(A/N): Hello readers! Welcome to the SUPER CHAPTER! I tried to be more descriptive and interesting. More action is coming, as well as more of our new character! At chapter 15 or so I will introduce another new character, so be ready to give me your ideas at chapter 14 or so! Also, for the good man who gave me the idea for the new character, tell me if there is anything I should add about him in the next chapter to better represent him! Happy reading all! :D

Chapter 9: Friendly Nature, Rough Appearance
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I couldn't sleep. I was just so overcome by what had happened to me in the past few months. I had become a true monster. I had eaten people. And I had tried to kill Zoey. I hated myself with every fiber of my being. How had I allowed myself to become so lost to the world? To be reduced to nothing more than a mindless beast looking only to get fresh blood on its hands? I thought about the horrors I had committed and I got even more depressed due to the fact I wasn't in my right mind and couldn't control my actions. I was embarrassed and afraid to be around my friends. Surely now that it had happened once they think it might happen again. Right? Since being reunited I was reserved. I rarely talked. I didn't want to re-trigger whatever had made me lose my mind. I also didn't want to remember the torture.

Torture was the only thing I could remember happening while I was imprisoned. When I thought about what had happened to me, I could feel myself slip away. I could remember the pain so clearly it was as if I was there again. They electrocuted me, almost drowned me, set my clothes on fire, and all for research? No. It had stopped being 'research' once they realized they could do whatever they wanted to do with us and could get away with it. They were sick, twisted individuals that just made me want to...

I think about it for too long and I begin losing myself. I let out a feral screech as I get angry and Rose quickly comes over to me and embraces me. I calm down as I breath in her scent. They did this every time I began to lose control. Every time I came back to reality, I could see tears in Roses' eyes. It made me feel so bad, that I was doing this to her. But I didn't apologize, I didn't smile. I just looked at her. I didn't know what was wrong with me! The first thing I should say is, 'I'm sorry.' or 'Are you okay?' But I didn't say anything! I just felt... Alone. Like no one would really understand what I was going through. I thought countless times about just, running away. So as not to put anyone in danger due to my unstable mental state. Instead of doing that, I just ran off for random periods of time. And tracked their scent to find my way back.

Speaking of sneaking off, I decided to do that now. When nobody could see me, I sneaked away and quickly climbed the side of a brick building. I would catch up with them later, I wanted to go vent out some anger.

I had no method for my wandering, I just went where the infected were in the biggest groups. And I would kill all of them. I found myself in some underground parking lot. And then eventually a giant generator room. Strangely, there were no infected in here.

I hear something from the side of me and turn to see a small metal object bouncing towards me. It begins to release smoke that causes me to cough uncontrollably and also blinds me. I was unable to move much because I keep bumping into random things. I heard something approach me. I turn and see a persons shadow through the cloud of smoke, and the next thing I know, I'm flying through the air from the sheer force of the persons single punch.

"Shit, it's a Tank!" I whisper to myself. Then, I see the person leap through the smoke towards me. "No it's a-AAGH!" He hits me square in the chest. This guy was built! The air was knocked out of my lungs. He rubs salt in those wounds as he then picks me up by the neck and begins to strangle me. He was wearing a hoodie under an old, black duster. His mouth and nose was covered by a gas mask. His eyes were a forest green color. I also saw that shine in his eyes that showed he was intelligent, like Rose. It was someone else like me! I am able to claw at his hands and he is forced to let go after about 10 straight seconds of my sustained abuse. Man, he was as resilient and about as strong as a Tank, but also had some of the agility of a Hunter! What kind of mutation was this? I am able to get away from him and I yell, "Hey, I mean you no harm!"

