A/N:

TW: Mentions suicide, blood and gore, major character deaths, panic attacks... I'm sorry

Restrictions airway, tired legs, breaking lungs, aching head, distorted vision... and suddenly all sensations burned away like sweet, fiery embers of smoking hot flames succumbing to lively, crystal water.

He saw clarity, and decided. This was it. This was freedom. This was hell. This was escape. This was his choice. And it wasn't life.

It was everything.

And Haru had felt the last tear run down his check form the moment he stood still while everyone else ran and chose to live.

"I wanna see Makoto now."

It was everything as he felt sinking teeth tear through the flesh and bone of his neck.

"Makoto, I'm scared."

Three small words echoed in the silence, pounding against his own head as he drew each syllable out and forced his unmovable mouth to work. His tongue seemed as if laced with cotton, his head as heavy as led – unsupportable by neck. He couldn't feel his own wet crimson hands anymore, neither his bare feet or feel his own heart beating so erratically it would've been painful.

Those things, like physical pain, feeling, alertness, just didn't work like they always had before...

"Shit!" Rin cursed, voice sharp and hurt and terrified all at once, as the other four teens came rushing inside their abandoned basement car garage of a home. A pile of thin, tattered sheets in the corner was laid out and the closest futon was stripped of its thin covers instantly, automatically, as similar scenes like this one occur on a near-regular basis nowadays. Ai already had the limited medical supplies gathered in his typically shaking hands. They were kept close by – always close by. "What the hell happened?!"

What happened didn't really matter right now, and they all knew it. Life today didn't revolve around pointless questions, there just wasn't time. Normally you had only two options: stay in the unknown and live, or die knowing irrelevant information, since everything needed to be dealt with, not questioned. It probably wouldn't have effected Rin's alone life or death outcome in that very moment; but something different could be said about the pale, unmoving body being dragged inside by his friends.

The question was answered anyway. "H-he just... stopped. We were all running, but he just... didn't, suddenly." Nagisa chocked out, eyes too red and puffy, but seemingly not crying for now, at least. "We came back as f-fast as we could."

They all helped their friend lay on the futon. The blood immediately staining the dirty white material crimson red was hardly unnoticeable. Warm, slick to the touch, and metallic-smelling in the air. It was everywhere. On the floor, the doorway, his clothes, all over Sousuke, Rei, and Nagisa.

Rin turned his burning red eyes down to the barely breathing teen, unaware of the tears stinging behind his irises. He felt so... hurt, and so angry, because something like this – not after a year of surviving the apocalypse and being through everything they've been through together – did not happen. This was a mistake the raven-haired boy wouldn't have made, which caused Rin's chest to tighten even more profoundly to a level where it was hard to breath himself.

He found himself shouting, yet his voice disintegrating into soundlessness as not a noise came from the unconscious, barely breathing, bloodied teen lying on the futon.

"Haru, what the hell did you do?!"

"I don't know where I am." That was his voice, he was sure of it. It was disoriented, inaudible, shaking with and an emotion indescribable – something so much more than terror –... but it was definitely his voice. And the words weren't out-of-place, either – he wasn't quite sure what the situation was, or where – but the words he unknowingly uttered were certainly to be said. It was dark. It was unclear. It was nothingness. And Haruka was petrified.

And Makoto's abandonment left him completely alone. He'd grown so entirely used to always having the other teen by his side, and now that he wasn't, his chest felt tight, his lungs couldn't take in air, his head was falling apart – Makoto's absence was painful.

"Get me more gauzes!" Rin called out, desperately, but to no one in particular. In an effort to stop the blood flow from Haru's neck, shoulder blade and upper arm, they'd gone through four different bandages already – save the ones that were deemed too dirty for use. Rin wasn't going to let Haru get infected, not by a few mere old rags – ones that could or could not save him from bleeding to death.

Sousuke only watched, feeling like a block of ice was sinking heavily in his gut.

Couldn't stop infection, if he already was infected.

The bite marks and torn flesh were unmistakable.

He prayed that his dreading thought was anything but the truth, at which they all – even Rin – subconsciously knew inside.

