CHAPTER 2: NEVER FORGET

[Authors note: Spoiler warning for Season 3-4, mostly in the sense of mentioning a few characters and whose side they are on! If you do not know who Ian Golightly is, then this chapter may seem confusing to you. Enjoy!]

"Runner 5, do you copy?"

You nod, but realize that this is obviously not visible through the comms and you quickly add a short 'yep' between two breaths as you jog at a rather decent pace. You didn't have time to warm up before going, so you consider this your warm-up, which Janine thankfully doesn't mind. It's not like you are running for your life yet.

"Good." You hear the shuffling of paper, likely some mission briefing notes that Janine keeps for her own reference – And Sam's, because he still 'forgets' to read them.

He elaborates from somewhere next to Janine in the comms room. "Yeah, this should be an easy one, 5. Just a perimeter run to make sure Sigrid's remaining isn't making some... Funky advances of any sort. Y'know, even with her out of the picture, a few of the loyal ones, namely Ian, are kinda, uh, keen on getting revenge if you know what I'm saying."

Well, obviously. It wasn't like Ian would have liked you even if you hadn't helped take Sigrid down – You always got in his way in the first place and his priorities were always askew from yours, so you didn't get along well. You never tried to, though, especially not after the whole 'i'm gonna kill you' business.

"Although I might not have phrased it exactly like that, Mr. Yao, that is what we are doing, yes. You just need to run around the perimeter through the woodland path to make sure that the area is safe from both zombies and Sigrid's people."

"And especially not Sigrid's people as zombies!"

A sigh. "No, especially not that. Go on Five, give it a short burst of speed and then this should be over with in a good 40 minutes."

You smile to yourself, mostly because you can almost sense Sam's sullen expression when Janine takes his joke seriously. It happens so often that you know exactly what that silence sounds like. But it's reassuring, because you know that as long as Sam jibbers and Janine's annoyed at him, everything's fine and nothing's out of order. Sam also jokes when he's stressed but it's a different kind, where he sounds legitimately terrified at the same time and Janine immediately would become very strict and straight-forward if something was wrong.

So you listen to their trivial talking, with an occasional instruction in-between like 'turn right here' or 'got a few zoms on your tail, try and speed up a bit', which you follow.

By the time you reach the forest, your mind has started to wander, because it does and you listen with half an ear into the comms but Janine and Sam are also just chattering about which is normal, so you think none of it. You should know that it's dangerous to let your mind drift – The apocalypse hasn't ended yet, so there are always risks and it's important to consider them.

It's just not always that you do it. This time, you forgot. Sam forgot, Janine forgot. It was a pleasant stroll for you honestly and you weren't paying attention.

In retrospect, you would realize that that noise you'd heard wasn't static from the headset, nor was the shuffling sound behind you from one of the trailing zombies and you'd remember Sarah's advice to never ever ignore a noise out of place. You had no idea what was wrong until Janine broke Sam off mid-sentence, likely with some violent gesture with her hand and leaning towards the mic,

"Five, we have no cameras in that part of the forest, but I can see figures on the scanner. Not zombies – Someone's following you."

You can hear the tension through the calm of her voice and you do tense but you do not look behind you and you do not turn around, just like you've trained. The moment you do, whoever 'someone' is, they will know that they've been noticed if you react. "What do I do?" You answer quietly with your eyes straight forward and pace not changing.

"Uhhh, hang on, don't stop- I'm trying to get some of the other cameras to give me some feed on who it is… Arh, I can't see anything with these bloody trees everywhere! Janine, do you have any idea of who it is? Any chance it's just Amelia trying to give us a good scare or something?"

"You're not far from the edge of the forest, you can get out of there if you put on a burst of speed and then we have you on camera-"

If Janine continues, you don't hear her. There is shuffling in the bushes, you cry out defensively when someone grabs your arm, and try to yank it free immediately. As you do, you see that it is a strong man who grips you and you do not know him, but he does not let go when you struggle, although you put up quite the fight.

With all good reason, you assume that he is an enemy and your free hand go to your utility belt for your gun, which has a bit of ammo left just in case.

"Five! Oh my God—Five, what's going on!? I hate not being able to see anything! Get out of there, come on!"

There is some more jabbering in your ear from both Sam and Janine but it's all pretty vague to you since none of it really helps you currently, struggling against a man who is quite a lot taller and broader than yourself while you try to get your gun.

Your fingers tough the cold metal – They brush it, you are so close to wrapping your fingers around it when something even colder and definitely metallic hits the side of your head and you might have screamed or just rasped out hoarsely, you're not quite sure, but you don't remember how you ended up on the ground – That's for certain.

Now you're there, though. Your vision is swimming and voices sound as if they are underwater as a face comes into your view and you would have bolted up if the damn world hadn't been so close to disappearing into a black ring that is dangerously close to enveloping your eyesight fully.

"Five? Five! Oh God, Janine, I think they've got Five! You gotta do something!"

"I know, Mr. Yao, I'm working on it! But I don't know who we are up against!"

