For all the times she's waken up, they never really started up with her feeling like multiple sharp objects pierced her body in many places. In addition to that, there was this weird, heavy feeling coming from her limbs, making it feel like one of those times where she's still half-asleep even after waking up, usually after doing a playthrough marathon of an entire game series.

At the time when she opened her eyes, that's when she realized that she's not really in her room, or any place familiar to her, for that matter; because for starters, unless if this place was a warehouse, then those gray, unpainted walls looked really out of place.

"You're awake."

If the unfamiliar surroundings weren't enough to jolt the girl awake, then maybe hearing someone else's voice would. Immediately coming to her senses, at the side of where she laid down, was a boy who looked like he was watching over her. It may be the factors of still being slight drowsy kicking in, but something about him felt awfully familiar, nagging at her scalp.

Naturally, a familiar name was the first thing that popped out of her mind.

"...Hajime?"

The stranger didn't make any sudden movements, but she could feel his confusion. "I'm afraid that you might have been mistaken." That was what he said, and as her drowsiness slowly wore off, she can clearly see what he meant by that.

His facial features may look similar to her best friend, but whereas Hajime had green eyes, the boy before her had red ones. Another feature she saw is that unlike Hajime's rugged brown hair, he had smooth-looking black locks, and if she looked closer, would see that it reached his feet.

"Oh..."

If this was had been an entirely different situation, she might have asked more about him, digging for any possible answers, and try to confirm if this stranger really was her missing friend. But there are more pressing matters at the moment, such as how and why she ended up in here. That, and she can't really make any baseless assumptions, like those people who end up thinking too hard about simple things in video games and then create insane theories about it from cherry-picked facts.

Oblivious to the girl's slight embarrassment, he faced towards her and then asked, "Your name is...?"

It might have been out of simple politeness, but she replied, " Chiaki Nanami."

"Izuru Kamukura." The stranger introduced himself. He then tilted his head, as if to take a better look at her, and then mused, "From what I can see, your body has adapted to the virus better than I thought it would have."

V-Virus? "Huh?" She'll admit that this guy was a bit shady before, but now this is giving her all sorts of bad gut feelings. Just what does he mean by 'virus'?

"It may be a lot for you to process, but in a way, you're not truly human anymore. You are now an infected."

Chiaki stared at him blankly, unsure of what to make from what he said.

"You do not believe me, I presume?" Izuru stood up. "That is alright; I'm well aware that you would be skeptical at first. I suppose further proof is in order."

From there, she saw how a lock of his hair began to stretch and shape itself into an absurdly sharp blade. The action itself is enough to make her eyes widen in surprise.

Without even letting her try to assume that he's only playing tricks on her, the blade of hair stabbed its way through the wall, just millimeters away from striking in her face. After several seconds have passed, the blade hair deformed back into its natural shape, shrinking back to its original length, all the while he's being oblivious to the fact that he may have frightened the girl in his little demonstration.

In fact, she can clearly see that said demonstration left a small crater in the wall.

In the midst of confusion and panic, the girl tried to push herself off the bed, hoping to get away from this place and maybe, just maybe, make even a little bit of sense from the madness of her current situation.

As it turns out, maybe trying to get off the bed after being unconscious for an unknown span of time wasn't exactly the brightest idea she had. Because of that, the girl ended up falling on the floor, flailing her legs in hilariously pitiful attempts of getting up.

On the other hand, the stranger with her only blinked at this new development. "It appears that you could somewhat move your limbs despite having been in disuse for at least a month." He observed. "Had this been any other situation, they would have atrophied due to your prior state."

If Chiaki was her friend Fuyuhiko, she'll probably yell at this guy to cut his bullshit out.

However, since she isn't Fuyuhiko, all she can do is to try and get up, even trying to use her hands to push herself off the ground. The end result is comparable to watching a newborn giraffe trying to stand for the first time.

Eventually, Izuru decided that had enough of watching her flailing around, and so grabbed under her shoulders, pulling her up until he was confident with holding her balance.

With that situation taken care of, Izuru had her seated on a chair, making sure that she'll be in a comfortable position as he began to explain more of her situation. In addition to that, he had a styrofoam box with him. What he would use it for, she didn't have the slightest idea.

