~O~

Another night went by, and more murders had sprung up throughout the late night hours. With all of the mindless killings, the city was on edge, and so was Alice. Marucho's parents had even made sure to check their security system to see if everything was running smoothly.

The violent murders had seemed to be increasing every night, adding at least fifty more victims to the last number from the night before. The police, who had been investigating furiously since the first city-wide slaughter, still had no new leads. They had no evidence, no fingerprints, nothing.

At first, people were saying it was probably some new gang with sick and twisted intentions, but people were starting to wonder if it could really be the working of a gang, even a large one. There was no way for even one of the larger gangs to cover that much ground, kill people all throughout the city, and then drain the blood from their victims like some kind of savages.

Alice shuddered and wrapped herself up in her arms for comfort. On top of the death toll rising each day, there had also been no new word from Shun. When the killings first started, everyone had been optimistic and said that Shun had probably just stopped in a hotel or someplace to get away from his grandfather for a bit.

But as the days went on, and the killings increased, Alice was finding it harder and harder to remain optimistic. She couldn't help but think that the raven-haired teen had been caught by whoever, or whatever, was slaughtering innocent people. Alice's eyes watered up with tears, and sobs threatened to escape from her grasp.

She had tried to appear strong, that she was still looking on the brighter side of things, but her façade was breaking more and more with each day. She wondered how things could have taken such a turn for the worse. Alice thought when she came to Marucho's the visit the others, things would be like old times; she couldn't foresee mass killings popping up in the middle of the night, and the possible murder of a dear friend.

It was all too much for her to handle. A sob escaped past her lips. She wanted to go home, she wanted to turn back to the hands of time and keep all of these bad things from happening. She didn't want to be in the middle of all of this madness anymore. But she couldn't leave, even if she wanted to.

News reports the other day and informed the local populace that all means of transportation were to be ceased. Nobody could get in or out, by car, bus, foot, or plane. It was a means that the authorities had to resort to in order to try and keep whoever was killing people, within the confines of the city.

Alice's sobs came out more freely as she finally let go of the torrential emotions she had been trying to keep in order. Runo, who had been sitting on the sofa across from her, got up and joined Alice's side. The bluenette placed a comforting hand on Alice's shoulder and told her, "It'll be alright. They'll catch the people doing this and then things will start going back to normal."

Alice slapped Runo's hand away and she turned to face her shocked friend. "No, things won't go back to normal, Runo, and you know that," she said through tears, "Nothing will be normal after this. What's going on out there will be remembered for years, perhaps forever. The people who were killed will never come back, they won't experience normal ever again…Shun won't come back, he won't experience normal ever again."

Alice broke out into body-racking sobs and buried her face into Runo's shoulder. The others now stood around the room, obviously drawn from whatever they had previously been doing to come and see what the yelling and crying was about. Their faces turned somber and grim when Alice said those words; they all knew she was probably right, that Shun really had been one of the initial victims when the killings first started.

Even though his name hadn't been listed on those who had been found, there were still a good many of people who were unidentifiable. Alice removed her face from Runo's shoulder and said in a shaky whisper, "I cared, you know….About him….I never had the courage to tell him, and now I never will."

Alice had never been brave enough to tell Shun how she viewed him, how she felt. And now, she had regrets. She regretted that she hadn't told him when she ran into him at the store the day of his disappearance. She regretted never telling him when she had the chance prior to that day. Alice had always tried to make him see that she cared, even when he might have thought nobody else did.

Now, he was gone, she just knew it. There would be no chance to tell him the secrets she had been keeping hidden from him; not face-to-face, at least. Runo embraced Alice in a hug to try and comfort the crying girl. Alice felt a little bit better, knowing that she wasn't as alone in this world gone mad as she thought, but it didn't do anything to soothe the pain of immense loss the hung in the air of the city.

Runo patted Alice's shoulder and said, "How about you go and lay down for a bit and get some rest? That might make you feel a bit better and help you calm down." Alice wiped the tears from her face with the heel of her hand. She wasn't all that tired, or, at least, she didn't think she was; at the moment, she couldn't really tell if it was fatigue or loss that was eating at her brain.

Probably a little bit of both. Alice nodded and allowed Runo to escort her down the hallway to her room. As they walked, Alice adverted her gaze away from the bluenette and said, "I'm sorry for causing a scene back there." Runo smiled sadly and told her, "It's alright, Alice. We're all a bit on edge and scared. I think the others were just taken aback because they didn't expect you to be the first to snap."

Alice smiled slightly. She could only guess at what was running through the minds of Dan and the others back there after they witnessed her little scene. For some reason, she found it somewhat amusing. They had always seen her so calm and collected, rational and positive.

That side she just allowed to surface must have been something else entirely knew to them. Alice finally reached her room, and Runo asked if she needed anything else. Alice shook her head and Runo went on back down the hallway to return to the others, and probably tell them that everything was fine.

The orange-haired girl entered her room and immediately plopped down on the bed. The mattress groaned beneath the sudden weight that was placed on it. Now, Alice stared up at the Spackle ceiling, committing every bump and imperfection in the ceiling to memory to pass the time until she fell asleep.

It didn't take long for her mind to grow weary, and for her conscience to seek refuge from all of the stress that the recent events had placed on everyone. When she did slip into a light sleep, she fell into a dream. She was standing in an alleyway, surrounded by trash and other filth that made her turn her nose up in disgust. Why was she in such an unclean place?

Above her, the moon shone bright and full. It cast a light down into the dark alley, illuminating some places, while creating shadows in others. Further ahead, the sound of a metal can rolling over the ground startled Alice. She jumped back, her heart already racing with adrenaline.

