•.¸♡Silas Reed - half infected ♡¸.•

The gas station sits in the middle of nowhere, far beyond the overgrown edge of the city. Two rusted pumps lean at crooked angles beneath a cracked overhang. Weeds have overtaken the parking lot, splitting the asphalt and swallowing abandoned cars whole. The convenience store windows are boarded from the inside, layered with scavenged metal sheets and splintered wood, bolted and nailed until no light seeps through. A faded, hand-painted warning sign hangs crooked above the entrance:

SICK INSIDE. TURN AWAY.

It… isn’t entirely a lie. Inside, the store has been reshaped into a makeshift home. The shelves have been dragged outside to make room, the front counter now used as personal storage. Water jugs line one wall. Canned goods are stacked in careful rows along another. An old oil lantern casts a warm amber glow against faded advertisements for soda and cigarettes.

It almost feels lived in. Almost… but Silas wasn’t always here.

---

The bite happened on the outskirts of the city nearly two years ago. He remembers the day faintly. It was raining heavily, the downpour soaking through his jacket as he and his small group tried to move quietly between buildings. He remembers the scream, someone slipping, someone falling behind, an infected startling her. He remembers turning back to help her. They were meant to be a family, after all.

That was his mistake.

An infected lunged at him from behind as he ran to help her, a girl whose name he can’t even remember now. It was fast, faster than it had any right to be. Teeth tore through his sleeve and into his forearm before he managed to drive his knife into its skull.

He killed it. Permanently, this time. And the girl was fine. But the damage was done. They left him by nightfall. Not cruelly. Not angrily. Just… left. The looks on their faces almost mocking in their grief.

He didn’t blame them. He was done for. He walked alone after that, his arm wrapped tightly in the bandages they left him. The fever was already beginning to creep in. It was terrifying.

He found the gas station three days later. At the time, it was still intact. The doors hung open. Shelves were mostly untouched. The smell of rot hadn’t reached this place yet. He stumbled inside and collapsed in the back office, fully expecting that to be where he would die. He chuckled weakly to himself and pulled a chocolate bar from his bag, one he had been saving for when they reached the evacuation zone, to celebrate surviving.

Might as well treat himself now.

---

The fever came hard.

It burned through him like wildfire. His thoughts fractured. His heart pounded so violently he thought it might burst. His veins darkened, branching from the wound in thin, spidering lines beneath his skin. He clawed at his own arm, certain something was moving inside it, thousands of tiny fire ants crawling through his veins.

And then the hunger.

God, the hunger.

It felt like his body was devouring itself from the inside out. He tied himself to a pipe in the storage room on the second night, terrified of what he might become if he lost control. He wedged scrap metal against the door so nothing could get in… or out, and he waited to turn.

He cried and prayed and wished he could call his mom to tell her he loved her. God, keep her safe, wherever she is.

---

The third night was the worst.

His vision blurred. Sounds sharpened until even the wind rattling the metal roof was unbearable. He could smell everything, the dust, the old oil soaked into the concrete, something faint and living outside. A bird, he assumed. It was driving him insane. He screamed until his throat was raw, screamed so long he wasn’t sure if it was from agony or anger.

And then… morning came. He was still breathing. Still thinking. Still himself. The fever broke. The delirium faded. The hunger dulled to something manageable. God, he could go for a steak. He lay there for hours, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the second wave. Maybe it was consuming him more slowly than what he had seen happen to others.

It never came. The infection stopped at the wound. No spreading. No decay. Just darkened veins and something different inside him. His senses sharpened. His temper shortened. His hunger came in unpredictable spikes that left him shaking and in pain. He didn’t understand it.

He still doesn’t.

---

He isolates to protect others from himself. He fears venturing out. What if he hurt someone? What if they shot him on sight the moment they saw his arm...his eyes? He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror once and barely recognized the man staring back.

He looked… wrong.

He found the dog maybe a month later. Or maybe it found him. It had been sniffing around the pumps for days, thin and skittish, ribs showing. Silas watched it from behind the boards, unsure if he should risk opening the door. The last thing he needed was to get bitten by some wild animal.

He laughed at the thought.

Eventually, he left scraps outside. The dog came closer each day, until one night it slipped inside when he cracked the door.

And it never left.

The dog never reacts to his arm or the strange scent of it. Never flinches during his episodes. When the rage spikes, fast, violent, frightening, the dog only watches him, alert but unafraid. Benji. That’s the name he gave him.

Outside, the highway stretches empty for miles. The infected drift through sometimes, wandering between vehicles, pressing their faces to the boarded windows. They never pound on the door. Never snarl. They just linger. They stare at him like they know. He doesn’t know why. Do they see him as one of them? Do they smell it on him? Or are they waiting for him to...

The thought makes his stomach turn.

---

Tonight is quiet.

Silas sits on the edge of his cot, boots planted firmly on the floor. A dented can of beans rests in his hand, peeled open carefully with an old knife. Half of it is poured into Benji’s bowl. He eats slowly, eyes scanning the brittle pages of an old newspaper salvaged from the front stand. The date at the top feels unreal, like it belongs to someone else’s lifetime.

The dog’s head lifts. A low, alert growl vibrates through the room. Silas freezes. He hushes Benji gently, reaching down to steady him.

“Easy, boy… easy, there ain’t anything out the...”

Footsteps.

Soft... Careful...

Human?...

Silas lowers the can silently to the floor as the footsteps draw closer. And for the first time in years, he doesn’t know what scares him more....

That it might just be more infected…

Or that it might not be.