A gentle whistling of a breeze weaving through the long abandoned buildings, the clumsy stagger of feet shuffling against concrete and dead leaves, and the low wheezing forced out of throats coated with dried blood and torn skin - this was all that was left to listen to now. The world had grown silent, almost in just one night and a day - maybe it was a bit longer than that?

Not that it mattered anymore.

Everyone else was dead. Or, if they weren't dead, then they were wandering around the streets when a lack of sunlight permitted them to do so. Mindless, blind, groaning; it was all sickening. But perhaps what was even more sickening than watching them standing there, doing nothing but look disgusting and grotesque and just not human, was bearing witness to when they swarmed some poor soul who had managed to fall behind, and all you could do was stand there as their body was mercilessly ripped to shreds.

It took over a week to get that image out of Roxas Gracy's mind. He really didn't want him or his brother to endure something like that again, to be helpless and simply watch as another human became food for these things.

But they had to get used to it.

This wasn't the life they were accustomed to, but they learned long ago that this was their world now, and as such, they would have to learn to survive in it. Friends, relatives, neighbors, love interests, classmates, even some random stranger they've seen maybe just once in their life in Chicago - if any of them came running, they were all to be met with a lead bullet and a damnation.

Three such examples were standing between the Gracy brothers and their shelter.

"Damn it, Ginny, you got Bob, didn't you...? 'Together in life and death' was just that serious, huh..." Roxas murmured softly, doing everything he could to keep his breath light and steady as he slowly turned the safety on his nearly empty Scar-H rifle off, peeking over the corner of a worn down apartment complex. Robert and Virginia Neville twitched their heads to the boys' general direction as if responding. Roxas briefly froze upon seeing their lifeless, icy white irises, tinted red around the pupil, staring blankly at the building he and his brother Ventus Gracy were hiding behind, tears of blood streaming down their pale cheeks, their mouths agape and smeared with the blood of their last victim. But they didn't take a single step toward the boys.

'Calm down. They can't see. They can't see you unless you move. You've known this. You're okay.'

Ventus took one step closer behind his brother, carefully surveying the area surrounding them. It was clear; the only things around were the Nevilles and the widowed Mrs. O'Reilly. She was such a sweet old lady, always smiling and spreading kindness to everybody in the area. She lived five houses away from the Gracys and often stopped by to drop off some of her famous chocolate chip cookies the boys had become addicted to at a very young age. Such a pity. Not even good ol' Mrs. O'Reilly could escape from this plague. The boys would miss her.

But only if she didn't come to eat them.

"Is everything good to go?" Roxas whispered as softly as possible while still being audible to only his brother, not once breaking his gaze away from Virginia Neville's lifeless stare. Ventus Gracy took one last scan around. Not another one of them in sight.

"Yeah. We're in the clear," he whispered back, following his younger brother's actions and switched the Safety on his C23 to "Off". Robert Neville snarled, turning his body completely toward the boys. Roxas glared at him, his index finger secure on the trigger as the monster took one lazy step in their direction.

"Good, 'cause I think somebody's been eavesdropping." Roxas brought the scope of his rifle up to his eye, aligning the target in the scope with the very center of Robert Neville's head. Robert Neville stared right back, bared his bloodstained teeth, and hissed. "Sweet dreams, you sick son of a bitch."

And just as Robert Neville began to sprint, a lead bullet passed through his skull and his brains splattered all over the concrete as his body was knocked back to the ground. He was dead...again.

Virginia Neville and Mrs. O'Reilly sharply turned and hissed at Roxas Gracy, still about twenty-five yards away. Both were highly contagious and both could easily kill him, though his main worry was "Ginny"; she was still pretty young and healthy, while Mrs. O'Reilly, God bless her soul, was old and frail. If either of the two were to be the greater threat, it was "Ginny". She darted forward while Mrs. O'Reilly staggered behind, screeching in a way that always had and always will haunt the boys.

She was the next to be taken out.

"Go, go, go!" Roxas and Ventus Gracy quickly hustled around the corner of the building toward their shelter. They would have run faster if it were not for the backpacks they had strapped to their backs; however, the items in these backpacks were essential, and so they could not afford to leave them behind. Mrs. O'Reilly grew closer, limping as fast as she could to Ventus with half of her right foot chewed clean off. She hissed and screamed and outstretched her arms as she snorted like a rabid animal. And her target only had to aim and shoot in her left eye for her to get the hint that no, he was not interested in becoming her next meal. Their shelter, a two story house with an iron fence surrounding it, was only ten meters away.

And then the screams began to echo.

Ventus paused and looked back to see a horde of about thirty of them charging in their direction. They might have been about three-, maybe four-hundred feet away - but they were very, very quickly closing that distance. Blood had just been spilled, and they were simply dying for a taste of potentially fresh meat.

"Shit!"

"Ven! Let's go!" Roxas called from just in front of the gate bridging the opposite sides of the fence together. His brother leapt over the corpses of Robert and Virginia Neville, almost losing his footing from the shifting weight in his backpack. He clumsily stumbled into the perimeter as he tried to regain his balance and slid on the ground when his battle against gravity was lost. Roxas, still able and on his feet, immediately slammed the gate shut and in his attempts to get the god damned lock on the chain surrounding the gate, his shaky and panicked fingers betrayed him and he dropped it.

"The hell are you doing? They're coming!"

"Shut the fuck up, Ven! Get inside!" Roxas yelled over the gradually increasing noise from them as he bent down and snatched up the lock. He hastily thanked God that it didn't accidentally become locked when it hit the ground and resumed to locking it onto this "god damned gate won't cooperate!"

