he kept flinching every time Lewis's thumbs moved. “He was-” Lewis stopped. The words didn't come as easily now that he was looking directly at Charles. “He wanted to-” He didn't finish that either.

“I had to,” he settled on again. “To protect you.”

The words sounded familiar. Too familiar, perhaps.

Lewis wasn't entirely sure anymore whether he was trying to convince Charles or himself. Maybe both. Maybe that was the problem with surviving for this long. You kept doing things because you had to, and eventually you stopped knowing where the line was between necessity and the things you simply couldn't bear to regret.

Lewis had seen the gun. He had seen Charles trapped against the car. And something inside him had simply stopped thinking.

“He was going to kill you,” Lewis said, more firmly this time, as though Charles needed the reminder. As though Lewis needed to hear himself say it. “Charles, he was going to kill you.”

Charles's gaze finally flickered back towards him.

Lewis could see it in his face. The confusion, the fear, the awful struggle of trying to reconcile the Lewis who had just held a knife with the person sitting in front of him now. The person carefully holding his face and asking him to breathe.

“I had to kill him to save you,” Lewis continued. His voice cracked slightly around the last word. “Please,” he said, quieter now. “You understand that, right?”

And there it was. The question neither of them seemed willing to acknowledge for what it really was.

Lewis wasn't asking Charles whether he understood what had happened. He wasn't even really asking whether Charles agreed with him.

He was asking for forgiveness.

Maybe Lewis was looking for absolution in a power other than himself. Maybe he needed someone else to tell him that what he'd done was necessary, because he wasn't sure he could tell himself anymore.

And perhaps that someone shouldn't have been Charles. Especially not Charles.

Not a wide eyed, frantically breathing, terrified Charles Leclerc who flinched at every sound the forest made around them. Who still hadn't managed to look behind Lewis without his entire body tensing. Who had almost been killed only minutes ago and was now being asked to understand the person who had saved him.

Charles's lips parted. For a moment, Lewis held his breath. Charles didn't answer. And somehow, the silence hurt more than if he had said no.

“We should get you in the car.” Lewis spoke gently as he finally pulled his hands away from Charles's face. For a second, Charles didn't move. He remained exactly where he was, staring at Lewis as though he hadn't quite understood the words.

Then Lewis reached down and helped him up. Charles's knees wobbled the second he put his weight on them.

Lewis's hands immediately tightened around his arms, steadying him before he could collapse back onto the ground.

Charles didn't seem to notice how heavily he was leaning into him. Or maybe he did and simply didn't care. His entire body still felt strangely limp, all the energy he'd used to run apparently having disappeared somewhere between the gun being pressed to his head and Lewis arriving.

“Easy,” Lewis murmured.

Charles nodded despite the fact that he didn't look particularly convinced that he could be easy about anything ever again.

Slowly, Lewis guided him around the side of the car.

A few days ago, they had come up with the idea of flipping the back seats down. It had seemed clever at the time. They could put their bags in the trunk and spread whatever blankets they could find over the folded seats, creating something that vaguely resembled a bed. It wasn't comfortable, exactly, but it was better than trying to sleep sitting upright with their necks bent at unnatural angles.

Now, Lewis was grateful for it.

He opened the trunk and helped Charles sit down on the edge of it. Charles's legs dangled outside, his hands resting uselessly in his lap as he stared at the ground between his shoes.

Lewis took a step away. Charles's hand shot out. His fingers wrapped tightly around Lewis's bicep. The sudden movement made Lewis stop.

“Please don't leave me alone again.” Charles's voice was so quiet that Lewis almost didn't hear him.

When he looked down, Charles was staring at him. There was no accusation in his expression. He didn't look angry at Lewis for leaving him. He just looked scared.

“I will be right back, Charles,” Lewis said softly. He tried to make it sound like a promise.

Charles's grip didn't loosen.

Lewis covered Charles's hand with his own for a moment, gently prying his fingers away from his arm. “I'm not going anywhere. I just need to do something, alright? I'll be right back.”

Charles looked at him for another long second. Then, reluctantly, he let go.

Lewis hated how difficult it was to walk away.

He made his way towards the front of the car, glancing back once to make sure Charles was still sitting where he'd left him. The younger had pulled his feet up slightly, curling into himself in the open trunk as if he could make himself smaller.

Lewis reached through the driver's side window and rolled it down just enough to let some air into the car. The thought of Charles sitting in the back without being able to breathe properly suddenly felt unbearable. It was ridiculous, considering everything else around them.

