R2 says that the chances of survival are 725 to 1. Actually R2 has been known to make mistakes - from time to time... Oh dear...
- CP30 – Star Wars

Turning the corner sharply, she managed to avoid tumbling hard onto the ground as she stumbled after a misstep. Thinking back on it, she realized that she should have chosen better footwear as she continued her sprint down the hallway, Angelo quickly gaining on her.

She had hated the prospect of leaving Rinoa behind after she had been attacked and killed by her own dog, but Quistis had a feeling that, had she stayed, things would have only gotten worse. More of those things had been on the way, and since the dog had come around first, she had followed the basic instinct of survival as reverently and religiously as those things followed their need to feed.

After turning down yet another corridor, Quistis noticed a door at the end, and sprinted towards it. She took the last amount of strength she possessed from the burning muscles in her legs to propel and hoped that she would make it as the sound of paws hitting the floor behind her steadily became louder.

She really didn't want to chance a look behind her, but she did anyways, noticing the seemingly normal looking dog quickly gaining speed, her teeth bared and ready to bite the first thing she could sink her fangs into. Having reached the doorway, Quistis typed in a random key code, hoping that by doing so, she would stumble upon luck and have the door open.

Luck laughed in her face.

Frowning, Quistis looked at the gap between the door and the wall and pulled as hard as she could. Cursing Cid for his banishment of her team's usage of Guardian Forces, she pulled until she thought her fingers were going to break off until finally the door gave way, opening marginally. She continued to pry at the door until the gap was big enough for her to crawl through, chancing a quick glance behind her when she was on the opposite end of the door. Angelo was quickly closing the gap between them and, with the remaining strength she could muster from her arms, she pushed the door closed tightly, just as the canine collided into it.

When the door connected with the wall, she heard a loud click, which signalled that the door was officially closed. As she took a deep breath in order to still her racing heart, the dog behind her barrelled into the door and bounced off of it, growling and scratching at its surface, trying to get inside and attack the prey within. Not wanting to be around should the animal manage to find her way inside, Quistis chose to keep moving.

A mere moment of surveying her surroundings told her that she was inside of the residence kitchen, numerous pots and pans hanging from the hangers they were stationed on, the ovens appearing not to have been used for a while when only a few hours ago it was dinner time.

Quistis cursed the irony of her recent thought.

The pounding noise from behind stopped and Quistis hoped that Angelo hadn't caught sight of the others. The collie-dog looked normal enough that she would be mistaken for still being alive, and, using that advantage, she would claim another life.

Like she claimed Rinoa's.

A sudden realization dawned on the instructor, which forced her to fall onto her knees out of despair. Angelo had been scratched during her encounter with the dog they had left Irvine behind with and she had died shortly afterwards. At that point, Quistis had been paranoid, not really thinking about what Zell had told them seemingly days ago about the affects of being scratched or bitten, only wanting to leave before those zombies got to them, but now she realized with a sinking heart, as the words of the movie she had watched ran through her head, that the brawler had been right all along.

One bite…even one scratch is significant enough to infect a healthy human being.

As if a dull reminder, the pain in the girl's right arm lanced through her, and the former instructor gripped it in a vain attempt to ignore it. She had been bitten earlier in the evening; just after sunset. And Rinoa had said, shortly before she had died, that she had been white faced. Quistis had taken it as the girl pointing out that she looked terrified, but it was something else.

Turning to look at one of the pots hanging in front of her, she realized that the younger girl had been right. Her face was pale, almost abnormally white and, even as she put her hands to her face, she felt that her body was becoming steadily colder. Bodies normally cooled after death, but she was very sure that someone who had not been infected by those zombies would tell her that she was freezing to the touch.

Slowly, but surely, she was dying.

Cursing loudly, and not really caring if anyone or anything had heard her, the eighteen year old girl slammed her hand off the side of one of the ovens, pain radiating through her palm soon afterwards, reminding her that she had not junctioned herself during this endeavour. It was then that she realized she was alone. No one else, save Rinoa and Angelo, had followed her down the stairs onto one of the lower levels, and no one was with her now. Rinoa would soon be rising, having been turned into one of those things, and would be looking for someone – anyone – to quench her need to feed.

Suddenly feeling much colder than she should, despite the sweat beginning to gather beneath her scalp, Quistis folded her arms in front of her chest and ran her hands up and down her arms to try and warm herself up before rising to her feet and beginning to move.

