A/N This first segment was written for zombie_fic_ation on LJ, during their amnesty period for the prompt 7. Any - Any - People slaughtered and put in a mass grave come back to life. The proceeding two segments happened on their own time.


Of all the different ways to exit the world, 'quickly' hadn't been on Laura's list of adjectives for quite a while.

Tom tugged at her arm, and she wasn't sure if he somehow meant to pull her to safety, an impossibility, or use her as a shield, which would be furtive.

The centurions lined up, raising their clawed hands, dangerous enough before they twisted into guns. As a spray of bullets was released into the crowd, and Laura felt several make their home in her chest, she seriously doubted that Elysium waited. In fact, as she tumbled forward, blood spilling out of her mouth as well as her wounds, she began to wonder where her faith had come from, as it had fled so easily.

When she opened her eyes to a star speckled sky, she felt like laughing, for if there were gods, they surely were too. Not that she was going to pay attention to those bastards anymore.

Laura struggled to sit up, hands still zip tied. She squinted in the gloom, wondering where her glasses had fallen to. Groping around in the dark by her knee, she found them, one frame was shattered, but she slipped them on regardless. Then what she thought was ground shifted underneath her, and she toppled over, rolling down a hill of what she realized were bodies.

Pushing herself back to her knees, she looked at the mass of stirring apparently-not-corpses. It seemed those who had been executed had simply been pushed off of the cliff if they hadn't fallen.

Executed.

Laura's hand jerked up to her chest, checking for bullets wounds. They came free with sticky, congealed blood. She started laughing then, but it had a wet, ill sound to it, and she hunched over as fragments of lung and drying blood were forced out of her mouth.

A hand started to pat her back, and she lifted her eyes, not all that surprised to see Tom standing next to her. He smiled, and she could see exposed skull through his tattered cheek. His shoulders and chest were riddled with bullet holes.

"Feel better?"

"Yes." Her voice wasn't quite as raspy as she had thought it would be.

"Someone found a knife, c'mon," he helped her stand, though she didn't feel like she needed it.

Walking, moving at all really, felt strange. As if her body wasn't really shifting, but because she expected it to, it simply complied. There had been no pain when she touched her wounds, no fire in her chest as it's contents spilled out of her. Squinting in the dark, she noted that Tom's chin and lips were red too. She wondered how much he coughed up.

A line had formed by the man with the knife, and as Laura waited, she watched the other prisoners pick themselves up. Some were hunched over, coughing like she had been, more were shaking bits of entrails out of their shirts, and others were walking awkwardly in blood, viscera, and gods knew what else, soaked pants. Most of their faces were untouched, but in the crowd were a few like Tom; slivers of skin missing from their faces, muscle and bone showing through. Cartilage on one woman's smashed nose hung from her face.

When her wrists were cut free, she tested the skin with her fingers. The plastic had cut into skin on the right, and she could sink her finger into the crevice. She tugged her sleeve down over the wound.

Once everyone was freed they shambled over to the one body that hadn't stirred. Someone stepped forward and poked them with the toe of their boot. Their brain had been dashed open on the fall down, grey matter leaking from the crack in the side of his head.

"Anyone else hungry?"

A murmur went through the group at the comment, and Laura had to agree. She was hungry.

"No, no.. I'm not going to be a monster," a quavering voice proclaimed.

Laura stared in their general direction over the top of her cracked glasses. "The ones who put us here are monsters," she countered.

Subdued agreement went through the crowd.

"Well I'm not going to stand here and think about eating some man's brains!"

That's what they were doing, wasn't it? Though really, Laura figured it was less thinking and more planning on her part. The guilty looks others were passing each other confirmed they were thinking the same thing.

"I'm not a monster, I'm not-"

There was a crack of broken bone and they toppled forward. Tom stared down at the body, large rock in hand.

"Anyone else not want to be a monster?" He asked the crowd.

No one else stepped forward.

"Thank you Mr. Zarek," Laura said brusquely. "For demonstrating your keen diplomacy skills."

A snicker arose from those assembled, and Tom dropped the rock with a shrug. "There's more for everyone, now."

The laughter stopped. He had a point.

"Are we dead?" Someone asked.

"Probably," Laura responded. "That never stopped the cylons, so why should it bother us?"

"But, we're human," the same woman protested.

An awkward silence fell before she continued.

"Aren't we?"

"We're moving, and thinking," she broke in. Thinking about eating brains, but what did that matter? "We can debate specifics later." When she stomped away from the circle, she caught sight of Tom's amused look. "What?" She snapped.

"Oh nothing, great speech is all."

"So," a young man's voice carried over. "Can we eat them?"

All eyes had turned towards Laura.

She sighed. Why did she always have to be in charge?

"I don't see why not."

Brain matter was surprisingly flavorful, and after Tom offered her one, she couldn't help but think that eyeball jelly really ought to have been a breakfast commodity before now.

When the skulls were hollowed out, quite quickly with the vast amount of people who had been executed by the cylons, the woman with the smashed nose spoke up.

"I'm still hungry."

Laura stared at the horizon, knowing the walk to the city would be a long one. She almost sighed again.

So much for dying quickly.

"Alright everyone," she took the first step forward. "Let's get moving."

Laura felt like a kindergarten teacher again, leading children through a park on a nature walk. It wasn't really all that different, she mused, after all, snack time waited for them at the end of this walk as well.

"I wonder what cylon tastes like," an eager voice piped up from the back.

An argument broke out about whether or not cylon would taste better than human; and while she was distracted, Tom slipped his hand into hers.

Yes, it was exactly like kindergarten.