I wanted to grow old with you and call you mine. I just wanted to hold your hand for a little longer than I was allowed. I wanted the whole world to know who you were but it was all too late. We had jumped too late, we left after the sun rose, we were too late. They had all started moping around by this time, those creatures with black eye sockets and withered skin. Creature which had once been called humans, but destroyed by the Flare. Horrible. We both agreed silently that we would rather die before turning into a man eating monster. We promised each other that we would shoot the other if bit or ill from the disease.

We just never knew we would have to do it all so soon. When we fell through the floors and landed on the hood of that car, the first thought in my mind was that we were done. We were goers and we would be eaten. Our memories together would dissipate into thin air and fine dust. But you grabbed my arm and yelled in my face. You told me to pick my up before you kicked it and I followed orders. I slid off the roof and began to run with you up the sand dunes and ignored the screeches and screams behind us. I caught a look at your jeans and saw the fabric ruined in a bite like formation, at which I winced at the sting on my wrist.

You told me that you got bit trying to yank me off the roof of the car. I cried in your arms that night and you followed suit. I heard your raspy breath and rapid heart that night, wondering why my lips hadn't turned the exact shade of purple yours were yet.

It came to the point where I had to carry you up the road to the mountain. Closer, closer, closer. We got closer to the so called safe haven. When we finally made it, I remember collapsing in the heat of it all, the last words from lips, "Please, help him."

The lady told me I was crazy and stupid. She said there was no point in drawing blood every month to keep you alive. But there was. You see, if you died, and I was the cure to saving your life, I would have killed myself after your last breath. I was the cure for some reason and you needed it. I never missed a day in the nursing tent to draw blood, but for some reason, you never got better.

Your skin became paper thin and your lips cracked still and were a dark plum shade. Your whole leg was now taken in purple veins and cracked skin, words never coming from your lips due to intense pain. You coughed up blood and refused to eat or drink. I cried every night at your bedside when you rested, afraid to go to sleep and wake up to your eyes the same pitch black as the other cranks we've seen on our journey here.

One day, you disappeared. I knew something was wrong, for I was not by your side, but in a tent I was not familiar with. Storming out, I picked up the leader by the collar and demanded to know where they put you. My cheek was greeted with a fist and the words echoed in my head, "He left on his own. He's a full crank now kid."

I isolated myself from their society and hung around the nurses tent when no one was around. Upon curiosity, I found a cooler with your name labeled on it and opened it, nearly choking at the sight of dozens of blue vials. I felt tears escape my eyes and for the first time, I've felt something I never thought I would ever feel at this magnitude.

Pain.