Maybe I should just give up, she thought to herself. I'm going to turn into one of those things anyway, and it's not like I can stop it.

Shivering slightly, Quistis forced herself to continue walking, before arriving near two bodies, both appearing to have been in the middle of a fight. One of them was definitely not getting back up – its neck had been broken. She wasn't so sure about the other one, since its neck was still intact. Both of them were dressed in chef's uniforms, which confirmed that they worked in the kitchens. From the looks of it, there didn't appear to be any damage that appeared to have been caused by a form of weapon and from Irvine's earlier statement when she had last spoken to him, both he and Zell had ventured into the canteen for dinner.

This was definitely Zell's handwork.

I wonder if the others will be so quick to attack when I become one of them, Quistis mentally mused.

The lights around her, which had been glowing an ominous white due to the florescent bulbs, suddenly blinked out of existence, leaving her in darkness. Quistis had to wait for her eyes to adjust before attempting to move again and, the moment she had done so, something fell to the floor behind her, forcing the former instructor to whirl around. From what little she could see, there was nothing behind her.

Raising her left hand, she summoned forth a holy spell, forcing it to stay in its single ball form and raised it up, illuminating the room and searching for the source of the noise. As she continued to backtrack, the light allowed her to see further into the back of the room and, as she manoeuvred around one of the stoves, she noted one of the pots lying on the ground, having fallen from the rack it had been positioned on.

Deciding that she no longer wanted to stay inside of the kitchen, she turned around and had to brace herself as another chef grabbed her around the neck before leaning forward, intending on biting her neck. The zombie pushed her backwards, forcing her to ram her back onto the stove surface and, as she and her attacker fell to the ground, her glasses slid off of her face and landed somewhere on the ground while the holy spell that had been summoned was snuffed out. Cursing, Quistis patted the floor nearby in an attempt to find her spectacles.

As she crawled on all fours in search of the object, the zombie grabbed a hold of her leg and she amended her previous thought on the choice of her footwear. Turning back around, she could barely make out a blurred outline of the zombie and, praying to Hyne that she didn't miss, closed her eyes briefly before opening them once again, a greenish-blue light lancing out and hitting the zombie, knocking him backwards and into something hard.

In her haste to get away from the monster (whether or not it was standing was no longer the case), she rose to her feet and, upon taking a step, she heard the sound of crunching glass.

Mumbling a prayer under her breath, Quistis bent down to retrieve the broken object and ceased her praying upon realizing that the object had been her spectacles. From what she could make of them, one side of the frames was now bent at an odd angle and the glass inside had indeed shattered. Feeling the other frame, she felt hairline cracks in the lens before throwing the object back down in disgust. She was now not only alone and dying, but she couldn't see worth a damn either.

Passing the two bodies she had already inspected, she made her way towards the seating area of the canteen, feeling her way by touching the walls or any other solid object she could get her hands on. When she finally felt the doorframe, she peered around it, hoping that she wouldn't have to encounter any more of those zombies when she decided that she would stop hoping for something positive to happen altogether.

The room adjacent to her current position was completely overrun by the undead, all shuffling around the room as if in a sort of daze. Some were missing parts of their faces, others were missing hands and feet, others appeared as though they shouldn't be walking on the broken limbs they had sustained and a select few were crawling around the perimeter.

Keeping her back pressed against the wall near the doorframe, Quistis sank onto her knees, her hands touching the surface of the floor beneath her. She was completely surrounded. On one end, a horde of zombies were patrolling the area, waiting for something – anything – to cross their paths. And towards the back entrance of the kitchen, Angelo was pacing – waiting – for her to emerge to become dog food.

Recalling the monsters waiting for her outside of her hiding spot, Quistis couldn't suppress the shudder that ran through her. Due to whatever it was that had caused all of this, the dead became reanimated, and thus functioned on the simplest of motor skills, such as walking and grabbing, all to sate their basic need to feed themselves. They had no mentality, and were no longer the intellectual men and women they had previously been. They no longer felt pain and charged through it as if it were nothing and even the most crippling of attacks, save for one that was very effective, were useless.

Quistis clenched her hands into fists so hard her knuckles turned white despite her pale appearance. She didn't want to turn into one of those things. She didn't want to be forced to roam around and kill in-discriminatively, without thought or malice towards her actions. She didn't want to find someone who was still alive, only to kill them in an instant or infect them with the thing that caused her to become a monster.

