2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Left 4 Dead, Valve (and probably some other gaming corporations I didn't bother to pay attention to) does.**

Until I Find My Way Back To You

_Book 1: Blood Harvest_

**Chapter 2: The Eyes of a Hunter**

When I woke up, the pain was gone. It was replaced with a numb feeling. My mind was in a haze. How long had I been sleeping? I couldn't remember anything. Where was I? _Who_ was I? What happened to me? I tried to think back to any memories I might have, but all I saw was darkness in my mind.

I looked around. Everything had a sickening brown tone to it. Like sepia, only not as appealing. I was in a blank room. There was no furniture anywhere. Only padded, white walls—at least, I think they were white. Not even a window to climb out of. But there was a door behind me.

Then I noticed my heightened sense of smell, which was something I wasn't too happy about since everything smelled like a rotting corpse. I tried to stand, but found the task to be hard. So I took it slow. I kneeled on one foot and stood slowly, my legs wobbling a little as I did so. After a few minutes, I got the hang of it. I walked around the room slowly. I walked toward the door and exited the room, looking down the long, dark halls. It was odd. Although I saw everything in sepia, I could easily see in the dark, as if I had night-vision.

I came to a room with the door busted off its hinges. Inside, there were many people. But they weren't…well…_alive_-looking. Most of them had gashes and gray skin. Blood was smeared all over their faces. Others had boils and tumors running down their bodies from head to toe. And then it clicked. Infected!

I crouched down on all fours—something that my body seemed to do automatically—and let loose a blood-curdling screech. Was that really me? The crowd of Infected turned their heads one by one to face my direction. I noticed one of them walk towards me, tumors covering one side of his face, blocking the view of his left eye. He had spiky, unnaturally blue hair and he wore a black shirt and brown slacks— weird, I could see color on the Infected. I recognized him as a Smoker.

"Hey, man, easy, easy!" he said, to my surprise, in a language I could understand.

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I jumped back a little, eyes widening. "W-What did you say?"

The Smoker held his hands up defensively, and smiled a little, or at least what passed for one. "You're new, aren't you?"

"'New'?" I repeated. "What are you talking about?"

"I don't think he understands, Jerry," a deep voice called from somewhere in the crowd of Infected. I searched out the voice's owner. It belonged to an obese, boil and tumor covered Infected. A Boomer.

The Smoker named Jerry let out a sigh, which then turned into a coughing fit. He reached out his hand to lean up against the wall for support.

"Uh, hey, man, you alright?" I asked. _Wait, why do I care? This guy is an Infected!_

Jerry nodded his head, his coughing fit finally dying down. "Yeah, that always happens. Anyway, what I'm saying is…you're one of us now, bro."

It took a moment for that to sink in. "One…of…us?"

"Yeah, you're an Infected now," Jerry replied. "A Hunter, to be exact."

"No!" I shouted, clutching my head. My eyes widened. "I…I can't be…I hate Infected! They're monsters! They kill people!"

Jerry looked up at the ceiling. He must have expected this kind of reaction. "It's not like we want to be this way. But humans are the only thing we can eat. Everything else tastes like sand. Besides, hating humans comes to us as a natural instinct. It'll happen to you, too."

I glared at the Smoker. "I could never hate humans!"

"Why?" Jerry asked. "What reason do you have to like them? Do you even remember anything about your human life?"

"Of course I…" I trailed off. What was it like to be human? My mind came to a blank when I tried to remember. Did I have any friends? Family? Loved ones?

"You see," Jerry replied, going into another coughing fit.

"But…" I sat down on the floor cross-legged, with my hands in my hair, "…how? How could I just forget everything? Oh!" An idea finally popped into my mind. "I know! Maybe I was hit really hard and just have amnesia!"

Jerry rolled his eyes, or at least the one visible, yellow one. "Yeah, we all went through denial at first. Doesn't change anything. See, look for yourself."

He stuck his long tongue out and wrapped it around a mirror, pulling it up to me so I could see myself. I was shocked at the person looking back at me. The person I saw had long, shaggy, black hair. He had pale skin and bright, glowing, crimson eyes. His mouth was stained red from the razor-sharp teeth that must have cut his gums while coming out. His hands were shaped like sharp claws. He wore a torn-up, white t-shirt and ripped jeans.

"Is this…me?" I asked hesitantly. Jerry nodded. I stepped back a little, an overwhelming sense of grief taking over. I was a monster; a killing machine. What was my purpose?

"So, anyway…" Jerry started, tossing the mirror to the side and shattering it, "…what's your name?"

"My name…?" What _was_ my name? I knew I had to have something. If Jerry had a name, then I should, too. Just then, letters formed in my mind that seemed to spell out one name. "My name is…Zack."

"'Zack'," Jerry repeated, testing out the name. "It suits you. Anyway, as you already know, I'm Jerry." He put his hand behind me and led me further through the crowd. "And these are some random idiots that hang out here until they hear a human nearby. Well, except for Michael over here." He pointed to the Boomer from earlier. "He and I have been best buds since…well, we think we were friends when we were human, but we don't really know. Anyway, welcome to the club."

"Club?" I asked.

Jerry sighed. "It's an expression."

"Oh."

"So, have you gone hunting for the first time, yet?" he asked.

I felt disgusted by the thought of hunting down humans like some sort of…animal. "No, and I don't plan to."

Jerry ginned. "You've gotta eat sometime, man."

"Then I'll eat a sandwich or something, but I _refuse_ to eat humans," I said, crossing my arms defiantly. My stomach growled ferociously as if disagreeing with me.

Jerry rolled his eyes. "I told you, human food tastes horrible to us Infected."

_Us Infected_, I repeated the words in my mind with disgust. "I don't believe you."

Jerry snaked his tongue out and around the corner, rummaging through something in another room. He brought back an apple. He handed it to me, which I was hesitant to take at first, since his tongue had been on it. I took the apple and peeled the skin easily with my sharp claws. I stared at the small fruit for a moment before taking a bite…and spitting it out immediately. I went into a coughing fit as I dropped the apple and it rolled into a corner.

"What…the…hell?" I said through my coughs.

"Told you," Jerry said. "Now, let's get you some _real_ food."

I grimaced. No matter how I looked at it, killing humans was murder, even if I wasn't technically the same species anymore. But Jerry was right. If I wanted to survive, I needed to kill. And since I still have the selfish, greedy, stubborn emotions of a human…I won't die. I could just kill myself, but I'm too cowardly to do that, so my only option is to live…even if it's as a monster.