A Cruel, Undead World
~ Chapter 12 ~
On The Edge
Tervu Infection Outbreak Active for: 0 Years, 1 Months, 0 Weeks, 1 Day, 18:53:25.
Five days of endless walking, endless hiding, endless fighting. Five days with no escape, no sign of escape, or hope. The three, Jasmine, Jake and Salmon were thoroughly convinced they were the last in the entire undead city. With no contact from the outside, they don't even know if the world was any different than what it was like now. Living off of two meals spread out across these five days, the survivors were starving. On the inside, they knew they weren't survivors. Survivors live in the end. They grimly accepted their fate already.
Just one of them was ready to quicken it.
Salmon collapsed onto the sidewalk. She hadn't said a single thing other than "On your left" or "Horde coming". Jasmine tried speaking to her a little while after the demise of her boyfriend, but she refused to talk. When she fell, Jasmine and Jake stopped, turning back and tried lifting her up. Pulling away from them, Jasmine stood up straight, and all the aggression she had been feeling since this began was finally let out.
"Come on we have to move!"
"Just leave me," Salmon demanded, not pleading but ordering. This made Jasmine feel worse.
"We are not leaving you, so don't even ask us to!" she shouted. They were all tired and hurt, but they couldn't afford to sit down for a second to cry about it.
Salmon then glared up at her with such hate that Jasmine almost stepped back.
"Why the Hell are you still alive, and he's not?" she spat. Jasmine was taken aback. Jake looked from one girl to the other, not knowing what to say. Eyes narrowing, Jasmine instead came closer and tried lifting Salmon up. Salmon stood, but immediately pushed Jasmine with enough force to make her trip and fall to the ground. "You stupid bitch! He deserved to live more than you! Why is it that you got bit and stayed alive, and he didn't?!"
Jasmine wiped a dribble of blood away from her chin with the back of her hand, and didn't face her. While before, this sudden angry outburst would make her cry the tiniest bit, now she just felt that much colder to this other girl.
"I don't know why I lived and he didn't, but I'm not questioning it. We've all lost loved ones—none of which deserved to die. I wish I could sacrifice myself to save even one person, but I can't. The closest I can get is helping you two survive. If you want to damn me for that, fine. But I'm not blaming myself."
With a war-like roar, Salmon threw herself on to Jasmine, but she was prepared for it. As if with a flick of her wrist, Salmon was knocked back, rolling away from her. Jasmine used this time to stand again, but it wasn't long before Salmon pushed herself up and was attacking her again. This was not like on reality TV shows where two trampy-like 'women' pulled hair and slapped one another. Both girls were throwing their grief and anger at each other in the form of punches and kicks. Having been stunned to this point, Jake had done nothing. Finally, he gathered himself together and threw himself in the middle, physically pulling the girls away from each other's throats.
"Stop it, both of you! We may not survive this, but we sure as fuck aren't going to let it destroy our humanity! We will not turn into one of them until they bite our skin, am I clear?!" he yelled at them. Breathing heavily, the girls didn't answer, nor move.
"The kid's right. You two need to quit the catfight and pay attention on how to get out of here," a quiet, calm voice chimed in. They looked to the left to see a man with black hair and blood red eyes.
That's right you guys. Rick Walker is back.
"Who the hell are you?" Jake asked. Rick introduced himself shortly, similar to how he introduced himself to Michael.
"Listen, we don't have much time, seeing as they're going to bomb the city in oh," he looked down at a watch he grabbed a while ago, "An hour or so."
"What? Bomb?" Jake repeated, and Rick nodded.
"How do you know they're going to bomb the city? If they were planning on doing that, they would have done it by now," Jasmine pointed out.
"I guess there was some false information leaked about the situation here. But now the President found out and they were evacuating for about a week. I don't know what the hell you guys were doing to miss the constant squads walking around and picking people up, but you're almost out of luck. Almost. I was able to call down a helicopter, and it's going to meet me at Eileen Hill Hospital. They'll wait for me for about another thirty minutes, so we have until then to get out of here."
"Wait a second, why aren't you out of here already if you knew they were evacuating people?" Salmon asked suspiciously.
"That's for me to know and not share."
"But Eileen Hill Hospital is all the way across the city, we'll never make it in time!" Jasmine told him.