No, she corrected herself. Not monsters. Even they can form a thought.

Checking her ammunition supply, she grimly noted her current situation. She didn't have much left, so she would have to be careful of what she used. All three weapons were running low and she only possessed a few clips. It wouldn't be enough if the zombies chose to ambush her from the canteen.

Frowning, she realized that all she could do was wait for someone to find her, or until she died and turned into one of those things.

After making absolutely sure that they were no longer being followed by the creature, Laguna was able to regain his bearings and began the task of leading Selphie down the stairs towards the ground floor. Both had agreed that, most likely, the others would have found a way to the bottom floor and that would be where they caught up with them. Or at least, he hoped that was the case.

With Ward gone, Laguna had to wonder how the rest of the group was handling things, or whether or not everyone was still alive.

First Zell, then Kiros, then Irvine and now Ward… Laguna allowed the thought to trail off as both he and Selphie continued to descend the stairs, armed with an assortment of weapons and ammunition. Along the way, Laguna had managed to recall that the armoury was located on the sixth floor and, after finding it, both he and Selphie had armed themselves with as much ammo and weaponry as they could possibly carry.

Strapped along her right shoulder and stretching onto her the left side of her hip was an MP5K submachine gun with a double clip. Strapped in an X formation across her chest and back were straps filled with small explosives, with a small hand held detonator attached to a belt on her hip. Holsters had been strapped onto both of her legs and one was attached to her brown boots, all with 45 LDA's sitting within. She carried a small bag across her back, filled with magazine clips for each of the guns, placed strategically so she would spend minimal amount of time searching for the appropriate clip. Strapped to her arms were more hand held explosive devices which, unlike the ones strapped along Selphie's front and back, could be set off manually rather than through a detonator.

Rather than an MP5K, Laguna had grabbed the MP7 model, outfitted with a laser pointer. The weapon was fairly small, but he still had it strapped over his shoulder similar to the way Selphie positioned her weapon. Attached to a weapons belt he had managed to secure was a Micro UZI, the safety having been switched on to prevent himself from shooting his feet off. Slung over his other shoulder was a bag of ammunition and on the opposite side of the belt rested a holster for a 45 LDA. Another holster hidden underneath both of his pant legs near his ankles secured two more guns of the same fashion and, having decided that sandals were definitely the most comfortable of things to be running around in, had secured a pair of boots. The size was a little too long, but he had tied the laces secure enough that his feet wouldn't move around too much.

Afterwards, they both had managed to find a secure stairwell leading towards the lower levels. Each descended the stairs one in front of the other, never allowing themselves to turn their backs on the stairs below. When one of them reached the landing leading to another set of stairs, they would stop and wait for the other to pass them before proceeding further down.

Neither one had said much after having lost Ward and Laguna was grateful for the silence. As much as he had buried himself in his Presidential duties to avoid it, he'd rather allow his thoughts to flood his mind rather than voicing them at the moment.

He recalled the bad movies Kiros, Ward and himself would rent whenever they were on standby after a long mission. Aside from going to the bar and watching Julia Heartilly play the piano, it had been his favourite activity. It was a ritual that they had picked up on after accidentally renting a couple of tacky horror flicks. They'd watch the movies, and at some point, Kiros would critique it and tear apart the plot, at which point Ward and Laguna would dump whatever it was they were drinking or eating on the dark skinned man.

Now they're both gone… Laguna thought sadly. I could have prevented both of them from getting themselves killed and yet I didn't.

He thought back to earlier in the evening, after Zell had been pulled into an elevator filled with zombies. He had told Kiros that staying behind was dangerous, that there was a high risk of the dark-skinned fighter not making it back alive, but Kiros had assured them all that he would be fine. Laguna hadn't believed it for a second, but had refused to argue, having very little time to think on the matter, and human nature – the instinct to survive – had taken over, controlling his actions as he had left one of his best friends behind to fight alone. Even though he and Ward had told the others they believed Kiros would make it out alive, they hadn't really.

Next had been a mere hour prior, when they had split up from the rest of the group after Irvine had been attacked by the zombie-dog. When the creature had been in hiding, and Ward had gotten injured, he had been forced to translate what it was the bigger man was trying to say to Selphie. He had been honest when he had told Selphie what it was Ward had been saying, up until the last bit. Ward had told him that in chess, people made sacrifices all the time to ensure that the king did not get captured. Laguna never played chess before in his entire life, but even he knew that the player to lose their king to the enemy had lost.

