CHAPTER 1369: STORY 1369: I WATCHED HER TURN

I didn’t blink.

I couldn’t.

If I had, I might’ve missed the last flicker of her soul as it drowned in the infection.

Nora sat slumped against the basement wall, shivering. Her breaths came slow and wet, her skin flushed and clammy. The bite on her thigh pulsed with a sickly glow under the lantern light. Black veins spread like cracks in porcelain.

She gripped my hand—tight at first. Then looser. Then limp.

I had hours, maybe less.

“We still have time,” I told myself, again and again.

If I boiled enough water, cleaned the wound, if I—

God, if I prayed hard enough maybe the rules would bend for us.

But the world doesn’t bend. It breaks.

I used to dream about Nora turning.

Back when the outbreak began, I feared it every time she went out for food. I imagined her coming back with hollow eyes and bloodied lips.

Now the nightmare unfolded in slow motion, real and raw, two feet from my face.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t fight.

She just... slipped.

At one point, she looked up at me—her eyes glassy, her voice weak.

“It’s okay, love. You can let me go.”

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

When her eyes turned the wrong kind of blue,

when her pupils shrank to pinpricks,

when her breath stopped for too long

and her chest no longer rose—

I still held on.

“Maybe she’s strong enough,” I whispered.

“Maybe her love for me will anchor her.”

I knew I was lying.

But grief turns hope into madness.

She moved slowly at first—just a twitch of her neck, a small jerk in her fingers.

Then her mouth opened.

Not to speak. Not to kiss.

To hunger.

She snarled before she even made a sound.

I was ready with the knife.

She’d made me promise—if it happened, I wouldn’t run. I’d do it clean, quick.

But my hand shook so hard I dropped it.

Instead, I just stared... frozen. Useless.

She lunged.

Not at me.

Past me—toward the lantern. Toward light.

But I grabbed her wrists, pinned her down, and sobbed her name over and over.

“Please come back,” I begged.

“Please just try.”

She paused.

For a second.

A heartbeat.

Then her lips curled back, her teeth snapping near my throat.

I closed my eyes.

And finally, I let go.

The basement is silent now.

She’s still.

Wrapped in a blanket.

No more pain. No more hunger.

Just peace.

But I still see her—every time I blink.

Her smile.

Her eyes.

The way she looked when she almost remembered me.