Finally, after a long night of staring at the wall, the sky started to turn gray. Mind you, it had been gray for several days, dumping snow once and simply hanging out afterwards. I didn't mind; the cold is my favorite. Who knows, maybe more snow was on the way. The sky simply turned a lighter shade of gray than the nighttime gray, which is also known as black. Those strange way-too-bright, watch-from-your-window, yellow light snow nights that everyone loves were gone. There wasn't enough light anymore. Nothing there for the snow to reflect. Sure, it was still light and you could see enough to find your way, but it also wasn't. No more seeing everything in a golden midnight glow: all the more seeing everything in gray.

I waited until Tyler and Craig were up and about until forcing myself to get up. I couldn't sleep but my bed was the comfiest thing I had experienced in a while. And I had to get dressed in all those layers I was accumulating. Great.

I shuffled into the living room and sat myself at the table. Shit, how was I going to get away with not eating?

"Morning," Tyler grunted from the couch. Craig was sitting on the counter and slowly stirring the contents of a thermos.

"You hungry?" Mini was already reaching for the food backpack. He pulled out a protein bar and tossed it to me. "Too bad if you're not," he finished.

"I prefer to eat on the road," I tossed it back to him.

"Did you sleep at all last night? You look just as tired," Tyler pointed out.

"Yeah, I slept fine," I rubbed at my nose. (Isn't that body language for lying?) "You two sleep alright?"

Craig's red cheeks told all. Tyler nodded, his pokerface impenetrable, "Luxury apartments are always the best option," he said.

I shrugged, "Maybe. Rich people tend to get food delivered more than they like to cook, and what they do cook is with fresh ingredients."

"He has a point," Craig added, "though any clothing we find would be nice."

"Nice for staying in and not for fighting," I scratched the back of my neck and felt at the scars. "That clothing will be delicate."

"Dammit, Adam, we're trying to stay positive," Mini raked a hand through his hair.

"I'm trying to be realistic," I retorted.

"Chill out," Tyler butted in, "we'll find what we need." He shot both of us a look. Craig pouted for a moment before his usual optimism kicked in. "We need to get going," Tyler slung his backpack on.

I pushed away from the table and zipped my coat up to my throat.

"Wait, that crap on your neck healed," Mini said. It wasn't a question. "I thought this happened like ten days ago," he walked over and tugged my collar down. "There's no way," he spoke.

"Yeah, it's weird," I brushed his hand away and scrambled for an excuse. "I guess it healed so quick because I was in a coma?" Tyler was watching me closely. "I don't think it was as bad as it looked."

"Dude, you're freezing cold," Craig pressed a hand to my forehead.

"Am I?" I tried to suppress my rising panic. They were going to find out and that was going to be the end of Adam Montoya. I could already see Tyler's fingers wrapping around his crowbar.

"No wonder you're so pale and tired," Mini shifted his hand to my throat and felt for my pulse. He paused. I swallowed thickly. "I'm no expert, but I think your heart should be beating," he whispered to me. Tyler was rigid, staring holes into me. His heart rate was rising faster and faster. I closed my fingers around a bat that was lying on the table.

"Yeah, it probably should be," I watched Tyler for any warning of an attack. If it came down to it, there was no way I could keep him off. He was too big, too strong, and I was too small and inexperienced at fighting.

Craig saw what was coming and stepped back. "Woah, woah, woah, you two need to chill," he waved his hands at us. I forced myself to relax and back away, just out of Tyler's massive reach.

"You want to tell us what's up, Adam?" Tyler looked like an animal, vicious and protective of what was his.

"Um, yeah, so I was in a coma and I woke up and my heart never really woke up," I gave my most winning smile, "and I came to find you to see if one of you lucky boys could wake it up."

"God, you're disgusting," Tyler relaxed while Mini burst into laughter. "You taking over the job of pervert for Sark?"

"You know it," I winked at him as relief washed over me. Crisis averted.

"Craig, do you even know how to find a pulse?" He turned to the shorter man.

"Apparently not," Mini slapped his own cheeks. "Besides, it's so stinking cold in here that it's no wonder you're freezing," he seemed almost relieved too. I wonder why.

"I do miss the electricity," Tyler said absentmindedly. He snapped out of whatever thoughts he was in and started for the door. "Alright, no more time to waste," he pushed the door open and stepped out into air that wasn't any colder than the air inside.