Ward had told him before they had begun to leave that he would walk with them to the door and, if that thing – a Licker, he recalled Selphie mentioning them right before everyone had split up - didn't make an appearance, he would leave with them, but to ensure that the head of the Estharian government – his best friend – made it out of there alive, he would give his life. He had wanted to argue, to tell Ward that what he was trying to say was nonsense, but the look on Ward's face had stopped him, silently telling him that to stop him from doing what he planned on accomplishing would be unforgivable.

He couldn't tell Selphie what the bigger man had told him. She would have refused to leave, and he wouldn't have been able to forgive himself if both of them had stayed behind. So he had made something up on the spot to fabricate the truth by telling her that Ward simply wanted them to move ahead, and that he would simply cover the rear. She had been sceptical at first, not agreeing with the plan, but she had relented in the end, which was how Ward had been able to shove them out of the room before that thing could stop them.

Laguna was almost positive that, had Selphie not been preoccupied with pulling herself together, she would have seen through the lie. It hadn't been easy to leave the bigger man behind, especially after watching a trail of blood seep through the door, but in the end, he had been able to pry Selphie away, explaining that Ward's death would have been in vain had they stayed behind.

It didn't make him feel any better though.

He had lost Kiros and Ward, and Selphie had lost pretty much everyone she had known since childhood as well as Rinoa. He had no idea if the others were still alive, or if they were safe, and he knew that weighed heavily on Selphie's conscience. To think that you were the last one left, the sole survivor, was a weight he didn't like carrying, but to have to experience it at the age of seventeen…

As soon as they came to the landing of the fourth floor, Selphie stopped moving and, since Laguna was currently behind her, he was forced to stop as well. He didn't need to ask why though, because the answer was right in front of him.

The forth floor landing was the last floor they could descend to in the stairwell, levelling off and giving the illusion that they had reached the bottom. The only indication that contradicted this though was the number four plastered on the door in front of them.

"If we get outta this alive," Laguna started, breaking the tense silence. "I'm making it a point to make all of the staircases reach ground level."

"When we get out of this alive, Sir Laguna." Selphie corrected him, stressing the word when. Regardless of this fact, she was smiling at the remark. Laguna smiled back, even though he was sure it looked faked.

Selphie approached the door and grabbed the handle, turning towards Laguna and nodding tersely, to which Laguna returned. She immediately pulled the door open as Laguna raised the MP7, his index finger poised over the trigger. When the door was opened wide enough, Laguna quickly but silently approached the door, glad to know that his military training hadn't faded through the time he spent behind a political desk. Selphie followed closely afterwards, pulling the door closed and preventing her back from becoming exposed, raising the 45 LDA's as she did.

They were in a long hallway, though Laguna recognized it, despite all of the Residence hallways appearing alike. Beside the stairwell entrance at their left, the wall curved into a corner while the hall stretched down the right, seemingly miles away. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed, but from what the pair had seen so far, appearances could be deceiving.

Taking a chance look around the corner, Laguna saw to his disappointment that there were more of those zombies roaming about, either shuffling towards their location or shuffling away, seemingly aimless in their search for food.

A few of them were dressed in the Estharian garb, but a couple others appeared to have been part of security, dressed in the silver and purple uniforms of the Estharian military. Two of the number appeared to have been chefs, working in the kitchen located directly beside the cafeteria.

Removing his gaze from around the corner, he turned to Selphie and shook his head, indicating that they couldn't go left. Selphie nodded in understanding and both proceeded in the opposite direction, weapons raised in a readied stance. Both revolved in a three-sixty degree angle, making sure that their backs were never exposed for more than a second.

They continued to move down the darkened hallway, stopping and ducking behind some spot concealed by shadows in the even darker corners when they spotted movement, watching as zombies passed by, appearing to be harmless. The two knew better, however and would wait until the creature was out of sight before moving again.

After what felt like ages, Selphie and Laguna stopped in their movement, noticing more of those creatures roaming about, and had been forced to backtrack, retracing their steps until they reached the fork they had moved from. When they finally did, Selphie stopped, frowning as she continued to keep an eye out for more zombies. "So where do we go now? We can't just backtrack to the stairs, there's nowhere to go from there. The only thing I can think of is go back and put some bullets into those things."