Janine sounds aggressive, but she does under pressure and you want to tell her that you know who you are up against, but your voice fails you.

"Sam Yao, what a pleasure to hear your voice again! And Miss DeLuca – Don't worry! The good news is that you know who you are up against! The bad news is that you can do nothing about it!"

"Ian!"

Ian Golightly always spoke with an uncomfortably nasal accent that you'd despise whether he was your ally or not, but at least it's recognizable from anywhere. You make an attempt to stand but a foot presses down on your hand none-too-gently and the other hand is already restrained by the soldier as your hear a van pulling up somewhere nearby.

"Ian, there is no good for you doing this! The Minister is dead, no one's going to praise you for capturing our runner!"

"Oh Janine, so naïve, thinking that I do this to please a dead person! If everyone had stopped trying to satisfy the dead, a lot more lives could have been saved, don't you think?" Ian snickers at his own comment. "No, I just think Runner 5 here has been a menace throughout all of this and I wanted some fun now that you'd all let your guard down for a little while!"

"Ian, I swear if you hurt Runner 5—"

You didn't hear more from them. Your headset was taken out, Ian stepped on it right in front of you, breaking it into tiny fragments, and after that, you were hauled into the car.

The next long while, you were with them. The remaining holders of Sigrid's loyalty, and if not that, at least shared hatred for you. You were not the only prisoner, there were a few other people none of whom you knew (which you weren't sure if you appreciated or not) that somehow had also been an inconvenience to these people and needed their punishment.

They were not kind to you. And at several points, they almost broke you but they never fully did.

It was one of the other prisoners who helped you escape from there after god-knows-how-long. She was a lady in her 60ies who had apparently been frustratingly against Ian's ideas and continuously pestered him about it to the point of driving him mad. She told you, one night, that her family had mostly died in the apocalypse and that she had been against Sigrid the moment she discovered what Abel had known. And she knew who you were.

Her self-sacrifice was one you would always remember. The distraction she offered for you was likely enough to have gotten her killed, but she had snuck you the few rations she had managed to hide before they searched her and despite your protests had said that 'her time was over now'. She would never regain it, she said, not fully and happily and would rather have someone escape at her expense than for both of them to live and die miserably.

So you got out in the dark of night, alone, with only few rations and no contacts, with no idea where you were. Ian's folk noticed and he cried after you that 'he would get you killed no matter the sacrifices it took' but they never caught you again.

The first time went on finding food, staying alive and as you did that, you tried to find any settlement at which you could use a radio to contact Abel.

Doing that took longer than anticipated, but you did it – However contacting them, you did not. You started by tuning in to the different frequencies to figure out if anyone was there at all and you found that Sam was, and almost spoke up—Until you overheard the door open and close in the comms room and the operator shushing the newcomer.

"Sarah's finally asleep." He whispered and you could hear the smile in his voice and then following, the soft, amused chuckle of Maxine Meyers, quiet footsteps coming closer to the mic.

"Good… Janine asked me to tell you that you can go to bed too. It's late, and all the runners are back home safely for the night."

You hold your breath, staring at the microphone in front of you and wondering if you should speak up and say that one was missing but you instead just awaited Sam's response, unable to make yourself interrupt.

There is silence on the line for a few seconds and you wonder if the sound has died, until Sam responded with a "Yeah, I know. I'll be out in a sec." And you felt your stomach twist a bit. Not necessarily in betrayal or anger or anything because you weren't there and didn't count as 'a runner back home safely' anymore, because who could blame them? You'd been gone for so long now, at least it felt like that…

But you feel sad. Because you aren't a runner back home safely anymore. If all runners are back home and you were not there, you don't fall under the category of a runner of Abel anymore, you'd suppose. The microphone stare at you as aggressively as you stare at it but you bit your lip and flick the 'mute' switch to 'on' and sigh, staring at the black screen and your blurry reflection in it.

Well, you had only arrived as a helicopter-crash refugee technically. Sam and Maxi sounded happy enough… You don't know what had happened in Abel in the meantime. Maybe, yeah, maybe contacting them would just bring back the past now. And besides, if Ian is still hunting you down, going to Abel would bring them at risk and you don't want that.

So you don't contact them – Only listen in occasionally from different radio stations, just to check up and make sure they are okay. It was fine that you aren't there, if they are safe. You always had a feeling that you brought more trouble to Abel than good anyways.

Over the years that eventually passed, you sent them some anonymous packages too through a few contacts, pretending that it is some care package from an unheard-of military group. Usually some silly items from somewhere or even the occasional food item that you know someone will love back home. As a form of consolation to yourself and them, maybe.

But, so long after, you decide to seek them out anyways because you can only get so much intel from radios and you want to see them, even if they don't see you. Correct?

IF YES – PROCEED TO CHAPTER 4

IF NO – YOU DO NOT CONTACT ABEL AND REMAIN ANONYMOUS. RETURN TO ZOMBIES, RUN SEARCH TAG