2. The World of Undead
AN: Zombie Apocalypse AU. One of my friends had a fun talking about it and I played around with the idea with it.
In the year of 2120, Japan had gone down in ruins.
No one knew how it happened, or where it all began. But one thing everyone knew is that death and survival were the common factors in the ruined country.
Zombies ruled the land now.
While there were few humans surviving in the world, it was still hard to even find a good source of food or water, no thanks to pollution and smog. Buildings were cracked beyond repair, providing no support or shelter from the acid rain or the horde of zombies straggling though the city.
It was been that way for some time, it was the basic truth.
Within the nearly broken down building of what was once the police building, a policeman with a gas mask was preparing for his trip outside. He cleaned the remaining bullets he had raided from the building, putting some extra items of food packs and water bags in his carry-on bag. He checked his trusty, old handgun.
He wasn't intending on staying in the building too long.
Sighing heavily, he adjusted his gas mask and headed out, looking out for any undead nearby.
Seeing none, he was off, clutching his gun tightly as he scanned around. The smog covered his vision, like a fog in the early morning that he had seen from the simulation, but gray, heavy, and hot.
He huffed, taking a deep intake as he walked around the broken pieces of a transport vehicle. The vehicle was empty, abandoned, crumpled like a paper, perhaps with some items that were over expired or infected due to smog. Shrugging off, he continued on, avoiding any contact with the fallen dead bodies of civilians.
This is a world of a nightmare for a man in police force.
He scratched his neck, making the irritation from the mask go away as he hopped into the new building. The door was open, so he doesn't need to waste his energy from breaking and entering into the abandoned building.
The building he walked into was empty, with few desks, broken monitors and useless phones scattered across the cracked floor. It was once a cuticle of office, but what it once was, he doesn't know nor does he care about it.
Suddenly, something clattered to the floor and he brought his handgun up, aiming at the source of the sound that was behind him. He can only hope that it was not an undead.
If there's one undead roaming around, that means that more are nearby.
"Wait!" a meek voice muffled out instead of the low groan of a dead. A hand appearing from behind the tiled wall, "Don't shoot! I'm friendly! A friendly!"
"Who are you?"
As if on cue, a small, lanky businessman popped out from the wall, arms up, trying to seem unthreatening.
"I'm...I'm just a guy who works at some low-end business... Well, used to..."
The policeman lowered his weapon, but still had not placed it back in his hostel, not sure he should fall for the 'helplessness' act. It was common for many survivors to deceit him, acting all friendly before stabbing him in the back. It didn't help that he had to kill them in order to take his stuff back.
"A-anyways," the small guy stammered as he stumbled through the broken concrete, "Y-you can call me Momonga..."
He frowned, so the man uses a codename. Smart.
"M-my team and I've been searching around for some p-place to stay..." Momonga continued, "a-and it's been a while since I s-saw survivors."
"You're not going to live long if you're going to talk like that." He grunted, hissing out his breath through his gas mask. The businessman's gasmask twitched, signifying that he had pressed the buttons. The policeman made no move to even bother.
"I-I know..." the small man breathed, voice muffled into incoherent sounds, "...I-I'm not much of a g-good public s-speaker so..."
The policeman nodded his head, he isn't much of a public speaker either, but that doesn't mean he's useless. He'd prefer to observe and plan his way out of this hellhole. At least his obsession with war strategy and tactical planning didn't fail him in surviving this place.
"A-anyway, um..." Momonga replied, "I see that you're alone, so...want to join my group?"
He looked at the salesman like he was crazy, "How would you know that I wouldn't kill you or your teammates?"
Momonga shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, but if we stick together we'll be able to gather supplies, food, water and find shelter quicker. We've been surviving for nearly 4 years together now..."
The policeman could only widen his eyes. Only 4 years? They've been together ever since the beginning of the outbreak? Now he's interested. But, he wanted to observe and decide for himself.