"We should conserve our ammunition," Laguna stated. "But as for your question…" the President of Esthar trailed off as he mentally evaluated their current location. They were standing in the middle of the hallway, which led to four different places. The first path was right where they had come from, leading back towards the zombies they had seen wandering around before returning to the fork.

The second location, the path behind them, led back towards the stairwell, and also led towards the other side of the residence, more appropriately, towards the meeting chambers, where the government held meetings on the order of the country. Then there were the stairs, and he knew that was the only place they could go if they were trying to avoid the zombies. Unfortunately, it led to a dead end, since they were trying to reach the ground floor.

The path right in front of them would lead to yet another dead end, consisting of a corridor filled with rooms leading to the indoor gym, where some of the men and women employed within the building could work out during their off hour times. It was pretty much a waste of time since, other than the gym, the path didn't take them anywhere.

That only left one option, for them to head right, where it would take them towards the food junction of the building. There were three access points to reach the canteen. First, the route they were on would lead them to the lower level area, closest to the kitchen and, understandably, the more popular option to the workers during the dinner rush. The second was parallel to the first door, on the opposite end facing the kitchen, leading towards another set of stairs and the third was located within the upper seating area, and would lead to a landing that would lead towards the financial districts offices.

From what Laguna recalled (it had been a long time since he actually went down to the canteen himself to grab a bite to eat), the second exit was his best bet, since it held a stairwell that would lead to the lower levels of the building.

"You said you, Irvine and Zell all went to the cafeteria before running into those zombies?" Laguna asked, to which Selphie nodded. "Was it crowded?"

Selphie shook her head. "From what Zell and Irvy told me, it wasn't. I didn't get a chance to see for myself though. Zell and Irvy grabbed me and dragged me away from the place before I could."

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Laguna frowned. All they had to base that knowledge on was hearsay and, not that he didn't trust Irvine or Zell's word on the matter, he had always found that to be a poor source for information. Admittedly, he hadn't actually had the chance to officially become a journalist during his youth, but he knew enough to realize that you could only depend on a valid lead, and hearsay definitely wasn't a valid lead most of the time.

Unfortunately, it was the only thing they had at the moment, and they couldn't afford to be picky. "There's a way to make it to a stairwell that leads downstairs, but it's through the canteen. It's our only option."

Selphie nodded, understanding what he was talking about. "Then let's get a move on."

The pair moved towards the right, heading down the hallway, weapons raised, the same basic procedures they had been forced to abide by for the past hour and a half.

When they noticed signs that they were reaching the cafeteria, they slowed their pace, keeping their eyes pealed for anything that could jump out and ambush them.

And I always used to tell Kiros he was paranoid for doing this… Laguna thought to himself before squashing the thought. He couldn't afford to think about what had happened to his war buddies at a time like this.

When they finally arrived, Selphie took a look inside of the cafeteria before turning back to look at Laguna, frowning as she did. He did not like where it was leading, but he chanced a look himself, seeing the cause of Selphie's expression.

The room was filled with zombies, all shuffling around aimlessly, some taking a bite out of one of the zombies too close to themselves before the other one would retaliate. Upon seeing the sight, Laguna felt sick to his stomach as the first signs of a leg cramp was creeping up on him. People who used to work together were busy consuming each other, feeling the need to quench their seemingly unending hunger. People who used to be lovers were greedily eating each other, regardless of who they used to be.

It was exactly as Quistis had said. They no longer possessed the brain capacity for intellectual thinking. They were reduced to things that were forever following the basic of needs.

Laguna shuddered at the thought of ever becoming one of those things.

"Well, it could have filled up during the time it took for us to get down here," Selphie pointed out, trying to be helpful.

Laguna nodded in response. That was always a possibility. He looked back inside of the cafeteria, watching as the zombies continued to shuffle about. He didn't really want to have to go through all of that, just to get to another exit, but he knew they didn't have a choice. By all rights, they had nowhere else to go, and their only chance of escape was through the masses of walking dead.

A muscle in his left leg tightened and Laguna grit his teeth, trying desperately hard to take in soothing deep breaths. Relaxing had always helped him out in the past whenever he had been assaulted by the leg cramps, and even now he could feel it beginning to work. Turning to look at Selphie, he could tell she wanted nothing to do with sifting through those creatures, but an expression of determination crossed her features, signalling that she understood that there was no other option. She hefted the MP5K and nodded to Laguna once, an indication that she was ready to move when he gave the order.