He looks at his wrists and says, "This says different." And then he charges at me, but on the way he grabs a pole and twists it just enough to snap and have a very deadly point to it. "Man he's resourceful!" I think as I pull out my gun and aim it at him. As I fire, he swings the pole just fast enough to deflect the bullets. But eventually the pole bends into a right angle. When he gets in range, he shoves it down the barrel of my handgun and I hear the firing mechanism break inside. I kick off of him and jump up onto a hanging platform. He looks up and yells, "Don't think you will be safe up there!" As he grabs a knife off of a dead soldier and throws it not at me, but at the rope suspending the platform itself. It tears right through it and I fall with a crash. As he approaches me he says, "I don't know who you are, but you are in MY territory." I count his steps in his heavy steel combat boots and fear the fact that he was approaching. "And any infected in MY territory DIES!" I very slowly get up and say, "Wait! I'm not like the other infected! I'm like you! I am not crazy!" He stops for a second and says, "Oh really? Well, the security monitors I was watching told a different story. You were on a massacre! Saved me a lot of work... but that doesn't change how you acted or what you did!" I look at him and say, "I was just venting some anger out on them okay? I've been through a lot. I really need to get back to my friends before I lose their scent so, please, let me go!" He looks at me with a curious expression and says, "Friends? Who?" I hesitate and he says, "Well, if you are lying to me I gue-", "No-no I have friends! They are a group of humans and one other like me and you! I'm protecting them until they can get to safety!" I blurt out very quickly. "Oh really?" He says, "I'm sure your telling the truth. And I'm being sarcastic if you didn't know." Of course I knew. "I'll... I'll show you them!" He looks at me for a few seconds and says, "Take me then." I get up and say, "Lets go."

It takes an hour or so. But I am able to catch my friends scent. I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am being followed by a Hunter/Tank hybrid that could kill me in seconds by the fact that his steps were so loud! I stepped so lightly you wouldn't even know I was there, but this guy could be heard walking from 50 feet away! However, now that we weren't trying to kill each other, he was a pretty calm and... peaceful guy! I guess he was only really a threat towards people he considered an enemy. Right now he seemed to be just soaking in the environment. At one point he said, "Even when it's destroyed, the city just finds a way to look beautiful." I agreed. Destruction, while bad, also created some pretty beautiful scenery. An earthquake in the center of town was an example. It was shaped like an asphalt rose. "I should show Rose that..." I think.

"They should be through here." I say as I lead him through an alleyway. We walk for a few minutes and we arrive at the place the group had stopped for the evening. They take out their guns and point it at the person I led here, and I quickly explain that he's a 'friend'. Rose approaches him and after careful consideration from a distance, she finally walks up and shakes his hand. And with that gesture, the whole group calmed their nerves towards him.

"So, what is your name anyway?" I ask him.

He looks at me with a small smile on his face, "It's Alexander."

I notice he had a katana with him for seemingly the first time. How had I not noticed that? He must have picked it up after our little fight back in his territory.

He came and sat next to us all around the camp fire. Right between me and Louis. As people asked him questions, it became apparent he did not like having all the attention. He was more of someone who liked to stay quiet and just listen unless he really had something he wanted to say. Also, he seemed to have a habit of calling members of the group 'brother' and 'sister' a lot. He also admits that sometimes he forgets he is even infected

I liked this new guy, he made things much more interesting. Alexander would fit in just fine if he agreed to come with us. "Would you like to join our group Alex?" Zoey asks with a hopeful voice. Alexander thinks about it for a few seconds, and once he comes up with a decision. He very confidently says "Yes, sister." And with that, we all welcome him to the group with open arms. We had good hopes for this guy, that's for sure.

I awaken before everyone else in a cold sweat. I had had a nightmare. However, I could not remember it. I look around and rub the bags under my eyes. I needed to get some good sleep soon, or I would die from sleep deprivation. These nightmares did not help though, they just kept getting worse. As I look around, I realize Alex is missing. However, I am able to pick up his scent and I find him on the roof of a building looking down at all the infected wandering aimlessly in the streets below. I approach cautiously and sit down beside him.

After an unbearably long period of silence, He says, "Sorry."

I look up at him and say, "There's nothing to be sorry about. I caused the fight to happen. My reckless endangerment caused it."

He looks at me and says, "So, why were you on that infected killing spree anyway?"

I sigh and say, "I was tortured by some scientists for 'research' after they caught me in a human compound. I-", "Wait, you were in a human compound? For how long?"

I look at him and he apologizes for interrupting and I continue. "I had been posing as a human for almost a year and a half. I was seen as a hero due to all the survivors I rescued. But when I was found out only the people you saw at camp defended me. They send the army troops in and arrest me, and they send me to the scientists. There, they tortured me to the point I became feral and tried to kill Zoey, the lady who asked you to join us. I break out, kill half the human population of the camp in my insane mental state, and then after trying to kill Zoey they are able to snap me out of it. A week passes, and then yesterday happened, and I met you while venting out my frustrations with what happened. And then fight, and then now."