Then, she saw a dark, silhouetted figure step out of a neighboring alley. Panic started to flood into Alice. Was this one of the people who had been killing in the night? The figure turned to face her, and her heart dropped. All she could make out were the eyes, the bright, amber colored eyes that she knew from anywhere.

The figure then ran down another neighboring alley, and Alice instantly began chasing after him. "Shun!" she called after him. "Shun, wait!" She rounded the corner of the alley, and stopped dead in her tracks. Her stomach did a complete flip and threatened for her to be sick. Laying on the ground in a pool of blood and littered with deep gashes, was Shun.

No, Alice thought to herself, I just saw you. I saw you running! How could this have happened that fast? Tears streaked from her eyes as she stared at the site of her friend, of the person that she secretly cared about. Alice took a cautious step closer, and when she did, she felt something drop down from above and land behind her.

She tried to spin around, but a pair of hands latched onto her, preventing her from going anywhere. One hand covered her mouth and kept her from crying out for help. The hand was covered with blood, and her assailant smeared it on her face and mouth.

Alice knew that the blood had to be Shun's, and the fact that whoever killed him was about to kill her too, made her feel sick to her stomach. Right when she was ready to give up her struggle, her eyes flew open, and Alice found herself still laying in her bed at Marucho's, still alive and breathing. Unharmed.

She placed her hand on her racing heart and cried tears of both sorrow and relief. It had been a dream. No, a nightmare. And because of that nightmare, there wouldn't be anymore sleep for a while until her nerves allowed for it.

~O~

Shun's eyes slowly opened, much to his surprise. How could they open? He was supposed to be dead? He had given up on trying to fight and live. So, how could he still be alive? Shun looked around at his surroundings. He was still in the same room that he had been in since his living hell began, but something appeared different to him about the room.

Everything looked more…enhanced. Colors were more vibrant, and he could clearly see cracks in the wall across the room. It was like somebody had turned on the world's high-definition. Cautiously, Shun pushed himself up into a sitting position, leaning back on his hands for support and to keep from falling back down.

His arms trembled a bit under his weight. Shun then realized that the pain and fever that plagued his body, were completely gone. Some of his muscles still ached a bit, as if he had done some sort of strenuous exercise, but that ache paled in comparison to the pain he had been experiencing.

What the hell is going on? he thought to himself. He knew for a fact he should be dead. His body should have been boiled and damaged beyond repair by his fever. And yet, here he was, still alive and breathing, if not better. Shun tensed up when he heard the faint sound of footsteps approaching his room. If he really was better now, then he certainly was in the proper condition to get far away from this place.

He threw the covers back and clambered out of the bed. When his feet hit the floor and stood up, his legs suddenly buckled beneath him. He landed hard on the cold, stone floor. Damn, he thought to himself, I don't have enough strength back to walk yet.

He growled and tried his best to get himself off the floor, but would only fall back down, as if gravity was working against him. The door then flung open, and two people walked in. One was the gray-haired guy who had made Shun drink blood against his will.

The other was the man with golden-hair that had nearly killed Shun. The raven-haired teen tensed up and attempted to get away, but his weakened body wasn't going to allow it. The golden-haired man knelt down near Shun and said with a smile, "You're not going to be running anywhere for a while. Not unless you drink blood to help gain your strength back quicker than you would without it. But from what Loran told me about the last time we gave you blood, you aren't too partial to it."

Shun's body had tensed up as he braced himself for whatever the stranger was planning on doing to him. "You're not going to get me to drink blood again," he said sternly, but his voice wavered at the end. The stranger chuckled and said, "You say that now, but you'll have to eventually, seeing as you're now a creature that depends on it for survival." Shun stared at the stranger as if the man had gone mental.

Creature that depended on blood to live? "You're insane," Shun spat, "I'm not some freak. You guys and your little cult might think you need to drink blood to live, but I don't. That's sick." Suddenly, the stranger had closed the distance between him and Shun, and he had a tight grip on the raven-haired boy's jaw.

The stranger forced Shun to look at him. "I'm afraid you are mistaken. This is no cult, my friend. And you, are not any mere human anymore. I'm sure you've noticed how your senses have enhanced," he mused and let go of Shun's jaw. The raven-haired teen rubbed the spot where the stranger's fingers had clamped down.

Shun had noticed that his vision had apparently improved, but his other senses as well? Perhaps when he heard their footsteps coming down the hall that had been a display of these so-called enhanced senses. Maybe they hadn't been echoes like he thought. Shun shook his.

No, he couldn't allow himself to believe any of this craziness. He was probably in the grips of a fever-induced dream right now as he waited for his body to continue to fail. The stranger narrowed his eyes at Shun and asked, "Do you want to know why you're alive, right now? Why you are better and no longer struggling to breathe?"

Shun stared at the man for a moment, then cautiously nodded. The golden-haired stranger looked him dead in the eye and said, "It's because you made your body stop fighting against my blood. As long as you would have continued to fight it, my blood would just have continued to slowly kill you. But when you stopped, that allowed it to take root and allow you to live by turning you into what you are now." Shun gulped and asked nervously, "And w-what might that be?" The stranger smiled slyly and told him, "A Vampire."

Hey, guys, go and check out a website called Good Reads. I've started a story on there (not a fanfic), so if any of you want to check it out, go to the website, then click under explore and go to Creative Writing. Once there, either search for a story called Dead Winter by Nikoru Peri, or look under the search tags that include zombie, dystopian, horror, survival, winter, wilderness, wilderness-survival, apocalypse, etc. If you can't find it and want to read it, send me a message and I'll send you a link. Thanks for the support! Read and leave a review on the way out! ~Copperpelt~