But Lewis needed something to do with his hands. Something that wasn't looking at Charles. Something that wasn't looking behind him.

Eventually, though, his eyes drifted back towards the clearing. The man was still there.

Lewis's stomach twisted.

The knife remained where he'd left it, and the gun had landed a short distance away in the grass. For a moment Lewis simply stood there, staring at both of them.

He had absolutely no clue how to use a gun. That didn't change the fact that he walked over and picked it up anyway. The metal felt unfamiliar and unpleasantly heavy in his hand. Lewis turned it over once before immediately deciding that he didn't want to think about what he was doing. He carried it back to the car and tossed it onto the driver's seat.

Maybe it would be useful. Maybe it wouldn't. He didn't know. But he knew what it had felt like to see one pointed at Charles.

Lewis wasn't going to leave it behind.

Then he circled around the car again, his steps quickening as he approached the open trunk.

Charles was still there. Still alive. Still waiting for him. Lewis felt something in his chest loosen just slightly as he stopped beside him.

“I told you,” he said quietly, though there was no teasing in his voice. “I'm back.”

Lewis found Charles exactly where he had left him. He was still sitting on the edge of the open trunk, his body turned slightly inwards towards the makeshift bed they'd built in the back of the car. His right hand was absentmindedly rubbing over his chest, moving slowly over the fabric of his shirt as though he wasn't even aware he was doing it.

Lewis stopped. For a moment, he just watched him.

He couldn't tell whether Charles was trying to soothe himself or whether something actually hurt. Maybe it was both.

Lewis had seen him do things like that before. Small movements people made when they were trying to convince their bodies that they were safe. Except Charles wasn't safe. Not really. Not with a body lying only a short distance away from them and the world outside continuing exactly as it had before.

“Are you hurt?”

Charles looked up at him. There was a short pause before he nodded.

Something in Lewis's chest immediately tightened. “Want me to check?”

The question felt almost pointless as soon as it had left his mouth. It wasn't as though Lewis had suddenly become a doctor. They had some supplies, but not enough to deal with anything serious, and Lewis didn't even know what he would be looking for if Charles actually let him check.

Still, there was something about not knowing that was worse. At least if they knew what they were dealing with, they could pretend they had a plan.

Thankfully - or perhaps frustratingly - Charles shook his head.

Lewis didn't push him. Charles had been pushed around enough for one day.

“Scoot up,” Lewis said instead, letting out a quiet sigh.

Charles hesitated for only a moment before doing as he was told. He shifted further into the back of the car, crawling awkwardly over the blankets and whatever bags they had piled around them until his entire body was safely inside.

Lewis waited until he was completely inside before going in after him.

The trunk was not designed to hold two grown men. They had learned that the hard way when they'd first decided to turn the back of the car into somewhere they could sleep. There was enough space to lie down if neither of them moved too much, but sitting inside it together meant knees and elbows constantly bumped into one another.

Lewis didn't particularly care right now. He reached back and pulled the trunk shut. The sound of it clicking into place was strangely loud.

Then they were alone. Safe. At least safer than outside.

Lewis settled down beside Charles, their shoulders immediately pressing together in the confined space. Neither of them moved away.

For a while, Lewis didn't say anything. There wasn't really anything left to say.

Charles's hand had fallen back against his chest again, fingers curling slightly into the fabric of his shirt. Lewis noticed it from the corner of his eye but kept his mouth shut this time. He didn't know whether Charles wanted comfort or simply needed someone beside him while his body caught up with everything that had happened.

So Lewis stayed. Outside, the world was still there. The forest. The abandoned road. The body they had left behind.

But inside the cramped space at the back of the car, with Charles's shoulder pressed against his own, Lewis allowed himself to pretend for just a few minutes that nothing could get to them.

That he hadn't left Charles alone. That Charles wasn't afraid of him. And that keeping him alive would be enough to make everything they'd done worth it.

They both ended up lying on their backs.

There wasn't enough space in the makeshift bed for them to be particularly comfortable, but neither of them seemed willing to complain about it. Charles lay stiffly beside Lewis, staring stubbornly at the roof of the car as though there was something fascinating hidden in the fabric above them. His hand came up every now and again to wipe at his eyes, quick and almost angry movements that suggested he was hoping Lewis wouldn't notice.

Lewis noticed. Of course he did. But he kept his eyes on Charles without saying anything for a while. He didn't know what he was supposed to say.