"As I have told you earlier, you are now an infected." He began, "That, I was the cause of. However, keep in mind that it was a necessary gambit as you were at the brink of death that time." Making a quick glance at his hand, he then said, "For that matter, the origin of my condition and by extension, yours, is the result of an experiment; that much I can say."

Seems like he won't say any more about that, she thought. With a nod, she gestured him to continue. Weird as this was getting, it's for the best if she should learn more about her predicament at the moment.

"Besides the fact that your wounds have remarkably healed, I'm afraid that there are currently no other drastic changes that I have seen thus far. However, there is one change in you that is typical for any infected." The box's lid was pulled out, and soon Chiaki was faced with the smell of fresh, raw meat.

"That is, you would begin to hunger for flesh." He explained, pulling out a piece out and held it in his hand. "Most of our kin especially have a strong preference towards the non-infected of their kind."

The sight alone should be enough to disgust any sane person, and it would have done the same to her, if not for the fact that her stomach began to growl; although she was unsure the reason why is because what he's saying is true or only because she's been unconscious and hasn't eaten in a while.

Whatever it may be, there is one thing for certain.

I'd rather starve!

"I know that you're uncomfortable at the idea of consuming flesh, especially if it's of human origin," Izuru explained like he read her mind, handing her the chunk of raw meat. "However, I do not wish for you to starve yourself simply for that reason. Please, take it."

He then added, "There is nothing to worry; it's something that you should be familiar with. If I recall correctly, the container I found it from labelled it as 'beef'."

If that wasn't enough to convince her, then surely hearing one more growl from her stomach would. Not to mention, if he said that the meat in his hand really is beef, then, maybe it should be okay. In the end, Chiaki sighed in defeat and reached her hand out, hesitantly pinching at the meat. When Izuru didn't try to pull it away, she took it with her.

"Thanks, I guess." She replied.

The chunk itself felt slimy in her hands. If anyone else was in her place, they surely would have gagged by now.

She might as well get this over with. Taking a deep breath, and ignoring the strong scent from the raw flesh, she bit down and let the flavor sink in her teeth. Out of all the surprises that she might have been expected, it tasted exactly as it would if she ate it as a human.

For all the changes brought by her transformation, it didn't really do much in regards to her taste buds.

The boy raised a brow when he saw her pause. "How is it?"

He didn't really need an answer for that; from what he saw, the girl with him didn't stop in taking several more bites out of the flesh and swallowing them. Soon enough, there wasn't even a strip of the flesh left, and as Izuru observed, saw that Chiaki instinctively lick her fingertips.

"With that said, however, I'm afraid that simple livestock wouldn't be enough to sustain you in the long run." That made her pause; does that mean that she'll have to consume people one day, just to survive? Chiaki slumped at the thought of it. Reading her expression, Izuru clarified, "Of course, you don't have to feed on humans if you still don't wish to, but you may not like the alternative as well."

"Well, what's worse than eating people, then?" Any option besides eating a person would sound fine to her right now, heck, even drinking radioactive waste sounds a million times better.

"Besides humans, you may consume fellow infected instead; that is to say, resorting to pseudo-cannibalism." He explained, to which the girl now blanched at the thought.

It's one thing to kill them, but to eat them afterwards? That's an entirely different level. The choices she had, if they should even be called that, it's either a) eat humans, which is cannibalism, or b) eat the infected, which is still cannibalism.

I guess it's not really a choice anymore, is it?

After thinking about it, Chiaki decided that, should it ever come to that, consuming fellow infected is the lesser of the two evils; it might sound a little biased, but in her opinion, it's still slightly better to feed on a mindless creature that would try to harm innocents anyway.

With their discussion over, the room grew rather tense and quiet. After a while, Izuru broke the silence, saying,

"If you wish to, you may stay inside for a little longer. As you already know, a drastic change has occurred in the surroundings since the last time you were awake;" He offered. "you might become overwhelmed if you were to take it alongside your sudden transformation."

A few moments had passed, and by that time, it dawned upon Chiaki that there was something missing from her. She began checking the inside of her pockets even began patting several parts of her body in search for the missing item.

