Last Stand
Chapter One: Nameless
A/N:
Okay, I know that I really shouldn't be writing new stories. I get that some of you are pissed that I've started so many new stories without continuing them.
This one, however, is a rare case. You see, I already have quite a few chapters ahead of this one planned out. I don't know how long it'll take me to write them out, but I have a plan laid out for this story.
Also, for those of you who may be interested, I've made some serious progress on SAO: Fallen Angels. It will probably be the next story I update aside from a few possible chapters on this one.
Oh, and in case you didn't notice, this is going to be a type of AU that I've never thought about doing before. It's pretty obvious by the title that this is a post-apocalyptic world of zombies by the summary, but there are a few things that differ from your average zombie story. I won't spoil you on what I mean just yet, since I want you to read instead of wait for me to tell you.
Well, I guess that's it. I'll see you at the bottom!
I never understood the concept of right and wrong. Some have told me that I have to do what's right. But then, some people have told me that what I thought was right, well, was actually wrong. After countless people telling me that different things are right and wrong, I came to the conclusion that everyone has their own unique perception of right and wrong. Everyone always thinks they're right.
So, then, why is it that I don't think that way? I've never been able to distinctly sense what's right or wrong without someone else influencing my judgment. And, due to the fact that I haven't met any living people in the past five years, I'm not even sure that I've kept a solid grip on my sanity.
For me, there is only one thing to cling onto in my life. Survival. After killing so many of them, surviving so many situations that no one else could, the only thing I thought about from day to day was how to survive. I took things one day at a time, not thinking any further ahead than I needed to in order to live to see another day.
I guess one reason I don't have a sense of right and wrong is probably because of the countless times I've been forced to slaughter someone else in order to preserve my own life. In the span of five or so years without any people to stand by me, I've become completely desensitized to killing them.
After all, in a world where truly living people are scarce and the undead seem to lurk around every corner, notions of whether killing them is right or wrong are usually taken with a grain of salt.
The all too familiar stillness of another empty house. The stale smell of air trapped far too long without circulating through any kind of working ventilation system. I timidly stepped across the foyer, nearly stumbling over debris left behind from someone's hurried exit.
The neighborhood I was currently in had been nice once, but now it couldn't be distinguished from any other abandoned town or village. My footsteps broke the silence, and the beam of the flashlight in my left hand cut through the dim lighting of the interior of what had once been someone's home. There was no way to tell how long it had been empty, but the layer of dust clinging to every surface gave me a bit of comfort. I probably wouldn't run into anyone here.
Good. Still, I have to be careful.
The kitchen would be the first place I explored; the loud grumbling of my stomach would most likely make my presence known to the whole house if not quelled. It reminded me that I hadn't had a full meal in ages. Probably since I came across that mansion three months ago. After I left, I had been surviving solely on what I could find in houses like this one. Usually, that wasn't much.
I moved through the house and cautiously entered the kitchen. I could never be too careful; being loud and stupid would surely get me killed. Still, I couldn't stop myself from letting my guard down a bit when I found a pantry full of canned goods.
All that stood between me and tons of food was a can opener. I couldn't care less about what was actually in any of the cans; as long as it wasn't spoiled or rotten, it would be like heaven to my stomach.
Me: one, house: zero!
I thought this as I pried open the lid of one of the cans with my butterfly knife, revealing canned oranges. It didn't take long before the whole can had been emptied, along with two others.
My hunger satiated, I decided to look around the rest of the house. After all, I had to make sure it was empty if I wished to stay there for the night.
The stairs creaked as I climbed them, kicking all my senses, sharpened by my primal need to survive, into overdrive. I held that same butterfly knife in my right hand, but also carried a longer, full-tang knife in my left, one that I normally kept sheathed at my left side.
I couldn't help but notice the photos lining the staircase. A family had lived here. The photos all depicted two rather tall parents, and two kids, one a boy and one a girl. The boy looked kind of like me, or at least he would if I ever got a bath. My ebony hair was oily and matted; there were always more pressing needs than that of any kind of hygiene other than keeping my teeth in proper shape for eating.
The boy looked to be about fourteen, same as me. Of course, that means that if he were still alive, he would be older than me. I was nine when the Event happened, and there was no telling when these pictures were actually taken.
