The highway is almost empty, only several wrecked cars adorn its cracked asphalt. We can see the horizon, the new neighborhoods so far away that they are indistinguishable from nothing. Trees on the sides. Despite being such a big city, there are not so many cars. Few were able to escape, and yet they crashed? Something is not right. But it was all too fast.

There are a couple of cars every few meters that seem to be intact. In the end, they are our only escape route.

Soda's feet lose the ground.

Shit, shit!

“Soda, up, keep running, come on!”

“What is the point?” He is crying.

Fuck!

“Don't talk like that!”

Come on, come on.

The sudden stop makes me aware of the cramps in my legs. They are so strong that I feel as if a snake is running under my muscles, poking its body through my skin.

We have run so far that the city begins to recede. Those monsters that stayed near the market even as they heard the explosion from Zona Centro... God, may those things have lost our trail, may my “mother” distract them, anything! But this world has shown me time and time again that life is not that easy.

If my mother doesn't kill us, the bombs will. If the bombs don't kill us, the cold will. We need a car. With Soda, we see them on the road. More crashed, others overturned. Something is not right.

We open those that look like they can still work, but there is a reason why they have been abandoned, there is a reason why these cars have been dumped.

“Carajo, Carajo!”

Some of them show no fuel.

“This one, this one has the keys in, let's go!”

The engine makes noise. It makes noise and that's all it does.

Auto de mierda!

I punch the steering wheel so hard that the pain in my hand wakes me up a little, and distracts me from the cramps, from the pain in my chest, from the burning of my breath.

“It's Mom.” I hear Soda.

God, God, please!

More noise, nothing. This one won't do. We run, we keep running.

We go to the last intact car we see. I don't even close the door, Soda sits in the passenger seat, I give him my rifle. We throw our backpacks in the back seat, my machete too. They won't matter anymore. If this doesn't work, we're dead.

God, it has the keys. It makes noise. It's louder than the last one.

Oh, it certainly makes noise.

That's what wakes him up.

Now I understand why there are so many cars crashed, despite the small amount of them on the road. With the door still open, I watch as from under the car, on my side, a hand rests on the asphalt, then another, then a head pops out.

Yes, that's why “he” abandoned this car, that's why there are so many crashes. They were bitten, they were infected. In some it's a matter of seconds, others have a couple of hours. The man here stopped and chose to hide under his car, maybe out of fear, maybe out of reflex. And we woke him up.

I close the door with a bang that rattles the window. The thing stands up, his back to us.

Start! God, start!

He turns around, looks at us. He lunges towards us and... stops, he can't go on. His torso is pierced by a silver blade.

She is here.

That which was once a man writhes, he tries to turn around, to face his attacker. He feels pain, so much pain, he kicks, he moves his arms so hard he breaks them, but he makes no noise with his throat. And his feet don't touch the ground. She simply lifts him on her blade and throws him through the air. About eighty kilos, just like that, he flies for meters and meters and bursts his neck against the highway floor behind the car, his head is left in an impossible position.

I can't start it in time.

She grabs the handle of the car door and rips the whole thing off, it flies somewhere to the side of the road where there are only trees.

This is it.

I look at Soda, I don't know how to apologize to him, how to ask him to forgive me. He cries so much. I just hope it doesn't hurt, that Soda doesn't suffer.

She gets just her torso into the car, over my seat. She is looking at me, and she looks at my little brother. She… takes the car key gently, pulls it out of the ignition, and puts it in a pocket of her pants.

Damn her, damn her…

I don't feel her breath...she doesn't breathe. These things don't breathe. They don’t make any noise.

Soda pulls out his revolver with a jerk, puts it to her forehead, presses it against her skin, I see her flesh crumple at the pressure he puts against her skull. In tears, he still fights while I…

She “laughs”.

I hear her “laugh”. I feel her breath for the first time. Raw meat.

Soda can't do it, and if he did, if he shot, it would be useless. Bullets can't hurt her. He lowers his revolver, drops his hands.

And I hit her with all my might in her eye, it sounds in the car interior. My wrist feels the pain, it makes a cracking sound. She is soft, her skin is warm, like that of a normal human being. I touch the soft of her eye with one of my knuckles, pressing as hard as I can. I feel it move, directing a look at me that doesn't even blink. I don't take my hand away from her face…

And she catches my other hand, the one I intended to slip through her pocket to grab the key. But she lets go...

Then she violently pulls her body out of the car, grabs my leg, and lifts it.

!

My chest hits the driver's seat.

The steering wheel, I reach…

Soda grabs my hands, presses them in the steering wheel too, doesn’t let go.

Fuck, fuck, my legs!

He succeeds, he can do it, he can hold me back against the force of the beast!

She “laughs”, with that sickly sound that neither human nor animal could make.

She taunts us, she doesn't use her full strength, plays with her prey, raises our hopes only to shatter them.