He sits there, thinking, for a very long time. He was very much a thinker, only really being talkative when it was a one to one conversation. He looks at me and says, "I was captured once too, I was experimented on. It was very much like torture to me. They did something to me, whatever it was made me not only part Hunter, but part Tank as well. I didn't know their reasoning behind it at the time, and I still don't. Comparing the two mutations? Who knows? When I was free, the Tank in me took over. And I killed them all. However, I also have the thought process of a Hunter, the will to preserve my life and survive, to be more resourceful."

"And you very much proved that in our fight." I tell him.

"Yeah, I suppose I did."

We look down at the infected in the streets. I throw a pebble and it hits an infected in the head. It just shrugs it off. Alex tears out a small chunk of building and throws it at the same infected and it's head cracks open like an egg. I laugh.

"I can't stand the thought of experimentation or torture anymore... it just... sets me off." He suddenly says.

"Same here..." I say. "We are a lot alike you know? We understand each other. We can relate." I add as I look at him.

"We are, I'm glad we met... and that I didn't kill you."

"I'm glad you didn't kill me too."

We both smile and it eventually turns into laughter. We both had made friends today. And for once, I didn't feel alone. There was someone who understood me. Someone who cared and could relate.

We make our way back to the survivors just as the last one of them gets up, Elizabeth's daughter Beth. Alex sees her and gives her a gentle gaze. For a little kid, she wasn't scared. She actually ran towards him and gave him a hug. He picked her up and put her around his shoulders piggyback style. She was having the time of her life. Alex was very happy too.

"I hope she's okay with him..." Elizabeth says worriedly.

"Alex is a good guy, gentle. I would imagine he's very good with children. And it shows." I tell her to reassure her.

"It's not that. It's if she gets a cut, would she get infected if he touched it?"

"It doesn't quite work like that Ellie."

"Well, you haven't called me Ellie for a while," she looks at me. "what do you want?" She asks jokingly.

"I just remembered it. I think your daughter mentioned it once."

After we were finished packing we set off on our way. We were going to Riverside next. Hopefully there would be a compound there. If not, we would head for a city that had some sort of international airport at it. We heard they were giving plane evacuations so it would be a good plan B.

While taking inventory on the go we realized that we were running low on food. And that there weren't any places to get food on the next few blocks, so me and Rose would have to go make a run to go find some.

"I'll go too." Alex says.

I agree and we all scale the side of a nearby building. I make it first, followed by Rose, and Alex making it up last. As we leaped from building to building, I realized that Alex could not leap as high, but he made up for it by how fast he flew through the air due to his added weight. Using his weight to his advantage, he was easily able to keep up with us. We only had to stop once when we got to a building we could leap onto but he couldn't and had to climb a few inches to get on top.

We stop at a generic grocery store that seemed to be out of the way and had no broken windows, a good sign that it hadn't been looted yet. We find some over-the-counter medicine and antibiotics. We decide to take it with us for the survivors. I find a backpack and load all of the goods inside.

We stop at a few more stores looking for all the essentials, but obviously not finding everything we need. However, we do find a lot of protein bars, of which I hate with a passion, but their dry and cardboard flavor would be my savior if we ever did run out of food completely, so we pack a few small boxes as well in Rose's and Alex's backpacks they had also picked out for themselves.

As we walk out Alex says, "It's weird how there are no infected out right now, what do you think happened?"

"I was here a few days ago venting out my anger, new infected haven't stumbled in to take the place of their fallen brothers and sisters yet." I say.

"Are you saying brother and sister now too?" Rose asks curiously.

"No!" I say in a pouty voice and Alex and Rose laugh.

After a few more stops and not finding anything worth eating, we decide to head back to the survivors. "Where would we find them?" Rose says.

Her question is quickly answered as we suddenly hear a loud boom in the distance, followed by the sound of hundreds of infected around the city announcing their presence. The group had done something to attract them, and we had to get back. Fast. Before we leap onto a building, many infected zoom past us on their quest for blood. But, we quickly overtake the group by running and leaping on the roofs of the buildings. We were going into overload trying to get back to the group before anybody got hurt. We just hoped we weren't too late.

