#wait.. zombie... taking bite out of flesh.. tis giving...

“There are too many of them. We won’t manage to get out of here alive, it’s a dead end!” You tried to make the man turn around and give up the stupid idea to get a gun he said he had in his own room. You had to get out of there. As soon as possible.

“Listen here, this is the best chance at survival you have as well!” He almost spat the words in your face, barely giving you attention. You wanted him to die, but you wouldn’t leave him behind. It wasn’t in you to do that. “How do you expect to cross the entrance hall? It’s filled with these… Those…”

“Zombies…?” As you suggested the word you could see him holding the urge to spit in you as an answer.

“it’s so ridiculous to call that a zombie! Zombies aren’t real!” The man found the door of his room wide open and you could still hear some noises behind you, even if you didn’t see anything. “These CRAZY people infected by this… That… Disease! I don’t know! This disease makin’ everyone lose their heads! I bet that shit is from China!”

“You are a horrible person.” You finally had to state that, sighing while holding a letter opener as a provisory weapon. If anything tried to attack you, you’d stick that little dagger in the thing’s eyes and run faster than it would be able to take a chunk out of your neck with a bite. You saw that happening before. “If it’s a corporation thing, I bet it’s from here. Let’s remember Raccoon City was an Umbrella city, a ‘pharmaceutical’ company here from the USA. Stop being a racist asshole.”

“Do you know who you’re talkin’ to?” The man stopped right in front of the door, slowly turning towards you.

“Yeah, I know. Does it matter now? Take a look at where we are.” You shrugged, opening your arms to show the corridor engulfed in blood and destruction. “Do you think your title matters in a situation like this?”

The man didn’t answer. He raised his hand to point at your face and scream, but he was stopped by a noise in the stairs. And steps. And dragging. And moaning, a sound that couldn’t even be called human. Those things had caught up and you were in a dead end.

“We need to run! Quick!” You tried to search for escape routes, but the options were close to none.

“And how do you want to do that? Jumpin’ out the window?! We’re on the second floor, stupid little shit!” The man rolled his eyes. “I really don’t know where people see so much intelligence in you. I hired you ‘cause you’re cute and if we’re gonna talk about war and all that shit, let at least be a hot correspondent. You’re useless!”

You were already at your limit – but upon hearing that, you lost your temper. You’d answer, scream, slap that disgusting face, but you were suddenly grabbed by him. When you finally realized what was going on, he tried to take the letter opener from your hands.

“Gimme that! If it’s gonna be you or me, then it’s gonna be YOU!” He growled between his teeth as the zombies slowly approached through the stairs. “With you dead, bleeding on the floor, I’ll have a shot!”

Your survival mode kicked in. You were a correspondent in war zones, you made TV broadcasts and also wrote articles. You had studied Human Rights. You put yourself in conflict zones. Therefore, you also had studied martial arts for self-defense, you knew your way around weapons and combat knives – that wouldn’t be your first time and, doing what you did, also meant protecting yourself and surviving.

It was good that he thought you were just a pretty face – for he didn’t expect you to know how to turn the situation around, overpower him and bury the letter opener in his neck. Kneeling on the floor and choking on his own blood in front of you, you remained glued to the wall on the other side of the corridor; your head spinning, unable to believe what just had happened.

Taking a deep breath, you saw as the life slowly faded from his eyes.

“Good riddance, piece of crap.” You made sure those were the last words he would ever hear.

The living dead, in the other hand, already appeared on top of the stairs. In a moment of despair, you took the letter opener from his neck and quickly dragged him to the window in the end of the corridor, finding a way to tie him up his feet so he would grab all the attention. Without thinking too much about what you were doing, you slashed the rest of his throat so the blood would flow and then ran to his room – hearing as the zombies screamed and desperately stumbled their way to the Director, guided by the smell of fresh blood. That was enough for you to barricade the door with shelves, hiding under the desk right after and observing what was going on at the door through the reflex on the big window in front of you.

With your heart beating normally again, you slowly calmed yourself down, thinking about what had just passed – and how you found courage to do what you had to do. Indeed, adrenaline and survival instinct gave people unthinkable strength. You observed the zombies passing through the room, some unconsciously hitting the door, but always with their attention on the Director, hanging from the window.

Christ had died to save humanity. Very well, that piece of trash of a human being that one day had been your boss died to give you a chance to survive. It hadn’t been willingly, as Jesus Christ, but unwillingly. And, as weird as that sounded, you felt no remorse.

And you would never feel it.

After so many things you had been through your life, you had a philosophy of wanting to die without regretting your own choices. Even if it was a horrible choice, you had chosen to kill the Director – so you could survive – and you would never regret that.

What had to happen, had happened – that’s what you used to say. Now the objective was always to keep moving forward.

You carried the letter opener in the front pocket of your jeans. You didn’t think it would actually be useful – but, just like you had thought before, you could protect yourself in an emergency situation.

Getting out of the room, though, would be impossible: there was a horde of zombies outside feasting on that creature even more disgusting than they were. If you opened the door and made a single mistake, you would have to outrun all that – and you weren’t so sure you would be able to do so.

Taking the radio once more, you took a deep breath for a while. Jill and Claire had told you about Leon – specially Claire. Apparently, he was a good person and a great survivor. He had been through unimaginable things, just like both of them did, and he could give you a reasonable way out of there.

Honestly, just having someone else’s voice alongside you would already be comforting. You had spent too much time locked inside that room thinking you would die – you had the feeling you remained in there for days.

“Leon…?” You called, a little uncertain, still speaking in a low tone.

“Y/n? Hi! I’m here!” His answer came right away. Nakai gave him a room to work and talk to you in private, so he was alone: Grace was tempted to help, but she would probably just panic and be useless. It would be better if she helped writing the emergency broadcast text. “Everything ok in there?”

“Define ok.” You had a bitter taste in your remark, making him let out a humorless laugh.

“Stupid question, sorry.” Leon sighed. “Look, I get it. My stay at the RPD wasn’t the best too.”

“I can only imagine…” You sighed back, running your hand through your hair. “If I’m being a jerk with you, I’m sorry from the start. Today definitely isn’t the best day in my life.”

“Makes sense. Don’t worry.” Leon could dismiss that type of comment: after all, the very last thing he would ask of you in that situation was politeness. “Well, let’s go. Are you ready? Can you get out of the room?”

“So, we’ll start with the very first obstacle: no.” You crawled to the window right by the door, taking a peek at the situation in the corridor. “There’s at least ten of those things eating the Director. Some of them are just roaming around the corridor or thrown on the floor. There’s too many, even if I try to be stealthy.”

“Hmmm… That already makes things really difficult.” Leon furrowed his brows, trying to think of something. “Are the windows a viable option?”

“I’m on the second floor.” You threw those words out as if it was enough of an answer, but, nevertheless, you walked towards the window. After observing a bit, you closed your eyes, already regretting what you would have to report. “There’s a wider part in the wall, connecting all the windows of the building. It isn’t even as large as my foot.”

Both you and Leon remained in silence. That was madness. He knew it was madness, you knew it was madness – but there you were.

“I think I can hold on to the windows and maybe cross to the other side.” Your voice was practically inaudible, small and clearly controlling itself so it wouldn’t tremble. “Unless I fall and die midway.”

“We can try something else. Maybe if you go through the door and remain low, without making any noises…” Leon tried to find another solution, knowing it would be too much to ask of you to try to climb through the windows of the building so you could leave the room. “Or I can go there. I can go with a gun, and we get rid of those things…”

“How long would it take? I don’t think the rescue team will be eternally available, right?” You sounded frustrated, furrowing your brows, trying to calculate the fall from the second floor. It was a considerable distance from there to the ground: if you didn’t die, you had a great risk to become paraplegic or at least with lots of broken bones. It wasn’t a good prospect.

“But it’s still an option. If I get out of here now…”

“You’ll take too long. Let’s go. No time for being a coward.” You took a deep breath and Leon almost pouted as soon as he was interrupted.

“That’s not being a coward, that’s having common sense.” It was the first time that day Leon had an extremely serious expression covering his face and eyes. It took a while, even, considering it all. “No one can call you a coward for being afraid to die."

“It’s not like I have too many options, right…?” You were a little uncertain, but Leon heard some noises around the room. “I’m finding a way to tape the radio to my tank top so I can use both of my hands for climbing.

“Are you sure…?” Not even Leon was too sure of that. It was risky, even if it seemed like the best option at the moment. He would ask you a thousand times to make sure you wouldn’t give up midway.

“Well… No.” There was no way you could be more sincere than that, as you wrapped the radio around your tank top with a silver tape you found laying around the mess in that room. Your flannel shirt had to be wrapped around your waist. “But if I think about it for too long, I’ll loose my will to do it. So let’s go.”

Leon was about to say something else, but you opened the window right away. The stuffy air of the room left to the night that had just started taking over the city. As always, you enjoyed watching New Setosa in the calm silence of the evening – but, at that moment, there was nothing of calm or silent. Zombies roamed the streets as lost creatures, eating what was left of those who didn’t have the luck to survive.

“Ok, let’s go… One step at a time.” You took a deep breath and put one leg out of the window, remaining a few seconds sitting with one foot outside and another inside. “Leon? Can you talk to me while I do this…? I’m a little afraid of heights.”