"I don't want him going into shock." Rin said, taking the few cotton gauze pads from a numb Rei and pressing them into Haru wounds. Red tainted white instantly, in a way Sousuke imagined The Infection taking over humanity: too quickly, all at once, and not even Rin could move his hands away fast enough without being tainted, as well.

Haruka looked half dead already, at least three shades paler than usual, lips, eyelids and fingernails tinted blue, and the only sign of life he could physically see was the awful rapid, erratic breathing escaping his mouth unevenly. "I think it's too late for that, Rin. Look." He spoke the obvious, Rin didn't need Sousuke to tell him that.

Yet, Rin shook his head sharply once, denyingly, as he still had hope Haru would come out of this unscathed.

To the others, numbness was the only emotion present, and each of them found themselves going repetitively over in their heads as to why they were doing nothing but standing around watching Rin help their friend. Perhaps they thought all the blood and mutation was paralysingly petrifying.

Or maybe they thought in was peaceful, and bleeding out was a better way to go than becoming the thing that caused all of this in the first place. Something they all had witnessed first-hand, not only to strangers in the streets and in quarantine camps, but to someone they used to know... loved. Apparently, the kindest, most gentle person they'd ever known turning into the rabid, undead mutts that destroyed humanity was still fresh in everyone's minds. And not a soul would dare want to see it again to another of their own, even if it meant bleeding out, hypoxia or drowning to death in one's own blood. Sousuke knew if any of them thought that – even subconsciously –, they'd never dare say it aloud.

"Help me, Makoto." It didn't really surprise him that he didn't remember ever moving his mouth to speak again, or why he couldn't remember anything at all. Terrifyingly, all of this was so familiar. The atmosphere changed completely to... normality. As if being soul-crushingly afraid and paralysed and unaware was normal now. This... this was familiar. Was this normalcy? Reality, even?

If Haru could think and process at the moment, maybe the question would have had some thought; but it was hard to care when all he could hear were laboured, painful gasp of his own heavy breathing within the darkness. Vaguely, he wondered what it was he was so scared of, but nothing in his brain cooperated, as if electric messages inside were derailed, or something as stupid as oxygen deprived, despite the sickly sounding erratic breaths escaping his mouth.

"Ngghh..." Haruka mumble in the negative unconsciousness, draining the attention of everybody, steering them away from their terrified thoughts into a more terrifying reality. Their previous selves would've found it insane that a few unconscious murmurs from their asleep friend meant anything significant at all. Back then, they all took un-infected harmlessness for granted.

And this time in particular, Rin forget reality.

Before he could process, the crimson-haired teen jumped immediately to Haru's side, kneeling down, knuckles white, gripping to his friend's jacket like he could hold onto Haru's life. "Haru! Hey, please, can you hear m–?"

"Rin."

Sousuke was dragging him back, further away so he could no longer touch Haru's cold skin, feel the weak rise and fall of his chest. He didn't register it immediately, but as he did, a reaction activated through his nerves and he found himself kicking and struggling and screaming to escape Sousuke's must larger hold on him. "Wha... l-let me go! Stop!"

"Wait," Yamazaki hissed in the redhead's ear, and suddenly the room went dead quiet despite it never being that loud in the first place. They all watched. The five of them stared down at the body on the futon covered in blood, moaning quietly and slightly twisting.

That's good, Rin's mind spoke trying to convince what was inconceivable, if he's waking he'll be okay. But however much Rin wanted to believe that was a good sign, they others still had their sanity and knew fate. Haru's breathing was almost non-existent, his skin too pale, his blood too much.

They had all seen these signs before on one of their own; the one Haru probably need the most right now; the one who'd seemingly make all this all better with his gentle touch and soft smile.

But Makoto was dead. And if Haru wasn't dying too, then he was turning.

Rin didn't forget reality this time. It was the Apocalypse, Zombies ran the Earth, Japan had been overrun like all the other nations. They lived in a garage basement, it was cool outside, it was spring but the cherry blossoms blooming time was over. Six of his friends were still alive, one bitten, one dyin-... No.

He just chose to deny it. He'd rather insanity. "No, Sousuke, he's not! He's not infected!"

"Where a-are you?" This time his voice sputtered, yet the fog around all his senses lessened just enough to hear his own voice a fraction clearer. "I c-can't see you." Despite becoming even more shaky and erratic, he could hear himself almost perfectly. There was no distortion, no unclarity, even though his voice itself was.