Laguna in turn hefted the MP7 and nodded back, counting backwards from three. But before he had finished counting, Selphie raised her arm, as if to block an imaginary being standing behind them. Upon receiving his questioning expression, Selphie inclined her head towards the canteen once more, an expression the President had trouble reading at first, and Laguna followed the gesture, wondering what it was that had caught the girl's attention. One of the zombies was making its way towards the kitchen, probably hoping to find something inside for it to eat. Laguna didn't see what was so important about it until the bullet shot rung out and the zombie fell backwards, having been shot through the forehead.

Laguna turned to look back at Selphie, his expression mirroring hers, which he could now identify as hope. "There's someone alive in there," he whispered, stating the obvious.

Selphie nodded in agreement. "But they won't be alive for much longer if we stand here talking."

It was Laguna's turn to nod. They had to come up with a strategy fast. There was no telling how long the person inside would be able to hold off those zombies. "We both enter the canteen, and I'll veer off towards the kitchen, find the survivor and bring them out. You concentrate on clearing a path towards the door."

Selphie nodded once before both jumped out of the hallway, Laguna leading and Selphie not too far behind. Laguna held the trigger button on the MP7 down as he made a path towards the center before veering left, towards the kitchen, while Selphie maintained firepower, trying to create a path towards the opposite side of the room.

Zombies fell forward, mostly immobile, some dead from headshots, but the gunfire didn't stop just because one fell. Laguna circled around in a three-sixty degree action, catching any zombie he could in the chest or the head before they could reach forward and attack him. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated most of his attacks in front of him, until at last he made it to the counter barring access to the kitchen from any of the customers. Laguna managed to pull himself up onto the table and jump down before any of the pursuing zombies could reach out to grab him. He continued his stream of fire until he backed himself into the kitchen, pushing the door open with his back.

Before he could turn around and examine his surroundings however, something grabbing him from behind and tried to gnaw at his face. In a completely reflexive action, Laguna threw his elbow backwards, catching his attacker in the gut, but it did nothing to stave him. Just as he was about to get bitten however, a flash of light sent the corpse flying off towards the side, landing against the multitudes of pots and pans sectioned off to his immediate left.

Laguna turned to his right, weapon raised and intending to attack, but stopped when he saw the familiar blonde lowering her arms to her sides. She had scratches and bruises along her body, her clothes dirty from what Laguna could only guess to be multiple encounters of zombies or the like. Her hair was even more dishevelled than what it was when he had first seen her that evening, and her glasses were missing.

As much as he wanted to hug the SeeD, he knew that the pleasantries were going to have to wait.

"How did you –?" Quistis started, but was interrupted.

"No time to explain. We need to keep moving. There's a horde out there and I think someone forgot to mention that dinner was a long while ago."

After watching her nod quickly, Laguna turned to leave when Quistis grabbed his arm. "This might help." She quickly folded her arms in front of her before stretching them out at either side. A flash of purple magic encircling the both of them. When Laguna gave her an inquiring look, Quistis looked over towards the door leading back into the canteen.

"Mighty Guard. It casts protect and shell on the user and anyone else within the vicinity, that is alive." She had added the last bit when Laguna had been about to raise his concern. "I figured it out after assessing my ammunition supply. Protect creates a barrier that prevents an enemy from attacking you physically. It'll hold off those things, but not for long, so I'd suggest we hurry."

Laguna nodded in agreement before both of them left the safety of the kitchen, Laguna firing rounds of ammunition at the zombies who tried to attack. Quistis covered the rear, casting fire and wind elemental magic, burning her pursuers or blasting them aside.

Selphie was in the center of the room, providing backup fire power, even as Laguna and Quistis reached their position. The Trabian raised girl and the former Galbadian soldier took up positions at point or in the rear respectively in order to keep their enemy at bay, Quistis assisting with an arsenal of magic. Selphie soon ran empty and, while she was changing clips, Quistis took up covering her position, moving the smaller girl out of the way as she unleashed a barrage of gunfire at the zombies standing in their path, all of them having been torn apart by the Para-Magical bullets. She did the same when Laguna was forced to change his ammunitions clip.