“This is a horrible idea…” Leon ran one of his hands over his face, taking a deep breath and trying to control himself. It would be even worse if he was mister pessimistic on the other side of the line. “Ok. Don’t look down. At most, look at your feet.”

“Great… For the record, I also think this is a horrible idea.” You finally found the courage you needed to hop outside and grab at the window, stepping on the wall detail as best as you could. You could only touch it with the tips of your feet and you’d have to focus a lot not to panic. “When all of this is over, remind me to sue the one responsible for all this bullshit in the city.”

“Remind me to sue Umbrella as well, then.” Leon let out a quick laugh, making you smile nervously in response. “How is the crossing going?”

“Slow. But we’re making some progress.” And, indeed, you glided your feet calmly, barely lifting them to be able to walk around. Your hands always tried to hold on to the details above you with certainty, but it hurt more than you thought it would. “You know… I have a friend who likes to go out to do mountain climbing. I always climb half of it and freeze at the very same spot, I can’t go higher.”

“You just have to think you’re not at a high place.” His answer was immediate, noticing that your voice seemed too nervous, even starting to tremble. “Do you like ice cream?”

“Hmmm… Ice cream?” You took a deep breath, laughing a little once you realized he was trying to distract you in order to calm you down. “Yeah. I do. Banana ice cream. And you?”

“Banana ice cream?” Leon raised one eyebrow, making you laugh – probably out of nervousness rather than anything else – given the confusion in his voice. “I didn’t see that coming. I like chocolate.”

“It goes well with banana.” You considered and suddenly turned completely silent. Leon couldn’t even hear the sound of your feet dragging through the wall.

“Y/n? What happened? Talk to me.”

“This part of the wall is broken. I’ll have to… Reach out a little… To the other side?” Your voice sounded even more nervous than before. You spoke too fast, stuttering and trembling. You had to grab on the detail on the wall right above your head with a little more strength, or your hands would probably slip from trembling. “I’ll have to… Let go? What…? How am I gonna do that…?”

“Hey, banana ice cream, take it easy. Is it ok if I call you like that?” Leon tried to grab your attention as much as he could. That situation was awful and a lot of things could go wrong. He would probably never forgive himself if it all went south: it would be another nightmare to haunt him every night, unrelenting.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay. Choco chip.” You tried to calm down, taking a few deep breaths. Your legs didn’t move and seemed frozen in place. Something seemed to appear at the bottom of your stomach, weighing your legs like led. You couldn’t look around, you couldn’t take your hands from their place, you couldn’t move your feet.

“Take it easy, ok? Take a deep breath and take your time too. But you gotta cross to the other side.”

“I can’t do it.”

“You can. If you take it easy you can…”

“No, I can’t.” Your answer was certain as you huffed and closed your eyes. You tried not to cry uncontrollably – that would only make things worse. “I can’t move. I’m trying but… Ah, shit. Why did I put myself through this…?”

“Because you have more guts than a lot of people out there.” Leon didn’t even think before saying that. And it wasn’t just to be nice: you forced yourself to cross from one window to another, walk through the studio on your own and do all the setup they needed to a broadcast. Not all people would accept doing that; most would probably demand to be rescued and leave the rest to die. “I know how fear can make us freeze in place. There were times at the police station I didn’t want to move, that I just wanted to sit alone in a corner and wait for someone to come rescue me. But I also knew that wasn’t going to happen and if I didn’t get up with a bit of courage, I’d die in there.”

“Oh great, I can die here.” You weren’t motivated at all and that triggered a little despair in Leon. He honestly wanted to get up and go all the way to the broadcast station to get you out of there. In a matter of fact, he should’ve gone there to extract you from the room and now he regretted having agreed to that insane idea. “How did you manage to get out of there?”

“Hmmm, I don’t know...” Actually, Leon had never really thought of that. Suddenly, he found himself  thinking about everything that happened in Raccoon City, clearly remembering the moments he felt too frozen in place to do something. But, somehow, his legs kept running. His body kept moving. He was probably one of the people with the least survival rate, but he managed to get himself out of there. Somehow, he kept on going. “I think it was survival instinct.”

He seemed a little too absent, too lost in thought even. The truth was, in all that time, Leon avoided to think about that day – for every time he thought about it too much, he had a panic attack and it wasn’t something pretty to see.

“Hmmm…” He heard your voice on the other side, waking him up from his own thoughts. You didn’t even notice your hands started trembling again. “What kind of chocolate do you like…? Dark…?”

“Milk chocolate.” Leon sighed, resting his head on one of his hands, keeping the conversation going to help you stop trembling. “Bitter is good, but I prefer milk chocolate. There’s an ice cream place near my apartment that puts pieces of chocolate in the ice cream, that’s my favorite.”

“Ok. So when we leave this place, you’ll take me there to try it. I knew I could call you choco chip.” Your voice was steady and calmer, taking deep breaths even faster as if to harness courage. “I’m going to cross this damn thing, that ice cream better be really good.”

“You won’t regret it.” You could hear the smile on his face, proud and nervous at the same time. He held his breath in order to hear everything going on your side of the call. “Take it easy, y/n. You won’t regret it.”

And none of you knew if he was still talking about the ice cream or about crossing to the other side.

Leon got up in a jump, though, when he heard a loud noise with a muffled scream on his radio. You seemed desperate and, even if he asked you what was going on, you couldn’t give him enough attention at the moment. He could only be sure that you were crying and trying not to scream too loud so you wouldn’t draw attention – or, at least, not too much attention.

“Y/n?! Talk to me! What happened?! Stay calm! Whatever happened, stay calm! Hold on wherever you can! Anywhere!” Leon checked Matilda in his leg harness, instinctively holding his gun. “If you need me to, I’ll get out of here right now and I’ll get there to help you!”

“No…!” You murmured your answer between your efforts as he heard dragging noises. Leon remained frozen, his hand on the gun while the other had the radio close to his mouth. His heartbeat was frantic and the expectation would certainly kill him.

With a few mumbles and more dragging sounds, finally came the silence – the only sound was the accelerated breaths from each other chirping through the radio. The sound from the walkie talkie really wasn’t the best.

“I slipped, my foot…” You took a deep breath, closing your eyes, now holding onto the details of the wall as hard as you could. “My foot slipped, I almost fell, I was dangling. Damn, I thought I was going to die!” You took another deep breath, your hands and legs trembling like jelly. “I thought I was going to die… Damn, I hate heights… But I got through. I got through, Leon. I walked. I left my place. I built up some courage, now let’s get this over with…!”

“You almost killed me here too.” He let out a nervous laugh, hearing the same sound from your side of the line. As he sat down, Leon looked like a piece of jelly spreading on a plate. If he needed an adrenaline shock to get into the mission, that was it. “How are you over there?”

“I got to the other window…” Your voice was silent as you looked inside as you could. It was a waiting room and you couldn’t see any of the undead who roamed the station. “I’m lucky, the room is empty. But I’ll have to break the window to come in, they’ll definitely hear it.”

“Do you have a coat or something like that?” Leon took a deep breath, going back to focusing and being logical. He knew quite well that being on the field made the person not think quite clearly, so he had to be the most logical of you at the moment.

“Uhum. My flannel shirt, does it work?”

“Yeah, it works. If you roll it around your elbow and use it to break the glass, you’ll avoid getting hurt and you’ll make less noise.”

“Oh, wow. Do they teach that in the police academy?” You raised an eyebrow, already working on your shirt. Leon giggled a bit.

“Actually, that one I learned from watching a guy stealing a car in Raccoon before being approved in the Academy.” He had a distant look, as if remembering something from a lifetime long ago.

It was a normal night: he had just turned 21 and went out with some friends to drink. They were going back home and Leon saw precisely that: a guy, silently breaking the window of a car, opening it from inside and taking it away. He would’ve done something, but it was the dreadful day of his very first hangover and he couldn’t even take a single step without thinking the entire world was spinning around, viciously. The result was a terrible headache and the typical ‘I’m never drinking again’ motto – that would never become true.

That street didn’t exist anymore, neither the bar where Leon had his first hangover. His simple apartment he had rented to start his new adult life was also gone – as were the friends who kept him company in that adventure and helped him walk in a straight line as the whole world seemed to dance frantically as if in a rave. There was nothing left. Raccoon City didn’t exist anymore – it was just a part of Leon’s memories.

Memories of 21 years that were wiped out because of corporate greed, of a company that screwed up and was powerful enough to cover up their crimes by simply killing a whole town.

“Hey… It’s a good technique. It works.” And Leon focused again on the present as he heard your voice on the radio, seeming a little calmer. You broke the glass just like he told you to and now you were safe and sound in the building once more, putting on the shirt but still leaving the radio taped to your tank top. It was a lot easier to deal with it. “I didn’t think I’d say something like this, but I’m feeling a lot safer inside than outside.”

“And you probably are. Always remain with your back to a wall; how are you right now?” His sigh carried all the relief that washed through his body. He could feel he would sigh a lot more that day.

“Glued to a wall so nothing will jump behind me.” You took a deep breath, tangling your fingers around the letter opener. “I need to cross a corridor to go down to the first floor. The broadcasting studio is down there.”

“Hmmm…. Corridors aren’t good.” Leon furrowed his brows. He had to think quickly, for you. “Can you block the way behind you? Or at least put something that makes some noise and warns you if there’s something coming from behind?”