Almost unnoticeably, lucidity began to make itself appear, and the boy could ever so slightly touch the surface of reality. The numbness and the physicality of nothingness started to melt away with each chocking breath and pounding heartbeat against his rib cage. He felt the edges of his feet regained feeling, and the aching in his chest serge to life.

He felt feeling.

And it was agonising.

When Makoto was bitten, the outbreak was still new, still in its early stages. Zombies were just as deadly, and there were around the same number of them too; but the humans – more specifically, their group wasn't as competent and strong as it was now. It was stupid, Rin had always thought, that they couldn't save him. His death was avoidable, unnecessary, but because of it someone else got to live – or that's what they all chose to believe.

One of their group members was sick – really sick, and the lack of antibiotics, water, food and warmth was not helping. It was Makoto that immediately went to ventured out and find the supplies, along with Rin and Sousuke.

All of them told themselves that if Makoto didn't go on the supply run to try and save their friend, said friend would've died; that if he didn't sacrifice his right leg to the Zombie's jaws, Rin and Sousuke wouldn't have been able to make it back alive with the medication; that if he didn't turn into one of them, he would've succumbed to blood loss and died suffering. No one dared to think about what could've been if it hadn't been a cold, harsh winter that time of year.

Pity, Haru had to get pneumonia.

"He can't turn. I won't let him." Rin hissed, not bothering to even look at his best friend. He'd done a good enough job so far of not painstakingly thinking about Makoto, so why did it have to come crashing down now? Maybe he thought he wasn't only talking about Haru when he said that, despite it being too late for the other person he had in mind.

"I won't let him die too." Rin repeated, not only for himself, but for Nagisa, for Rie, for Ai, for Sousuke, who (even if he didn't admit it) needed him. For Makoto, so the person Tachibana sacrificed himself for would live on where he himself wasn't able to.

Adrenaline ran throughout his veins, his heart pumping even faster than before, at a speed he didn't know it was capable of reaching. It was beating too fast for his brain to comprehend, and before he knew it himself, his feet hit whatever ground he was standing on and his unwilling legs began to run. Run where? That didn't matter.

The phantom feeling of something warm and wet rushed down his hands and fingers, comfortable, even, because of the warmth, yet the stinging hurt of his palms ignited pain shooting across his hands and the sense of comfort was gone.

"Stop trying to save him, Rin!" Sousuke demanded with enough flame behind his words to light an explosion. His voice was heavy, burning, painful with a undercoat of disgust for the words he just screamed out. It wasn't like he want Haru to die, hell, no one did – but this was the end of the world and you don't get want you want. Haru's mumbles, his clammy, paling skin and slow breathing were signs of metamorphosis, not recovery.

Not that that haunting fact could extinguish Rin's hope, though.

Sousuke was was fighting fire against fire.

"How can you say that?!" Rin snarled, not even looking at his best friend while tending to Haru on the futon. There were weaker mutterings from the raven every so often. Not many, but that'll change as the infection progresses. They learnt that from experience.

"He's infected, he'll bite you, you'll die, too!"

"Shut up!"

Sousuke was close to punching the wall, or throwing the medical supplies to the ground, or maybe even pushing Rin far enough away from Nanase, if that's what it took to keep Rin safe – to keep at least one of them alive. "I saw the Zombies rip out his neck, Rin! He's dead already!"

"No, I can still save him–!" Rin bit back, only to be cut off by strangled moans.

As they both stared helplessly at the raven-haired boy, burning images etched themselves forcefully through Sousuke'a mind.

Nanase was never happy (that he ever saw), but the teen was calm, clear, free...

But in the sights that flashed across his vision, Nanase was nothingness compared to the way Sousuke remembered the old Haru.

What Sousuke recalled were two different words: over one year ago, and the other a month ago. Firstly, he saw Haru begging for serene mercy in a world that was only chaos. The boy was panting, aching for breath, eyes racing, pained in a way that couldn't only be physically. Sousuke realised what he was remembering: only one of the many times where Nanase needed Makoto, yet Makoto wasn't there – dead. Coincidentally, the absence of Haru's other half effected him in a way that, often, made it so the raven-haired teen found it impossible to breathe.