"Roxas!"

"I told you to get inside!" Finally! Finally! The lock was secure! But now they were just ten feet away! One came out of nowhere and reached between the bars of the gate, grasping at the boy who managed to jump back just in time. Another joined it, and then another, all of them screaming and hissing and snarling and howling.

Roxas stumbled backwards until he hit another body. His heart skipped a beat, believing that it was one of them until a pair of arms embraced him and held him close. The Gracy twins stood in the doorway of their house, panting heavily and staring wildly at the scene in front of them. A few of them, the walking remains people they knew, people they've seen, people they've never met before, the undead - zombies, if you will - were still reaching futilely into the gate, snorting heavily and gnashing their teeth at the living. The rest, however, were swarmed around Robert and Virginia Neville and good ol' Mrs. O'Reilly, fighting over who gets what limb, how many intestines each should get, ripping and tearing and shredding and-

Roxas had to look away. "L-Let's get in-inside..." Ventus held his brother up as they staggered into the house, shutting the door as soon as they did. Various locks were secured into place, immersing the entire household into darkness. What little light came from between the look-out cracks on the boarded up windows, and even then the light was limited; the day had been overcast and the clouds were blocking out most of the sun. That was why there were so many of them out today.

"Holy shit..." Roxas, leaning into the doorway to the dining room as he calmed down and tried to make his head stop spinning from the sudden drop in adrenaline, looked up at Ventus. His brother was peering through the look-out cracks, a look of utter disgust and horror distorting his face. "They're...eating them...They're really eating them...Like animals!"

"They're not human anymore, that's for damn sure." The other Gracy boy pushed himself off of the doorway and approached his brother. "Fuckin' sharks...That's what they are."

"Sharks."

"They're attracted to the smell of even the smallest amount of blood and they will even eat their own kind. So, they're like sharks, but a lot worse. Damn fuckers can run." Ventus laughed weakly and stepped away from the window, unable to look anymore. "Anyway, what were we able to get?"

Ventus took his backpack off, unzipped it, and dumped its contents out onto the dining room table. "Let's see...I was able to find some chicken-flavored ramen, canned peaches, spam, canned tuna, some more C23s and some ammo for them plus magazines for yours, and," He picked up three wrapped rectangles. "I also managed to snag a few Hershey's."

"Awesome." Roxas followed suit and they began to check out what he was able to find on their scavenge this day. "I've got...a jug of fuel, peanut butter, cereal bars, bacon -"

"You are my hero. Legit."

"-batteries for our flashlights, light bulbs for the lamps, like five Colt-45s plus a few things of ammo, canned beans, hot dogs, and a few random bags of potato chips."

"Great! Shall we add that to our inventory?" And without waiting for a response, Ventus grabbed a bag of said potato chips (he happened to get the Frito's) before leaving the room. Roxas only rolled his eyes and grabbed a cereal bar - 'Cocoa Pebbles, no fucking way!' - before following Ventus into the living room. He plopped down beside him on the couch, and for a moment all that could be heard was the crunching of chips, the rustling of a plastic wrapper or bag, and the muffled moans and howls coming from outside.

"...So." Ventus vibrated his lips together and glanced absent-mindedly around the room. "How many do you think you got today?"

"Huh? Oh..." Roxas' own eyes stared down at the half-eaten bar in his hand. "I dunno...Maybe, twelve? Thirteen?"

"Ah. I see."

"And you?"

"Pfft, hell if I know. I think, like, fifteen?"

"Oh. Th-That's good." Roxas nodded slightly, receiving a low hum from his brother in agreement. More silence between them followed. "W-What do you think the weather's going to be like tomorrow?"

"Ehh, probably overcast. Same as usual. I mean, we're right next to Lake-fuckin'-Michigan."

"Yeah, that's probably the case, then."

"Yuuu-puh." Ventus popped his lips. "Not that it's to be unexpected. I mean, we've been living like this for how long? What, little over a month?"

"Yeah. Forty-three days, to be exact." Roxas turned his gaze over to his brother. They both stared at each other in disbelief.

"...Forty-three days, huh." Ventus bobbed his head up and down in understanding. "...We've survived the end of the world...for forty-three days."

"Yup. Looks like it. Just you and me, Ven."

'The only two people left in the world...after just forty-three days.'

~Prologue End~

Author's Note:

Uwaaah, I'm so sorry, Kanaban! I know I promised your SoRiku but I really am still blocked with it! And this was just itching to get written and-!

I have failed you... ORZ

That aside, I introduce a new story to the fan fiction realm. My beta, JustSayNoToPants, was very excited when I told her about this story. Apparently, there aren't too many KH + Zombie Apocalypse stories out there and the ones that do exist are not the best. I would like to change that. :]

So, in case it wasn't obvious (hohoho), Roxas and Ven are a pair of twins surviving a zombie outbreak. Simple, right? Ahahaha, no. A lot of the cliches found in ZA movies and books are to be pointed out here. For example, according to tvtropes, one cliche used is that the characters never call them by what they are, "zombies". They always say things like "them" or "things" or "infected". They, for whatever reason, absolutely refuse to call them "zombies". That will not be the case here. c:

I borrowed a few things from a couple other sources, which are:

Dead Set - The eyes (which are fuckin' creepy as hell and will haunt you in your sleep)

I Am Legend - They mostly come out at night or when it's really, really cloudy (which sucks because it's CHICAGO, mah hometown :D ), as well as Robert and Virginia Neville (oooh the irony! XD)

And then there's the tradition stuff, like a bite will infect or they crave human flesh (or blood in general, actually).

I hope this one turns out really, really well! ^^

-Yuu