(The first part of this chapter has been changed a bit.)

A/N: First fic for this section, woohoo. After playing this game a few times with a friend, I developed a very strange ... affinity toward the Hunter. Naturally, that gave me a horrible itching to do a fanfic, and a long fic this one will be. I hope you guys like it.


**CHAPTER I**

His ears still rang from the deafening sound of the gunshot, so unbelievably loud in this small room. Jake did not look at the now lifeless body of his friend, who sat propped up in the corner of the room with a bullet hole in his forehead. He was covered in blood, blood of the infected outside that he and his friend had just escaped from, and maybe a little from his comrade he'd just killed as well.

"Please don't kill me, Jake…" Chris had said to him. There were tears of fear in his eyes.

"You were bitten," Jake responded. The hand that held the gun now pointed at his friend's head was trembling, but his voice was stoic, "Do you want to become one of them?"

Chris was shaking his head, crying openly now, "But… but what if I'm immune? Then what! Please, just…"

He didn't let him finish his sentence.

Jake lowered his arm finally, the gun now pointed at the floor as he stared off blankly at nothing. He was the last one now, out of what had been a party of six. He looked barely twenty years old, and was in relatively good shape if not a little on the thin side. After all the running he had to do these past few weeks without proper nutrition to keep him going, any extra fat he had once had on him was long gone. His clothing consisted of a black hooded zip up jacket, a black shirt, a pair of nondescript shoes, and some dark brown pants with a generous amount of pockets, all of which were dirty and bloodstained, if not torn in places. His hair was short and black, equally unkempt and dirty. Spending your every waking moment on the lookout for danger, and of course fighting off hordes of zombies didn't leave much time for bathing and making yourself look nice.

The silence and the ringing in his ears was deafening now, a constant reminder that he was completely, hopelessly alone out here in a wasteland full of monsters who wanted nothing more than to murder him. He still had twenty miles to go, on foot, to get to the safe area, and only one bullet left.

He lifted the gun and stared at it for a long moment. His bright blue eyes were dull and lifeless, cold and calculating. He'd lost his best friend; she'd been the first to go. Then went two others, one of which he knew well. He'd had to watch every loss, watch as they all were killed; taken by the infection, or just slaughtered by the infected. After a while, he'd just grown numb to it all. Maybe around the first time he had to shoot down one of his comrades who had just turned. Somehow, it was so much worse seeing them lose their minds and try to kill you than shooting them before the infection could take hold.

Slowly he lifted the gun and placed the still-hot barrel against his temple. The odds of survival out there were zero. There was no reason to even try, might as well use his last bullet on himself, and end it all relatively painlessly right here.

That's when a deafening screech echoed from behind him before he could even cock the hammer back, and he was suddenly grabbed and slammed up against the wall so hard it knocked the sense out of him. He heard the heavy metal of the gun hit the floor, and the low, horrible sound of the monster growling deeply almost right beside his ear. He shivered violently, eyes wide with terror as he realized immediately what that creature was: A Hunter. He'd watched one of his comrades get torn to shreds by one once. There was simply no saving someone once they were pinned; you just had to get your ass out of dodge before the infected decided it wanted you as well.

He began to struggle, pushing against the wall, "No!" He cried over and over again as he attempted with all his strength to wiggle out from the infected's grasp.

This only earned him a sharp snarl, and a rather violent shove. Finally he went still and silent, closing his eyes tightly as if expecting more pain. His breath was already coming shorter, his whole body trembling in fear. This was not the way he wanted to die, not even close, but he supposed he didn't have much of a choice anymore.

He cried out softly as he felt the Hunter suddenly nuzzle into the side of his neck, breathing in his scent. Shivers wracked his body, and his hands closed into fists from where they were pressed against the wall. The Hunter growled low in its throat, and Jake whimpered, so terrified his whole body actually felt numb.

"P-please…" he somehow managed to whisper the word, though he didn't even know why, or what he was asking for.

He closed his eyes tightly, tears streaming down his face as he felt the Hunter's hand on his shoulder, pulling his jacket and shirt to the side. Confused and scared, the pain finally came as the creature bit down hard on his right shoulder. He cried out and began to fight now. The bite only increased in force, sending rivers of agony coursing throughout his nervous system as those sharp teeth sunk even deeper.

After a moment the Hunter seemed to grow tired of his incessant struggling and screaming, and it finally spun and threw him to the floor violently. He hit, and still in a panicked daze, he didn't look back at the infected as he began to crawl toward the exit to the room. He could feel the blood running down and soaking his shirt and jacket, and his legs didn't seem to want to cooperate anymore.

He was barely a foot away from the door, before he heard the Hunter snarl loudly, its claws scraping the floor as it crawled like an animal over to him. He felt it grab onto the back of his neck, and slam his head down to the floor. Immediately the blood started to run from his nose, to pool beneath and cover the side of his face. The Hunter was growling deeply as it held him there, and he squeezed his eyes shut, sure this would be the time when the monster finally decided to end his life.