“Hmmm…” You took a look around, trying to find something. You saw a couch, but it was too heavy for you at the moment. Right after, you found a vending machine. “Oh, please tell me I’ve some change…” You checked your pockets, making Leon wonder what the hell you were talking about. With a few coins, you bought some packets of chips in the machine. “Chips. I’m gonna spread them on the floor behind me and if one of those things appears, I’m gonna hear when they step on the chips.

“Will you look at that. A lot more intelligent than me walking around the RPD.” He was genuinely impressed by your thinking. And also thinking with himself how he didn’t think of something like that before. He could’ve saved himself from a lot of scares if he had a system like that to identify a silent zombie approaching him from behind.

Even if the steps from that Tyrant in a fedora were enough to warn him from the other side of the town that it was approaching.

“I don’t know if they told you, but I’m a correspondent in conflict zones.” You murmured in the lowest tone you could, trying not to draw attention. Meanwhile, you walked carefully through the corridor, spreading the chips on the ground. You couldn’t stop yourself from feeling like Gretl talking to Hensel through a walkie talkie. “One of my colleagues in one of the trips suggested we did this when we were sleeping in a high conflict area. We left some chips and broke beer bottles outside of the room to make sure that, if someone tried anything during the night, we would wake up.”

“Wow, you and your team have a light sleep then.” He couldn’t deny it was a good idea, nevertheless.

“We had sleeping turns. It’s not like you can properly fall asleep in a conflict zone.” You sighed, almost at the end of the corridor. There, you would find another waiting room and the big staircase to the entrance hall on the first floor. Your problems were just about to begin. “Can you imagine spending the night there at the NSPD, like it is right now? Or if you had some sleep in Raccoon City? It’s basically like that.”

Leon had no answer to that – the only thing that he could think about was that you, the one who talked to him through a radio amidst all that chaos, were no ordinary thing. Maybe it was a survival instinct that wasn’t being tested just on that day. And, maybe, that thing would help you get out of New Setosa alive.

“Oops, wait a second…!” You stopped on your tracks, remaining in silence. Leon did the same so he wouldn’t cause you trouble. And, indeed, the chips worked: one of the creatures had left a room in the corridor and slowly dragged itself towards you, hands crawling on the floor. “Damn! One of those things is already after me…!”

“You’re a lot faster than they are. Is it dangerous ahead?”

“I’m almost at the staircase, it’s like a tiny internal balcony and you can see the entrance hall. I know my issues will start there.” You walked a little faster, stuffing the chip packet in your back pocket and completely ignoring the zombie dragging itself behind you.

Maybe if you ignored it long enough, it would go away.

Or at least that’s what you expected.

“Stay down and try not to make too much noise. I think you can hide behind the balcony…?” He did his best to understand the descriptions of the places you gave him.

“I can, yeah, just a minute.” You did exactly what he had suggested: keeping yourself down, you walked towards the guardrail and peeked over to take a look at the entrance hall status. You were right by the staircase, observing everything you would find down there. “Ok. I can count eight… Ten… Twelve… Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Fifteen things down there.”

“Hmmm and how are they? Scattered around, gathered in a group…? You’ll have to be my eyes so I can help you, banana ice cream.” Leon didn’t want to admit, but there was something of wholesome in calling you like that.

“Right, ok, ok… Let’s see, three are eating a guy near the entrance, I think he was running away. There’s about five roaming around, banging on the walls or just staring at nothing, almost in the middle of the hall. There are three more at the end of the other staircase, with people who died trying to go down. Two are on the floor near the reception desk and two more eating someone near my staircase.” You furrowed your brows, taking a look back only to find out that zombie still hadn’t given up on reaching you. It was already almost at the later half of the corridor and that wasn’t good.

“The two near the staircase. Are their backs towards it?”

“Yeah, they are. If I go down without making any noises, they won’t see me.” With that, you went back to watching the entrance hall. “The problem is: there’s nothing to give me cover until I get to the broadcast studio. Behind the reception, there’s a passage to a big waiting room, that I think it’ll be swarming with those things, and then I have to take a corridor to the right until I get to the studio. I don’t know how things are going to look like in there.”

“Well, baby steps. Let’s think about the rest when you have already crossed the entrance hall.” But even Leon had to admit the prospects weren’t really great.

“Whatever I have to do, I’ve to do it fast, choco chip. That spook is crawling over the chips and will soon get to me.” You calculated the risk of kicking that zombie in the face if it got too close.

“How is it behind the reception desk? Is it a good idea to go there?”

“Maybe. It’s better than nothing.” You shrugged, taking a last peak at the hall. Apparently, there was no one else there and it was the best thing to try: the kick could risk an inconvenient bite. “I’ll go there as soon as there’s a chance of not being seen, then I’ll run to the passage and go to the main waiting room. I’ll need you to be quiet.”

“Got it. When you can talk again, I’m here.”

You nodded, forgetting that Leon couldn’t see you. Keeping low, you went down the stairs without making any noises, sneaking behind the two zombies distracted with human flesh. You almost ran towards the reception desk, holding your breath as you walked behind them. From afar, the distance of almost a meter between you seemed big. But, to you, it was as if they could bite you with a stretch of their necks.

You hid under the desk, keeping yourself as safe as you could. Taking a few deep breaths, you were careful enough not to make unnecessary noises. You were afraid they would hear you, but breathing uncontrollably could make it worse – therefore, you needed to calm yourself down, both your breath and your heart rate that was harder than a samba school crossing the Sapucaí.

Your hands felt like ice cubes, trying their best not to tremble with the expectation building up in your stomach. That didn’t help with the breathing, but you would do the best you could at the moment. You closed your eyes for long seconds, took another deep breath and, upon opening them, you dared to peek over the wooden desk.

You just needed a few more seconds. You’d have a quick opportunity to run as you could to the passage when one of the zombies in the hall turned around. It was slow, as you prepared your legs to run. You hoped you could still run with light feet without making too much noise – that would be crucial at the moment.

And you also hoped you could hide behind one of the waiting room sofas without being seen. You had no idea what you’d find in there and you might have to improvise.

But you couldn’t think for too long: as you finished tracing your plan, the zombie turned around and there was the window of opportunity you were waiting for. You didn’t think, didn’t prepare and didn’t even pay attention to the noise: you just ran.

As silently as you could, you arrived at the waiting room, trying to keep to the corner so you wouldn’t draw too much attention. What you didn’t expect, though, was to find at least eight of those creatures, roaming around and eating victims who didn’t manage to get away. When around three of them turned their gaze at you, you knew your stealth tactics was over.

“Ok, Leon. The plan now is to run as if there is no tomorrow!” You finally got back to the radio and Leon started to hear the creatures screaming behind you, as well as your frantic steps running against the hard floor. “The silverlining is that I’ll get to the studio in a couple of seconds!”

“Ok, when you get there, lock the door and barricade it! Use whatever you can find; those things aren’t strong on their own, but together they can destroy a lot of stuff!”

“Ok! Will do!” You didn’t even think twice before turning at the corridor and keep on going to the studio. Behind you, a trail of creatures screamed and moaned, chasing you as ants running after a sugar cube. The door of the studio was half opened and that wasn’t a good sign. “What if there’s something in there?”

“Do you have any weapons?”

“Does a letter opener count?” As you answered, Leon considered quickly: it wasn’t the ideal but, honestly, it was better than nothing.

“Yeah, it does. Go for the eyes, the throat or the mouth if something attacks you. Not on the lateral of the neck, on the carotid.” He furrowed his brows, shaking his head right after. Yes, in survival situations people did whatever they had to in order to stay alive. But, even then, he didn’t think it was the kind of orientation you would easily follow.

“Ok.” But your answer was too secure, having too much faith on yourself, too focused for the situation. Something he definitely didn’t expect. “I’m almost there!”

And, indeed, you were close. You kicked the door like a hurricane, already slipping on your own feet to turn around and closing the door with all the strength on your body. As soon as you did that, you locked the door and got pushed back with the impact of the zombies on the other side.

Adrenaline and despair ran through your body and, when you came to pay attention to the sounds inside the room, you realized you were not alone. Still trying to get your balance back, you turned around almost tripping, finding a zombie with its arms extended towards you, ready to grab you; the mouth, dripping blood, was gaping open and half of its head was missing.

“Shit! Lemme go!” It was your first reaction, as you grabbed the letter opener properly. It was a lot stronger than you expected at first, making you grab its hair to keep its face away from you, trying to bite you like a rabid animal.

“Anywhere in the face, y/n!” Leon didn’t know what was going on, but he could listen to you being attacked. The only thing he could do was to scream all the combat instructions he knew; after all, he was sitting on a desk, a lot safer than you.

Hearing the screams on the other side of the line, Leon suddenly felt sick. He was an agent sent to save people, not to sit there, safe and sound, while everyone died. In Raccoon City he was an inexperienced rookie who had no idea what to do, and he had been a lot more useful than he was being at the moment. Was that the job of a Special Agent? To give orders and wait?

Leon should have had gone to the broadcast station to get you and do all of that by your side. If he was in Raccoon, two years prior, that’s exactly what he would’ve done.

