I.

“Do you want hug?”

I choke in the middle of an ugly sob, startled, because holy crap I thought I was alone. I’m already yanking my knife out of its belt sheath before I register how young the voice is. I quickly wipe away tears with my sleeve and look up at the source of the question. I should have checked the house for people right after breaking in, but I can’t think right now. It’s all too much. Nothing is okay.

The girl can’t be older than five or six. Is she here by herself? Where are her parents? Did someone leave her here, just like I left him all alone for them to find him? God, I’m so sorry Logan—

What the heck?

There’s a tickling on my arm. The feeling pulls me out of my mind before I can spiral again. I glance down at the top of the girl’s head. She’s plopped herself down next to me and is leaning against my side, offering wordless comfort. Her thick braided hair is rubbing against the exposed skin of my arm. Why…?

I should do something. I should check if she’s been bitten, make sure we’re the only ones here or even ask why she’s not freaking out at the blood-stained chick that just broke into her house.

Instead, I cry myself out.

II.

My arm is slung loosely around the little girl when I wake up. Now, though, she has a coloring book and some crayons. I guess she snuck away at some point, coming back with her things and worming her way under my arm. Logan does the same thing whenever ― Oh.

Logan did the same thing.

The grief comes to life in my chest, constricting my lungs and forcing out a shuddering breath. The sound catches the little girl’s attention. She looks up at me and beams, her coloring book suddenly forgotten.

“You awake!” she says happily, a thick accent putting odd emphasis on certain syllables. “You feeling better?”

No, I’m not feeling better. My baby brother is somewhere out there, a walking corpse, because I was stupid enough to leave him alone.

“Yeah. Thank you,” I rasp out instead. I wince; hideous sobs really do a number on your throat.

“You welcome!” she chirps. She sticks out a small hand. “My name Adebisi, but you call me Bisi.”

“I’m Sam,” I respond, shaking her hand.

The contrast between her dark skin and my pallor is stark. She presses her finger down on my wrist, giggling when color comes rushing back to the spot after she releases. I want to be annoyed at her, because how dare she be so happy and cute when my brother can’t do the same anymore? Then again, it’s not her fault he’s gone. It’s mine.

“You have… em, ogun?”

I blink. She’s staring at me, suddenly serious. It’s kind of creepy to be honest. “O-goon?” I echo awkwardly.

She mutters a string of phrases, alternating between English and a language I don’t recognize. She’s clearly searching for the right word. Then– “Med!”

“Med? Like, medicine?”

She nods excitedly. My mind wanders to the little bottle of pills in my first aid kit, for general symptoms and pains. “What kind of medicine?”

III.

As Log― I mean Bisi tugs me down the dilapidated hallway, an open lab notebook propped up on a table catches my eye. “Hope is within reach!” spans the two pages in huge, squarish letters.

That’s hilarious. Hope for what? For the world to go back to normal? For the little brother that’s a walking corpse now? Not happening. I used to pretend to be optimistic, for his sake, and I even started believing it. But now…

The tears start to well up again. I want to punch that stupid notebook or knock it over or something, but Bisi has already dragged me away from it.

IV.

“Bisi, hon, get back,” I say quietly. The figure on the bed groans and shifts under the tattered blanket, dislodging used tissues and sending them to the floor.

“Why?” Bisi asks. “It is Funmi. She not bad-sick like people outside. She is foo-sick. She is just need med.”

Foo-sick…? Whatever. She’s “sick,” which probably means I need to figure out a way to let this poor girl know that the thing on the bed isn’t her sister anymore. I move my hand down to my waist, rubbing the two names carved into my belt for reassurance, before quietly unsheathing Mom’s knife.

“You give med now?” Bisi asks insistently. “Cover you mouth, so you not foo-sick, too.”

I start to respond when the figure on the bed turns its head towards us, its face framed by a huge mess of dark curls. Bisi squeals something about waking up and starts to run forward. My arm immediately bars her path; it’s its muscle memory, from when Logan would try to run off without thinking.

There’s a beat of silence.

Then, the figure lurches out of the bed with a garbled yell and a flurry of motion. Next to me, Bisi gasps as I shove her back. The thing gets tangled up in bedsheets and topples to the floor in a pile of limbs and cotton. It dissolves into a wet, hacking cough. Weird. I don’t remember these things coughing before.

“Gt way fmer,” the heap growls hoarsely. I blink. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that it was trying to speak. The thing manages to extract its head from the tangle and glares at me. There’s no mistaking the terrifying intelligence in its – her eyes.

“Get away from her!” The voice is accented and groggy, but nasally, almost like…

And it clicks.

The relief is a physical weight off my chest. I lower Mom’s knife with a half-laugh. I can’t believe it. The world as we know it has fallen to a full-frontal apocalypse, and this girl is sick with the flu of all things.

V.

“Sorry about the whole, you know, ‘almost stabbing you’ thing.”

