I woke up on the floor beside the bed with a headache. I groaned as I forced myself to sit up and face the sunlight. "Ugh. What the fuck was that? I'm never going to bed horny again." John then asked, 'Did you have an odd dream?' and I rubbed my head with my palm. "It sure didn't feel like a dream, but I'm still here so I guess it was." Mary seemed confused and a bit dizzy. 'It had to have been, otherwise we would've remembered. I remember nothing of last night.' Erin ignored our conversation, making it clear that he didn't care. 'Is Molly up? If not, we can open up ourselves a nasty can of sleep assault!'
I rolled my eyes even though I was happy to hear their voices again. Last night felt so real that I thought I had lost them. That voice I was stuck with was able to control me so easily. It was horrifying how it almost made me kill Molly. I hoped that I wouldn't have any more dreams like that and after a few minutes, the blankets on the bed shifted. Molly sat up and stretched her neck as I looked up at her from the floor. She turned to me but her face changed to surprise, unexpectedly. "Are you okay?" I raised an eyebrow at her question. "What do you mean?"
Her face became confused as she answered. "You look like you had a rough night. Did you sleep at all?" I stood up from the floor and headed to the restroom. "Yeah. I think so." I stopped when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My skin reflected the sunlight and it took a moment to realize that I was drenched in sweat. I had darkness around my eyes from tiredness and it was then I felt the exhaustion begin to settle in. I was so tired but didn't feel the urge to sleep. I stepped closer to the mirror to further inspect what could've tired me out so much when I noticed my teeth.
They were slightly jagged and yet they were still straight. I felt them with my tongue and concluded that these weren't the same teeth I had when I fell asleep. My eyes seemed to get brighter when the sunlight hit them, and they were twice as striking as they were before. Even though I felt so weak, I appeared stronger in the mirror. My build was larger but only by a barely noticeable difference. At any size, change overnight was scary to me. What was happening to me? Did the dream I had happen for real? I didn't know anymore. All I knew was that I was changing and getting stronger because of it. What the hell was in that antidote? Was it mutating?
My paranoia was stopped by the sound of Molly walking up to the doorway. "You can shower first today. You need it more than I do." She seemed nervous and she had every right to be. I might've been changing into a monster for all I knew. I closed the door after she left and cleaned all the sweat off me. 'Just for the record, you look awesome. That dark undereye and those new teeth make you look like a vampire. One of the sexy ones,' Erin commented. I ignored him and thought about what had happened in my dream as I got out of the shower. "Do any of you guys... ever hear a fifth voice?" Everyone who answered seemed clueless. 'A fifth voice? That's absurd,' John laughed. 'We're the only ones I know of here,' said Mary.
Erin just gave me a suspicious 'Hmm...' and didn't respond. I've known him long enough to know that he was just trying to remember whether I did drugs to justify a reason to ask such a ridiculous question. I sighed. "Never mind." I dried myself off with a towel and wrapped it around my waist. My clothes were dry after being hung up for the night so I put them back on. I'd rather smell like seawater than put on any of the fashion fails that were in the closet. For a moment I forgot that I had grown overnight and now my clothes were tighter. I was lucky that it showed in a good way.
After Molly was done with her shower, she came out in her old clothes too. I had guessed that she had as much distaste for the closet as I did. She stepped out and stopped as if she was thinking about something. "What is it?" I asked. She waited a second longer before answering. "Do you hear that?" I waited but my ears caught nothing. "No," I said, finally. Her suspicion only increased. "Exactly. I haven't heard any zombies all morning. Something isn't right." She looked at me but her expression changed to shock. "Did your clothes... always fit like that?" Not wanting to draw attention to my mutation, I began to walk out the door. "Yep."
Mary commented on the situation as we made our way down the stairs. 'Did you see the way she looked at you? She is smitten with this new you!' John disagreed. 'I'm not sure that's what happened. She just asked a question.' Erin came into the conversation, confidently. 'A question that had her foaming at the mouth! You're hot and she knows it! Now she can't pretend with that smorgasbord of delectable muscles on display through that tight shirt.' I whispered so I could respond without Molly noticing. "That sounded a little gay, Erin." Erin fired back with, 'You're a little gay, Kane.' and I shrugged in agreement. Couldn't argue with that.
The morning sun flashed in our eyes after we removed the barricades from the front door and stepped outside. Once our eyes adjusted, we both froze to see the scene before us. Every single zombie on the island now lay dead on the streets and sidewalks. Not a sound could be heard, not one gurgle or growl. They were all dead. The memory of the dream I had came flooding back and I tried to keep my cool as I realized that it wasn't a dream. I had brutally torn apart every single corpse on the island, and every detail of what I had done was unholy. Dear god, that voice was real. That thing is somewhere in my mind and it's going to come back.
It was a relief that I was able to take out my rage on the zombies instead of Molly, but it scared me that I might not have that kind of self-control in the future. Especially if it became stronger. Molly stepped ahead, gawking at the carnage in front of her. "What the hell happened?" I felt like I owed her an explanation after avoiding her all morning. "...I did it. I couldn't sleep because of the constant growling. It really pissed me off I guess." She turned to me with utter shock. "Seriously? No wonder you were all sweaty. How did you just easily kill every single zombie on the island? That is insane!" She hesitated. "I mean... impressive."