"That's the great thing about motorized vehicles." Rick smirked as he turned and waved at Matt's golden compact car. Anger welled up in Jasmine, and before she could control herself she started towards the stranger.
"Where did you get this?!" she shouted, and was grabbed onto by Jake. The man shrugged nonchalantly.
"Found it inside some apartment complex. It's the only one in the city I've seen with decent gas in it and not torched. Plus, it has fuzzy dice!" he chuckled at his own observation and opened the backseat door. With daggers in her eyes, Jasmine grudgingly walked forward and clambered into the back, Jake crawling in after her. Rick shut the door and went to the other side, opening the door and offering it to Salmon. She didn't move.
"C'mon darling, did you not hear me say we were on a time crunch?" he addressed her sarcastically. Taking in a shaky breath, she lowered her eyes to the ground.
"I'm not going. I don't have anything left to live for," she whispered. Rick stared at her in wonder, then shrugged a shoulder and shut the passenger door.
"Suit yourself," he grumbled, and walked to the other side again and climbed into the driver's seat, shutting the door behind him. Jasmine blinked twice.
"Wait, what about Salmon?" she questioned as he started the car and did a cookie (causing them to hang on to the generous handles on the hood of the car).
"She decided she wanted to stay behind," he explained, boredom in his tone. Shocked, Jasmine and Jake twisted behind them to look out the rearview window. Salmon just stood there, even as a horde called out and was starting upon her.
Jasmine turned back around and cried, "We have to go back!"
"It's too late now," he told her. He was right. When Jasmine looked back, Salmon was pounced on by an infected. Still, she shouted her name, and pounded against the locked door to try and jump out of the moving vehicle. Ignoring the driver trying to tell her it was hopeless, she moved her hands quickly over the door to try and find the unlock button. In this child-safe car though, there was none. Tears began to form in her eyes as she forced herself to watch the other teenager being eaten alive, her limbs flailing until finally her spinal cord was ripped out and she moved no more. Giving up, Jasmine fell against the seat and let herself cry. She may not have liked Salmon as a person, but when you survive an entire month with someone, you can't help but feel bad when they die. Jake leaned toward her and opened his arms, and taking the gesture, Jasmine rests in his embrace with tears falling from her eyes.
It wasn't long before they made it to the hospital, up the elevator once more and to the waiting helicopter. Of course they were busy, shooting off infected that climbed up onto the roof to try and snatch a meal. The BSAA agents defended them as they ran to the helicopter and pulled themselves in. The helicopter took off with the last three survivors. Twenty minutes later, a missile was fired and landed at what was Tervu Central Mall. The explosion was limited to the outside limits of the city, killing every last infected in a blaze of fire.
This tragedy left only ten survivors. Only ten: Maja Vlašic, Fiona Ruan, Phillip Arraham, Emily Combs, Jasmine Nair, Kenneth Shepard, Lana Richards, Jordan Gates, Jake Harris, and Rick Walker.
They may have survived, but to what kind of world? After leaving the undead world behind, don't they enter just as cruel of a world? I don't know, folks. I just don't know.
A/N: So the story ends…sorry it may not be as exciting as some may have been hoping. This isn't the end-end though! We have an epilogue that takes place a month after Tervu is destroyed that will be posted today. I hope you all enjoyed the journey. NOW, preparing for the sequel, I will tell you what is going to happen.
The sequel will not begin until the fourth of June, where the first four chapters will be posted. For those four chapters, I am NOT accepting new characters, but I AM accepting the listed survivors above. THIS IS TEMPORARY YOU GUYS. After the initial four chapters, I will start accepting new characters. If you had a character die in this series, you are able to give TWO characters instead of the 1 limited. If you have an existing character, you can have another character to add.
What to do with your surviving character: Either post a review or PM me that you will be returning for the sequel. The sequel is set six months after Tervu, Washington is destroyed, so fill out the character sheet AGAIN for your character with the new updated information (ignoring equipment and specific location for now). For relations, you may use the story as your guide, and with the other survivors create new relations that otherwise weren't mentioned in the story (like they got together afterward and became friends or more ie). Before doing that though make sure to discuss serious changes with the corresponding creator, and if you aren't sure who a character belongs to, ask me and I will give you the username or ask via review. Please wait to do this until AFTER the epilogue is posted, so you have some ideas to go off of.