Attached was a photo of him inside a tailor's shop, trying on a perfectly fitted suit. Tall and elegant, clean and radiant, like something too pure for this ruined world.
That was my brother.
Three months ago, he'd called me, thrilled, to tell me Muriel had proposed.
He begged me to come to the Bastion for the wedding.
I turned him down, told him I was too far away to make it in time.
The truth was, I'd spent every single one of those three months walking, pushing myself to the limit day after day, until I finally reached the walls of the Bastion today.
Just in time to witness them using a human being as bait to lure zombies.
The next second, a dagger plunged deep into flesh.
And the one who drove it in was my brother's fiancée. Muriel Maxwell.
He let out a piercing, bloodcurdling scream.
That voice. It was identical to my brother's.
The relief I'd barely allowed myself vanished, replaced by a dread that seized me by the throat.
His abdomen.
My gaze snapped to his stomach.
His frame was gaunt, wasted thin, but his belly was grotesquely swollen.
As if...
There was a baby strapped to him.
My brother had told me, beaming with joy, that Muriel was carrying his child. That I was going to be an uncle.