"Oh my god! What do we do?"

  "Help her, damn it!"

  "Okay! Okay!"

  Victoria's grip on the toilet seat tightened with each retch. The ceramic cracked under the pressure between her trembling fingers. Her misty hair danced over her eyes with every heave of her chest. The piling abomination of liquid dispelling from her throat melded into an amalgamation of half-processed meat and blood as it sloshed into the toilet bowl. A fragile cry roared from her chest after the vomiting ceased. The violent passing of stomach acid had deteriorated her rotted tongue and lips further, the chewed up walls of her mouth progressively weakening. Tori held her head in her hands over the bowl as she sobbed uncontrollably, the pain unbearable.

  "Sweetie?" Carly bit back her own tears at the sight. She cautiously knelt beside the girl and placed a hand on her upper back for support. "You're alright. It's alright. Just get it all out."

  London, however, kept her distance. She halted at the doorway of the bathroom, her jaw setting as she assessed the danger. She'd been in this situation before - trying to comfort a vomiting vampire - and she knew the probability of Victoria losing control as a defence mechanism.

  "Carly," she whispered. "Be careful."

  Carly nodded before brushing a short strand of Tori's hair out of the way. The twins had only known this version of her for less than 24 hours, but anyone would've known this was new for her. The girl was crying like she was allergic to her own tears. With every hiccup and scream, her face contorted with confusion and fear. Like she didn't remember where she was, or what had happened. Her eyes were almost too wide, darting around like she was seeing for the first time. Her trembling hands moved too much, too animated, like she couldn't control them. It wasn't like her. Her face scrunched slightly in a tic, and Carly narrowed her eyes.

  "... are you here?" she murmured cautiously.

  Tori continued her broken sobs, but made eye contact with her. Carly's jaw dropped.

  "T-Tori! Oh my god! You're here!"

  "What?" London raced over, ignoring her better judgement. She sat on the other side of the girl in disbelief. "Hey. Hey, are you... alright?"

  Victoria settled slightly, though tears still fell and her chest continued to heave. She wiped her eyes and fought against another retch.

  "W-Where's Zach?" she struggled to speak.

  The girls exchanged a glance of conflicting emotions before turning back to her. Carly parted her lips to reply, but couldn't find the words.

  "He's asleep." London answered carefully. "How... uh... how is this possible? Do you even know what's-"

  "I want Zach." Victoria growled, frustrated. She was too weak to get up, and too scared of vomiting again to move away from the toilet bowl, so she merely glared in a plea.

  "Tori, please." Carly suppressed a sob. "You're here. Just stay here. Just stay with us for a moment."

  "London." Tori's voice grew weaker with each breath, like she was running out of them. "I need him."

  London's heart shattered. Finally, after a month of believing her closest friend was missing or dead, she was reunited - not just with her sentient corpse, but truly her - and the girl only wanted to see someone else. She supposed it was fair, in a way, but it still cut deep. With a reluctant sigh, London stood back up and headed out of the room.

  "I'll wake him up." she murmured as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jeans.

  Carly winced sympathetically as she watched her sister leave.

  "Get up!" London growled at my clearly unconscious form she'd dumped on the lounge earlier. "Your dead girlfriend's asking for you!"

  I literally couldn't hear her if I tried. The remnants of the silverleaf in my system was busy giving me a ketamine acid-trip of a dream. I was more than happy to stay in my rainbow castle with my flying, talking vacuum cleaner sidekick.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "ZACHARY!" She slapped me.

  No effect.

  "I'm gonna fucking kill you if you don't kill me first, oh my god." she groaned.

  Having run out of ideas, London reluctantly pressed her wrist against my lips. My lips immediately parted as I attempted to bite her, before she pulled away just in time.

  "Aha!" she pointed a finger as my slightly awake expression of groggy confusion. "Knew you were starving."

  I sat up with a grumble under my breath, my head spinning and my senses exhausted. I rubbed my eyes. "Why would you drug me if you don't know how to wake me up?"

  "I did know. See? It worked." She huffed stubbornly.

  The distant sound of faint sobbing was picked up by my sensitive hearing. At first I ruled the noise out as being Carly, probably upset about something she found on the internet like a news story about injured puppies. That was, until I heard Carly talking over the crying. My eyes snapped wide in the direction of the bathroom as I came to the sleepy realisation that only one other girl lived here.

  "Oh. Yeah. Tori vomited her guts out and woke up and wants you with her." London muttered, not quite hiding the sting in her voice.

  I launched right off of the lounge, nearly tripping as I raced to the bathroom.