You dropped the zombie on the floor, pulling its head back and stabbing it on the first eye you could find – the one that looked more steady. That was enough to make it crumble on the floor, definitely dead. Once again, your head spun like a carousel, with no intention to stop. You tried to go back to breathing normally, or you thought you would faint.

“Y/n? How are things at your end?! Talk to me!”

“It’s alright...” Your voice was a little drunk, while you kept yourself stable by holding on a chair. “Too much adrenaline at once…”

“Are you safe? Is there anything else in there?” As Leon asked, you immediately took a look around the room, without noticing any more menaces. The only elements that weren’t normal, were blood and a dead person in one of the chairs; the mouth open and a horrified expression forever frozen on their face.

“No. There’s nothing else in here.”

“So sit down somewhere. Keep your head low and keep like that for a moment.” As Leon oriented, you didn’t even argue: you sat at the nearest chair, not even checking if it was bloodied or not, and kept your head low enough until you couldn’t see anything but the ground and your own legs. “Try to breath slowly, or else you’ll get in shock and might pass out. Slower, y/n… That’s it…” He tried to keep his own voice calmer so you would follow it. He could do more for you if he was there. “How are you feeling?”

“Well… The world is still spinnin’… But a little slower.” You sighed back, running your hands through your face and your hair. “And I lost my only weapon. That makes me sad.”

Leon would say you could take the letter opener from the zombie you had just killed but, depending on how you killed it, the eye could come alongside it. Not even he was excited to do that in Raccoon City, so he wouldn’t dare to suggest you something like that.

And you thought of that possibility, but you didn’t even want to touch the subject. If Leon didn’t mention it, you wouldn’t mention it.

“I killed the Director.” You blurted out suddenly, making him furrow his brows. “He attacked me. He wanted to kill me and use me as bait to run from the zombies. I fought back and when I realized it, I had already hit him on the side of his neck with the letter opener. The same way you told me not to do.”

Leon remained silent, even more stoic than before. It was one thing to kill the undead who couldn’t even be considered people anymore. Another thing was to kill a human being – specially on a situation like the one you described. He understood the difference and how you should be feeling about it – even though, apparently, the man was universally hated in that town.

And it was probably suffocating you for you to blurt it out of nowhere to Leon.

“It was self-defense, then.” That was his final assessment, noticing you seemed calmer, breathing a little slower. “And when it’s self-defense, we can’t plan it, it just happens. You did good.”

“Hmmm…” You murmured back, running your hands trough your hair a couple of times. It made you calmer and brought you back to reality, making the world stop spinning and ground yourself again. “It isn’t exactly the sort of thing everyone will understand, right?”

“Yeah.” Leon nodded immediately, even if he had a souless smile on his lips. “But some will; and that’s something already.”

He heard a faint laugh from your side of the call, as you took another deep breath. Leon waited patiently as you got back to your feet again and folded the sleeves of your shirt to your elbows, already observing all the equipment in front of you.

“Very well, Leon Kennedy. I’m at your broadcast room.” You rested your hands on your waist, taking at look around. It was going to be one hell of a lot of work to understand how all of that worked. “Is Grace ready?”

“I think she is. Can I call the team so we can start?”

“Hell yeah. The sooner we finish things here, the earlier I can go to the NSPD and end this nightmare.”

Leon smiled. He completely agreed with you.

**

_Zombie!Childe hits different,, plz maybe I've watched too much The Walking Dead but😫 this is just amazing._

──────── · · · · · ────────

You look back from time to time. Even though you have him tied up and he still has some consciousness, he can't be trusted, he is a zombie after all.

He followed you at a constant pace, a little slow but without pause. "You're hungry, right?" you ask with a smile, knowing the answer beforehand. The redhead grunts.

Suddenly he sniffs something and slowly points forward. "Meat. There."

"That we see a corpse does not mean that I let you feed. You are under my orders, do you remember the deal?" you reprimand as you walk towards the direction indicated by the boy.

"You're meaaan~..." he whispers as he lowers his hand heavily.

You shrug your shoulders and keep moving forward. "You must thank me that I did not tie your hands this time."

You two arrived next to a road, a place that you do not like at all because it is very clear and you can be seen easily.

Next to the road, there is a bundle.

Childe sees it and begins to move faster towards him, waving his hands in front of him pretending to grasp something that was nothing but air, and biting into the air.

Luckily, you pull hard on the leash so that he doesn't move from his place.

"Stop." you tell him, but he continues his desperate movements to reach that thing lying on the ground. "STOP!" with a strong tug on the leash you make him take a few steps back.

You feel his look of hatred on you.

"Wait, let's get closer." more calmly you approach and stop in front of it. It is a person, and he seems quite hurt.

You feel your leash jerk back and forth, caused by Childe moving left to right behind you, trying not to make eye contact with what could be a great food source for him.

Some grunts escape his throat impatiently.

"Eh, who are you?" The stranger tried to back away. "Wait ... are you on the side of the zombies? What are you, a monster?" His words turn into screams of terror when he sees Childe lean over your shoulder.

"They've bitten you. I bet you don't have much left to become one of them." You point out seeing a large bite that he has on his arm.

Seeing that he has no salvation, you tilt your head to look at Childe. "You don't want it to rot, do you?" you say as you remove the muzzle.

With another nod, you allow Childe to do what he has been wanting most until now.

"No! Get the fuck off!" the bitten man squirmed, and with irrational fear drew a pistol from a back pocket of his trousers. He quickly took aim at you and pulled the trigger.

You barely had time to react, you just closed your eyes and put your hands in front of your face as if that would help.

And bang!

Childe's body shakes a little. You open your eyes slowly, why don't you feel pain?

You take your hands away from you, seeing Childe from behind with his head to the side, glancing at you with a clenched jaw. "...okay..., are you... okay?" he mutters, looking you up and down. You nod still stunned. In response the redhead growls and returns to focus on his victim.

"Give me the gun." you order the zombie. Without thinking, he approaches the injured man, taking it from the man's hand while he screams and cries with terror.

As you requested, he hands you the gun. "Good boy."

You pointed the gun at the man. "I'm sorry, but it would be a waste to leave you here before you turn into a zombie." You pulled the trigger, killing the man with a shot to the head. "Quick, before it turns." you urge Childe.

You turn your back. As much as you had a zombie as a "pet", you couldn't bear to watch him feed on human flesh.

All you heard was how he ripped the meat and gasps and snorts from the boy desperate to devour the entire corpse.

When he finishes, he positions himself in front of you, watching you closely. His mouth was full of fresh blood, which you would have to get used to sooner or later. You looked down to see a hole in his clothes, level with his heart.

That's where he should have stopped the shot of the infected man.

"Thanks." you just thank while you put the muzzle back on him. You are still speechless.

"Ahh...?" the boy looked at you with his head bowed, like a puppy when he doesn't understand something. You point to the shot he has in the chest, without actually touching it.

Pressing his back to the wall, Childe pants, blood rushing in his ears as he tries his best to listen out for the tell-tale sound of shoes pattering against the pavement. A few yards away, the sound of labored breathing grows louder, and two boys, each about the same height, skid to a halt underneath the Stone Gate's towering sheet of rock, nearly tripping on the uneven boards of the walkway. 

"Where'd he go?" One of them asks, his face very red and eyes clouded with wavering focus.

The other clenches his hand around his sword, brushing his navy bangs out of his face. "I'm not sure. The sun has not yet set. If we keep searching, I am sure we shall locate him before nightfall."

Childe swallows, his eyes wandering to the long poles of bamboo that appear to be his ticket out of here. The first boy, the one with pale blue eyes and thaumaturgist's gear, frowns, wiping his brow. 

"I don't know how much longer I can stay in control, Xingqiu."

While maintaining a look of stony focus on his face, Xingqiu leans closer, brushing the other boy's fluffy hair back with his hand to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. The light-haired boy closes his eyes, swaying slightly. 

Xingqui pulls back, cupping the other's cheek with his palm. "You're doing so well, dearest Chongyun. Just hold on a little longer."

Instead of waiting around to see this exchange and be swayed by their affectionate ways of reassurance, Childe is shimmying up a bamboo trunk, taking an arrow, and sticking it into the wood to get a leg up onto the stone ledge above the walkway. Breathing heavily, he rests for a moment, leaning his hands above his knees as he bends over. Then, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, Childe starts into a sprint again, frowning against the biting wind that beckons from Mondstadt.

How he ended up running from what seems to be the entire population of Liyue is a rather long story that you've probably heard by now. You know, the whole "summoning a destructive tentacle god, nearly drowning the entire city of Liyue Harbor, having a rich lady drop her house on him" thing. He'll spare you the gritty details that you've seen before and cut straight to where the most relevant bit started: this morning, Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. 

As an apology for trying to steal his Gnosis and wipe Liyue off of the map, Childe had taken to delivering gifts to Mr. Zhongli, the consultant at Wangsheng. Usually, he would send them by mail, seeing as giving Zhongli those gifts face to face was too much for the other man to bear, especially after Childe realized he had played him like a cheap flute. How a man so polite and honorable could be so cruel was beyond him, but Childe had finally plucked up the courage to see him once again. 

He had entered the funeral parlor with a box of imported wines and teas that he had learned Zhongli was fond of, only to find two young women whispering between themselves at the front desk. One of them had light pink hair that fell loosely around her waist and a set of antlers peeking out from underneath a red hat, a heavy ledger attached at her hip. The other was a girl with dark brown hair tied into twin-tails dyed red at the tips. She was dressed entirely in black with a recurring butterfly motif, and her fingers chimed each time her rings brushed up against one and other. 