The Hunter released the back of his neck, and instead he felt the infected suddenly crawl on top of him, pinning him down on his stomach as it hovered over him. He felt goosebumps rise on his skin as the Hunter breathed down the back of his neck, as if still smelling him. He couldn't understand why this was happening, delirious from pain and sheer terror. He should have been dead by now, his entrails scattered around the room, his blood painting the walls.

Suddenly he felt claws stab between his shoulder blades, the pain made him cry out softly into the blood pooling around his face. There was a loud tearing sound, and the pain spiked. He couldn't even scream anymore. Feeling numbness rapidly overcoming him, he weakly reached forward for the door once more, before his body gave out. His arm hit the floor with a thump, and he went still and limp beneath the Hunter on top of him. Rapidly the darkness clouded his vision, as unconsciousness finally overtook him.

((((()))))

Pain. Horrible, mind rending, pain. There was no light, no other sensations, or even smells or sounds, just a horrid agony that seemed to tear reality apart at the seams.

With every muscle in his body painfully tense, he couldn't move, he couldn't even make a sound, let alone breathe. There was pitch blackness everywhere, darkness and agony. His head was spinning, and he suddenly felt violently ill. Rolling over, he barely managed to miss vomiting all over himself. What came out of him was more like tar than anything, pitch black under what tiny bit of moonlight managed to get in here.

After he couldn't heave anymore, he tried to crawl away from that foul smelling bloody mess, and fell sideways right in front of the wide open window. Vision blurred and distorting, he couldn't tell just what phase the moon was in, but it was bright like a beacon shining in right on him. Shaking horribly, he tried to reach up to wipe the tar-like substance from his mouth, but couldn't get his arm to move due to the violent fit of shaking that had seized his entire body. He coughed and gagged, a drop of that bloody substance falling from the corner of his mouth to leave a dark trail behind.

The only thought he could have at this point was the horrible realization that he was still alive. That bastard Hunter had simply bit him and run. It had intentionally infected him, and the knowledge of that filled him with rage. He wanted to scream, to curse until his throat bled.

He coughed, weakly, the tiny action somehow taking ten times more effort than it ever had before. He closed his eyes, and it felt like the world was spinning violently all around him. He felt sick, but he really didn't think he could find the energy to throw up again even if he wanted to. It wasn't long before he found himself sitting up, violently dry heaving.

The effort of it sapped the rest of his strength, and he fell forward to land heavily upon the floor. He felt like he was dying, and honestly, death was preferable to what he knew was really happening to him.

It wasn't long before he slipped into another state of unconsciousness, which would turn out to be the most unquiet rest of his entire life. Nightmare after nightmare, followed by vivid memories of being home, times before the Green Flu struck.

The memories were at random, going from his early high school and middle school days all the way to just a week or two before news of an 'infection' spread. They filled him with warmth and comfort, familiar urgencies and fears, things he longed for now more than ever.

Honestly he thought he had it bad before, well, at least before he'd gotten away from his parents, which had been two years ago exactly. Living with two friends in an apartment, they did well to take care of each other. One of their friends would often hold parties at his house, which is where they met the two others that would eventually join them on their misadventure.

All six of them had band together on a trip to get to the safe area when they heard the evacuation report. When they had left, the infection hadn't even spread that far yet, so they decided to go their own way on their own time. The reports had been inaccurate it seemed, maybe due to the quickness of which the infection spread. But it wasn't long before they were making use of anything as weapons, and fighting off beasts that only vaguely resembled the human beings they once were.

Jake found himself awakening with a painful start; he swore he saw the face of a common infected staring back at him from behind his eyelids. Daylight had come now. It was streaming in from the window, blinding him. Impulsively, he hissed and got up to rapidly crawl away from the offending light. He found himself toppling over quickly, his strength was still sapped. Pain shot through him at the impact, and he cried out softly, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth to will away the pain. His heart was still racing.

With surprising quickness the pain subsided, leaving him feeling oddly numb and cold. But with the absence of pain, reality came crashing back. Quickly he got up and hugged onto himself, shivering as he looked around the room frantically. His friend, Chris, was gone. Chris had been the one who held the parties, and honestly he and Jake hadn't been too close before now. His body had simply vanished. Only the drying and congealed blood remained, smeared and pooled on the floor. Jake didn't really want to imagine what had probably become of him.

He shivered still harder, feeling chilled to the bone even though the air was warm. He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, and the skin felt burning hot against his hand. If he wasn't already incredibly dehydrated, he probably would have been sweating even more profusely than he already was. He had a fever, probably his body fighting with all its might against the infection now festering inside him. Suddenly he felt horribly sick again, in more ways than one.

Staggering a little, he stood up and moved toward the window. Putting his hands on the edge, he stared at the three story fall to the filthy sidewalk below.

He could end it all right now. The infection wouldn't take him, and he wouldn't have to suffer anymore.

His hands trembled even more violently than before. He felt his chest constrict. Dizziness overcame him, and he didn't even realize he'd stumbled backward until he was nearly falling to the floor once again. He caught himself on a nearby table, its legs screeched noisily against the floorboards as the force of his fall nearly knocked it over. He felt nauseous again, but fought it back.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't kill himself. Not even now, when he felt like he was dying anyway and knew he was about to turn into a monster just like the ones that had killed all his friends.