And then there was before the outbreak, where Haru had Makoto and freedom still existed. Sousuke doubted that back then, if Tachibana was always with him, Haruka would've never even felt what it was like to have a panic attack, not to mention never relive the chaos of his best friend's death whenever he closed his eyes.

Instantaneously, the images collides together, like pure glow bonding together throughout Sousuke's head. All the hurt was absent from the picture – whether that was the pain from Haru's grief or his own brain reminiscing on what was no longer, one thing was for sure: the agony was gone. The scene inside his head depicted Haru stopping dead in his tracks, no longer running to save his life. He was looking up at the sky with serenity, but in the most chaotic situation imaginable, as if he was searching within the heavens desperately for something, someone.

This was an hour ago.

Despite Rei's, Nagisa's and his own screams to get the other teen to move, Nanase stood silently, looking up at like sky as if the stars had gone out, but in Haru's mind that seemed like a good thing. The anxiety, tension and pain from his features melted away as Haruka whispered, "I wanna see Makoto now."

Maybe Sousuke was wrong when he thought no one wanted Haru to die.

"Rin, Haru doesn't even want to be saved..."

There was something there... in his hands causing him to bleed, his mind distantly realised. Something, within the mush of his frazzled brain, told him that constantly bleeding was probably not a very good sign, but the effort it took to worry about such a thing eluded him. More annoyed than anything else, Haru shook his hand to rid himself of the distracting sensation, but it only served to shoot sensitive pained nerves up the rest of his hand and reach even his arm.

Uncoincidentally, he felt the something in his palm as a result, identifying the words to describe it, but not bothering to know what it was.

Sharp, fragmented, glassy... broken.

Haru's eyes shifted to the thing that lay broken in his palm, and the edge of white, dim light broke the surface. He felt his eyelids squint away and his feet dig into the ground harshly, stopping, at the artificial light that seemed to hurt his eyes. Blood rushed to his ears, skin feeling too hot, legs wavering at the sudden halt of movement, but all of that went unnoticed.

His eyes snapped back towards his opened palm as the small light grew to illuminated the scene a fraction more. Not that he realised, but his arms and hands were completely spattered in crimson blood, covered in dirt, grit and Gods know what else. His legs matched as well, same with his feet... it was pretty clear he was hurt, or covered in blood that wasn't his own. He had a sense that that was a familiar thing to occur – ending up in blood, one way or another. It was normal.

"What did you say?" Rin spat, tone laced in venom, knowing exactly what his friend screamed out.

Sousuke's face was agonising, the way he looked entirely hopeless, grief-stricken like they'd lost the raven-haired teen already. In a way, maybe they had. "It's the truth." He forced his unmovable mouth to say each syllable. Rin's gritted teach, clenched jaw, and the fire lingering behind his eyes (but being extinguished with un-fallen tears) – looked pained, like he was trying so hard to be angry, but couldn't – and it was making it all the much more difficult to retell the moments beforehand when the four of them were escaping the heard of bitters... unsuccessfully. "He stopped running, right there in the middle of the alley way."

"You don't know that! He could've fallen behind, could've been injured during the run!" Rin screamed back. He wasn't even there – left behind in the garage with Ai to protect the supplies and shelter they couldn't afford to lose (ironically, the things that didn't need the protection, apparently). But there in the heard of Zombies or not, he couldn't accept the information right in front of him; not Sousuke's words, not the others' remorseful, guilty faces; not the bite marks across Haru's body from Zombies that the raven-haired boy would have been able to defend himself against.

"Rin, Nanase stopped on purpose." Sousuke closed his eyes at that, not wanting to believe it as much as Rin didn't want to. The difference between them, however, Sousuke knew that just because you believe something, doesn't make it reality. Rin knew that too, in a way – if he didn't, he'd be insane – but it wasn't about believing, anyway. It was about needing. He needed Haru alive, regardless if he believed he really was or not. Maybe that was insanity, too. "He wanted this."

"He wouldn't do that." Rin whispered, the first time in his life wanting to be so sure about something, but the nauseating feeling inside knew otherwise. He wanted Sousuke to tell him it didn't happen like that, that Haru didn't purposely let himself stop running, that he didn't choose to be bitten, that he wasn't going to die because he wanted to.

