"Are you ready to go to bed?" Justine inquired gently.  "Nope," I replied, panting. "Absolutely not."  "Good, since neither do I."  Justine took my hand and escorted me around to the other entrance in the bathroom, where we discovered ourselves in a little bedroom. A double bed was packed into the far doorway, and alongside it was a surprisingly tiny bedside table with a reading light and two or three framed photos. The partitions were barren, with just cream-colored varnish on them, and the carpeting under our feet was massive and azure, with no mats to break up the monotony.  Justine smiled as he glanced at me. "It's still not probably the most terrible location we've ever slept," he said happily.  "Certainly, beats the backseat of a vehicle."  "Wait a minute, don't

  Diana said, "He did mention we could go investigating. I'd want to have a peek around this area. Would any of you want to accompany me?" she inquired, glancing at each of us individually.     Ricky got up for a moment and did some stretching. "Thank you, but I was hunting for the cooking area yesterday evening and ended up in the laundry room by accident. I'm going to clean our clothing, so we have enough fresh clothes to bring with us. I'm sick of wearing my underpants for three consecutive days and then having to wash them in a chilly river."     He made his way to the door, pausing to softly pat both Justine and Peter on their back. They didn't take their gaze away from the television, but Ricky doesn't seem offended. As he walked away, he simply grinned and shook his head, and I swear I heard him whisper 'good luck' under his breath.     "How about you two?" Peter

 “Peter, we already know he’s an evil piece of shit,” Justine said, sounding tired and impatient with his brother. “Whatever is on these disks isn’t going to tell us anything he hasn’t already told us himself.” Peter looked unconvinced and took the top disc from the stack. He took it and slid it into the gaming console he and Ricky were playing on before. When the TV screen lit up, he fiddled with some buttons, and the screen went black. There’s a small timestamp at the bottom of the screen, displaying a date that’s almost a year ago, before the time the infection started. Despite my insistence, there’s nothing on these discs, I felt myself moving toward the couch to sit beside Diana. She made room for me, never taking her eyes off of the screen in front of us. For a second, I thought that nothing was going to happen until the screen lightened as if someone turned on a

 Dr. Melendez asked us to visit him in the laboratory a few hours later to determine the current state of the rotting research subject. We assembled in the kitchen to prepare a quick breakfast. We couldn't stop ourselves from laughing. We'd been waiting for the right moment for so long, since before we realized there was a chance of a solution. And now we could somehow recognize the rewards of our effort. I just prayed we weren't let down.  We found Dr. Melendez in his laboratory, and the moment I walked in, my gaze was drawn to the patient. His complexion had already begun to recover some of its pinkish hues, trying to make him seem less like a decomposing corpse and more like a real human. He's nude from stem to stern, with wounds and puncture markings all over his body. All of them bled, but it wasn't the vicious, gelatinous substance blood we're accustomed to having seen from the undead. It was shorter in length now, and it's flowin

He stopped for a moment, his pupils dilated and wide with concern at the cadence of my speech. I couldn't exactly say I blame him. I could sense the bitterness in my demeanor, which I'd never been with him before. But when I peered at him just now, all I saw was him leaving Diana to suffer alone in that wilderness. Instead of assisting me in my efforts to rescue her, he chose to prioritize my safety above hers, which doesn't seem reasonable to me. She should still be with us for a while, and she may have been if Justine hadn't gotten emotional state for me.In some ways, I'm to blame for Diana's death. It's because Justine loved me more than he appreciated her. I was curious whether he felt any remorse for his choice. I'm confident he does since he's placed it upon himself to help shield us and guide us on the right road, but I had no question that if presented with the opportunity, he'd make the very same precise choice again. Justine's emotions for me placed the remaining of our team