“Daryl, help me,” Chelsea begged. Her ragged face was still pretty, still beautiful against her depressing mood, her depressing reality. “Daryl.”
“We survive,” I said. There was no alternative to what I could say. I cared for Chelsea. Though we had not been dating for a very long time, I had known her for much of my life. We went to school together. We were in the same classes, math, physics, chemistry, U.S. history. Chelsea and I both got into trouble for throwing foam balls across the gymnasium during a pep rally during our junior year of high school. We were friends. We were classmates. We are together now in this pile of death and destruction. We will survive. “We survive,” I repeated.
She shook her head, the tears stopped but the redness of her face remained, “How? How do we survive in this world?”
I looked down and kissed her on the forehead, “There is not how, Chelsea. I don’t mean to get cheesy, but now is our time. Do or do not, there is no try. We can do this. We have to do this.”
Chelsea’s hand brushed against my chest, moving upwards towards my neck then to the back of my head. She gently pulled my face forward into her own, our lips meeting and holding. After what seemed to be the longest and most wonderful kiss of my life, she finally pushed me back, “You are really good at that – this pep talk stuff.”
I smiled, resting my head against the top of the couch, “Yeah, well I never would have thought it. You saw me during the class debates. I was entirely frozen against the podium.”
“Oh so that’s your excuse for getting your butt whooped?”
“I let him win,” I said, looking away as my face became a bit flushed.
I felt Chelsea’s lips against my cheek, “You are cute when you lie, but still bad at it.” She stood from the couch, “I think I’m going to make something for us to eat.”
I reached out and lightly grabbed her forearm, “Chelsea, I think there is something else that we should discuss right now.”
She gave me a puzzled look, her eyebrows raised above her bright eyes, “What do you mean?” She asked as she sat on the footrest facing me. “What else is there?”
“The contaminated,” I said. The room grew cold with the words, as if they suddenly incited a deep freeze. “We need to discuss what happens if one of us becomes contaminated.”
Chelsea looked down. She did not cry or whimper. No, she was done with that stuff. Chelsea was thinking of the terrible future that may be waiting for us around any corner. “What do you want to do?” She asked without any hesitation in her voice. This was her turning point. This was the time where Chelsea became the tough and hardened individual that would allow her to survive. This was the Chelsea that would help me live. “What can we do?”
I took a deep breath, “I do not want to become a contaminated. The thought of me being in a different state such as that makes me worried. I don’t want to be trapped inside of my own body while something else is in control of it.” I looked Chelsea directly in her eyes, my hand brushing a bit of her hair away from her face, “I want you to kill me if I become one of the contaminated.”
Chelsea’s eyes grew wide, but the redness from moments ago was gone. Only life remained, “I do not want to kill you,” She said. “I will not kill you,” Chelsea said more sternly. “We will not become contaminated. We will survive, remember?”
I smiled at her. She was pretty good at the pep talks too. “I know what we will do, but in the event that something is able to get in the way of our goals, we do need a plan,” I grabbed her hands and put them in my own. “In the event that we become one of the contaminated, or are bitten, or anything that would lead to us turning into something that we are not, we kill the other,” I said. It was not a question. It was not an option. It was a statement that had to be enforced.
“How could you expect me to hurt you?” she asked, a look of concern in her eyes. “Why would you expect me to hurt you?”
I shook my head, “It will not be me, Chels. At that point, I’ll be all but gone. Those things, the contaminated, are dangerous. They will attack you or me without hesitation. I don’t want to be the one that hurts you or anyone else.”
Chelsea kept her eyes on mine, “Okay then, but it goes both ways. I don’t want to hurt anyone just as much as you do, and if I do become one of the contaminated, or contaminated in general, you better off me.” She squeezed my hands with her final words, the sternness in her voice echoes throughout the living room. “But that will not happen, becoming contaminated that is.”
“Of course it won’t,” I replied. My hands tightened around her own as I pulled Chelsea in for a kiss. Our lips touched for a few moments, mine a bit drier while hers were nice and moisturized. They parted after a second or six. “This will work,” I said.
She gave me a half smile,