Instead, he decided he wouldn't make Sousuke answer the impossible. Simply, Rin chocked out only one word: "Why?"

"I heard him..." Sousuke said back, voice small as he mirrored the words Haruka thought no one had heard. He was wrong. "'I wanna see Makoto now.'"

Sousuke felt a wet spot on his shoulder, a gentle and warm red. Rin was crying against him, sobbing, then gasping, then feeling the word spin.

"Makoto..." His mouth found itself saying as the broken object turned out to be a simple phone with smashed, bloodied glass for a screen and the words Tachibana Makoto on the display. His number shorn just below his name, a number Haru had always known but couldn't recognised at that very moment. He wasn't sure why at that point his chest got tighter and it felt like unshed tears burned in his eyes.

"Makoto?" He spoke once he pressed the call button. The glass cut through both his finger and the side of his ear, but he didn't care – he didn't feel it. "C-can you hear me?" His words caught on each other and it felt like his dry throat had constricted, a heavy lump inside still vividly noticeable.

"Makoto?" His voice chocked out, tone small and cracking with each syllable. His eyes started to get wet, despite the burning sensation lingering at the back of his irises. His knees went heavy just as he realised he was crying, and they threatened to give out. Wether from fear, exhaustion or paralysis he didn't know. A sense of urgency, a need, raced up and down his body as if he was depending on something to happen. He couldn't guess what, or who, or why, but knew that it was never-ending, painful, yet exhilarating – toxic fuel that kept him in constant unknown trepidation, but never burned away, either. He almost liked the addictive feeling if it wasn't for the dread.

"I'm sorry." Rin gasped achingly. His face was burning, too hot and wet with tears. He couldn't see, but he felt the world blurring out, but failed to notice his body had sank to the hard ground with himself wrapped protectively within Sousuke's arms. There was a burning igniting throughout his lungs like a single matchstick was lit and mixed with gasoline. He'd felt this before, he remembered distantly, when racing so hard in the water, he'd forget to take a breath. (But back then, the biggest problems he faced were records, times and swimming, unlike now when his friend practically chose to commit suicide.) All he had to do to regain the air circulating through his bloodstream and fill up his lungs was to merely push his head above the water's surface.

This time, in a world so different from the last, Rin was surrounded by air, smothered by it, suffocated. It was all too much and it felt like drowning in oxygen.

Sousuke was saying things, desperate things, and Rin could feel his bigger friend's warm, blood-coated hands against his shoulders, face, arms, trying to do something. But his best friend couldn't make his lungs work again... nor keep the one person he vowed to protect alive... neither stop the world from diving into deeper shit than it already had.

"I told him..." Rin chocked out, forcing numb, dry chapped lips to move. Maybe they had gone as pale and lifeless as Haru's had; like Makoto's had. "I-I'd keep him safe. Promised Makoto, b-before– before..." Before Makoto died, (well... turned), just as Haru would now too. Just as Haru planned to.

He didn't see the cracks of crystal ocean blue shine between slit, heavy eyelids.

"Please, Makoto."

And that's when he heard it. Panting. Hard, ragged, heavy, uneven panting. Footsteps clashing against rock and earth, pounding within the dirt. Torrents or rain pouring down from the other end of the line that physical made him feel cold just by listening to it.

Makoto's heart could be heard pounding between frantic beats, audible enough that Haru assumed his friend must've been clutching his phone tightly towards his chest, as if the phone itself was a lifeline. Beat, after beat; another echo after the one before – it was the sound of life.

Colours blurred together, mostly red swirling around through Rin's distorted vision. There was specks of warm white lightness, which he knew as the small light illuminating the large basement chasing away the consuming darkness, as well as the cold blueness that made out Haru's pale complexion and distant eyes...

Those blue, tired, lost eyes.

But they weren't gone...

The fire burning throughout Rin's own body, the flame behind his irises surged to life, as he lay there with Sousuke on the floor, unfocused on his other friends looming around him, but entirely absorbed in serene, ocean eyes.

Those two eyes... They were lazily open, hollow, dazed, glassy... yet searching. They were alive, and searching, just as a pair of crimson ones were searching back.