Setting the box on the counter, he gave them each a quick smile. "You wouldn't have happened to see the consultant, would you?"

The young women stopped muttering, turning around to face him with faces of dawning satisfaction. The pink one smiled sweetly, clasping her hands in front of her chest. 

"Oh, but of course! Right this way, please." She beamed, leading him into a room Childe hadn't seen before. 

As soon as they stepped over the threshold, something felt off to Childe. The pink-haired girl had her back turned to him, fiddling with something on the shelf as she hummed a cheery tune. The smell of old parchment and something terribly musty clouded the air, and before Childe could react, something pressed hard against his windpipe, yanking him backward. Instantly, the pink-haired girl turned around, nodding to something behind Childe's shoulder. With a grunt, he clawed at the rope looped around his neck, digging his fingers between it and his skin as he flipped his assailant over his back. 

The dark-haired girl from earlier went flying, knocking a shelf out of place as she tumbled into the arms of her accomplice. "Yikes! He's feisty!"

As Childe went to summon his water blades, the pink-haired girl set the other on her feet once more, pulling a catalyst out of the air and drawing out the shape of a diamond with her forefingers. A sudden heat flared up by his stomach, and he looked down, taking in the seal on his Vision with a confused stare. The space in his hands remained decidedly empty. 

"According to the recently amended codices, chapter forty-one, segment three dictates that if a criminal goes unpunished and escaped justice, the allogenes within a ten-mile radius of the scene of the crime are permitted to subdue said criminal by any means possible." She said, holding her hands out in the air in front of her. "Revision date of the law is as follows: last night, June, a month after the passing of Rex Lapis."

The dark-haired girl thrust her spear out, slicing through the flesh of Childe's upper arm. "I wanted to give you an advance on our new deal, but Yanfei said that would be first-degree murder."

"We compromised," Yanfei added. "Hu Tao can be very persuasive."

Hu Tao grinned, batting her eyelashes at the other girl. "My, my... Stop it,  you! You're so cute when you flatter me."

Blinking, Childe pressed his palm to the cut on his arm, trying to stop the bleeding. "What's going on?"

"Manslaughter of the second degree!" Yanfei chirped helpfully, and then set his scarf on fire. 

“I thought you said you compromised!” He screeched, batting at the rather fiery half of his scarf.

Smoke clouded the room like thick, cloying cobwebs, and just as Childe had extinguished the blaze that set the entire room full of very flammable objects on fire, he saw Hu Tao and Yanfei slip through a doorway cleverly hidden by a cabinet. Ducking out after them, he left the door open behind him, letting the plumes of smoke cloak his departure. Without a moment’s hesitation, Childe sprinted to the back exit, ripping off the pointedly un-burned part of his scarf to wrap around his arm. 

As he pressed his back against the outside wall of the funeral parlor, Childe ran a hand through his hair, streaking ash over the bridge of his nose. What in the ever-loving fuck just happened, he asked himself, and who the fuck were they?

Before he could have received an answer, Childe lifted his head from his hands just in time to avoid a sword plunging into the ground at his face. Frost crept from the blade, stretching across the cracks in the cobblestone. He looked up, already tired, to see a young girl perching on the roof, peering down at him from above. 

"Qiqi missed..." She muttered, raising a finger to her mouth as if she were trying to remember something. "What were Qiqi's orders again?"

Before he could think, Childe blurted out the first thing to come into his mind. "Do you know a Hu Tao?"

The child's face darkened. "Hu Tao... Qiqi knows."

"She tried to kill me. I think you should run away before she does the same to you."

If realization could have dawned on this expressionless child's face, it would have been blooming like spring flowers. Hopping down onto the pavement beside him, Qiqi nodded solemnly. 

"Qiqi greets you, strange-looking zombie. Many a time has Hu Tao tried to bury our kind. Qiqi will protect you, seeing as we stand against her in solidarity." Qiqi promised very earnestly, and Childe felt a twinge of guilt in his chest for lying to a kid. It quickly vanished as the sound of rushed footsteps echoed behind the doorway a few yards away. 

With a salute, he nodded at Qiqi with a grim look on his face. "Thank you, Qiqi. I am sure you will live on as a hero."

"Qiqi already died, but thank you for the sentiment."

GOD you reek! It made sense why you couldn’t clean off last time. Somehow you haven’t turned into a human zit despite the crusted blood from the last zombies you downed. You certainly don’t smell like you’re ready to entertain company, not that Kenma cares.

You’d fallen out of the habit of patrolling, realizing how fruitless it was when as a single person you could just hide, not needing constant supply runs like your previous group. But if you were going to take Kenma out you needed to make sure no undead would get in the way. Could another zombie make him more aggressive, like those ones in the hoards? Maybe they instinctively group up for strength. How does a virus give a corpse instincts anyway? You shake your head to get those unanswerable questions out of your head for the second time today.

    The towns dead silent, absolutely nothing creeping out on your usual path. The new found knowledge that they can indeed smell has planted a new worry that you’ll somehow draw them out just by existing. Your footsteps are quiet from ages of practice and the chatter of birds easily drowns you out. Your only company is the usual animals and the corpses you’ve already dispatched, decaying at an increased rate now that they’re finally gone for good. You... really need new pants. Kenma needs new clothes too with how torn up and gore covered his own are. You shiver. It’s hard to avoid thinking of how painful whatever happened to him must’ve been, whether in life or death.

    So new clothes. The houses along the street are fairly intact, only general wear from the elements affecting them. None of them look boarded up but that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t be inside. You can handle a couple undead, a living person would be a whole ‘nother ordeal. But it’s not exactly hard to pants a zombie. A squishy squishy ooze of a previous person covered in a buzzing layer of insects. You’ve got this. Risking an encounter alive or dead by breaking into  a house isn’t worth it. So just, pants. the zombie.

Considering you crushed the head, its bottoms are fairly clean. Please don't be commando, pleaaaase don’t be commando please- you squeeze your eyes shut, grab the ends of the pants legs and pull, removing it in one surprisingly smooth go. YES, it's wearing underwear! Nothing to see besides, oh god it shit itself, god thats, ew ew ew ew ew WHY DID YOU THINK THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA! Into the plastic bag it goes. Hightailing it to the river is sounding more appealing by the second

Stepping carefully around the edge to find a shallow slow moving area is easy enough, though the rocks crunching underfoot make you cringe. Kneeling at the side, you rinse your hands off before you even dare touch your bag to grab the soap. Geez it's a relief to start to feel clean. Have you been neglecting that? First the space you sleep, now your body, avoiding going out out of fear of the few undead you ever see. File that away for later, focus on the now. Around the nail beds, under the nails, stripping off a shirt, get the pits, dunk your hair in, carefully scrubbing where the crusted blood’s basically sealed to your skin. Pants, underwear, socks, walk in fully and try to focus. Can’t get lost in your thoughts with an overwhelming full body chill forcing you to stay in the here and now, fully aware of your body and where you are. A slower moving part of a river, in a nice forested area, in the middle of the day. Surrounded by birds' songs and squirrels running around you. Bugs skip along the water's surface and twigs and leaves rush past you in the faster paced sections.

After a few minutes spent standing there, steadily getting colder, you move on to washing everything you wore there as well as what you took from the zombie. The pants look like they’ll fit Kenma? The waist is a drawstring one at least. It's calm repetitive work. There’s satisfaction in allowing yourself to be outside, clean and present.

________________________________

    Your clothes are still wet as you make your way back but they’ll probably dry before you get home... probably. It’s been too long since you’ve seen Kenma and you’re getting antsy, both from nerves and curiosity if he’ll even be willing to change into new pants. At least you’d have a spare now.

    Creaking the door open, you’re about to announce your presence but pause at the sound of rapid shuffling and creaking metal. It’s so dark compared to outside that even with squinting it's hard to fully make out what's going on inside but his limbs are scrabbling, flailing in their attempts to pull him across the floor. The rope around his neck and chest is more taught than you ever hoped to see it. The pipe he’s tied to creaks under a surprising amount of strain. Throwing caution to the wind you rush in, able to more clearly make out the growling and huffing he makes in his efforts to, scratch that, success in catching a rat that was scurrying past him. His hand latches into the poor thing, nails biting into the flesh. Before you can even react it’s between his teeth, tearing in as it squeals, flails, attempts to scratch back as its last twitches of life leave. He’s ravenous, the one pupil blown out as gore coats his face from his small feast. And then, once every ounce of gamey meat is gone, he stills, not reacting to the blood dripping off his face and fingers or to you.

    Slow breathing. Slow steady breathing. You need to stay calm. Need to either run out of here or close the door before the smell of blood attracts something else. Slow breathing, steady breathing so he won’t hear. Stay. Absolutely. Calm. One step back. Two steps back. Three-

Kenma’s returned to staring at the floor, fingers tracing patterns in the places he’d scratched before.

Four? Your heart is pounding but this behavior, it's predictable, a little different, much different with the scent of blood in the air but its, he attacked a rat. He didn’t attack you but he could but he didn’t but he hasn't, not even while you’re asleep he hasn’t. He hasn’t tried to hurt you once just BREATH.