God, we waste a whole lot of time. We spent several days on that apartment complex and the surrounding townhomes. I won't go into the details, but it was some boring shit. No zombies around, no survivors, no good food, no durable clothing. What Craig and Tyler saw as a treasure trove, I saw as garbage. Well, it would have been lots of goodies if the apocalypse hadn't occurred. Gold watches, diamond necklaces, Armani suits, Ferrari keys, fancy kitchens, huge penthouses, all kinds of junk. All turned into worthless trash. Now the valuables were food and warm clothing and weapons.

Quite the change, if you ask me.

During this time some other important things were happening. By this point, Anthony was either doing pretty okay or he was dead. Evan was mourning the loss of his boyfriend and actually ended up finding another gang, which he joined for a time.

His joining that group of survivors actually saved his life. I'm pretty sure the dudes he found were the same dudes that me and Max ran into after the hospital incident. What happened was:

Evan felt the exhaustion of days of wandering and wasting with very little sleep and even less food. His lips were blue and chapped, his fingers and toes numb, and his eyes red and bleary. His clothing wasn't thick enough to keep anything out and he lacked supplies. And, eventually, his body gave out on him. He collapsed in the middle of the street and laid there in the snow for a while until a few men stumbled upon him. Literally. They quickly picked him up and hurried him to their home base. And so Evan woke up wrapped in blankets and curled up in front of a fireplace.

He quickly sat up and took in the rest of the room. An older man was snoozing in an armchair on his right. "What happened?" Evan asked.

The man jerked awake and shrugged, "some of the scouts found you half-dead in the street. What's your name?"

"Ev-Vanoss," the gamer stumbled.

His new acquaintance gave him a strange look. "Well, Vanoss, I'm Wilhelm." His voice had a bit of an accent, now that Evan thought about it. "Welcome to our little family," he smiled warmly.

Fong met the rest of the group, totaling thirteen men and five women. Wilhelm turned out to be the "godfather" of the entire group.

Of course, Evan was a lucky SOB to have even been found. But he was even luckier to be found by Wilhelm's crew. I guarantee that there were other gangs around with no such sympathy. Vanoss could have been Vanoss stew or Vanoss corpse.

I'll explain what happened to the rest of them later.

Max, on the other hand, experienced a little itty bit of a problem. The pipes froze. Running the heat on the entire 8th floor did nothing for him; the ice wouldn't budge. So he had to resort to bottled water for everything, which, as you know, isn't infinite. (Neither is tap water, but you get the point.)

He discovered it when he was attempting to shower. The water just wouldn't come out. So he trekked to the maintenance basement and very quickly found his problem.

"Shit," he whispered to himself. Even more shit was the zombies who could now follow him. They busted their way into the basement and forced him to fight them, spending precious bullets to save himself. But he didn't make it out clean. He caught his foot on a pipe and managed to very quickly trash his knee. (A pop is a really bad thing, right?) So Max had to practically crawl up to 802 and find some crutches. 9 flights of stairs is grueling as is; he didn't need a busted knee to go along with it.

Being the (lovable) idiot he is, Gonzalez didn't think anything of his knee. Until he tried to put weight on it. (He found the crutches and THEN tried to walk?) He found himself flopped on the carpet. So he forced himself to crutch to 804 and didn't even think to mess with ice or elevation like a normal person; he went straight to bed. And woke up with a knee the size of a very very large grapefruit. Or maybe a small melon. And it was a nice purple color. (I think he tore his ACL. But that's also kind of the only knee injury I know of.) And he couldn't do anything with it.

Max ended up spending a few hours crutching around with a backpack to carry supplies until he had his room stocked up so that he didn't have to go anywhere. Then he went back to bed and slept because crutches are so flipping exhausting.

It kills me to write about Max. I guess that needs an explanation because I told you, like, a little while ago that I kind of felt some stuff for him.

This is a really bad tangent, but everyone has his own faults. And, on top of that, everyone refuses to admit them. Who wants to say, "yo, I was wrong," or "sorry, I have a problem?" No one! But everyone can still see it.

For example: you've seen how unforgiving and cold Max can turn when he's threatened and betrayed. However, you ask him about it and he explains it off as self-preservation and denies his severity.

Or there's Sark and his total lack of a filter. He was the kindest, most caring, and most selfless guy among us, but the things that came out of his mouth had little to no thought put into them.