Funmi regards me with a cool gaze. I hate that it makes me uncomfortable. I did what I thought was right given the situation. If she wants to be hostile about it, then that’s her problem.

Off to the side, Bisi is totally oblivious of the staredown happening right next to her. She’s coloring in her book and singing in what I assume is her native language.

“How did you get in?” Funmi finally asks. Her accent is subtler than her sister’s, and she clearly has a much better grasp of English. Her voice’s nasally quality is likely because of her sickness.

Still, my left hand rubs nervously at the letters on my knife sheath. It’s stupid. She’s probably my same age. She can barely stand up. If she tries something, the fight will be short. We both know that trusting strangers is ill-advised even more so nowadays. Yet, as far as intimidation goes…

“I broke in.”

More tense silence. I bite my lip despite myself. Maybe an olive branch, instead? I turn to grab my pack from behind me, reaching in and retrieving the bottle of pills from my kit.

When I turn back, Funmi’s tense and reaching a hand under the bed behind her. Alright. Maybe I should work a little harder at building trust.

I hold the bottle up, rattling its contents, before placing it on the ground and rolling it towards her. She picks it up when it bumps against her shin and raises an eyebrow. I shrug.

“I don’t remember the name of it,” I explain. “Just, whenever one of us was sick, she’d make use take one every day for a few days. Eventually, it’d get better.”

“Who is ‘us?’”

“My brother and I.”

“Where is your brother now?”

“He, uh…” I stare at my stained hands. “…he didn’t make it.”

Another silence, broken only by Bisi’s quiet singing. Logan does ― did the same thing, carrying that stupid little toy microphone around with him everywhere. He was going to be a singer “when the bad people went away.”

Okay, now I’m crying again.

Funmi is quiet. Anyone else would apologize. I’d be expected to tell them it’s “okay,” even though it’s anything but. She doesn’t apologize, though. She allows me a moment to pretend that I’m not crying, before thanking me for the bottle, tucking a runaway lock of curls behind her ear and saying,

“Hope is within reach.”

“H―” I rasp. Pause. Clear throat, try again. “How so?”

“My research.”

“Research?”

“For a cure.”

VI.

“So lemme get this straight. Your dad started working on a cure. He was on the verge of a breakthrough, but then he disappeared, so you basically self-taught yourself graduate-degree-level biotechnology skills to continue his work for him?”

“Yes.”

“And you think you figured out what he was missing?”

“Yes. ‘Hope is within reach,’ he said. I keep his lab notebook in the hallway as a reminder.”

“Hmm.”

“You seem skeptical. Because of my age?”

“No, I’m just having a hard time understanding why the world is worth saving.”

“…that belt you’re wearing.”

“What?”

“The names that you’ve carved into your belt. People you’ve lost?”

“I… yeah…”

“That’s why the world is worth saving. So you don’t have to add any more people to your belt.”

“…”

“Well, ah… do you need a place to stay?”

“What?― I actually just― I mean, you don’t have to―”

“I insist. You are dirty, bloody and tired. You need rest and clean clothes. You can stay, if you are willing.”

“I don’t know what to say… thank you.”

VII.

Even after a month, they’re both been kind enough to avoid mention of when my nightmares about Logan wake them up at night.

VIII.

“What do you mean you’re leaving?!”

“I told you I’d leave after completely recovering,” Funmi says in that irritatingly calm way of hers. She turns to begin stuffing canned goods from a box on the floor into her hiking backpack. “My father’s university has the equipment I need to conduct studies. There’s only so many things I can test with what I have here.”

“Let me come with you. You could die out there!”

“And leave Bisi alone for so long? No.” She closes her bag and slings it on her back. It’s mostly empty, to leave room for the equipment. She wrangles her unruly mass of curls back with a scrunchie. “It must be me. Only I know the equipment I need, and I will not allow Bisi to travel with me.”

She turns to me, solemn. “I’d have gone long before now if it weren’t for her safety. But now you’re here.”

“This is crazy! I’ve barely known you for a month, and you’re trusting me with your sister’s life! How am I supposed to…” How am I supposed to protect Bisi when I couldn’t even keep my own sibling safe?

There’s a tap on my side. I look down. Bisi is beaming at me with that huge grin.

“Funmi reach hope!” she says. “So we wait.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘hope is within reach,’ and all that. I know, hon.” I pat her back absently, looking up at Funmi again. She has a small, fond smile on her face. She crouches down and holds her arms out. Bisi rushes over and they hug, exchanging whispers in their lilting language. Bisi finally giggles and disengages from her sister, disappearing into the house.

“You will be fine,” Funmi says. “I trust you.”

I can’t say anything to that. I need the assurance that she’ll come back. She’s going whether I like it or not, but…

I unbuckle my knife belt from around my waist and hold it out to her. A while ago, I’d carved Logan’s name into the leather, next to our parents’ and six of my best friends’ names. They’ll keep her safe.

“Your name won’t end up on this.”

“Of course not.”

“Alright… go bring us hope."

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.