"I'm here! Talk to me." Haru called again through the phone, voice moving too quickly to understand even if his friend on the other side of the call could hear him.

There where agonising seconds of that pure scenery before something else made itself known. It wasn't a someone, not another person like Makoto or any other friend; it wasn't an ally, it wasn't help they both desperately needed. It wasn't another sign of life; there was no beating heart – not like Makoto's.

"Rin,"

His voice was tiny, didn't even completely sound like a word at all – more like an inaudible syllable of a sound – by they all heard it with crystal clarity.

"Haru..." Rin half chocked, half whispered the raven's name back. The tears made the bloodied teen come in and out of focus, but he didn't bother to wipe them away. "I'm sorry I couldn't– couldn't save him... or you."

"Stay,"

"Mm?"

"With me." The sense of finality to his words said more than the three syllables he spoke ever did.

"Rin," Sousuke warned, knowing how much of a bad idea it was to be so close to someone who was dying - turning.

"It's okay, Sousuke." Rin breathed, distantly amazed that he still knew how. "I know."

The unspoken messaged was told through the air, though Rin's face, through all the crimson blood. They didn't need words anymore.

The other's left Rin and Haru to themselves, if only for moment of serenity before the world became an even darker place once again with one less life.

Sousuke left behind a knife, sliding across the floor and grazing against Rin's hand.

They didn't need words.

The things weren't living, weren't human.

Soon, the panting got heavier, quicker, just like the footsteps and even the rain seemed to bucket down more densely. It made his hands freeze up again and his body go still as he whispered the other teen's name once more.

"Makoto? Please... answer me."

Yet... something that was not Makoto replied, and it made his blood run cold. Gurgling mixed in with acidic groans from more than one creature followed after the fast footsteps. He heard at least ten of them, moaning in the near distance probably not far behind Makoto. They got louder, that was another thing, and then Haru knew why Makoto wasn't answering in words.

The heavy, uneven, petrified panting was unspoken for 'I'm running for my fucking life... from the Zombies!'

He didn't notice it at first, but something in Rin's brain decided to give out – not in the dangerous, shut down kind of way, but just like falling asleep. It was too sudden, too unwilling, more similar to the sensation of pure exhaustion succumbing to passing out (which, in all fairness, it probably was), and yet it felt like a perfect idea in the very moment. The sheets were stained a warm, sticky scarlet, a metallic scent filled the air, and it was hard to forget the world was contaminated by cannibalistic, world-ending monsters all around them; but lying next to Haru when he didn't have to think about anything else but drifting into the darkness, was the most euphoric sense of freedom and serenity anyone could fell in complete dystopia.

He didn't need those electric blue eyes to open and calm him down, or Haru's gentle voice to drown away his racing, beating pulse drumming through his ears. The soft air from his colourless lips brushing against Rin's face when he lay there next to him was a lullaby in itself – proof of life, proof that Haru was still breathing, and if that was the case, his world hadn't collapsed just yet... for these mere seconds at least.

The euphoria died somewhere along in the night, same time the lullaby stopped grazing against Rin's warm, feverish check leaving the air freezing – dead.

Too late.

But before either of them knew it, it was all over already. Haru's mind had yet to process the agonising screams on the other end, so too late he realised what that meant. Too late he recognised that the too quick thump, thump, thump of a throbbing pulse was gone, faded away. But when his unwilling mind made the connection, every sound, sensation and thought was chaotic. He managed to hear fresh ripping, bones breaking, teeth shattering, and endless screams filling the lungs of not only Makoto who was being attacked by the Zombies, but his own as he heard his best friend being eaten alive.

"No!"

It wasn't Haru that Rin woke up to. It was dark. There was blood. He couldn't see. It felt wrong. And all was lost as it ripped out his throat.

A/N:

AgHauA... wow. Was that too disturbing? Lol idek anymore. I can't write anything else other than angsty/disturbing shit. I killed three fucking main characters. That's like a record for me, or whatever XD

And yay, second Free! fanfic :D Don't kill me if there totally out-of-character ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Well, this was for a Wattpad contest about dem zombiessss, so blame Wattpad for this...

- CyanGalaxy