There had to be something, surely. Some magical combination of words that would make the shaking stop and convince Charles that everything was going to be alright. Lewis just didn't know what those words were.

“Do you want to talk about it?” The question came out awkwardly. A little too formal, perhaps. Like something he'd heard someone say in a film rather than something Lewis himself would normally ask. But he wanted to offer. He wanted Charles to know that he could say something if he needed to.

Charles shook his head. “No.”

“Okay.”

That was it. Lewis stared back at the roof of the car, suddenly feeling completely out of his depth.

In a weird way, it reminded him of Nico.

Years ago, after Nico had been rejected by some german girl whose name Lewis couldn't even remember anymore, the two of them had ended up lying around in a hotel room together. Nico had been miserable and dramatic about it, and Lewis had spent a good hour trying to figure out what exactly one was supposed to do with a friend who was upset.

Eventually, he'd just stayed. Back then, that had somehow been enough. Maybe it could be enough now, too.

Charles eventually turned onto his side, his back facing Lewis. The movement was slow, almost deliberate, like he was trying to put something between himself and the rest of the world. Lewis could still see his shoulders trembling every now and then, little movements that Charles probably thought he was hiding.

The confined space suddenly felt very large. Or maybe the distance between them did.

Lewis swallowed down the awkwardness gathering in his throat. Then he scooted closer.

There was no elegant way of doing it. The back of the car barely had enough room for them as it was, and Lewis had to shuffle awkwardly across the blankets until his chest was pressed against Charles's back. For one terrifying second, he wondered whether Charles would pull away.

But he didn't, so Lewis carefully wrapped an arm around him.

It wasn't quite a hug. Not really. It was more like spooning, except Lewis refused to think about that particular word because that somehow made the entire situation feel more awkward than it needed to be.

Instead, he simply let his arm rest around Charles's middle, warm and solid and unmistakably there. A quiet reminder.

I'm here. You aren't alone.

Charles didn't say anything. Neither did Lewis. But after a while, Charles shifted backwards. Just slightly. Enough for his back to press more firmly against Lewis's chest.

Lewis pretended not to notice.

And when Charles's hand came down to grip Lewis's forearm, making sure the arm stayed exactly where it was draped around him, Lewis didn't comment on that either. He didn't tease him or ask whether he was alright. He simply let Charles hold on.

His grip stayed tight for a long time.

Slowly, though, Charles's body began to relax. The trembling in his shoulders became less frequent. His breathing, which had been too fast and shallow ever since Lewis had found him beside the car, gradually evened out.

Lewis stayed awake. He wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe he was worried Charles would wake up alone. Maybe he simply didn't trust himself to close his eyes yet, not after everything that had happened outside. So he lay there quietly, staring into the dimness of the car while keeping his arm around Charles.

Eventually, a small snoring sound reached his ears. Lewis blinked. Then, despite everything, the corner of his mouth pulled upwards.

Charles's grip had loosened in his sleep, though his fingers were still curled around Lewis's arm. His nose was stuffed enough that every breath came with a quiet, almost ridiculous little sound.

Lewis didn't dare move. Not when Charles had finally fallen asleep. So he stayed exactly where he was, trapped in an uncomfortable position with one arm slowly beginning to go numb and Charles pressed firmly against him.

—

Charles was sitting in the back of the car, almost relaxing. Almost being the important part.

They were parked on the side of the road just outside a small convenience store, the building looking abandoned from where Charles was sitting. The windows were dark, some of them cracked, and the large sign above the entrance hung slightly crooked. It had been one of those places that looked completely ordinary before all of this. Somewhere Charles probably wouldn't have even bothered looking at twice.

Now, it meant food. Or at least the possibility of it.

Lewis had gone inside a few minutes ago, leaving Charles in the car with the doors locked and a very clear instruction to stay put. Charles hadn't argued. It wasn’t like he wanted to be outside again.

So Charles waited. He watched the road through the window. Waited for Lewis. And tried not to think too hard about how little food they had left.

Charles prayed that Lewis would find enough for them to make it to the military zone. They still had a destination. Somewhere on the map where there were supposedly people who could help. Somewhere Charles could tell himself they were working towards whenever the road seemed endless and every abandoned building looked exactly the same.

They just had to get there. They just had to survive long enough. They just needed to get more food to make the trip.

Charles was so focused on that thought that he flinched violently when something suddenly slammed against the window.

