[Palm – Shed, Forest Edge]
My eyelids crack open like dry leaves underfoot, it's gritty and slow. The world swims in blurry edges, all shadows and faint light seeping through a grimy window.
My head is throbing and it's like a dull hammer is pounding behind my eyes, and my mouth tastes like copper and dirt. Where...?
I try to sit up, but my body is betraying me, limbs are heavy like they've been dipped in wet cement. A rough and musty tarp scratches against my back, and something cool presses into my palm. Moss?
No, the ground's hard under me, it's maybe concrete dusted with old tools and cobwebs. The air's stale, thick with rust and the faint bite of alcohol wipes. Not the forest floor. Not the rain-soaked clearing where everything went black.
The last thing I remember is the trees closing in and branches whipping my face as Win half-dragged me through the undergrowth. Zombies we're behind us chasing like wolves on a scent. My arm was injured, the gash from that Locust was getting worse with every step, fever was clawing up my spine.
Win's rough and desperate voice—"Stay with me, Palm" was echoing over the crack of his pipe against rotting skulls. Then nothing. A void, cold and endless, like falling into a river with rocks waiting below. I'm sure i was dead.
I shift, wincing as pain flares in my arm. The gash—it's bandaged now, it's stained dark but not soaking through. Someone patched me up. But who?
My heart stutters. "Win?" The word comes out hoarse. I force myself up on one elbow. A small window high up lets in slivers of gray light—morning? How long was I out?
And I i see there—curled against the opposite wall, his back to me, knees drawn up like he's guarding something. Win. His dark hair sticks to his forehead in sweaty strands, and his shirt's torn at the shoulder, blood crusted dark around the edges. He's still, too still, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. My stomach drops. And there is a bite? He was bitten? Wtf?
"Win!" I croak, "wake up. Come on, you idiot."
I get no response. His face is pale, lips parted, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow. I shake him gently, then harder.
"Win! What the hell happened? Where are we?"
A soft rustle from the corner stops me cold. I whip around expecting teeth and empty eyes. Instead, I see a woman, her scrubs are filthy and torn, wild hair tied back in a messy knot. She holds a scalpel loose in one hand, the blade glinting, but it's not raised like a weapon. It's just... there.
Wait isn't she Lin's mom? Nurse Mali. I freeze, the pieces slammer together too fast. Her face crumples for a split second, then hardens into that professional mask I've seen in school health fairs, the one that says she's seen worse than this and kept stitching anyway.
"Palm," she says, voice steady but edged with relief. "You're awake. Thank God."
"What?" I choke, glancing back at Win, then her. "What happened? Why are you here? And Win? Why is he unconscious?"
"Keep it easy," she cuts in. She pressess Win's forehead, then his wrist. "He's breathing. His pulse is weak but steady. He's been out since... well, since the transfusion."
Transfusion? The word hits like a splash of ice water. My arm throbs in response, the bandage pulls tight as I flex.
"Transfusion? What transfusion? We were running in the forest with zombies everywhere and Win was fighting them off, and I—"
"I blacked out. Did they get Win too? Is he turning? Why am I normal if I was bitten?"
"You're live," Mali says firmly, her gaze flicking between us like she's triaging a crash site. "Well barely. You were bad Palm. Septic from that gash, your fever was spiking and veins were darkening. I found you two in a clearing when Win was swinging that pipe like a madman, holding off three of those things while you were unconscious. He was protecting you, alone."
I swallow my saliva. Found us?
"You... how? The school, isn't everything's gone. The bomb—"
She then tells me the full story of how she ran from the hospital, found us, the transfusion, how win fought with her in oppose of direct transfusion but I the end agreed to save me, how he's unconscious since the transfusion and possibility of Win as immune protagonist of some zombie apocalypse webnovel.
The pieces slot together, jagged and wrong. The forest run, the fever clawing me under, Win's voice fading into static. I'd been dying. Turning.
Immune. The word echoes, impossible and sharp. He's always been the steady one, he's the wall I leaned on without asking. But giving blood? Direct, vein-to-vein?
"That's... that's dangerous. There could be clotting, reactions, he could've—"
"That was the last resort," Mali says, voice firm but laced with that same ache. "He knew the risks and he argued like hell, too. He said it could kill you faster but you were slipping, Palm. He chose the chance over nothing. He chose you over himself. He chose to take the slight chance to be with you."
I stare at Win's face, he's been out since the transfusion. My chest tightens with anger bubbling under the gratitude.
"He should've waited. Found a doctor, meds or something safe. Not this... gamble."
Mali's eyes soften, but her voice doesn't waver. "There is no safe anymore. And he loves you, kid. I saw it in his eyes when he rolled up his sleeve. And how he wouldn't let you go without a fight."
He loves me. The words land soft, but they stir something raw. Our kiss in the clearing flashes back, his "I love you" whispered like a secret against my skin. I'd said it back, weak but real, before the dark took me. And now he's paying for it, lying here because he wouldn't let me fade.
My guilt crashes in, hot on anger's heels.
"I... I felt it. The end. Like resting, but deeper. Cold, pulling me under. I died, nurse Mali. Or close as damn it. It's a miracle that I'm breathing now."
My voice cracks, i squeeze his hand tighter. "And he did this. For me."
She nods slowly, her own hand resting on my knee like a mother's touch. "Miracles are in short supply these days. But yeah. He did."
***
I lean closer to his forehead and inhale the faint scent of sweat and earth that's all him. Have i become a pervert?
"Wake up, idiot. You can't drop this bomb and leave me hanging."
Mali clears her throat and asks "Palm... about Lin."
The name slices through the fog, sharp as her scalpel. I stiffen, the ache blooming fresh. Lin. Gone before the sun even came up. Kao's words echo in my head:
She made me feel. That's why she had to die.
I'd pieced it together in the haze before blacking out—Lin was bitten, she was turning. But saying it to her mom? Person who raised that fierce, window sitting girl with the steady hands and hidden fire?
I can't dodge this though. I tell her everything about how Lin was bitten and never told us but left to save us. How we saw Lin and Kao kiss and how good her daughter and daughter in law looked together.
Her face doesn't crumple. It just... stills. Like she's been bracing for this. "Kao, isn't she the transfer girl?"
"My girl, she was always saving everyone but herself." then quieter, "Dating. Huh. She never said it. But it fits her." No tears, just a nod, the kind that says she's adding it to the grief pile and moving on. "Thank you for telling me. For being there with her till the end."
I swallow the lump, my anger at Win bubbling again.
"I wish I could've done more. For her. For him." I gesture at Win, unconscious weight against the wall.
"This transfusion that's why he's like this, isn't it? What if it's my fault? What if his blood mixed was wrong because of me?"
Why is he like this? Why he has to play the hero? Can't he be selfish and think about himself?
I squeeze his hand tighter.
"Stubborn ass. Waking up's gonna be hell when I yell at you for this."
Mali's lips twitch, almost a smile. "Save the yelling for when he's breathing steady. For now, just rest. Infection may have stopped spreading but still you need rest."
"You better wake up," I whisper in cracking voice. "We got stories left. Kisses in different places. That stupid future with marshmallows and no monsters. The 10 years in future you promised me."
***
The forest suddenly goes strangely still.
And then for a moment, I think it's just the wind but beneath the rustling leaves, beneath the distant groans of the dead. I hear a faint voice.
So faint that it almost feels like a memory instead of a sound.
A soft voice like of a child's.
"waiting"
I frown and my pulse quickens. Did I really hear that? The whisper drifts again, barely reaching us.
"...waiting for the blood..."