Luna rushed into the nearby room, locking the door behind her and gripping her gun and wand in her hands a little tighter as she positioned herself facing the door. Thankfully, the room held no windows and only one door despite being in the middle of the half destroyed house.
The door didn't look like it would hold against the zombies for too long, though. The door was made of wood that had been damaged by time. They had realised some time ago, that even sturdy wooden doors held no chance against the constant barrage of the zombie attacks. Only steel doors did, and then only for a day or two with the zombies never stopping for rest as they threw their bodies against the door. Luna often wondered what exactly the zombies' skin was made of for that to even be possible but hadn't wanted to risk finding out.
Everyone else from their group was already gone. Each falling to the zombies as they tried to protect each other, until it was only Luna left.
Luna wondered, idly, where they had gone wrong. They had survived several years, losing no one but their parents until around a year ago when they had been ambushed by the largest gathering of zombies they had ever seen. It was one of the worst times for something like that to happen since Ginny had sprained her ankle and wasn't able to run as fast as she usually did, slowing all of them down. Nobody had blamed her but everyone knew that she blames herself for being stupid and jumping off that tree.
Harry had fallen that day, saving Ginny from the zombies when she had fallen behind. He had managed to banish Ginny towards them but had been engulfed by the masses only moments afterwards. Ron and Hermione had to be held back by Neville, Fred, and George as to not follow Harry into the fray. It had stopped the zombies from moving towards them, so they took the opportunity to burn as many zombies as possible from their position far away. They had waited, half-hoping that Harry would emerge at some point.
He never did. They had to eventually accept that he was gone once the zombies began moving away from their tight mass. Hermione and Ron had taken the loss of Harry the hardest, and seemed to be in shock, not registering anything that happened around them, even as they continued to fight and kill zombies.
Something that had ended up costing them their lives: first Ron saving Hermione, then Hermione herself who had eventually gone into a manic depression at the loss of her two best friends. Luna had barely recognised Hermione in her last days, all signs of that intelligent and bookish girl she had first met had been all but lost. Hermione had begun putting herself in unnecessary danger as she tried to kill as many zombies as she could whenever she saw them. Despite the early warning, Hermione's loss had still been hard. Somehow they had all still hoped that she would recover eventually, and perhaps she would have if they had tried to keep her safe for a little longer.
That was when everything had begun to spiral downward. The trio had been holding everyone together. They had been the ones who had led the entire group through everything. No one else was able to lead them, nor was anyone else prepared to, and it showed in their haphazard attacks and miscalculated strategies. None of the survivors knew the zombies like Harry and Hermione had. No one was as strategic with the attacks and formations as Ron was.
All they had left were people who could attack, followers without leaders, a body without a head.
They had somehow managed to survive for nearly a month after before Ginny fell. No one even knew how or where, they were all running through the forest expecting everyone else to be able to keep up. It had been frantic and desperate, and everything Luna had learned to hate. There had been zombies coming out of nowhere forcing her to dodge them or out-manoeuvre the simple-minded monsters, occasionally resorting to killing the occasional zombie that refused to fall behind. They had managed to meet outside the forest, gasping for breath as they waited for a glimpse of red hair among the greenery.
After an hour, they had to face the idea of Ginny being gone. They simply assumed that she had gotten distracted fighting a zombie and hadn't realised she had been surrounded. Things like that had happened fairly often, but Harry had always been there to save her before. They guessed that Ginny hadn't remembered there was no one to save her this time.
There had only been the four of them left that day. All of them in fairly good health, no loss of limb or mind: enough to survive, but no longer enough to actively seek the zombies to kill them like they had been doing for years.
They had made the unanimous decision that night. The hunting would stop; it had to. They had to start hiding - that would be the only way for them to survive. They didn't want to fight anymore anyway. Ginny was always the one to continuously motivate them into fighting, without her no one really saw the point. If it were up to Luna, they would have been hiding the entire time. It would have meant that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would have still been alive along with Ginny herself, but no one was ever able to argue against Ginny once her mind was made up. It was something that Luna both liked and hated about her.
They had moved from safe house to safe house after that, only really venturing away from them if they needed food or water which wasn't too often because of the expanded bags Hermione had enchanted for them several years ago. It had been extremely useful, and Hermione had been extremely proud of thinking it up. Luna would like to think Hermione was still proud of it, wherever she was.
Luna had lost Fred and George only a month ago. They had gone down together, just as they had laughed and been born together. They had managed to kill the zombies that had attacked them suddenly but the wounds had been too grave, and there had been too much blood. By the time Luna and Neville had realised that something was wrong and had set out to look for them, it had already been too late. The two had bled out, holding each other and comforting each other in their last minutes. The twins were the only ones they were able to bury properly. Luna had been grateful for that at least.
It had been Neville and Luna until today. Neville had fallen only moments ago, and Luna wanted to curl into a ball and cry for all the friends she had lost. Losing Neville had been the hardest for her, because they had simply been together for so long. They had shared the sadness for all their lost friends, and everything else. Neville had been braver than even he had believed, and Luna wished she had been given enough time to tell Neville that. Luna was sure Neville would have appreciated it.
A soft sob escaped her lips. The sound didn't matter. The zombies would figure out that she was in this room sooner or later, and there would be nowhere to escape. They weren't particularly smart, but they knew enough to find their food: her.
Luna wished she had been the one that had fallen instead of Neville. She absolutely hated this feeling of waiting for something she knew was going to happen anyway. It was one of the most nerve-wracking feelings Luna had ever felt.
The door shuddered, and Luna was instantly on alert. She had managed to set up a few wards and enchantments near the door that should take care of a few of the zombies. Luna cursed the fact that she hadn't thought to add some outside the door to take care a few more.
Luna knew that there was absolutely no escape from this, but if she had managed to learn anything from her friends it was to keep fighting. If she was going to go down, Luna would make sure she would also take as many zombies as she could with her. There was absolutely no point in wasting such an opportunity.
Luna was going to make all of them proud because she had nothing to lose. Everything had already been lost, even her hope. There was only desperation left and, unfortunately for the zombies, that was one of the most dangerous emotions.
A slow splintering of wood followed by a loud crash and the smell of burning alerted Luna to the presence of the unwanted zombies in the room she stood in.
"Nothing to lose," Luna reminded herself, as she shot spells and bullets at the rotting bodies that were beginning to surround her.
"Nothing to lose."
Written for The Test (Challenge) Test 3: One person trapped in a room alone: Tragedy
And 85 Shades of AU [Competition]: Zombie Apocalypse!AU