  "Vic-" All words left me as I processed the scene before me. Tori snapped her head around to face me, and her milky eyes - slightly more saturated than usual - locked with mine. Time stood still while I approached her. The room was silent, London and Carly watching from their respective distances. I knelt on the cold tiles beside my love and cupped her face in my hands.

  "Hey." I murmured, unable to hide a warm smile.

  "Hey." she weakly smiled back.

  "You're... talking now?" my breath hitched with hope.

  She shrugged. "It hurts."

  I nodded.

  My gaze drifted to the cracked toilet seat and the horrible gore she'd thrown up, then to her decayed mouth. I could feel myself almost flinch at the new damage. Carly handed me a cloth she'd run under the tap. I nodded in thanks and began wiping the blood and vomit from Victoria's face and mouth.

  I could hear how steady her heart was beating, compared to its usual slow thumps. How she was breathing automatically, without the long pauses she normally experiences. Her skin almost felt warm. Almost.

  "Every time you wake up like this, you inch a little closer to life." I spoke gently to fill the thick silence. "You... um..."

  I took a deep breath. "When you attacked that dog the other day, you tried to speak."

  Her eyes darkened at the memory.

  "You wouldn't look at me." I continued. "All you said was 'don't.'"

  Victoria flinched as I wiped the blood on her teeth.

  "I know you'll be gone again in a few seconds, but I'm... I'm glad you're getting better." I forced a smile.

  She frowned at me in desperation. I'd noticed her silence, and that the light in her eyes was fading again, but I'd grown to accept that these moments never lasted.

  "Maybe next time I'll give you a pen and some paper, yeah?" I tried to joke.

  She didn't laugh.

  I dropped the towel and cupped her cheeks in my hands once again, leaning in closer to press my forehead against hers. I shut my eyes and shuddered, letting myself drown in the fading familiarity. "I'll wait for you, Victoria."

  As her lips pressed against mine, I didn't register it at first. Not until the skin of my face suddenly scorched like a lighter had been held against it. Victoria's lips weren't as soft as I'd remembered, now cut up, chewed, and decayed. I quickly recoiled and scrambled back on my hands and knees, my eyes snapping wide as dread overcame me. I immediately began to hyperventilate as my instincts flared and fight-or-flight became all I could think about. She winced at my rejection, her eyes shutting tight, before her expression gently reset into its usual blank stare. And with that, she was gone again.

  "Zach, hey." London ran over to me. She blocked my view of Tori, grabbing my shoulders with a firm expression. The last thing she wanted was for me to snap.

  Meanwhile, Carly sighed and helped the girl I used to know stand up, her once again zombified and vacant. After flushing the bloody toilet, Carly wrapped an arm around Tori's waist and led her out of the room.

  I couldn't handle it.

  Any of it.

  "It's alright! It's fine! You're fine." London's voice came soft and concerned. She took my shaky hands in her own firmly. "Breathe."

  "D-Don't fucking tell me what to do!"

  My vision grew tampered by growing black spots and fuzzy areas. My skin scorched. Every nerve in my body was on fire. I couldn't handle that alone, and I could handle the psychological part even less.

  "You don't get it. Y-You didn't feel it." Tears burned down my cheeks as I sank further into panic, backed up against the wall. "H-Her lips were just... rotted, and she was so fucking cold. That's not her. That's not my Victoria."

  "C'mon, don't say that." London frowned. "You know that's her. I don't know why she'd kiss you like that, I don't, but you know more than anyone that that's her."

  I shook my head frantically. "N-NO! My Tori's warm. And she smiles. And she laughs and she giggles and her voice is soft and sweet and-"

  London gripped my hands tighter as I rambled.

  "And that's just not her anymore." I sobbed.

  I hung my head in shame.

  "I broke her."

  "Zach-"

  "She knows not to kiss me! She knows that! She'd never do that to me!"

  "Please-"

  "I must've really fucked her up for her to forget something like that, huh."

  "Zach!"

  "SHE PROMISED SHE'D NEVER KISS ME AGAIN!"

  London sighed. "She can barely remember her own name, Zach. You told me yourself, most of her memories are of her feelings towards things and people, nothing more. Maybe all she could remember was how much she loves you."

  "S-She was fucking lucid!"

  "Barely! She was almost fully blank when she did it, I saw. You need to calm down. If you're upset, cry. We both know damn well that you don't do well with anger."

  "Stop fucking parenting me." my voice broke from a sob that interrupted me halfway.

  "Someone has to now that Victoria's dead!" London blurted.

  I didn't reply. I couldn't. What could I even say to something like that?

  So I did as instructed. I slowly hugged my knees, hung my head, and cried.