Chapter 10

Three days later—

The dim light of the moon penetrated through the lush yet barely alive branches of leaves of the forest, casting cold, silver beams over the sisters. Olivia’s frail form was hunched over Krista, her hands trembling as they clutched her sister’s lifelessly cold one.

For days now, Olivia had been on the edge of desperation, each passing hour draining more of her strength and resolve.

The duffle bag lay discarded nearby, its contents long consumed. Three bags of MREs had provided only fleeting relief from the gnawing hunger, their tasteless, chalky remnants hardly enough to sustain her. Two bottles of water had been rationed with precision, each sip a small rebellion against the encroaching desert of her throat. But precision hadn’t been enough—not against days of helpless waiting.

Now, there was nothing left.

Olivia cradled Krista’s head in her lap, her own body weak, shaking, and on the verge of collapse. Her stomach churned with painful, hollow cramps that twisted like coiled snakes, while her head throbbed incessantly, as though her skull were being squeezed in a vice. Her vision blurred and darkened at the edges, and every breath felt like dragging air through shards of glass.

Her lips cracked and bled when she whispered Krista’s name. “Please… Please wake up…”

Krista, who had always been invincible in Olivia’s eyes, looked anything but now. Her face was pale to the point of translucency, her lips tinged with a faint blue hue.

Her chest barely rose and fell, her breath shallow and erratic. The stab wound in her abdomen had slowed its bleeding days ago, but it wasn’t healing. Olivia knew it wasn’t healing.

Every day that Krista clung to life only deepened Olivia’s torment. Watching her sister suffer, unable to die yet unable to truly live, was a slow, soul-rending torture.

“I… I can’t do this, sis,” Olivia whispered, her voice cracking under the weight of her anguish. Tears streaked down her sunken cheeks as she rocked Krista gently, her fingers brushing over her sister’s sweat-matted hair. “I can’t keep watching you like this… It hurts so much. Why won’t you wake up?”

Her sobs filled the room, echoing off the empty walls like a haunting melody of despair. Olivia was no stranger to hopelessness—she had lived with it since the accident that robbed her of her legs. But this… This was a new level of helplessness. A new level of pain.

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Her body screamed for sustenance. Her throat was so dry she could no longer cry out, and the hunger gnawed at her insides like a relentless predator.

The dizziness had become a constant companion, her head spinning even as she sat still. And yet, she refused to let go of Krista.

By the fifth day, Olivia’s resolve began to crumble. The world around her was a blurry, unfocused haze, and the sound of her own heartbeat thudded loud and erratic in her ears.

She stared at Krista’s face, still beautiful even in its broken state, and wondered how much longer she could hold on.

“How…” Olivia croaked, her voice barely audible. She leaned forward, her forehead resting against Krista’s cold cheek. “How are you still alive? Why are you still fighting when I… I can’t even—” Her breath hitched, and she pulled back, her tears falling onto Krista’s unmoving face. “I don’t want to lose you…”

But the cruelty of reality was relentless. On the sixth day, the hunger and thirst reached a crescendo.

Olivia’s body felt like a hollow shell, her muscles trembling with every strained movement. She tried to slow her breathing, desperate to conserve what little strength remained. Every inhale felt like her last, her chest tightening as she fought the overwhelming urge to give in.

“I can’t… I can’t do this anymore…” she murmured, her voice cracking like brittle glass. Her hands clutched at Krista’s shirt, her knuckles white as her tears dried on her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Krista. I tried. I really tried…”

As night fell, the cold seeped into her bones, robbing her of even the faintest warmth. Olivia’s body finally gave out, her head lolling forward as unconsciousness claimed her. She slumped over Krista, her frail form collapsing onto her sister’s bloodied chest.

Krista’s eyelids fluttered open hours later, her vision swimming in and out of focus. The world around her was a blur of muted colors and shapes, her mind foggy and disoriented.

Her body screamed in protest as she tried to move, every nerve aflame with pain.

Her gaze fell on Olivia, who was still slumped over her. The sight of her sister’s lifeless form sent a jolt of panic through Krista’s sluggish mind.

She strained to lift her arm, her fingers brushing weakly against Olivia’s face.

“L-Liv…” Krista’s voice was barely more than a whisper, raspy and broken.

She tried to speak again, but her strength failed her, and her arm fell limply back to her side.

Her mind raced, desperate to understand what was happening. Olivia’s cheeks were hollow, her skin ashen, her body unnervingly still.

Krista’s heart ached with a deep, primal fear—a fear she hadn’t felt since the day of the accident that had taken Olivia’s legs.

“Don’t you die on me…” Krista wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come.

Her body refused to obey her, and darkness crept back into the edges of her vision. She blinked slowly, her tears mingling with the blood and grime on her face.

As consciousness slipped away once more, Krista’s last thought was of Olivia. The sister she had fought so hard to protect. The sister she had failed.

And in the cold, suffocating silence of the seventh day, the only sound was the faint, uneven rhythm of two hearts fighting against the inevitable.