Finally, the trio managed to reach the exit they desired and, as soon as they were out of the room, Laguna unclipped a grenade, pressed a button on the very top of the device before hurling it inside of the room and closing the door behind him, catching each and every one of those things in the room in the explosion.

Quistis, Laguna and Selphie had all barely been able to avoid being launched forward by the detonation, but had all stumbled and ducked as soon as the bomb when off. As they began the task of rising to their feet, Quistis was suddenly ailed by a hacking fit, of which Selphie began the process of slapping her on the back in an effort to help.

As he watched, Laguna felt a sudden swell of jealousy form inside, and immediately was ashamed because of it. Kiros and Ward were both dead, and yet, Selphie, who had been worried sick about the rest of her comrades and friends, fearing the worst imaginable circumstances, was in the process of being reunited with one of them.

Laguna stifled the thoughts in his head as quickly as they had emerged. Selphie had a right to know whether her friends were safe or not. He had no idea how he would have been able to handle it if he had been in her position, never knowing if they had been killed or if they were trapped in the hostile situation Quistis had managed to find herself in. At least he had known when his best friends had died.

Besides, if Quistis was still alive, then there was hope that the others were as well.

As soon as Quistis had stopped coughing, Selphie enveloped the elder girl in a hug, laughing as she did. "Whoo hoo!" she shouted through the giggles, and Quistis, who looked like she was completely out of her element, didn't know what to do besides hug the girl back. When the younger girl released her grip, she beamed happily as Quistis offered both Selphie and Laguna a small smile.

"As I was going to say earlier…" the former instructor said after a moment. "How did you find me?"

"It was sort of an accident." Laguna said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Upon receiving a questioning look, he realized exactly how his words could be translated and immediately put his hands in front of him in a defensive gesture. "That didn't come out right. What I mean to say is, well… uh…" he had absolutely no idea how to get himself out of the trouble he had just landed.

Selphie laughed light-heartedly. "I think what he means to say is that he's happy to see you alive, and it was a good thing we were cutting through the cafeteria when we did."

Quistis nodded. "Yeah, I gathered."

Laguna smiled sheepishly as Selphie grinned widely. "So, um… what happened when we split up?"

The expression on Quistis' face stiffened slightly, but as Laguna was about to take back the question, Quistis held up a hand to silence him. "No, you deserve to know what happened. But we should probably keep moving. Who knows if any more of those things are going to become attracted to the smell of rotting corpses."

Selphie and Laguna nodded and, as they began walking, Quistis began her explanation. "I made it to the fourth floor before I realized that not everyone had done the same, so I went back and found Rinoa. She was having a nervous breakdown, and Angelo had been scratched during the scuffle with the dog, so when she died, Rinoa was in a fit state. She refused to leave the animal, and while she was grieving, Angelo woke up and killed her.

"I managed to get away and locked myself inside of the kitchen, but at the time, I didn't know that the cafeteria was filled with those things." Sighing, Quistis smiled, but it was a sad one. "I suppose we should have listened to Zell when we had the chance, huh?"

Selphie nodded in agreement, the ecstatic expression having left her face. "So Rinny's dead? And Angelo too?"

Quistis nodded in response. "But, that's not the only thing."

Laguna noticed that, as the trio was walking, Quistis appeared to be holding onto her right arm with her left hand, on the spot just above her elbow, which was covered by her sweater. The expression on the SeeDs face was also disconcerting; she looked as though she was a young child having been caught in trying to hide something from a furious parent. He didn't know exactly what it was that she was going to say, but he felt his gut tightening all the same.

Suddenly, Quistis stopped moving altogether, shocking both Selphie and Laguna, since it had been her idea to keep moving. The blonde female took in a deep breath before releasing it slowly and, after a moment of silence, began to speak once again. "I'm flattered that the both of you came after me when you discovered that someone else was still alive, but you should have just left me behind."

"What?" Selphie shouted indignantly. "Quisty, why would we have left you behind?"

"Trust me when I say that you'd be a lot safer if I wasn't around."

Quistis moved her hand as she brushed a strand of hair out of her face and it was then that Laguna saw it. On the exact spot the girl had been concealing with her hand was a bandage made of gauze material, and he could make out blood seeping through the thick bandage. "What happened to your arm?" Laguna asked.