You don’t notice him staring at you as you slide to the floor and shudder and cry.

______________________________________

The sun has started setting by the time your panic attack reaches its end, the floor wet under your ass from your clothing. Shivering from the aftershocks of adrenaline as well as the cold you stumble up to slide the door closed. The air is crisp and almost fresh inside now. Too tired to berate yourself, you cross the room to your blanket pile across from Kenma, grab two, and pull it without the motivation to pick it up, instead letting it drag behind you.

    “Kenma” you croak “I’m about to do something really stupid, so don’t, don’t break my trust okay. You don’t want to hurt me?” He nods, no hesitation. “Then hold still.”

    The blankets are dropped a few feet away from him and you kneel at his side for the first time since tending to his wrist. Palms open, approaching slowly, your arms enter his reach to undo the first knot. The rope slides away from him easily and you shimmy if off just enough to dump it on the floor beside him.

    “I don’t know if you get cold I don’t, I don’t care just, here.” You present a blanket to him and want to cry all over again when he doesn’t react. Why would he. What part of him even remembers what it's for. Idiot. He twitches as you start to wrap it around him but otherwise obeys your request. Still. He’s staying still.

    His head tilts as you wrap yourself in a blanket too, plopping ungracefully to the floor next to his good side. Energy finally running out with no dinner to speak of, you lean on his shoulder and enter a restless sleep.

______________________

    It’s always hard to get motivated to get up. Nothing to look forward to. No change, just the dull monotony of survival, fear, and paranoia. Why get up. Why wake up at all? There’s a crick in your neck and you grumble at the pain as you shimmy a little closer to whatever your head is resting on, readjusting to be more comfortable. In your barely conscious state you can’t catch the way Kenma’s eyes move from the door to you, before continuing his stare down with the one entrance inside.

You fall back asleep easily, morning can wait until later.

_______________

A/N: Fun fact- This chapter has one of my fave chapter titles in this fic lol 

********************************

The world spins violently, making Keith’s stomach pitch fiercely as his eyes shoot open. The only light is from a weak lamp clipped to a high window sill, leaving most of the room still shadowed. Sitting up slowly and swallowing down the sudden urge to upend the few contents in his stomach, he notes the bare walls and dingy tile of the floor, and the torn, ratty sleeping bag serving as a makeshift bed beneath him.

Shifting to get a better look at his surroundings, Keith feels the tight bite of rope at the flesh of his wrists, the sudden burn of it pulling his consciousness back to his present and the circumstance that had landed him here.

“Shiro,” Keith gasps, turning fully in search of the darkened corners. Eyes scanning across the room, his gaze stops on the thin frame of the man from the street. Sitting atop a plain, metallic chair, he keeps his eyes settled on Keith as his mouth twists into a smug grin.

A groan, loud and biting pushes from deep within Keith’s throat as he finally recognizes the man.

Lance McClain. Keith had never truly paid the younger cadet much mind when he was in the Garrison, but that had never seemed to change the competition between them that Lance had crafted in his own head.

While Keith had had his eyes set ahead to where Shiro had been, Lance had had his eyes set on him.

Leaning forward in his chair, Lance pushes his forearms into his thighs as he rolls the rifle between his palms, gaze not once leaving Keith.

The light from the windowsill traces Lance’s face with bright lines. His thin face looks thinner, his boyish looks lost to the test of time and the apocalypse, leaving his cheekbones sharp and his blue eyes marred by dark bags.

Even still, he looks smug enough for Keith to want to punch him in the face.

For old time’s sake.

“Hey, buddy,” Lance says, vestiges of his smarmy tone still clinging stubbornly to his voice as he speaks. Its cadence makes the dull, aching throb at the back of his head pulsate.

“Where’s Shiro?” Keith all but snarls, hands folding into fists as he flexes against the tight binding of the rope. It doesn’t budge, instead biting further into his skin in a way that he’s sure will leave the skin at his wrists torn and raw.

Not that that truly matters, Keith thinks as he shifts slightly, feeling the way his legs move freely.

It was their second mistake.

Their first having been knocking him out.

“No hello? No, wow Lance, I missed you, glad to see you didn’t become zombie chow?” Lance muses, leaning back and slapping a hand over his heart with a loud gasp of faux hurt. “That cuts me deep.”

Ignoring his quips, Keith repositions his legs carefully, moving as if he was just trying to get a bit more comfortable. The change leaves him bracing his weight on one foot with his thigh flush against his chest, with the other leg folded beneath him.

“At least if you were zombie food, you wouldn’t be giving me such a headache,” he bites out, glaring at his old acquaintance as his muscles tense.

“That would be courtesy of Hunk, not me,” Lance shrugs, leaning forward once more as he replaces his hand on his rifle. There’s a sparkle buried deep in his eyes as his hands tighten on the muzzle. It’s a challenge, silent and standing between them, filling the distance with a bright burning tension.

One breath became two, and starts to become a third when Keith launches himself forward, hands held awkwardly in front of him where they’re tied.

A look of shock dances across Lance’s features as Keith swats the rifle out from his grip before twisting to kick at his side, forcing him and his chair sideways. The grating clatter of metal against tile screams through the air as Keith falls on top of him, pushing the flush of his forearm into his throat as he leans in close.

“I won’t ask again. Where’s Shiro?” Keith growls, sneer nothing but teeth.

“Chill, man,” Lance chokes out as he struggles beneath him. He gets a hand fisted in the material of Keith’s shirt and another on his side when there’s a loud knock on the door, effectively freezing them both as the pair turn their gazes toward the offending sound.

“Hey, you good in there?” Another familiar voice calls through the wood, “Allura wanted to see us like, 10 minutes ago.”

Hunk, Keith’s brain supplies, as he remembers the timid engineering student who had seemed attached to Lance’s hip. The moment of pause gives Lance just enough to steady his hold and push Keith off of him. As he falls to the side, Lance quickly rolls in the opposite direction before coming back to a crouch, all the while coughing and rubbing at his throat.

“Yeah, buddy, all good here. Just go ahead without us, we’ll be there in a minute,” he calls out to his companion on the other side of the door as he glares at Keith.

Both men hold stock still as they wait, both relaxing slightly at the small sound of affirmation that makes its way into the room.

“If you’d just given me a minute, you’d know that I was going to take you to see him. Allura wants to see you both,” Lance hisses after hearing the sound of Hunk’s footsteps draw away from the door.

“Who the hell is Allura?” Keith spits, tone untrusting as he pushes himself up onto his feet. Taking several steps away from the brunette, he braces himself with the wall at his back, watchful gaze stuck on Lance.

“The person who is going to get us all out of this apocalyptic bullshit alive,” he remarks with a shrug, as if the sheer impossibility of the statement was simple fact. Giving Keith another hard look, he leans down to pick up his discarded rifle, brushing it off and cooing quietly to it before he uses it to gesture toward the door.

“We’re going to leave, but if you make a run for it, I can’t guarantee you won’t be shot down before you get to the exit.”

It lacks threat, said as nothing but yet another fact. Pausing to allow Keith the chance to say something, Lance shrugs at his silent obstinance.

“Not sure you’ll be much use to Shiro dead.”

It pushes a low grumble of acquiescence between his teeth as he watches Lance move toward the door. Pushing away from the wall, he stretches quickly to loosen his achey joints. Standing behind Lance, he watches over his shoulder as he opens the door.

Scraping along the flooring, the wood opens up into an empty hallway. It’s just barely cleaner than the room, though there’s grime that still clings to the corners where the floor meets the wall and a staleness that hangs in the air. Construction lights line the hallway every few feet, leaving stretches of darkness between the circles of illumination that they cast, leaving the space filled with a sort of eeriness that Keith couldn’t quite place.

There was no telling just how long the building had been abandoned, even before the end of the world.

“This way,” Lance says, motioning for Keith to follow as he turns to the left, not bothering to look back to make sure he follows. Not that he supposes he has much of a choice.

It’s a thought that sends a wave of annoyance pulsing through him in time with the aching throb at the back of his head.

Passing through the hall in tense silence, Keith lets his gaze wander over his surroundings, taking in the boarded windows and stretch of doorways covered with mismatched coverings and torn pieces of fabric.

As they move along, he hears the quiet mutterings of people inside.

It takes several minutes before Lance finally stops at the end of the hallway where two heavy metallic doors stand. Settling his hands over the rusting handles, Keith watches as he takes a breath. The depth of it raises his shoulders before they slow come back down around his exhale.

“I know we never quite got along, but give Allura a chance,” Lance says lowly, throwing a quick look back to him before pushing the doors wide.

Over his shoulder, Keith can see the long stretch of a room with several metal tables. Stepping through the threshold, he makes quick work of counting the tables, and taking in their stock.

Three along the back wall are littered with guns and ammunition. Two, one at the very center and one pushed to the front, support out of date monitors and even older computer towers. The final table that stands alone at the side of the room boasts a coffee machine and a random assortment of snacks.

Atop the table set at the center of the room, the monitors stand like a curved barrier around its occupant. It obscures all but the person’s mess of tawny hair above the top of the smallest monitor.

Beside the hidden stranger, a woman stands tall and lean, with darkly tanned skin, white hair twisted atop her head, and striking eyes.

She looks strong, her obvious authority rolling off of her, even as she offers the person to her side a small, secretive smile.

