The longer he looked at the door, he could feel his empty stomach roil inside, threatening upward eruption. What left did he have down there? The image of stomach acid burning innards on its way up made him gag. Still, Tyler continued to look at the green ornate door just like the last six. How many times had he dreamt during all of this since the outbreak? Three times? Eight? However, some of those, he didn't recall waking up again. Thinking back to the black door and then the golden door, he did not wake but thrown into the next dream. Was this a door to yet another?... Was that all he was going to be doing? Dream endlessly? Perhaps it is better than the alternative of living in a world of the dead and vines and being hunted.

He reached for the doorknob when memories ran through his mind like before as his fingers brushed against the door. He remembered the hot summer where he was fixing up his camper with Sarah sitting and watching him work. He remembered her face as he grinned back at her after he attached the new roofing. Their dogs circling her feet. He remembered laughing with the others at the Apartments, with the other Downtowners before rumors surfaced about the weapon. Playing black jack at the casinos. Watching a man get beaten and mutilated. The hospital beyond the rusted gates. Fate was against him. It wasn't how long he was going to survive, it was a matter when he was going to become infected...

The virus has already taken him, perhaps. He was probably already dead and he was dreaming because there was no body to wake up to.....



No. He isn't going to give into this infection. He had lived through harder things. He had survived all his life to let this end. He fought hard and long to just give up. He may be dead or whatever, but he was still him. He fought for his identity before, this will be no different. He was Tyler. He was infected. He was a vector for disease and infection. Fine. But he was Tyler.

It is knowledge, it is creation. You are a legacy.

No.

Your legacy is a gift. You infect those remaining.

No, this is not what-.

You harvest. You feed. You gather.

This is not what he was - is. He was once-

This world is your vessel. The memories fuel your legacy.

He was not creation, he could not be, there is still so much that-

- cannot be contained because your memories are not complete.

Suddenly, Tyler felt something inside tear apart - ripping to pieces -

- And then he was freed. At first, it felt like waking up, until he realized that he didn't have a body. Where was his body?

Tyler looked for it, his body laid limp somewhere but he saw nothing. He tried to remember what was the last thing he did, to get a clue of where it could possibly be. However, as he though, the more the vines camet o him, moving around him, forming him. His form wasn't human, vines moved themselves. He imagined how grotesque he appeared. As he moved, he did not step but stumble forward. No strength...

It is then that the vines showed a face. It was a handsome face of a man. Thick eye brows, perpetual grumpy expression judging by how the man's lips and brows deepened, his scruffy face. It was the man from the highway. He was just trying to save him and... this is how he ended up? No, he was indebted to him. Couldn't just leave him like this. He looked like a strung up doll like this. Tyler brushed the vines aside, but as he touched them, they disappeared obediently. Carefull he removed the man and took him away. As he moved, the vines retracted as he walked, giving him a path. The further he moved, the more vines moved from him, away from him, he felt himself slow and lose more strength the further he walked away. At the base of the stairs, he saw the exit. It was so close and yet... he couldn't keep going.

Fog seeped into the building from the exit, through every crevasse that it could. Shadowy shapes among the fog. Tyler reached out to them, to escape the containment of the vines, extending the man who rescued him out to the figures. The shadows take him, faces familiar, but names he could not place. They took him away as he ascended the stairs, feelings the vines give him form again.

He didn't like owing favors...