"Are you looking for this?" She turned towards Izuru, and saw in his hands was the very item she's looking for; her console. Not giving any sort of reaction towards her relief and joy, he handed the gadget back to her, responding to her multiple thanks with a knowing nod.

Admittedly, he took the odd device away from her while she was unconscious, for several reasons such as making sure that it wouldn't be a hindrance or be lost during her recovery, and he figured that she would want it back by the time she's awoken. He stands corrected in those regards.

Though by the time she agreed to take a step outside with him, a few hours weren't really enough to help Chiaki recover from suddenly being info-dumped with a lot of things all at once. First, there was the fact that apparently, she nearly died, and then had her life saved but at the cost of her humanity. Second, around the same time that happened, a mass outbreak has started and began to infect all sorts of life and turned them into zombie mutants.

Speaking of that, to say that the outside world has changed since the last time she saw it would be a huge understatement. Hues of crimson have since replaced the blue skies. The stench of death overwhelmed her senses, making her nearly fall over before being caught by Izuru. She muttered a quiet "Thanks" in reply as she was helped to her feet.

While they were passing by some of the empty buildings, she then asked, "Izuru, what happened to everyone in here?"

"Either the residents managed to evacuate, or succumbed to the virus; perhaps a mix of both. I wasn't an active observer at that time. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was wondering, since we're still ourselves, maybe we can look for other survivors-"

"If you have plans about returning to a human settlement, then I'm afraid to say that the chances of them accepting us are very low, impossible even."

Chiaki turned back to him, her head tilted. "Huh, why?"

His answer was very straightforward. "At best, they will simply shoot you down. At worst, they will keep you in containment to be poked and prodded like a guinea pig."

That didn't sound right; it might a bit understandable if they were more like the monstrosities outside, but as far as anyone is concerned, besides their somewhat dead-looking eyes, they don't look or act that different from the non-infected humans.

"Why would they do that? People can't be that unreasonable, I think."

The boy began to walk forward. "The answer should be obvious to you, Chiaki. We're one of the infected; it's only natural for the non-infected survivors to view us with suspicion and hostility. Even those who are only suspected to have been infected will be put down because of heavy distrust."

She didn't any reply to that this time, focusing more on keeping her steps up with him.

Skrrrree..

..Hrrrrrissss..

...Grrr...hrrhg...

A few steps in, and the girl felt herself stop, causing the boy to stop as well and face towards her. Her body tensed as the scents coming from entities that can only be described as wrong felt stronger.

It had been faint before, but it's only now that Chiaki has managed to comprehend what her new instincts were telling her. These new presnces, whatever they are, didn't feel human; rather, they felt eerily similar to the presence emitted the two of them.

Noticing her reaction, her momentary companion placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "The others shouldn't be a problem as long as we stand our ground." He told her, his eyes surveying the area. "If they truly value their self-preservation, they wouldn't dare to trifle with their stronger fellows."

It took a second before she found out that he was talking about the roaming infected within their vicinity.

But then, even with Izuru's earlier reassurances that other infected would leave them alone, Chiaki still can't help but be unnverved by their presence, her breathing somewhat shaken in sensing several individuals nearby.

It wasn't until going farther ahead that she managed to see one of those infected from a distance. If she were to describe it, it'd basically be similar to that of a typical canine zombie monster, were it not for a few things that made it look so wrong; it had blank eyes and pale skin, but it also had a hideously long tongue and a large, misshapen arms that looked disproportionate to its hindlegs.

Due to the weight of its deformed limbs, the freak of nature had to resort to crawling as its form of mobility. It hasn't noticed their presence, and even if it did, it didn't really seem to care. As a matter of fact, it moved its way towards the fresh carcass of a dog nearby and began to feed on it.

If whatever virus outbreak affected animals that horribly, then she can't imagine what it would have done to humans, barring the case with her and Izuru. The others might not have turned out as lucky as them.

Eventually, when the skies darkened, they returned to the warehouse, due to the fact that some of the infected were more restless during nighttime than the day, especially those that hunt in groups. For now, the warehouse served as a temporary shelter for the time they would stay in this area.

