Escape

"What do we do?" Arcadia questioned, staring at the arm through the door. Rellic pulled out a flashlight and looked around.

"The racks, they will hold them off. Help me move them." Rellic told Arcadia. He set Eclipse against the wall, and gave her his flashlight. Arcadia and Rellic moved two big racks in front of the door. They were pretty heavy, so it was a bit difficult. They hoped it'd be difficult for the Zs as well.

"What now though? They aren't going away. We need to get out of here." Eclipse told the two other teens. The three looked around, ignoring the Zs outside the door. They didn't find any other door out to the hallway. Plus the halls were probably filled with Zs, since the screams of everyone had stopped and now was replaced with the groans and other noises of the dead/Zs. After a few moments of trying to find a way out, they were starting to panic.

"Wait, Rellic, open that vent up there." Arcadia told the tall man. She had seen the air vent in the ceiling and was shining her own flashlight up there. Rellic looked up, and since he was tall, he was able to open it easily. Thankfully it seemed big enough for people to get through.

"Where does it lead to?" Eclipse questioned, looking up at it. Once she asked, one of the racks tipped over. It nearly hit the three but they were able to move out of the way. Eclipse shinned Rellic's flashlight to the door. It seemed the door had broken more and a Z was trying to push through.

"Who cares? There isn't a Z up there!" Arcadia told her friend. Rellic and Arcadia helped get Eclipse up into the air ducts. They then gave her the guns. Next was Arcadia. Rellic was able to get her up to the opening, and Eclipse and herself were able to get her into the air ducts. Rellic was last. Just as he got ready to get up to the opening, the second rack fell and Zs fell in. both girls grabbed his arms and helped him up. Rellic kicked a Z in the head as he got into the air ducts with the girls.

"That was close." Eclipse told her lover. Rellic nodded.

"Too close." He agreed.

"Let's go…" Arcadia got her gun from Eclipse and crawled with it. Eclipse and Rellic followed. No one knew where they were going, but they were safe. That was all they cared about at the moment.

The three crawled and crawled. They went left and they went right. They just kept going in the darkness since it was too difficult to carry a flashlight as they crawled. They weren't sure how long they had crawled, but they turned right one last time, and were able to see light coming in from the end of the air duct. The three made their way to it, and Arcadia pushed the vent open. They were facing the alley on the right side of the hospital. It was only a few feet down and thankfully there was a closed dumpster there so it wasn't very far down at all.

"Make sure a Z doesn't get me." Arcadia told Eclipse and Rellic. She was going down first. She turned around so she could go down feet first, and then she dropped. She landed on the dumpster with a loud thud. A few Zs were interested, but didn't go over to the girl. "Eclipse, you next. I'll catch you… I think."

"Don't drop me Arc!" Eclipse snapped. Her friend laughed and opened her arms to catch her. Rellic helped Eclipse turn around and drop out of the vent safely. Arcadia caught her friend, but lost her balance and fell on her butt on the dumpster. The two girls almost fell off and hit the ground, but they were able to stop themselves from falling that far.

"You two okay?" Rellic asked the two girls. His answer was the two girls laughing and nodding their heads. "Good." Rellic smiled a bit, and then passed his guns down to the girls. He was able to get down easily because of his height. He didn't even really need to drop down at all.

"Do you guys smell that?" Arcadia questioned, sniffing the air once all three of them were safe and on the dumpster.

"That's…smoke?" Eclipse replied. The three got off the dumpster and looked up at the hospital. Smoke and fire were clearly coming out of the windows on the second floor, right above where they were crawling moments ago.

"That explains why it was so hot in there." Arcadia commented.

"How do fires always start when the apocalypse is going on? There wasn't anything flammable on that floor." Eclipse questioned.

"Magic of the apocalypse?" Arcadia offered up as an explanation. Eclipse shrugged and then sighed.

"All of our stuff…"

"All my ammo and weapons…" Arcadia commented, realizing how much she had left behind.

"Nothing we can do now. Let's see if 10K is alive." Rellic told the girls. Arcadia suddenly became very serious. She took off running towards the front of the building. There were a lot of Zs walking around, so she hid on the corner of the building.

"10K would be up somewhere high, but easy to get to and from." Arcadia told her friends when they caught up. The three stayed on the side of the building and looked around. The horrible feeling that Arcadia had in her gut was getting worse as the seconds ticked by.

"Over there!" Rellic pointed towards an ambulance. 10K's rifle was up there, knocked over.

The three made their way to the ambulance. They moved slowly and hid behind cars. The Zs paid no attention to them at all. Once the three got there, they climbed up onto it to find no 10K, but to find blood around his rifle. Arcadia gasped and went over to it. She avoided the blood as she got down and set the rifle back up. She looked to see what 10K had been watching. He had been looking at the entrance to the hospital. Either to kill Zs or to look for the three of them, Arcadia wasn't sure.

"Where is 10K?" Arcadia asked her friends. Her voiced cracked and she sat on her knees near the blood. Eclipse crawled over to her friend.

"I don't know…" Eclipse told Arcadia. Arcadia whimpered and held 10K's gun to her chest. She felt horrible.

"I told him to go away… if he would have stayed with us, he'd be here…" Arcadia mumbled. She was crying now. "If he's dead, it's my fault."

"Rellic, go try to look for him." Eclipse told her lover. She hugged her best friend, trying to comfort her. Rellic nodded his head and went off with his gun. Even he was worried. "It's 10K we are talking about Arc. He'll be okay."

"He doesn't have his rifle. Eclipse what if he's dead? I can't deal with this apocalypse without him. I love him, and I never even got to tell him that. I was so horrible to him when we separated." Arcadia was a wreck. She was bawling and Eclipse was trying to calm her down. Neither girls cared about the Zs, or paid attention to where Rellic went. Arcadia hadn't been so upset since she lost her family. It was making Eclipse be upset with her.