We get back to the group and we immediately dive into our own separate group of infected, slashing and tearing. This was the only time where me losing my mind came in handy. I lose myself in the thrill of the hunt. The excitement of drawing blood. Oh it felt so good! I just had to kill more! And more! I let out a shriek of joy as I jump into the air and dive bomb into another group of infected. I land on an infected's head, killing it instantly. And then I become a flurry of claws and teeth. Just trying to draw as much blood as possible. "What beautiful carnage!" I yell out in my deranged state. I was having a little too much fun, but I didn't care and couldn't even stop if I tried.

Meanwhile, Rose and Alex were fighting much closer together. Alex clawed the head of a military officers head off and then took the gun out of the holster and started firing. He slashed anything that got too close with his katana. He kicked the beheaded body into a group of infected and the hole it left gave him vision of Hunter. Alex was very happy Hunter was on his side, he didn't know he had this side to him. This was way worse than what he saw the day they met. Suddenly, Alex looks up as he sees a Smoker tongue wrap around his neck. He hears a high pitched Hunter shriek and sees Rose claw the Smokers tongue in half, and pull the side that was still connected to the Smoker violently. The Smoker could be seen falling off of a nearby fire escape. Alex thanks Rose for the assist and they continue fighting.

While total infected carnage was going on in one place, raining lead was coming from another. The survivors were holding out on top of two separate busses, Elizabeth's kid was handing everyone on her bus extra ammo, while Zoey shot and handed out ammo on her bus as well. Francis and Bill both throw a molotov in a way that surrounds the entire front end of both busses, allowing them to only have to worry about a few sides. They watched Hunter and the rest of his crew cutting down a lot of the work they would have had to do, and probably would not have been able to. The sheer amounts of infected where they were was like a solid brick wall, only a third of the infected made it through the three Hunters and the survivors were having troubles with even that amount.

Fighting continues for 10 minutes and eventually the last infected lost it's head to Hunter, now covered completely in blood and gore. Alex and Rose had been able to keep a large quantity of the blood on the asphalt away from them, but it looked like Hunter had been literally rolling in blood, and little did they know he had. Rose was able to calm Hunter down, and his crazy laughter subsides and goes back to being his normal self, minus the blood and gore.

The survivors survey the damage and check their ammo. They had been running on only their pistols and even those were out of ammo. They were lucky that they had three Hunters to protect them, or they would all have died in one of the biggest waves of infected they had ever seen. The blast had attracted half the city's original population to them, and it was a wonder they had survived at all.

"All this because a Tank blew up a gas station." Zoey says in disappointment. She looks into the distance at the flaming debris that did indeed use to be a gas station.

Me, Rose, and Alex join them and hand over our backpacks. I take off my completely dark red hoodie as well as my undershirt which causes both Zoey and Rose to blush. While Ezekiel, Bill, and Louis look through the goods they had brought back, they give signs of massive approval. "This is everything we need! Where did you guys go to get this stuff?" Louis says. "We went to several places." I say. I go over to Francis, and he gets out a fresh backup hoodie I had told him to carry in case of emergencies. It was an cool green color. He also gave me a black undershirt. I go to a nearby corner store and leave just minutes later sporting nice black jeans and a belt. I had also picked out boots that would not break my ankles if I jumped and landed wrong.

We stayed with the group for a while after that. We wanted to be there right when that happened next time. Beth almost got hurt, however, she had forgotten after a few minutes of piggyback riding on Alex's back. While we walked, Zoey cleaned my face, which was covered liberally in dried blood.

"You need to overcome this problem of yours Hunter."

"I know."

"I'm being serious."

"I know."

"And you aren't just saying 'I know' and you are listening to me, right?"

"I kn- wait what?" I say, catching myself before completely falling into another one of Zoey's traps.

We make it to a safe house, finally. On the walls inside they talk about some sort of vehicle someone had gotten ready in a nearby garage, below that, it tells someone named 'Eric' to forget about the car and that it was too dangerous to go to the garage. After consulting with the group, we decide that if the vehicle was big enough to hold all of us, we would take it.

"Let's just hope this doesn't turn out to be a huge mistake." I think as everyone agrees unanimously.

Time for a road trip.