Sadly, I couldn't really be sure of my own age at that point. After the Event, it became incredibly hard to tell time, from the time of day to even when a year had passed. The only way I would know my approximate age was by the season; I knew I was born in the late summer, so when I could tell that fall was approaching, I would just add another year to my life. Ages and birthdays were really just trivial concerns in the grand scheme of things, though. If you're alive, you're alive. It doesn't really matter how old you are, just as long as you can effectively fend for yourself and survive.
I made quick work of my search of the upstairs. The parents' bedroom, the shared bedroom of the children, and a restroom. Only one door remained, and it could be for any purpose. My heart sped up slightly at the possibilities of what the room could contain.
An inaudible sigh escaped my lips as I soundlessly opened the door. It was only a nursery. Apparently, the family had been expecting a new addition before the Event.
As I stood at the entrance to the nursery, I closed my eyes and tried to remember what it was like to be little, to still believe that there was nothing out there that my parents couldn't handle.
It was because of my calm state that I heard a creaking sound from the nursery's closet door. My eyes flew open and I poised myself to attack as something slowly pushed its way out of the closet.
It was the boy from the photos. He must have been hiding in the closet in a vain attempt to escape the thing that started the Event. He must have been here the whole time, wasting away in wait for someone like me to come by. He shared the same trait that all of the undead did: a shining set of golden eyes. The rest of his body looked like it had been rotting for years, which it probably had.
In a flash, I put my butterfly knife in my pocket and reached for the weapon hidden under my black jacket. My common sense stopped me just before I grasped its handle; the noise it made would undoubtedly attract more of my opponent's kind.
One swift slash through his neck and spinal cord from the knife in my left hand was all it took to end it. His head fell to the floor and rolled off to the side, the shimmering golden color fading from its eyes before both the body and the head dissipated into mere dust.
Even the blood on my knife turned to dust. I turned it so that the edge faced the ground, watching as the dust fell and dispersed into a small cloud upon contact with the wooden flooring.
Letting out a nervous breath I hadn't even realized I was holding, I sheathed my knife and turned back to the hallway. Family wasn't for me; I was a survivor. I didn't have the luxury of having a mom or a dad. Still, as I shut the nursery door, I couldn't help but wonder what I would be doing in a different world.
Before I went downstairs once more, I went back to the parents' bedroom. I took the blankets off of the queen-sized bed, lumping them together and carrying them down the stairs. I walked through the house and into the living room, where I had left the backpack that contained my provisions right by the couch.
Once I had spread the sheets out on the large couch, I grabbed my backpack, unzipping the ratty black thing and pulling out a thick paperback book I found in the mansion. The cover depicted a man smiling down at a much shorter woman, and the title tried to set it up as a sappy romance novel.
Since beginning to read it, I had found the book to be anything but. It captured the ups and downs of real life— or, at least, what real life used to be like before the Event. In other words, the rather long novel was essentially a window through which I could escape into the world as it once was, into the times when I didn't have to fear for my life every day.
Finding this book was a godsend fortune for me. It helped me regain some of my ever-dwindling memories of the way things were. It helped me hold onto my humanity… for the time being.
And so, I began to read. Unfortunately, not ten pages later, I heard a shrill sound coming from the streets outside this small house I was using to take refuge for a single night.
That sound… what is it?
And again. This time, the sound seemed closer. I set my book down on the couch, then slowly stood up, walking through the house until I reached the bay window in the front. Making sure to stay away from the moonlight that illuminated much of the flooring, I looked through the wall of glass to find…
Is that… another human?
A humanoid figure stood in the middle of the street, standing in a posture that the undead very rarely took. From where I was, I couldn't make out much of its appearance, and I couldn't even discern its gender. However, one thing stood out to me. Somehow, even from tens of yards away, in the dead of night, the one thing I could see was…
Those eyes… they're blue. Whoever it is… isn't one of them.
That thought alone sent a surge of an emotion I couldn't recognize through my entire body. I almost acted on it, almost went outside to meet this living person. But then, I saw it. Or, more appropriately, them.
Three undead were slowly moving towards the figure. They wanted to contaminate it, to make it one of them.
Why aren't you running?!
I screamed this in my mind, even though I knew that my thoughts wouldn't reach the figure. I soon recognized its posture, and what I realized filled me with dread. Whoever it was seemed to be paralyzed with fear.