His head snapped around.

Lewis.

Lewis was standing outside the driver's side of the car, both of his palms pressed desperately against the glass. They were covered in blood.

For a second, Charles simply stared. His brain didn't understand what he was looking at.

Then Lewis pulled at the door handle. “Charles, open the car.” There was something wrong with his voice.

Not physically. He wasn't hurt, Charles realized. At least, he didn't seem to be. But there was a desperation underneath his words that Charles had only heard a handful of times before. The kind that made Charles's body react before his mind had even caught up.

“Come on, Charles. Open up!”

Charles moved immediately. He pushed himself forward, crawling between the two front seats and reaching for the driver's side door handle. His fingers were already stretching towards it when his eyes slipped past Lewis's shoulder.

And stopped.

There were people running towards them.

No. Not people.

Charles's entire body went cold.

The infected were coming from somewhere further down the road, spilling out from between abandoned cars and around the corner of the convenience store. There were more of them than Charles could count properly. Their movements were frantic and uneven, their bodies throwing themselves forward with only one thing in mind.

Lewis.

The car.

Him.

Charles's hand froze just above the handle.

If he opened the door now, they would get in. Lewis would get in too, of course. That was the entire point. But the infected were too close.

Charles could see that now.

There was no time to open the door and close it again before they reached them. No time to start the car. No time to get away. If Lewis got inside, the infected could follow him.

They would both die.

“Charles!” Lewis slammed his hand against the glass again.

The sound made Charles flinch. Lewis had seen his hand. Seen it frozen there.

Charles looked at him. Then past him. The infected were getting closer.

His mind was screaming at him to move. To do something. To choose. But every possible decision seemed to lead to the same place, and suddenly Charles couldn't remember how breathing worked.

Lewis was outside. Lewis was in danger. Lewis needed him. And Charles couldn't open the door. Because Lewis had been right.

People were dangerous. The infected were dangerous. The world outside this car was dangerous. You didn't survive by making the kind choice. You survived by making the choice that kept you alive. The selfish choice. The choice that got others killed.

Charles's fingers slowly curled away from the door handle.

The movement was small. Lewis noticed anyway.

And Charles couldn't bear to look at his face. He couldn't bear to see the moment Lewis understood.

“I-” Charles swallowed. The word got stuck somewhere in his throat. He stared down at his own hands instead. “I'm sorry.”

Outside the car, Lewis's hand hit the window again. And Charles squeezed his eyes shut. Because he already knew what was going to happen next. And somehow, knowing didn't make it any easier.

Charles looked at the infected again. They were only a few metres away now.

Close enough that he could make out the way they moved - too fast, too uncoordinated, bodies stumbling - over the uneven ground only to catch themselves and keep going. Close enough that there was no longer any room for hope that Lewis could somehow outrun them and make it around to the other side of the car.

Then Charles looked back at Lewis. His hand was still hovering near the door handle. Lewis was staring at him. And Charles's hand dropped completely.

“I’m sorry.” He couldn't look Lewis in the eyes when he said it.

Maybe that was cowardly. Charles didn't know. He just knew that if he looked up and saw Lewis's face, if he saw the fear there and the realization that Charles was really going to leave him outside, then he wouldn't be able to do it.

He would open the door and they would both die.

“What?” The word sounded almost confused. Then Lewis's expression changed. “Charles- oh my God, Charles, open the fucking door!” His hand slammed against the window again. “Open the door! Charles! Charles!”

Every scream made something inside Charles twist tighter. He didn't move. He couldn't. His body felt detached from him, as though he were watching himself from somewhere far away. Charles slowly pulled himself back between the seats and let his body fall against the backseat, putting as much distance between himself and the door as the car would allow.

As if a few feet could make any difference.

Outside, Lewis kept screaming. Charles could hear his voice rising with every word. The desperation becoming something sharper. Something terrified.

Then, eventually, Lewis's screams changed. Charles didn't know exactly when it happened. One second Lewis was shouting his name, his voice hoarse and desperate and so unmistakably Lewis, and the next-

Charles squeezed his eyes shut. Both hands flew up over his ears.

No. No, no, no.

If he couldn't hear it, maybe it wasn't happening. If he couldn't see it, maybe Lewis was still standing outside the car. Maybe he was still banging on the window. Maybe Charles could open his eyes in a minute and find that he'd imagined the entire thing.

But the car suddenly rocked. The impact made Charles's entire body jerk.

