Free Web NovelChapter 1: Wish I Had a Girl This Obsessed With Me
[Think, this is it... as far as it goes... The bite is dealt with, but that thing won’t stop... won’t lose the trail... It didn’t lose it across 300 kilometres. Why would it lose now? Heh, it’s too smart for that...]
My hand was shaking where it gripped the hatchet handle, though I couldn’t tell anymore if that was fear or hunger or the two days without sleep, or the sheer unbridled agony of amputating my own arm, catching up to me all at once, all while my vision kept blurring.
At my wit’s and strength’s end, I was sitting in a ruined second-floor bedroom with my back against the wall beneath the window with the cauterized yet still bleeding stump that used to be my arm.
With my bloodied hatchet across my knees, I dragged air into my lungs in shallow, shuddering pulls because I didn’t trust myself not to make noise if I breathed through my mouth.
All the while, the distant sounds of the dead city filtered through the foil I had taped across the glass to kill the faint orange glow of the camping stove I had found in the room and lit for some heat.
[Still... three years, think I survived long enough. NO. Dude, what’re you thinking...just a few minutes. That’s all I need. Just a few minutes to-]
-Thump-!-Thump-!-Thump-!-Thump-!-Thump-!...
The distant, rapid thumping of bare feet reached me from the street outside before the thought had even finished, sending a shiver shooting down my spine.
[It’s here!] My eyes snapped wide.
I tried to push myself up to run, but the pain and the dizziness buckled my knees, dumping me back against the wall, while my eyes locked onto the foil-covered window because that foil was the only thing between those glowing red eyes and me.
The footsteps outside abruptly stopped, and so did the snarls. And the silence that fell was so complete that the sound of my hammering heart felt deafening to my ears.
And just then-
-Crash-!
Something massive hit the exterior wall right beside the window, and the very next second, a deep-red, clawed hand punched straight through the glass and foil, gripping the window frame and wrenching the entire window out of the wall, sending wood and debris spinning back into the room.
And through the gap, two glowing red eyes peered in and found me immediately.
-Tak-Tak-Tak-Tak...
The rhythmic clicking rattled from deep in its throat as it pulled its massive frame through the broken wall with terrifying patience, moving like it knew I had nowhere left to run.
The dying flame of the camping stove caught the wet sheen of its deep-red skin, the whole seven-foot frame of raw, exposed muscle glistening in the orange light while the clicking never stopped.
I breathed through the throbbing exhaustion and pain, and through sheer adrenalized spite, I got my feet under me and walked toward the far wall while keeping my eyes on the creature the whole way.
And it let me, knowing full well, I can’t run.
This wasn’t just another infected. It had been hunting my group across 300 kilometres, until only I remained.
[This thing killed every single person I cared about. If I’m dying today... I’m takin this bitch with me.]
Looking at death standing before me, the rage I felt, I didn’t know how, looped back into a weak, dry laugh that was more of a rasp.
"Wish I had a girl this obsessed with me..."
The snarl it let out reverberated through the floorboards under my boots.
And I snarled right back, dashed straight at it, hatchet raised high and-
"Bhwa!" freewebnøvel.com
A heavy, fluffy weight dropped directly onto my face, blocking my nose and mouth entirely, and in instinct, my hand shot out, lifting it away as I blinked through the sudden light and found a furry patchwork of orange, grey, black, and white staring right back at me with big eyes.
"Tikki?" I blurted.
I snapped my head left, then right, and found myself lying on my bed in my own bedroom.
Intact walls, intact ceiling, the morning alarm screaming from the nightstand while Tikki sat in my grip and blinked once, slow and sovereign.
[What the-]
I scrambled out of the blankets and looked down at Tikki, the most precious thing I had lost, dangling from my hands, already producing a small, confused-
"Mea?"
And I instantly shoved him straight into my chest and buried my face in his fur and just stood there, hyperventilating, while the leftover adrenaline crashed through my body.
Tikki held completely still in the way he sometimes did when he understood, on some cat level, that something was not right.
[Is this... afterlife? Or maybe I got-]
Before the thought could even finish forming-
-Ding!
{Centralized Resource Exchange and Distribution Interface Terminal... Initialized.}
[Holy shit! I actually-]
-Ding!
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I stared at the translucent panel hanging in the air in front of me, bright and clean and completely impossible, while Tikki looked up at my face, eyes wide, and somewhere in the back of my completely overloaded brain, one thought rose above the rest and just sat there.
[I ain’t losing... a single thing!]