Evan? He's cocky, reckless, and 100% an asshole. Same thing for Jonathan, just a whole lot more homicidal. He killed Marcel, obviously, but it's also highly likely that he was involved in Brock's sudden death in a street fight with a gang.

Of course, those are the big, glaring faults. Who knows what the other ones are.

Now I'm sure that you're wondering: who does this Adam think he is, talking trash about his friends? Don't worry, I'm getting there.

Me, I'm a lot of things. Self-centered is one of them. I'll play whatever cards I need to in order to win. (Have you ever seen me play prop hunt?) And I'll go so far as to use people (Max) and lie to them to benefit myself. I also, as I said a while back, don't understand emotions at all. So I ignore them in myself and others.

That's how I manipulated Max. I played on and used his care for me to help myself along. I knew all about his feelings for me and I ignored them. And he knew it. But I gave him just enough to keep him attached.

Don't get me wrong, he was my favorite person. We did everything together; we survived together. I'm such a jerk that I used my best friend.

When he told me I replied with my little sexuality thing and that was that: nothing awkward, none of that. We were still best friends. But I suddenly had his devotion to play with and use to my advantage. He would do anything for me. And I gave him little morsels in return. He doted on me, protected me, loved me, and I used him and gave him next to nothing in return.

And then I got too close. As soon as I woke up something had changed. So I tried to step back and get away, but the damage was done. I can't use someone's attraction if I reciprocate it. Then Max did the best thing for himself and kicked me out. I knew he wanted me worse than ever, but there was something else in his eyes that I never mentioned. He wanted freedom. He was tired of the games. He was tired of his confliction. He got rid of me so that he could grow again.

And now I'm admitting all of this because I'm being crushed by guilt. The kind of guilt that weighs you down and makes your entire being writhe in disgust and self-hate. I can't take it.

Who's the asshole now?

I guess it goes to say that none of us were very happy for a while. Except for maybe Tyler and Craig because they had each other. But even Craig was starting to lose hope. Because really, how does anyone make it out of the apocalypse alive?

"I miss the electricity," Craig said one night. Another snowstorm was blowing through, leaving us to huddle together in the living room.

Me and Tyler looked at him. He never complained. "Yeah," I eventually said, casting my eyes down. Tyler sighed.

"Do you miss them?" Mini pulled his coat on tighter. His eyes were so, so tired. I shrugged.

Tyler spoke first, "Sometimes," he stared at his hands, "sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wish I was one of them so that I could be done with this hell."

Before the Fall words like that would be hopeless and pessimistic. Wishing to die? But now that the world had gone to shit, that was what everyone felt.

"What if there was a way to survive?" Craig brightened just a little at the thought. "Like, a way to get the zombies to ignore you? Then you could go anywhere you wanted and you could grow food and fix things and actually thrive."

I looked at the floor and at the mean little zombie lights below us. "Maybe there is a way," I murmured.

Now it was my turn to be the shocker. Tyler shook his head, "There's no way."

"There is," I felt my confidence building. They trusted me now; I had been with them for close to a week. "I know there is. I've done it," I glanced between the two of them. "And there's no need to grow crops any more. I've evolved," I finished.

"Evolution takes, like, a bazillion years," Tyler frowned, "and I know you're a zombie magnet. One of them almost killed you."

"The virus is the evolution," I shrugged the blankets off of my shoulders. "It lets those humans go on forever without food, heat, or even water, just at the price of a working brain."

"You saying you're infected?" Tyler's heart rate was rising, his chest glowing brighter and brighter.

"My brain still works, doesn't it?" I tapped my head.

"Adam, you're a crazy son of a bitch," Tyler pinched the bridge of his nose.

"How did you come up with all that?" Craig seemed a little more open to my idiocy.

"Um, I had a lot of time to think when I was trying to find you guys. I walked for three days and nights," I watched his eyes widen. "That's kind of how I caught up to you so fast."

"So your heart actually isn't beating," Mini mumbled. I nodded. God, playing this savior part is weird. It's like a job interview where you're a crazy man if you don't get the job.

"Max knows?" Tyler spoke up, "That's why he kicked you out?"

"Yeah," I sighed.

Craig started to dig around in his backpack. He drew a dagger out. "You guys want to be blood brothers?" A stupid grin was across his face, "It'll be totally rad, dudes." Tyler rolled his eyes.

Convincing them was a whole lot easier than I expected.

So we pricked fingers and did something I hadn't done since elementary school.