Story Seven: Do No Harm

I finally let myself break down and cry. Okay, "sobbing" was a more appropriate word for it. It got so bad that snot started coming out of my nose. Gross, but no one was around to see. Once I couldn't get any more tears to come I wiped my face and got to my feet. I could still feel the sorrow weighing me down and a big part of me just wanted to curl up again, but something else was urging me to move forward.

I wish I could say that it was thoughts of my family, Peyton and Major motivating me, but that'd be a lie. I actually wanted to avoid them for as long as possible. The last thing I needed was to see looks of horror on their faces, even if the horror wasn't directed at me. Sticking around here was an even worse idea, though, so I had to move.

I definitely wasn't going to stick around for news reporters or EMTs. I was probably lucky that none of them had come over yet after they realized I was alive. Maybe me popping out of the body bag still freaked them out. Hell, it was still freaking me out, though it was pretty low on the scale compared to other things.

Breathe, Liv. Go over the facts.

My hair and clothes are wet from when I fell into the ocean. I have long scratches on my arm made by a man who tried to sell me some weird drug called utopium. I have a streak of white in my hair; it's possible your hair can lose pigmentation after you experience a traumatic event. I'd say being on a boat where people were ripping each other apart qualifies as traumatic.

Oh, and I ate a human brain. Can't forget about that one. Literally. Believe me, I want to forget.

After popping up and scaring the poor guy trying to bag me up, I was starving. Something smelled really good and my stomach clenched from the want of it. I staggered to my feet and shuffled on the sand to try finding the source of that tantalizing smell. Everything else in me told me that what I found was horrifying, but my stomach told me it was food.

No. I wanted to refuse. I wanted to walk away and show some respect for the dead. But I didn't. I got down on my knees and pressed my face against the open cranium. I don't want to describe what it smelled or tasted like. At the time, I didn't care. All I wanted was to get it into my mouth. If anyone saw me chowing down on a dead man's brains with blood smeared all over my face, I didn't care about that, either.

I feel disgusted and horrified at myself but my body won't expel what I've done. What I've eaten is fuel and I can feel it energizing me, clearing my thoughts. Unfortunately those clear thoughts hit me with the full impact of what's happened to me.

I want to go on record here and say that while I've seen zombie movies and watched episodes of Zombie High with my brother, I was never a huge fan of them. To me they were just dead bodies walking around which, as a woman wanting to be a doctor, didn't strike me as all that terrifying. But now I finally understand that it's not the fear of the monster that makes zombies so horrifying, it's being the monster.

That's what I am now. I'm the monster.