Even without introduction, Keith knows exactly who she must be.

Allura.

Her gaze finds him then, cutting into his chest, almost as if she could hear his very thoughts.

“Good, you’re finally here,” she says, voice strict and accented as she gestures for Lance to close the door. With a quick nod and a small sound in his throat, he shuts the doors, revealing two figures on the other side.

A rush of relief rolls through Keith as he sees that one of the figures is Shiro.

His silvered gaze finds him easily as Shiro offers him a small, reassuring smile. Offering a small nod in return, Keith traces his form quickly, noting how he stands tall, hands free and untied where they hang at his sides.

With another quick dip of his chin, Keith moves his attention toward the man beside him.

Hunk looks the same as he had at the Garrison, only harder, as if he was the visage of the boy he had once known but carved of hardened stone. It doesn’t diminish the slight smile that seems to still tug at the corner of his lips, however.

Silence rolls out through the room as Allura steps around the desk, stopping at the end closest to them. Settling her hip against the corner, she crosses her arms and makes a show of analyzing them both slowly.

Quick clicks punch through the deafening quiet as the person behind the monitors continues to type away.

“I’ve heard so much about you both,” Allura finally says, drawing her attention back up to capture Keith’s stare.

“Keith Kogane, rising star of the Galaxy Garrison. Relieved of your position after an assault on a superior officer. Specializations in hand-to-hand combat and flight,” she states, tone bored, as if she reading was his successes and failures off of a memorized checklist.

Aside from the woman herself, he’s certain no one there needed a reminder about his history, half of them having been there for a front seat view of it all. He feels his lips twitch into a sneer as she turns her attention away from him and toward Shiro.

“And Takashi Shirogane, the Garrison’s brightest. Youngest pilot to land the lead pilot position for a major space exploration. Originally pronounced dead after the failure of the mission.”

The way the words fall from her tongue sounds accusatory, even as she continues to stand there at perfect ease with her arms folded across her front and her eyes bright.

“Seems you know enough about us,” Shiro bites out, the snap of his voice turns his word brittle as he tenses under Allura’s scrutiny. “Anything we should know about you?”

There’s a hollow pause as the edges of Allura’s mouth turn upward into a smile. Sharp and bright, its equal parts welcoming as it is dangerous.

“I’m Allura,” she offers before opening her arms wide to gesture all around them, “and this is New Altea.”

Taking a brief moment to look between them both, she continues.

“It isn’t much, but I assure you, it is only a temporary solution.”

“New Altea?” Keith asks, pushing the foreign name through the wall of his indignation as he flexes against the rope. It earns him her attention once more as her gaze cuts back to him, the startling blue of her eyes catching the light like a blade.

“Our colony. When the city was destroyed, I tried to gather as many survivors as I could. Those here now may be the last of us,” Allura says low and matter-of-fact in the very same way as a doctor giving a terminal prognosis. The statement might have cut deeper if he wasn’t already armored by his own pragmatism.

Keith had given up on the rest of humanity the very same night Shiro had fallen from the sky.

“Why were you looking for us?” Shiro asks, cutting through the silent thread of electricity that had built between Keith and Allura. Both turning toward him, Keith doesn’t miss the way her moth turns into a wider smile.

“You knew,” is all she says, admiration apparent in the lightness of her tone. Shiro misses Keith’s questioning look as he keeps his stare resolute and forward on the woman before them.

“Your men weren’t always subtle,” Shiro shrugs, earning a small tinkling laugh.

“No,” Allura replies, voice filled with mirth as her gaze flicks quickly to the man at Keith’s shoulder. “That does seem to be a bit of a problem for them.”

“We’re still here, ‘llura,” Lance mumbles under his breath, shifting on his feet.

“So what do you want from us?” Shiro pushes, the question lighting Keith’s nerves as he watches the exchange between the two. Two behemoth forces coming together in battle, he isn’t sure any of them will make it out alive before Allura finally looks away. Moving away from the desk, Allura slowly walks toward the computer set at the very front of the room.

“I worked for the government, you know,” she starts, not looking back at them as she taps on the space bar, the monitor attached to it flickering to life. “I was never a part of the Garrison, but it was my duty to monitor them. A handler, of sorts. There was nothing they did that I did not know of.”

Fingers flying across the keyboard, file after file pulls up onto the screen.

“At least, that’s how it was supposed to be.”

From where he stands, Keith watches the brief flash of images across the screen. Some are too blurry to make out, some obvious shots of the open desert, others what looked to be microscopic shots of cellular structures.

One, in particular seems to freeze on the screen longer than others, leaving Keith staring into the depths of the very same photo of Shiro that the media had pasted alongside the announcement of the mission’s failure.

“I had begun noticing some strange notations in their ledgers. Ones that made sense when just fed through the system, but a little less so when combed through by human eyes.”

The image is quickly covered by another, and then another, and then another, each coming quicker than the last as Keith schools his breathing, eyes never leaving the screen.

“After some digging, I noticed that no matter how I followed those breadcrumbs, I always came back to you,” at this, she turns over her shoulder to fix her gaze on Shiro once more.

A hush of a sound, low and confused is his only reply as Keith recognizes the scene frozen on the monitor. A science lab, white and sterile, stands as a moment in time, its occupants stuck in varying degrees of movement around a table where a body lay.

Allura’s eyes never leave Shiro as she presses the space bar once more, bringing the scene to life.

Keith watches as the scientists start to shuffle around Shiro’s unmoving body, their hazmat suited forms marking sheets of paper and tapping at tablets. Holding his breath, he lets his lungs burn as he watches one of the forms stop mid step, muscles seemingly locking. It’s a harrowing moment, made more so with the silence of the video, as the scientist’s body twists sharply and unnaturally before crumpling to the ground.

Several seconds pass before any of the other figures seem to notice, the first making quick movement to get across the room, only to freeze and crumple in the exact same manner.

One by one, he watches them fall until none are left standing, their bodies littering the ground.

After several more seconds, another figure enters at the bottom of the frame, coming to a halt just beneath the camera and freezing as Allura taps the space bar once more.

A shudder tickles down the knobs of his spine as he looks at the fuzzy version of himself standing stuck in that moment of time when he had happened on the scene.

Electricity crackles and pops through the room as Allura straightens, rolling her shoulders back and adopting an air of authority once more as she turns back toward them. Her gaze is harder this time, chips of frozen cerulean.

“So, tell me Shiro,” she says, steely toned, “why didn’t you die in that tent?”

Burning unease rockets through Keith, his muscles coiling, ready for a fight.

“What are you trying to accuse him of?” He spits out, pushing himself quickly between Shiro and Allura to covet her stare. Holding it, he feels the quick burn of her apprehension on his skin as he pulls against the rope on his wrists, a deeper burning ache biting deeper in his skin with his futile motions.

A quick coughing sound breaks the moment, shattering it like glass as the person behind the monitors finally stands.

Nothing but wild, tawny hair, and large wired rimmed glasses, Keith feels his breath stall in his throat.

“Matt?” He hears himself whisper, trying to force his gaze away to look at Shiro. Almost as soon as the name drops from his mouth, his vision shifts and his mind catches onto the minute details that separate the person before them from his lost friend.

“Katie,” Shiro hushes, as she pushes her glasses further up her nose with a small smile.

“Hey Shiro,” she whispers, offering him a barely there smile before turning her gaze on Allura. Sharing a silent moment, Allura gives her a quick nod.

“You are both welcome to stay,” she says, almost begrudgingly to Keith before her attention moves behind him, landing on Shiro.

“But on the condition that you’ll let Pidge do some tests.”

The second passes like an eternity as the occupants of the room all seem to suck in a bated breath.

Finally, Shiro answers.

“Alright.”

“Penelope stop your blasted twittering about the cold! It’s not cold! Even if it was below freezing, you aren’t the only one with problems!” Olivia snapped. Some of us have real problems like trying to figure out how to get Liam out of this blasted engagement. Do I even want to marry him anymore? What am I thinking? I can’t let him marry her, that marriage would be bad for everyone! She once thought she loved Liam and wanted a future with him, but now she wasn’t so sure. They had agreed at the beginning of the social season, if he didn’t find a connection with any of the other suitors that she would be chosen. The letter she received had put a halt to their plans, but she wasn’t ready to give up, a Nevrakis doesn’t give up. Yet now she was questioning if she could go through with it now that she was having feelings for someone else. The feelings she felt for Bastien were more real than the ones she felt for Liam. She hated feeling so conflicted, torn between her heart and duty to her country. She was used to having to fight for what she wanted, needed but she never before had to fight with herself.

“Olivia, do you have to be so mean?” Kiara asked as she comforted a sniffling Penelope.

Olivia rolled her emerald eyes at the pair. Of course she’d defend her.  She watched the pair, hand on her shoulder, standing impossibly close. Why did they even bother with the social season?

Morgana and Merlin stopped, pulling their leashes taunt letting out a low whine. “Merlin, Morgana, come!” Penelope commanded tugging on the leashes in effort to get the dogs to move.

“What has gotten into those blasted dogs?!” Madeline demanded, stomping her foot impatiently at the delay. I knew we shouldn’t have let her bring them! Leave it to Liam to give into the sniveling girl.