When the next day came, throughout that time, it mostly consisted of Izuru answering whatever question Chiaki asked from him. When it came to questions about his origins, however, he chose to ignore them.

Anyways, as Chiaki found out, her near death was caused by multiple stab wounds; she had little recollection of the events leading to that, and were it not for the punctures left on her chest and abdomen she wouldn't have believed him about it.

In addition to that, she also learned that most of the infected are opportunistic predators and are indiscriminate to what they consume. While it's considered common knowledge among survivors that the infected go after humans, what they gave little concern to is the fact that the infected wouldn't hesitate to cannibalize on each other if the need arises.

Just like any post-apocalypse scenario, it eventually occurred to her that they would be needing supplies along the way; things like extra clothes, bags to carry their belongings, and such (funnily enough, food is probably the least of their worries, considering the fact that there's literally a walking supply of them readily available anywhere).

Izuru didn't share the same sentiments as she did, however, and bluntly told her that if they would have any baggage, she'll be the one to carry them.

With that said, she didn't have much luck in finding said materials, though she did manage to find a simple backpack among the debris, so there's at least one item off the checklist.

While searching around inside an abandoned home, there was a noise that caught her attention, sounds similar to that of a static. Momentarily, she walked towards the source and found a radio beneath the desk.

"Huh? It's still on..." The radio didn't look to be too old and as a matter of fact, it's still be operating; the current channel it was broadcasting had nothing but static. How it managed to stay on even without anyone around to operate it, she had no clue. Thoughtfully, she then lightly tapped on a few buttons, hearing more and more static until she finally got to a channel that was a lot more comprehensible compared to the others.

It looks like that she's not the only one listening to it, as the broadcast from the radio channel, which she now recognized as a news report, also caught the attention of the boy with her.

"Last night, in Towa City, another person was discovered to have been infected. In order to prevent the virus from possibly spreading within the area, the victim, Mr. Ogata, has been put down. According to eyewitnesses, Ogata was last seen attempting to flee from the area after the discovery of his infection was made public before he was shot by the son of Mr. Towa-"

Izuru pressed a finger onto the button, turning it off and preventing his companion from hearing the rest of the report. He didn't say anything, but Chiaki had a small feeling that if he would, he will probably be saying something along the lines of 'I told you so'.

Reflecting on the news from earlier, and if she were to take Izuru's earlier warnings at face value, then what of her friends and family? How would they take in the news of her turning into something similar to those things? At worst, they'll probably try to shoot her before letting her say even a word to them.

No, she can't think about that right now. Shaking those thoughts away, she grabbed the radio and placed it inside her bag.

That action didn't go unnoticed. "What would you need that for?" She heard him ask, and to which she replied with,

"It might come in handy, I think."

Because the only items she managed to scavenge are the backpack, a bit of extra clothes and the radio, there wasn't that much to carry around with her. To be fair, having little to carry around is probably the best option for now.

Chiaki reflected on her current situation, which as far as she's concerned, is easily be summed up by every zombie post-apocalyptic world clichés and tropes that can be named.

An outbreak that rendered the collapse of society? Check. The outbreak results in people and animals infected being turned into mindless abominations that hungers for flesh? Double check. The remnants of the outbreak try and survive in the now post-apocalyptic world where there are more zombie mutants than regular people while avoiding dangers such as the aforementioned zombie mutants, humans who are willing to kill each other for things as simple as supplies, chances of starvation and possibly death? Check, check, and check.

Now that I think about, it's kinda funny. I mean, I've played games with this kind of setting before.

"Chiaki." Izuru called out to her. She turned her head towards him, seeing him hold the severed arm of an infected that tried to attack them not too long ago. Like the first infected she saw, this one was once a dog.

Before he could even ask her, she shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

"Suit yourself, then." was the reply from her fellow infected, shrugging while he finished the rest of the carcass; she didn't dare to take a look on how he did so, but the crunching noises should be enough for her.

Looking back on it, she's glad that her forgetfulness in eating has come in handy for once.

Well, except, I'm not a member of the human survivors this time. I'm now one of the monsters they hunt down.

A/N: Whew, this chapter was quite the load to work on; it actually took me more than a month to finish it!

With that said, hope you enjoyed my entries for Kamunami Week 2018!