The dreamscape yet again shattered, and Rich was once more glad for it. A needless execution for doing nothing wrong, murdered without fault. And now there was one more door, nauseating and painful to look at for longer than a few seconds, but Rich's eyes couldn't be torn away from it. It was a sickly shade of green, it seemed, despite the emerald splendor it also seemed to hold. This door was the sickness, the beckoning of the end of his journey.

If only he'd made it to Coral and Lora.

Rich's hand reached out slowly, grasping the knob with all the finality of the situation burdening his shoulders; Atlas confined to the body of a Kentucky son. He turned the knob and was quickly baptized into a pool of memories.

The smell of apple pie wafted through the house, a commodity so easy to get back then, in those rural parts of the South. So easy that a newly married couple with not much in their pockets but a whole lot of love and ambition was able to purchase their first home with a reasonable mortgage, to be paid off in five years, by the bank's estimate.

Screams and groans, a stampede of consumers bearing down on every kiosk and store that hadn't already been barred in search of shelter, a temporary hiding space from the horde. A stuffed bear dropped to the floor, a security officer leaping over one of the wooden benches in his own pursuit for safety, abandoning the patrons he was sworn to protect.

Years and years of trying, pregnancy tests, every drug and medication, every hoax diet and far fetched exercise program turning up nothing. Hot tears and quiet nights spent holding each other through the crushing defeat; all forgotten in elation and mutual weeping when the plus sign finally showed its face on that piece of white plastic.

Unsure feelings and rocky trust built between the Mall Rats as they all found each other, the continual losses and brief mourning when the initial raids started. Drinking and laughing at the bar with Gman, shooting the breeze with Jeff just to pass the time with a friend, playing some games in the arcade with Becky. A silly happiness at being rewarded with a stupid looking Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer beanie.

Death was never easy, but caskets should never be the size of shoeboxes. Anguish and agony washed over them both in those next few months, asking God why He would give them a son only to take him back to Heaven after Lora'd carried him for nine months.

Appall and disgust when he's learned of Jeff's fate, a burning hatred for Guy, but the need to be The Adult, the leader, a chance to help these kids when he couldn't do anything for that newbie he'd sent straight into the arms of Jesus with a single nod.

40 years old, and he was bawling like the newborn girl in his arms. Rich only let let go of that little pink bundle when she needed fed, and when he drove the three of them home in his Bronco.

Everyone is Infected.

He stirred from the dreams, the memories. He was not himself, or a self at all, any longer. He was a part of the Infection, the virus itself. He could see all, know all, observe and be in all and through all. He was once a someone, had a name, but none of that mattered any longer. What had once been something he wanted to flee from, to survive against, He would now spread to any who remained outside of the Infection. Creation was all there would be, memories and knowledge amassed.

Something stirred, the mass shifted, a voice rippling through the hive.

"Like Hell--"

Rich became once more, but was not complete. Nothing but a presence, a collective memory bank, nothing but thoughts given conscience. Rich imagined a body, and the corridor of vines responded in kind, wrapping his presence in a loose shell wearing the silhouette of a cowboy hat. The shell moved when he wanted it to, listened to his commands. This would do, he hoped, to give him some freedom from the menace called Creation.

As Rich wandered through the hall, something - a face - caught his sight. Young, rugged, a masculine sort of pretty. It was vaguely familiar, and there was a feeling of guilt attached to this face. Rich never learned his name, but this had to be that young buck that saved him from becoming Undying chow on the highway. There were glimpses in his Swiss cheese memory of this young man hauling him around on broad shoulders, escaping from a malevolent horse, guarding him. Now Creation was takin the kid into its fold.

"God...Gawd, ya got one twisted way 'a doin things, ya know?" The vine mass said, voiceless. At his prodding, the vines covering the handsome guy recoiled. The mass dragged the kid out, unable to carry him as he carried Rich, but the man was well on his way out of this God forsaken tower.

It was fortunate that they were on the first floor of the tower, and Rich only had to get this kid down one staircase. The guy was coming to, albeit a bit groggy and not completely there, like a patient coming out of a drug induced sleep. Rich tried to guide him out the door, but he couldn't move any further than the first step. It seemed he was t truly free of Creation at all, but temporarily removed.

So be it. At least the kid made it out okay, taken in by his allies and seen to immediately. There, Jesus, this was his penance for young Officer Daniels, bless his soul. Maybe Rich could apologize to that young pup when he was released from this Hell, if ever he was.

But standing here at the staircase's head was pointless. If Rich had been able to separate himself, surely the others also had. Maybe he'd talk to them one last time, before they fell back into the Hive.