Every muscle in my body screamed at me to help this person, the only living human I had encountered for five years. At the same time, my mind tried desperately to keep my impulse at bay. I knew it would most likely lead to both of our deaths if I just charged out there recklessly.
I needed to come up with a plan before running out there, but I knew I didn't have the time. It all came down to a battle between my instincts to survive… and my heart, which was begging my mind to make me rescue her. And, in the end…
My heart somehow won.
Without another thought, I lunged forward, activating the one trick I possessed.
There was no sound of shattering glass as I passed through the window and into the street. No, my trick made sure of that. I moved through the window as if it wasn't even there. That was my trick, one that had saved me from countless situations where I should never have survived.
The Phantom Shift.
Or, at least, that's what I dubbed it. The terminology made little difference to me, just so long as it worked.
Now that I was out in the open, I could see much more than a mere three undead. I counted ten sets of shimmering golden eyes, all drawn to a new target— me, that is.
Without looking behind me, in a calm, even tone, I said, "Get back. I can handle this on my own."
"But—" the figure, now identified as a female from her voice, tried to say something before I cut her off.
"No buts," I said, pulling the butterfly knife from my pocket with my right hand and unsheathing the long knife from my its scabbard on my left side with my other hand. I flicked open my butterfly knife in a flash, already determining which one I should kill first.
I decided to go with the one near the front, moving at the fastest pace; the slower ones didn't matter much until they got very close, but the faster ones were much more dangerous. Thus, I decided to focus on killing the most threatening before the others.
Without a moment's delay, I lunged towards the fastest one, falling to the ground and somersaulting to close the distance. As I rolled past its left side, I stuck my long knife out, cutting through its knees.
As I rolled up to my feet, I dragged the same knife up through my adversary's back, then turned around and severed its spinal cord at the neck with my butterfly knife. The undead fell to the ground, turning into dust soon after.
I didn't wait for it to fully decompose, instead opting to target the one to my left. I took one swing at its neck with my long knife, cutting clean through its entire neck and making its head fly.
I sensed one coming from behind me. I reacted accordingly, spinning to my left and cutting through the middle of its face, right at the jawline. I still hit a part of the spinal cord, damaging it enough so that the undead began to turn to dust soon after.
The next few seconds went by in a blur. All I remember was the constant sound of knife tearing through rotten flesh. When I came back to my senses, I found myself standing in the middle of a giant cloud of dust composed of the remains of the undead I had slaughtered.
I swung at the dust around me once with each of my knives, the tiny breeze created from them dispersing the cloud and making the whole area much clearer. For a second or two, I looked up at the sky, gazing longingly at the full moon that illuminated the streets with its soft glow.
I turned to the girl I saved, finding that, even up close, the only thing I could make out was the pair of deep blue eyes that I saw from within the house I had appropriated. The whole rest of her body was nothing more than a silhouette to my eyes.
Even with this strange abnormality in my vision, I knew I still had to speak to her. "Hey, are you okay?" I asked her, giving what I hoped to be a caring look. Going without people around for five years made it troublesome to remember what facial expressions went with what emotions.
"Yes, I'm fine," she said in a timid voice. "But what about you? You didn't get hurt by them, did you?"
I sheathed my long knife and pocketed my butterfly knife, shaking my head to try to reassure her. "I'm just fine," I replied, giving her a thumbs-up with my right hand. "Anyway, what's your name?
"Yoruko," the blue-eyed girl told me. "And yours?"
I paused. What… what is my name? I thought, frowning slightly as I tried to remember.
Yoruko must have taken my silence and frown the wrong way, for her next words were, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"That's not it," I quickly responded, my voice slightly raised. "It's just… I don't have a name. Or, at least, not one worth remembering. And I should know… because I don't remember it myself."
A/N:
Well, what do you think? I think it's pretty different from the average zombie fic so far. Then again, I've never read a zombie story, nor have I actually played a video game of the genre.
Regardless, I had a freaking blast writing this. I just hope you guys had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
You know, I really would put a disclaimer here, but I've recently come to realize that there is no actual need to put one here. It's mostly just a word count boosting paragraph or sentence. So yeah, I won't be doing those anymore.
See you later!