'Why me!' he thought furiously, 'Why did I have to be the one to survive?'

Again he felt the rage bubbling up, an all consuming fury, and he spun and effortlessly upturned the table with one violent movement. The impulsive action surprised him almost as much as how easily he'd managed to accomplish it. The table crashed into the wall with a sound that shattered the ever-present silence like a gunshot. He stumbled away, his eyes wide, and suddenly a splitting headache had him falling and curling up on the floor in the fetal position, hissing with pain.

The agony subsided after a moment, leaving behind a residual ache, and he laid there for the longest time, shivering, twitching, and glaring at whatever happened to be in his line of sight. It took a while, but eventually he got up and headed clumsily toward the exit to this room. Flinging the door open, he stumbled into the hallway, turning and heading for the stairs. He was hissing through tightly clinched teeth, as nearly every movement brought pain of varying intensity. His head was spinning so bad he fell against the walls repeatedly, until he was finally forced to concede in holding on to one as he went. He didn't notice the feeling or the sound of his own claws scraping against and taking off bits of the cracking paint on the wall as he went.

Hugging the rail of the stairs, he made it down all three flights without falling and hurting himself, but when he finally got to the bottom, what he saw made him freeze in his tracks. There were at least five infected in the lobby area, between him and the exit. His heart nearly stopped as one by one, they all looked at him, their white soulless eyes piercing through him as they acknowledged his presence. He stumbled backward and fell onto the stairs, and watched in horror as one turned and came for him.

What happened next was like a blur, one big haze of violence and impulse. He had leaped up and swiped at the attacker, catching it upside the head and sending it into the wall beside him. The frailty caused by the sickness allowed the common infected's skull to crack under the blow, and the creature had crumpled to the floor, dead, from just that one hit.

Jake was shocked, mostly by the slash marks he'd left behind on the attacker's head. He looked at his own hand, and stared for a long moment at the long, thick claws that had grown in place of his nails, now covered with blood along with his hand. He didn't have time to gawk for much longer however, as now the other four infected had been alerted and were coming at him with their characteristic inhuman hysteria and aggression.

He backed up quickly, terrified, and tried to turn to run back up the stairs. Fueled on nothing but adrenaline, he felt he could actually make it if he only tried. He was sorely wrong, however, as he soon felt the harsh grip of an infected on his leg, and he was easily pulled down to land heavily and painfully against the stairs. He turned onto his back and struggled hard as all four of them grabbed and pulled at him to get him into attack range. He kicked at them and fought, knocking them back repeatedly, until one managed to grab his leg and bite down on his ankle.

With a strange cry of rage and pain, he finally flew up, ripping his leg free as he struck out in a manner more befitting of a lion defending itself than a human being. He tore open the face of the one who'd bitten him, disemboweled the other two, and sent the last reeling backward as he lunged forward and practically head butted it in the chest. Landing with his hands on either side of its waist, he stared up at the momentarily dazed infected. Without thinking, he leaped forward and made a break for the exit. He didn't realize he was running on all fours until he had to get up to shove the door open, from where he continued running as fast as he could until he was at least three blocks away. It was here that he stopped, one hand against a building as he braced himself, hunching over as he vomited onto the pavement. More of that bloody tar-like substance, he noticed, and he backed away from it, his head throbbing with pain.

On impulse he looked inside the building he was now standing beside, which was easy considering the door was made of glass. His eyes widened a little as he noticed a broken drinking fountain, water still leaking out to puddle onto the floor. An animalistic need overtook him suddenly, and he violently tried to shove the door open. Growling low as he realized it was locked, he continued shoving it, harder and harder, the glass began to crack. Still with that same need, he searched for a more promising entrance. There was a window not far away, and it was this he managed to smash and leap through with little to no difficulty at all. He landed upon a counter which had papers scattered over it, but he paid no mind to those as he leaped forward toward the broken fountain.

He licked up the water pooled in the crooked fountain, before turning to putting his head underneath the broken pipe to try to catch the water in his mouth. It worked for the most part, and the undeniable urge for more never stopped until he finally started to feel a little sick from too much water intake.

He crawled away from the fountain and the water, finding himself having to throw up yet again, this time beside the counter he'd landed on to get in here. At least it wasn't more black tar. He fell back, clarity returning just a little from the water he managed to keep inside, and he looked toward the door and then the window. The window was at least ten feet up from the ground, and barely big enough to fit a full grown human into. He couldn't remember how he managed to make it through that so effortlessly. He felt confused and somewhat frightened, and once again found himself inspecting his new claws.

Suddenly he felt a horrible pain stabbing into his stomach, and he almost doubled over. It took him a moment to realize that it had been quite possibly one of the worst hunger pains he'd ever felt. Looking around, he felt a sinking feeling as he realized he was going to have to go on a search alone for food. He remembered a place he'd stopped at with Chris, a few blocks away, but shortly after raiding the little store they were ambushed. Jake didn't think he could face going back there again. He decided to head further into this building, maybe to find a vending machine or something he could raid.

Death was no longer on his mind, only survival.