A sudden tug is all she needs. I fall to the asphalt; my hands keep me from hitting my face on the concrete. I can't scream, can't say anything. She starts dragging me. The asphalt burns my breasts, my abdomen, my hands. I'm like a crayon made of flesh that leaves its mark on the road. I can't grab on to anything, I have nowhere to hold on to, and if I did, my strength wouldn't be enough, it would never be enough against these monsters. Not even the strongest of humans could. I am dragged to the back of the car. She lets go of my leg and I manage to turn around at last.

“You fucking monster!”

She looks at me. My friction-burned torso burns in contact with the air, my scraped hands pulsating to the beat of my heart that could stop at any moment.

“You fucking monster, how dare you look like my mother!”

She doesn't laugh this time, she just smiles. She smiles so much that from the corners of her lips there is a fissure, one that grows, opens, and separates. Red threads, tendons, and muscles are cut, they can't take the strain, forming a smile that reveals all her teeth, her molars, a literal grin from ear to ear.

She's making fun of me, mocking my mother, damn her!

Behind her comes running the other beast, the one that flew through the air a while ago. His neck still in an unnatural position ends up settling with an audible thunder. He never died, he was just paralyzed. She turns around, tackling the thing with her left hand. All momentum disappears, I swear I hear the sound of something snapping again, only his head and arms keep moving a little more. If this were a normal human being, he would suffer a lethal whiplash injury.

The attack does not end there. She stabs him with her other hand, with the blade several times while not looking away from me. For every time the blade penetrates that body there is a terrible sound. It's a message, it's what she's going to do to me. She's going to stab me and slurp my insides, my blood, my guts.

From the ground I watch, she puts him in a position where I can see how the blade penetrates his insides.

Then it hits me. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but... the blood. She doesn't have the blood of the others, the blood she had when she was chasing us just now. The blood of the dozens she wiped out. Maybe that’s why the whole city didn’t follow her. I can see, the blood of this beast shooting from his abdomen into her body. The older stains, the first stains evaporate, not even leaving a mark on the clothes.

The beast does not manage to move, so many stabs have paralyzed him, the pain has incapacitated him. But he is still standing. And it is only a matter of time before he heals and returns to wander the world without purpose. The blade separates from the man's belly, leaking a liquid. It regenerates but does so a little slower.

The blood that has fallen on the asphalt, the older one, evaporates as well. It wasn't my imagination. It's...

She prepares to give him the final blow. Slowly, as if giving me a show, she raises her blade, puts it in position, takes distance with it. Her target is the monster's head, his neck. Once she's done, I follow. And after me, Soda follows.

And then, gunshots.

Soda, running with his revolver rests it on that bleeding back, shoots the captured beast. And I can see. I can see how the bullets go through and hit my “mother”, and she reacts full of pain. The bullets pierce her body this time.

They both fall to the ground, the blade she was holding in her hand becomes blood again and falls to the asphalt. And the blood also evaporates.

It's the blood.

Those were three shots. Smart kid, you saved one for yourself.

Because with this, the hordes are coming. The trembling of the footsteps hits my body on the ground. Those that my shot alerted in the north of the city, who came and lost our trail have definitely regained it.

The two monsters are on the ground. She writhes in pain. She can die. The male monster recovers, hits her face. He can hurt her now. Wounded monsters lose strength. That's it, she's weak. She is weak and suffers injuries.

But it's not enough to stop her. She responds with a punch that is like a shot from a cannon. A single one to the face leaves the opponent stiff, almost lifting him into the air. The first blow is followed by another, and another, and another. At this rate, his brain won't endure it.

But the man responds with a headbutt. I could swear I hear a noise as loud as the one I heard when the monsters fell from the buildings. They're both on the floor for a few seconds again.

Soda comes to me, helps me up, the whole front part of my body hurts, fused to my clothes. We run to the nothingness of the trees, away from this terrible monster, we have to try.

I'm grabbed by the collar of my shirt.

I don't manage to scream.

I fly. I see the sky very clear now. I see the sun.

I cover my head.

I smash the back window of the car, roll down to the concrete.

Shit.

My arm.

My arm, God!

Fuck!

"Ceibo!"

Food pokes up my esophagus, my temples throb, the burning branches up my arm, up to my shoulder, across my chest, down to my belly. It's as if a blade is being passed inside of me, cutting open my veins, my muscles. My urine escapes, the puke passes through my clenching teeth.

It's bent the other way. My left arm is bent to the wrong side!

And it starts to hurt. It really starts to hurt now. What it was before wasn't pain, it was but a joke.

I scream.

The beast looks at me.

And the sound of several planes in the distance interrupts my frantic heart, the footsteps, the death march. The shadows of hundreds of thousands of monsters start to cover the north, coming from the city.

The male monster still doesn't give up, he rejoins and runs towards her. But she... she is no longer up for games. In a heartbeat her blade grows, she turns with great power and the man falls. One part of him falls near me, hits the car to my right, the other hits the ground farther to the right, beyond the vehicle.