Something hit the side of the car hard enough to shake it, and Charles knew. He knew without looking.

The sounds kept coming anyway. Muffled through the metal and the windows, distorted by Charles's hands pressed desperately over his ears, but still there. Sounds that didn't sound like anything Charles wanted to associate with another human being.

A sob tore its way out of his chest. Then another. Tears slipped from beneath his tightly squeezed eyelids, running down the sides of his face as Charles curled further into himself.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His voice was shaking so badly that the words barely sounded like words anymore. “I had to, Lewis. You understand that, right?”

He didn't know who he was talking to. Lewis couldn't answer him. Charles knew that. But he kept talking anyway.

“I needed to keep myself safe. Please, Lewis, I'm sorry.”

His hands pressed harder against his ears.

“The infected made me do it.” The sentence broke apart halfway through. Charles shook his head violently. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

It was the same thing Lewis had told him. Over and over again.

‘I had to do it.’

‘You understand that, right?’

‘I needed to keep us safe.’

Charles had understood. God, he had understood. He understood now more than ever. And somehow, that was the worst part. Because Charles finally knew exactly what Lewis had meant every time he'd said it. He knew what it felt like to have the world narrow down to one terrible choice and convince yourself that there was no other option. To choose yourself because the alternative was dying alongside someone else.

Outside, the noises eventually began to fade. Charles didn't take his hands away from his ears. He didn't open his eyes. He just kept sitting there, crying into the darkness behind his eyelids, whispering apologies to someone who could no longer hear them.

“I’m sorry, Lewis.”

And for the first time since the world had ended, Charles wasn't sure whether surviving was supposed to feel like winning. All he knew was that he wanted to go home. He wants to go home to his maman.

—

At some point, the sounds outside had disappeared completely. The screaming had stopped. The impacts against the side of the car had stopped. Even the frantic shuffling and movement that had surrounded them seemed to have faded away until there was nothing left but silence.

Charles had wanted the silence. He had begged for it, in a way. Now that he had it, he wished the noise would come back.

At least the noise had meant there was something to focus on. Something immediate and terrifying enough that he didn't have to think about what was happening. Silence left him alone with it. Left him alone with the knowledge that there was something outside the car he couldn't bring himself to look at.

So he didn't move. His body kept swaying. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Charles didn't even notice at first. His mind had gone somewhere else entirely, leaving his body behind in the back of the car. It was only after a while that he became aware of the gentle rocking of his upper body, the repetitive movement continuing even though there was nothing making the car move anymore.

It was him.

Charles stared blankly at his knees as the realization settled somewhere in the back of his mind. He was rocking himself.

Like a child.

Like something inside him had regressed to the simplest possible instinct. If there was nobody left to comfort him, then perhaps his own body would have to try.

The thought should have embarrassed him. Instead, Charles just kept rocking.

He didn't know how long he sat there like that. Long enough for his tears to dry uncomfortably against his cheeks. Long enough for the muscles in his back to begin aching from the position. Long enough that eventually the need to do something became stronger than the fear of moving.

It took Charles another half an hour to finally muster up the courage to climb into the front seat.

Even then, he moved slowly. His hands shook as he pulled himself between the seats, his entire body feeling strangely heavy, as though getting from the back of the car to the front required more energy than he actually had left.

Once he was sitting behind the wheel, Charles froze again. He couldn't look to his left. He couldn't look out the driver's side window. And under absolutely no circumstances could he look at the side mirror.

Charles kept his eyes fixed stubbornly ahead of him. His breathing was shallow as he reached for the key, his fingers trembling badly enough that he had to adjust his grip before he managed to turn it.

The engine came alive with a rumbling growl that made Charles flinch.

For a second, his hands tightened around the steering wheel. The sound was too loud. It always was. It wouldn't take long before the rumbling attracted infected. It always did. Lewis had taught him that much. Another piece of knowledge Charles now had to carry with him without-

Charles swallowed hard.

He had to leave. There was no point in staying here.

He had barely any food left. A few energy bars that were slowly getting crushed and stale in the bottom of one of their bags. Certainly not enough to make it all the way to the military base. He needed to find more supplies before he could continue, and staying parked beside a convenience store wasn't going to help anyone.

Not anymore.

Charles stared at the empty road ahead. He had to keep himself safe.

The thought made his stomach twist. But he put the car into gear anyway. Then, with his eyes fixed firmly ahead and every part of him refusing to look back, Charles pressed down on the accelerator.