Luke Li did not answer right away.
He looked at Matt.
Matt sensed his gaze, forced himself to lift his head, and pulled out a pale smile.
“Don’t…
don’t worry.
It’s just a scratch.
The wound isn’t deep.”
He was slightly out of breath as he spoke, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.
Come on, man.
You do not look fine at all.
Luke Li looked away and turned to Danny.
“When did he get hurt?”
Danny froze for a moment.
“Matt?
About…
four or five hours ago.
When we ran out of the apartment building, one of those things lunged at us, and he blocked it…”
“Was he bitten?”
Danny’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Karen suddenly raised her head, her eyes sharp.
“He was scratched,” Danny said.
“Clawed.
Not bitten.”
“Let me see the wound.”
The atmosphere changed.
Karen took half a step forward.
Tommy, the man with the baseball bat, tightened his grip on the bat.
Linda, the heavy-set woman, shrank behind Danny.
Matt himself was the calmest one there.
He slowly unwrapped the cloth around his left forearm.
Three parallel scratches ran from his wrist to the crook of his elbow.
The skin and flesh had split open, and the edges had already turned black.
The skin around the wound had taken on an abnormal grayish-purple color, and the blood vessels stood out clearly like a spiderweb.
This was not ordinary infection or inflammation.
It was the virus spreading.
Luke Li had seen it many times before, of course, in the show.
Wounds from bites and scratches all looked like this.
The color would shift from red to purple, from purple to gray, until the person’s whole body turned a dull, leaden shade.
Then the infected person would no longer be human.
“How long has it been?” Luke Li asked.
“Four…
a little over four hours,” Matt said softly.
Luke Li saw it in his buffs.
There was an extremely faint gray marker, almost invisible.
[Despair – Suppressed]
Matt probably already knew he was infected.
He just had not said anything.
He was still clinging to a bit of hope.
Luke Li took a step back and faced Danny.
“I need to talk to you alone.”
Danny hesitated, then handed the shotgun to Karen and followed Luke Li about ten steps away.
Luke Li lowered his voice and got straight to the point.
“He’s going to die, and then he’ll turn into a walker.”
Danny’s face stiffened.
“What the hell are you talking about…”
“You’ve seen with your own eyes where those things come from.” Luke Li stared into his eyes.
“They didn’t crawl out of the ground.
They’re dead people.
Whether bitten or scratched, once someone is infected, they die, then they ‘come back.'”
“Matt was only scratched…”
“Look at his wound.
That is not a normal infection.
You know that.”
Danny’s lips trembled nonstop.
The buffs above his head changed violently.
[Alert] faded, while [Fear] and [Pain] lit up at the same time, along with [Denial].
He did not want to believe it, but deep down, he already understood.
“Th-then what do we do?” Danny’s voice broke.
“He’s Linda’s boyfriend.
He’s only twenty-five.
What did he do wrong?”
“You have two choices,” Luke Li said evenly.
“First, tell everyone the truth now, while he’s still lucid, and let him decide how he wants to go.
Second, say nothing, wait for him to turn in the middle of the night, and let him bite one of you to death.”
Danny trembled all over.
Luke Li waited ten seconds.
“…I can’t say it.” Danny lowered his head.
Luke Li looked at him.
Then he turned and walked back.
He stopped in front of Matt and crouched down.
Matt looked up at him, sweat and tears mixing on his ashen face.
“You know, don’t you?” Matt spoke first, his voice very soft.
“I know too.
Starting about an hour ago, I could feel it…
My body’s getting colder.
It started from my fingers.”
He raised his right hand.
His fingers were trembling slightly.
“Now it’s reached my elbow.”
Linda rushed over from behind and grabbed Matt’s shoulders.
“What are you talking about?
Matt?
What are you saying?”
Matt did not look back.
He kept his eyes on Luke Li.
“How long?”
Luke Li thought for a moment.
In the original series, the time from infection to turning depended on the wound location and the amount of infection.
A scratch on the arm was not the worst case.
“Probably three to six hours.”
Linda let out a scream of pain.
For the next five minutes, Linda cried and held on to Matt, refusing to let go.
Tommy stood beside them, completely at a loss.
Karen grabbed Danny’s arm and questioned him in a low voice, but Danny could not say a word.
Luke Li stood nearby without moving.
Some things could not be rushed.
In the end, Matt was the one who calmed everything down.
He gently pushed Linda away, then stood up.
His movements were slow, and his body swayed, but he steadied himself.
“Stop,” he said.
Linda froze.
Matt turned to Danny.
“Danny, give me your shotgun.”
Danny’s eyes reddened.
“You’re going to…”
“Not now.” Matt shook his head and forced a smile.
“When I feel like I’m about to lose it, I’ll do it myself.
I won’t make it hard for you.”
He looked back at Linda.
His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.
Then he looked at Luke Li.
“I have one request.”
“Say it.”
“Take Linda with you.”
Luke Li glanced at Linda’s buffs.
[Grief] and [Fear].
But beneath them, there was also a faint [Will to Live].
“All right.”
Matt nodded and said nothing else.
He took the shotgun from Danny, walked alone to the roadside guardrail, and sat down with the gun laid across his knees, looking at the distant sky.
The sun was setting.
Luke Li made his decision.
The pickup could not fit everyone.
Danny, Karen, Linda, Sarah, and Emma, five people were already enough to fill it.
Tommy volunteered to stay with Matt.
“I’ll stay with him.” Tommy pushed up his glasses, gripping a Glock 19 in his hand.
His voice was shaking, but it was firm.
“He’s my roommate.
My brother.
I’m not leaving.”
The [Fear] above his head was still there, but beside it, a buff Luke Li had never seen before lit up.
[Courage – Temporary].
Golden, faint, flickering.
Golden.
It was actually the same color as his own [Transmigrator].
Fear was the instinct to survive, but courage was humanity’s hymn.
Luke Li took a box of 9mm rounds and a spare magazine for the Glock 19 from his backpack, then handed them to Tommy.
“The shotgun is too loud.
If…
things get to the point where you need a gun, use this.
Aim for the head.”
Tommy took them.
His hands were shaking, but he nodded.
The pickup started.
In the rearview mirror, Matt sat on the guardrail, and Tommy stood beside him.
The figures of the two young men grew smaller and smaller, until they finally disappeared around a bend.
The truck was quiet.
Linda cried silently.
Karen had an arm around her shoulders, her face unreadable.
Danny sat in the passenger seat, the shotgun upright between his legs, his empty eyes fixed on the road ahead.
In the back seat, Sarah covered Emma’s eyes with her hands, her own eyes red.
Luke Li drove, staring at the road in front of him.
The road sign for Jesup came into view.
“6 miles.”
It was getting dark.
He needed to find a place to stop before nightfall.
Six miles away, the outline of the town was faintly visible.
There were no lights