After agreeing to meet with the other teammates of Momonga's, the said salesman seemed to be excited as he lead the policeman through the rubbles, explaining on who's in his group. For what it seemed like hours, the policeman finally met the group.
The group consists of at least 20 or more people, each having a weapon, gasmask as well as a backpack on their back.
Everyone goes with the codenames it seems, the policeman noted when he was introduced to the second in command of the group, Touch-Me who greeted him with open arms.
Momonga then proceeded on introducing many of his teammates to the policeman, Takemikazuchi, the weapon specialist; Ulbert, the demolition expert; Yamaiko, the close-combat healer (the policeman even wondered how she would even handle that); Peroroncino, the sharpshooter, and more.
When he asked Momonga about the codenames, Momonga happily provided the information to him.
"We left all of our old self behind when the outbreak happened." Momonga explained as he waved to Nishikienrai, the Scouter who had just came back from his recon mission, "It's been a long time ago and we all sort of forgot our real names and well, our codenames just sort of stuck."
The policeman hummed, as he looked over the rest of the group. They all seem to be at ease with each other, like as if they were old friends. He wasn't sure how long they would be like this for a while, but seeing something so normal in this dying world gave him a small hope. Even just for a bit.
"I see..." he mumbled, then looked at Momonga, "Do I get to choose my own name?"
"Yep!" Momonga answered, his stutters gone. Had he always been stuttering? He couldn't remember.
The policeman then said to Momonga that he would need time to think, though he wasn't planning on staying for long since he'd prefer to survive on his own. Momonga doesn't seem to be down about it, but he just happily showed him a spot where he would stay for a night and have been looked over by their local medic, Tabula.
Tabula Smagardina, as he introduced himself, made him really uneasy. He was like any other people in this group, but him being a certified doctor was a bit of a downside, since he had a terrible experience with doctors.
It doesn't help that many of the doctors were greedy bastards. Taking advantage of the sick and having them pay the medicine that is beyond their paycheck. Though Tabula doesn't seem to be interested in money at that point, but you'll never know when it comes to doctors.
The policeman thoughts were running with various ways that this doctor would kill him, poison, internal bleeding, removing organs without his consent, and so on and so forth.
"Oh, would you calm down?" Tabula huffed, as he checked around the policeman's arm, checking for any bite marks, "You're worse than Ulbert when he had to get up in the morning with Touch-Me. I swear that lawyer had not been sleeping the required hours I told him to get."
Tabula seemed to mumble at that last part, and the policeman was sure that it was not aimed to him, but to the doctor himself. In hope to ease his paranoia, he asked Tabula on what he does in the group.
"I worked as a doctor before this hell broke out." Tabula explained as he used one of his tools to listen to his heart, "Good, steady heartbeat. And I joined this group about a year ago, they're quite a decent group, but they lacked a doctor. I'm surprised that they have lived this far without getting hurt... well, there was that one time... Anyway, not only am I the only doctor in here, but I work with various tools and traps."
"I see." The policeman replied as he listened to the doctor's story, then a thought had occurred, "What about...uh, Yamaiko? I heard that she's a medic."
"Oh, she only knows the basic First Aid." Tabula replied, his voice seemed to have humor behind it, "I taught her some more basic aids when she's out on the battle field. I heard that she's looking for her younger sister ever since they got separated during the break-out."
The policeman thought about that, losing someone in the breakout would devastate anyone, and using that as a way to survive is never a good thing. You'll never survive that long if the only source of survival is searching someone.
"Though, for a teacher, she sure can throw a mean punch." Tabula chuckled as he patted the policeman's back, "You're clear, but you should rest up. I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
With that, Tabula left, his dirtied white lab coat fluttered as he turned. Policeman blinked and could only watch as he found himself alone. He then shook his head as he stood up and walked out of the small room that was used for medical area.
Might as well listen to the doctor's orders, one thing he knows about doctors that, no matter how greedy or how kind they are, they are known to have sassy bedside manners.
Perhaps, he'll join their group just see how it goes.