The part of him next to me has his legs, his guts sticking out and out as if inflating. Like a snake coming out of a nest in the ground, dancing, back and forth, slapping the concrete, making a wet sound.

I vomit again. It smells like a butcher shop and shit.

The other remaining part of the monster has its head, and it still moves, still wants to fight. I thought wounded they lost strength, but this… this is like a terminal strength, the last rush your body allows you to attack, to run, to survive. If only for a second more.

With its hands, that torso pushes itself off the ground and sticks to her back. Some organs fall from where there used to be an abdomen, and now ribs seem to be sticking out... ribs that are starting to grow very, very slowly. Still, he is able to regenerate.

That torso with arms and head pulls her backward, knocks her off balance. They stagger so far back that they hit the car next to us, several meters away.

I look at the remains next to me. I know what to do.

“Soda, my rifle.”

Still, on the ground, I can barely speak. He already has it in his hands, he was already coming to try to help me…

“I love you, Soda, more than anything in this world. I'm never going to stop loving you, ever. Run. Please, run.”

“NO! Ceibo...”

“Run, you need to try. Make a fire with your backpack, with the clothes you take from mine, with anything. Run between the trees, to the south, you can shake them off like that. But not mom, so I will take care of her. Survive the cold, survive these bombs. You have to live. Run, please!”

He gives me the rifle and storms off, always looking back at me.

Goodbye, Soda.

If mom was here instead of me, I bet she could find a way to save you and herself. But this is how it ends. I was to die to the bite of a monster, but destiny made a mistake. I’m accepting that which mom denied to the world.

And even still… I’m scared.

I ready my rifle. With one arm I ready it, it's hard, I sink the stock into my belly. Parts of my skin are left in the rifle. I hope this gives Soda time, even if it's only a few seconds.

The monsters fight. But the terminal strength of the beast is fading, while mine is arising.

The rumble approaches more.

I pull out the bullet. The last one I have. I put it in the guts of what's left of the monster here, in that blood inside its body that is not reached by the sun, that doesn't evaporate.

The bullet is covered in blood. It will evaporate soon, there is not much time left.

That which was my mother is the winner. The brain of the “man” is scattered all over the road. So much so that it reaches all the way to the sides of the highway. Where the head was, there is just a crack on the concrete, little lines filled with more head content. The beast now only looks at the sun for a few seconds. I see now. It’s the sun, isn’t it? The moon too. In the end, it’s just sunlight reflected from that satellite.

When she looks at it, the blood in her evaporates, the few wounds she had now heal, faster than a while ago when I first shot her.

They heal slower at night.

I load the rifle.

Soda, please, survive.

I know what to do. I won’t make it out of here alive. A broken arm without medical attention is deadly, and the road rash on my chest, abdomen, and hands is prone to infection. Ah, my hand, my hand has had contact with the monster's blood when I put the bullet in his guts.

And the rash is gone, only dirt remains that seems to be pushed out by my skin. My right hand has healed.

I'm already dead, it doesn't matter, let her get as close as she wants. My last bullet is not for me, it's for my mother. Yes, for my mother, to put her out of her misery. To take away that monster's pleasure of inhabiting her body.

But my other wounds do not heal. My arm is still broken, the burns on my belly and chest are there. Good. Maybe it's the amount of blood that transforms us or just the bites, or... It doesn't matter. Little blood can heal then. This secret... I wish I could tell Soda so he could tell the others, whoever they are, out there.

The bullet is in place. It's hard to aim, so hard. The pain goes away for a little while. My back is against the back bumper of the car. I aim with my right hand, my only healthy hand. It's heavy, I can barely lift it. Shooting like this...

The monster turns and looks at me.

She looks at my side too.

And there's Soda.

“Soda, why, why? Why?!”

“Forgive me, Ceibo, but I'm not going to let you die here.” He is trembling.

I don't need to tell him anything. He grabs the front end of my rifle. I hold the back.

The sound of the planes intensifies. Closer and closer, louder.

Soda gets down to the floor, at my height, to my right, besides the half corpse. He closes one eye, tries to see what I see, mimics my perspective.

My mother runs towards us.

The footsteps of the beast echo on the asphalt, I feel them in my body. The footsteps of the hundreds of thousands of wild beasts coming in the distance too. I see their shadows closer.

And I am at home. I'm at home eating with mom, at the table. It is Sunday. We are having breakfast in the kitchen-dining room. She works these days too. I know she has cried, but she puts up with it, endures it. Why, what is the point?

We aim at her body, where there is more mass.

Soda is sleeping. I don't have classes, I could sleep late, but I wanted to see her, talk to her. I see how tired mom is. I know she's been crying, I hear her complaining. But...

It's coming. All the monsters are coming, the planes are coming.

“Mom, why did you choose to study medicine?”

She's upon us.

She smiles. “Isn't that obvious, my little one?”

I pull the trigger.