Selphie's attention turned to the bandage even as Quistis sighed heavily. "Earlier this evening, before the group of us met in Squall's office, one of the Presidential Aids barged into my room. At first I thought he was being rude, and then I noticed how sickly he looked, so I thought he needed help, but then he bit me. I didn't think it was a big deal, but when Zell started telling us about how they turn you into one of those things, I started to wonder if he was right. I guess I received my answer after Angelo turned."

Quistis set her jaw before speaking once again. "The point is that I've been infected, and sooner or later I'm going to become one of those things. When I do, I'm not going to be able to control my actions, so it'd be best if you both stayed away from me."

"I'm not just gonna stand by and leave you all alone like this," Selphie jumped in. "We lost Ward an hour ago, because he thought he was doing the right thing for me and Sir Laguna! We're not letting you go off by yourself! What if one of the zombies grabbed you?"

"I'm already going to turn. What difference would it make?" Quistis argued.

"We can think of something!" Selphie sounded desperate. "There was an antidote in the movie! There'll be something that can cure you…"

"And if we're already too late? What then?" Quistis snapped. "I've seen what those things do. When she was still alive, Angelo was devoted to keeping Rinoa safe. She would have never attacked Rinoa. You didn't see Angelo rip out Rinoa's throat as if she were nothing but a piece of meat!"

"Then we'll deal with it when it happens!" Selphie shouted. "We just found you again, why should we ditch you because of circumstances you couldn't control? Quisty, you're not a superhero! Things happen! It doesn't mean you should just give up!" The Trabian raised girl was on the brink of tears, her eyes beginning to water up. "Don't do this to us! Please, don't give up just because you don't want to hurt us!"

Laguna would have contributed to the discussion had he been able to think of anything to say. He should have known by the fact that Quistis' skin was paler than it normally should have been, but he was concerned for her all the same. They had finally found someone out of the group who had unwittingly split up and she had just confessed to them that she would be turning into the things they were trying to avoid running into. Laguna made up his mind then and there. That no one else was going to get left behind if they could help it.

"Like Selphie said, we'll deal with it when the time comes," Laguna jumped in before Quistis could argue the point further. "In the meantime, we should concentrate on finding a way out of the building. There should be stairs nearby that we can take to the bottom floor."

Quistis sighed and, for a moment, Laguna thought she was going to argue. But what she said next caught him completely off guard. "I'll go with the both of you…"

Selphie's squeal interrupted the blonde and a look in her direction stopped her from jumping up and down. "But, if it looks like I've turned into one of those things, do not wait for me to attack. I want either of you or both of you to take me out. Do I make myself clear?"

At the tone of voice the SeeD was speaking in, Laguna suddenly felt as though he were back in school. Then again, she had been an instructor a full year before Ultimecia had made her move. Both he and Selphie nodded, Selphie grinning from ear to ear, despite what she had just agreed to do. Laguna couldn't blame her. There was strength in numbers and he planned to use that to their advantage.

Thinking back on it though, there seemed to be something odd about their current numbers. There had been nine of them in the very beginning. Zell had died, Kiros had stayed behind and was probably dead as well, and Irvine had stayed back when they had split up. Selphie, Ward and himself had ended up together, and Quistis only mentioned Rinoa and Angelo.

Laguna's features paled. Only eight people had been accounted for. That left one person missing from the equation…

"Where's Squall?" Laguna asked, catching Quistis' attention.

The former Instructor merely blinked back at him in surprise. "You mean he wasn't with either of you?"

Selphie shook her head. "Nope. The only other person we were with was Ward."

"Well the only ones following me were Rinoa and Angelo." Quistis explained and as soon as she had finished speaking, it sank in. Quistis was the one to break the silence that filled the air after the realization dawned on them. "When we split up, he must have gone a different direction from the rest of us."

"You mean he's running around the Presidential Residence by himself?" Selphie shouted. "What if he got caught by the zombies?"

"Squall's resilient. He knows how to defend himself," Quistis reasoned, although Laguna could tell she was also worried.

"We should go look for him," Laguna said. "He shouldn't be wondering the halls of the Presidential Residence by himself, especially with those things on the loose. The stairs led up, so we'll start looking from where we last saw him."

Both Quistis and Selphie nodded, and Laguna led the girls towards the stairwell. Despite keeping an eye out for more zombies, he heard Quistis assure Selphie that they would find Squall and he would be just fine.

Laguna sincerely hoped the elder SeeD was right.