Author's Note: There was suposed to be a lot more to this chapter but I wanted to get it out there and test the waters first.
Disclaimer: These are not my characters; I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
Rules
The rules of this world were often rewritten. No, he didn't mean it figuratively or melodramatically; none of that: oh, your love has opened my eyes to a shiny new world; oh, I met this one girl who won't sleep with me so my personality will dramatically shift; oh, your love has melted the ice around my heart and now I will give away my millions and live with you in poverty. You get the idea. They were experiencing a lull in the ever shifting world, for the last year or so the rules seemed to have stayed the same and as a result they hadn't lost any more of their small party.
Currently, there were five simple rules.
Rule 1:There are zombies in the world; fast ones that will devour you like piranhas.
Itachi Uchiha often looked at the stars, because they were a constant presence in this confusing new world. Itachi didn't know enough of astronomy to navigate with the stars. They were more of an anchor in the unrelenting flow of time, wistfully calling him back to a time long past. He thought of how he used to look at the sky with his little brother. They lived in the city, back then; back when the world was normal and each new day was like the one yesterday and guaranteed to be like the one tomorrow. In the city the halogen street lamps were a heavy presence that drowned out the stars, but he and Sasuke always used to imagine where the stars might be hiding.
One day, when Itachi was thirteen, the sky burned an unholy, unnatural red, and soon the tableau of the heavens was blacked out by thick smoke and the sound of glass breaking and of cars honking and wailing and, most of all, by the screams of terror.
The Uchiha parents were out a stuffy outdoor benefit for one of their soul-less charities. Itachi and Sasuke were supposed to have gone to bed early but they took the opportunity of a night without adult supervision to watch the sky from the rooftop patio of their apartment complex. He wanted to go check on his parents.
The two brothers rushed to the elevator, but finding that the power had gone out they navigated down 50 flights of emergency stairs. They arrived on the ground floor of the building to find it bathed in blood and body tissue. That was their first look at a zombie up close. Their first look at the jowls that opened wide in anticipation and hunger, at the graying skin that seemed to hang off their bones from a lack of connective tissue, and at the sunken eyes that lolled in their sockets until they fixed upon the fresh meat. And Itachi knew they were zombies because he enjoyed horror movies (specifically of the B movie variety) and he knew he had to run.
Itachi grabbed his brother and sprinted up the stairs. He often exercised by running stairs but he didn't think he'd ever done 50 flights, but their lives depended on it. By flight 10 he was tiring. He usually loved the high ceilings in the luxury apartment building but now they just made for an endless spiral of stairs and his brother was getting heavy. Looking down over the railing he saw something odd. The zombies hadn't moved even moved onto the first step.