“I don’t know.” Penelope replied bewildered. “They usually are so good.” She gave the leashes a firm tug. “Merlin, Morgana, come!” Don’t do this now. Madeline will never stop gloating over how she was right that you shouldn’t have come. 

Merlin pulled hard, his leash slipping free of Penelope’s grip, taking off down the street. “Merlin! Come back!” Penelope shouted as she ran after him.

“You can’t be serious!” Madeline said with a huff. “We are going to be late for the dress fitting. Priya Lacriox waits for no one!” 

“NO!” Penelope screamed as hands reached out grabbing her from behind. “HELP!” She pushed at the hands trying to break free as she continued to emit blood curdling screams. She recoiled when the hands felt frigid, even colder than they would be after hours in the cool Autumn air.

Olivia rolled her emerald eyes skyward at the chaos surrounding her. Her head snapped as she heard a loud blood curdling scream. Her eyes went wide as she watched as a sickly pale person sunk their teeth into Penelope’s neck. 

“OHMYGOD! Penelope!” Kiara shrieked moving to run forward.

Penelope’s hands clawed at the face trying to break free, her eyes wide in horror. Bits of flesh came ripping off the face making her let out an inaudible scream. She let out a gurgle as she slowly choked on her own blood, still struggling to break free. 

Olivia reached forward grabbing Kiara by the shoulder, other hand going for her concealed dagger. “If you go in there without protection you will just be hurt too.” More like killed.

A whirlwind of burgundy leather and long silver blade moved inhumanly fast, his long blade easily sliding into rotting flesh. The body went rigid, falling to the ground as the blade was pulled free.

Penelope looked up into the calm brown eyes of her savior, her hands clamping down on the wound in her neck. “Thank y—” her eyes went wide, words trailing off as the katana blade moved in a fluid upward arching motion piercing under her chin, shooting out the back of her head. Blood and brain matter splattered the wall and the stranger as he pulled the blade free, her body slumping on the ground, his eyes momentarily flashing red.

“OHMYGOD! You killed her! Why did you kill her?!” Kiara screamed, eyes wide in terror, body frozen in fear.

“Your friend was as good as dead. She was bit, she would have turned and you all would have been dead before you knew it. A thank you would be nice.” The stranger said wiping his blade clean on his pant leg. 

“Thank you for your help.” Olivia said stepping past a stunned Madeline, Hana, and Kiara. “I’m Olivia, that’s Madeline, Hana, and Kiara.” Her emerald eyes sparkled, she felt a strange attraction to this man clad in burgundy leather with a katana strapped to his back. His speed and agility and skill with a blade made her pulse quicken inexplicably. Will you quit it? You have enough to worry abou! You can’t go falling for tall dark mysterious strangers! “You’re really good with a blade.”

“Jax.” He replied taking her extended hand. “Thanks. It’s best way to take them out.” He winked sending an imperceptible shiver down her spine. 

“Don’t thank him! He killed Penelope!” Kiara screeched.

“Don’t mind her.” Olivia said rolling her eyes. He just saved us you ungrateful brat! “What was that thing anyway?”

“A zombie.” Jax answered. “Long story short, the dead seem to be coming back and they only stay dead if you destroy the brain.”

“Good to know.” Olivia answered smiling. Stop flirting you have to think about Ba— Liam! 

“We have a safe-house, a camp if you will. You are welcome to come, you’ll be safer there.” Jax said sheafing his katana. He never felt more drawn to anyone as he did the woman with the emerald green eyes and crimson hair. Still, he found himself stunned by his own words. Sure he’s taken Maia to one of his safe houses after saving her, but he didn’t invite her to stay long. He couldn’t explain why he felt the need to keep this one close, not that he wouldn’t have to watch her leave someday, a fate he was still learning to deal with.

“We’re not going anywhere with you! You just killed Penelope!” Kiara replied, tears falling freely. Her body was numb from the pain, shaking with fear. How do I know he won’t turn on me?

“Oh Kiara, I’m so sorry.” Hana said pulling a sobbing Kiara into her arms.

“As I’ve already explained, your friend was as good as dead and had I not handled her you would be next once she turned.” Jax countered, brown eyes daring Kiara to question him again. 

“We have friends.” Liam and … Olivia stated, not willing to leave them behind, unknowing of what was lurking in the streets. No you mustn’t think of him. Not if I’m going to save Liam from a life tied to that blonde she-devil.

“Friends like this one?” Jax questioned gesturing at Penelope’s dead body, clearly unconvinced.

“I will be the first to admit some of them can be blithering fools I would be more than happy to feed to those—things, but some of them can more than handle themselves and one...well one is the kind of friend you’d want on your side.” Olivia replied.

“Okay then. Lead the way.” Jax responded.

“Wait we can’t leave her!” Kiara exclaimed, body frozen refusing to leave.

“Kiara we are not dragging her all the way back to the hotel, if we tried we would be easy pickings if anymore of those, things showed up.” Olivia stated, her tone hard, daring Kiara to question her. Her emerald eyes flitted to Madeline, standing, rather cowering in fear. Some future queen she is!

“Zombies.” Jax stated receiving a raised brow in response. “Those things are zombies.” He turned to Kiara. “Now shut up and move fast.” 

“I’m not leaving her!” Kiara insisted standing her ground as her body shook with grief. Hana gently patted her back trying to offer any support to her upset friend.

“Come with me or stay that’s your choice, but the dead stay put.” Jax stated staring her down, his hand going into his leather jacket removing a flask, he took a long draw before dumping the remainder onto Penelope’s body. He pulled a lighter from his other pocket, flicking it open, the flames dancing in his warm brown eyes. He dropped the lighter, the alcohol instantly igniting, the flames engulfing the bodies. 

Kiara let out an ear piercing scream as she watched Penelope’s body go up into flames. Jax turned to her. “If you’re going to keep screaming please stay, noises seem to attract them.” Jax said turning to leave. 

Olivia was beyond amazed with the way he stood his ground unwilling to bend to a distraught Kiara. She found that many men were willing to bend, even break for a crying woman, she admired his strength. Will you quit it?! You have enough issues as is!

Kiara was stunned by his cold demeanor, sniffling as she followed behind, Hana whispering words of comfort at her side. She rolled her eyes as Olivia laughed at something he said. Of course they would get along, they are both cruel. She shuddered as her mind replayed Penelope’s panicked pleas on repeat. Kiara didn’t think she’d ever get the image of the fear in Penelope’s eyes or the way her own blood coated her hands out of her head. She shook the thoughts from her mind, she needed to move forward, no looking back.

They walked towards the hotel to gather the others and alert them of the changes. The air hung heavy around them, the world was shifting, things that once seemed important may not matter for much longer. Now it was time to fight for their survival and they would take any help they could get. Olivia would always accept a strong ally, she couldn’t figure it out but she knew that’s not all she saw Jax as. Her life was already complicated as it was and now there were zombies and a new attractive man who intrigued her in ways he shouldn’t. If you can breathe you can stand, if you can stand you can fight. Her father’s mantra repeated in her mind, a reminder that she could get through anything life threw at her. She didn’t break when she grew up on her own, she wouldn’t break now, no matter how complicated her life got. She could do this, she could make it, she was strong and only the strong survive.

Convincing the others to leave with Jax took some effort. Olivia became increasingly annoyed with the reluctance of some. “Then stay put and let the zombies get you.” She whispered under her breath. She was nearly certain that Jax had heard her despite her low volume, she shook the thought from her mind, we have more important things to worry about. The only reluctance she took to heart was Bastien’s. His questioning glances at Jax every time he looked at her sent twinges of guilt to her heart. She felt like a lovesick schoolgirl with too many crushes, she was more confused than she had been in weeks. She thought her heart and head battling each other over whether she should follow her heart or fulfill her duty to her country was hard, but now she was even more conflicted than ever. How can I be so drawn to a man I just met? Surely it’s temporary.

“Sir, I don’t think going with this man is such a good idea.” Bastien stated, his steel grey eyes observing the man clad in leather covered in Penelope’s blood. Olivia had good instincts, but he had to do whatever it took to ensure the safety of their king, he couldn’t trust this man they had just met without checking him out beforehand.

“Liam, I really think this is the best option. His safe-house is secure, and we will be able to regroup without fear of being attacked by the same thing that killed Penelope.” Olivia countered, if she was going to be Queen she needed to behave like it. Can I be queen though? Can I really let go of him?

“Bastien, I understand your concern but I believe Olivia is correct. This is our best option.” Liam stated. “Your safe-house is close correct?”

“Yes your majesty.” Jax replied, the formal address feeling foreign on his tongue. Now I understand why Olivia didn’t want to leave them behind.

“Bastien, tell the others to gather their belongings, we are moving to a more secure location.” Liam ordered.

Bastien gave Liam a look that said he wanted to question him, oppose him. Liam straightened his back, leveling Bastien with a heavy stare. Bastien tensed, internally battling with obeying his king and questioning him. “Yes sir.” Bastien replied bowing. He left the room shooting Jax a glare. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but it just seemed like something was off with the stranger.

It wasn’t long before everyone was gathered with their things ready to head to Jax’s safe-house. Olivia felt like her eyes might permanently look at the back of her head with the constant eye rolling at the grumbles from some of the others. They will see, this is for the best. They needed to move, get to someplace they knew would be secure. It was time for them to regroup, and then the fight for their lives would begin.

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