You can't get where you want to go if you don't know where you are.
– Anonymous
Selphie had the distinct feeling they were wandering around in circles.
Shaking her head to rid herself of such a thought, she scowled at herself. Selphie was not known for her pessimism, she was the group cheerleader. She had to keep everyone focused on the task at hand. She had to keep everyone's frame of mind intact, or else everything was going to hell.
But if even the cheerleader was beginning to panic, what exactly did it say about their dilemma?
Selphie removed such thoughts from her mind as she, Sir Laguna and Quistis continued down the hallway with weapons raised and their backs against the wall. Selphie was at point, with Sir Laguna holding up the rear and Quistis stuck in-between. She didn't have time to have any doubts, because at least two of their comrades was still trapped inside of the building and they needed to find him before the zombies did.
If they hadn't already.
Squall's gonna be fine. Selphie thought to herself as the trio began to move once again. He was the last one standing against Ultimecia. He was the one who led the charge against both her and Adel, and he even led the Garden battle in Centra. He'll be okay, and he'll know what to do when we find him.
Yeah, sure… A voice in Selphie's head sounded. He's prepared to take out a whole shitload of zombified Estharian workers, soldiers and civilians. Squall's not a miracle worker. He even said he didn't have a contingency plan against those things! What makes you think it's different now?
Selphie took in a deep breath and exhaled, knowing that the predicament was taking its toll on everyone. Over half of their starting party was gone, and one was presumably still alive unless they either found him ripped apart, or he came after them and attacked them – just like everyone else in the damned building.
They had reached the stairwell that would have normally led them downstairs to the first floor, but rather than head towards the exit, they climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, hoping to find some sign of the SeeD Commander. So far, all they had run into were the run-of-the-mill zombies that they had already met up against, and Selphie was hoping that they wouldn't run into a Licker anytime soon. She still couldn't get the image of that monster tongue out of her head.
Quisty is so lucky that she didn't run into that thing… Selphie thought to herself before pausing, looking back towards the former instructor. Yeah, lucky… if you count being infected and turning into one of those things lucky… she amended silently.
Upon taking a good look at the eighteen year old, Selphie felt a wave of sorrow fill her up inside. According to the blonde SeeD, she had been attacked earlier that evening, and when they had met up again, she had looked all sickly and pale. It definitely reminded her of that character from the movie, about how determined she had been to stay alive and to help out. Even when she was losing her eyesight she still tried to help out her team-mate.
There was no doubt in the Trabian-raised SeeD's mind that Quistis would be the same way, not giving up, but the depression that seemed to have suddenly appeared in the elder girl scared her. The fact that she even asked them to leave her alone so that she wouldn't hurt anyone had worried her as well. It wasn't like the SeeD to give up.
Sir Laguna had told her along the way that there might be an antivirus, and had relayed the explanation they had received from Schipner before losing Ward. In Selphie's opinion, knowledge was power, and the more of it she had, the more comfortable she felt.
Now if only we knew where Squall is…
They came across another hallway that lead to a dead end, a wall at one end and a door leading inside of a room on the opposite side facing the wall. Nothing further beyond stood before them. The corridor ended there.
After a moment of silence, Quistis' voice, weakened due to the infection, cut through it easily. "Maybe he's in there."
Selphie hoped so. The Presidential Residence, a building that had struck her as the most beautiful place she had ever been to in her entire life, was suddenly really very creepy, and she couldn't help but break out in gooseflesh, yet she was travelling with other people. She didn't want to even think about what it would have been like all by herself. Since she was at point, she raised her hand to signal the other two to stay where they were before she grabbed a hold of the handle to the door, took a deep calming breath and turned the knob, granting her access within the room.
It didn't look any different from the others that they had been inside of, despite the size. It looked more like a classroom than anything found in a building of business. Then again, Selphie silently argued, this might be some kind of staff room or something…
The room was dark given the time of night and the lack of power; the walls a lighter shade of grey that told the small SeeD they were white under normal circumstances. There was a huge table in the back of the room with a booth at the end of the wall curving from the very end towards the right hand side. On the left hand side were a few chairs, but some of them were lying on their backs, as if the people in the room were forced to run out of it quickly. There was a counter off to the side and a fridge – possibly for bringing drinks or food from the cafeteria and storing them inside.
Selphie took a few steps into the room and looked around, her eyes having long since adjusted to the dark. There weren't any shadows for any of the monsters to hide in within the room, so it looked safe at least. Looking up at the wall, she noticed what would have been an electrical clock on the wall, but the blaring red numbers weren't alight, compliments of the lack of power.
Frowning, the diminutive SeeD looked out the window aligned on the side. Without a moon, there was no way for her to tell exactly how late it was, though there were a lot less stars out there than the last time they had seen the outside. All things considered, Selphie was surprised that time was moving so quickly when it felt like it had been ages since everything had been normal.
Stepping out of the room and allowing the door to close after her, Selphie shook her head towards Quistis and Laguna, signalling that they had no choice but to head back in the direction they had come in.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, Quistis heard the tell-tale signs of those creatures moaning nearby and stopped walking, even as Laguna and Selphie did the same. Both raised their weapons and Quistis readied herself, just in case she was needed to cast a spell. So far they weren't having any luck on finding Squall whatsoever, but Quistis wasn't willing to give up unless she saw him dead or undead.
Soon after the sounds began, the creatures came out of their hiding spots, and Selphie fired a shot from the LDA she was holding, the piercing sound of the bullet being fired from the barrel echoed in the near silent hallway even as Laguna began to unload a clip into their pursuers. Quistis quickly cast protect spells on all of them, hoping that they would last long enough for it to make a difference and called forth her own magical abilities, helping Laguna fend off the creatures that were piling in through the hallway. The end of the hall had been blown apart – probably from the explosion of the cafeteria down below – and Selphie wasn't having a problem blasting apart the things that crawled out from the remaining of the floor.
"We can't stay here!" Laguna shouted over the machine gun fire.
"We can crawl through here!" Selphie shouted from her position and, when Quistis turned to look, she saw the younger girl making her way towards the ledge. "Those things can't touch us with the protect spells."
"But we don't know how long they'll last!" Quistis protested, but Laguna, having stopped shooting, grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the remainder of the hall.
"We'll just have to hope they last, won't we? We sure as hell can't stick around."
Quistis went to protest but, when she heard the sound of the moaning things increase in volume, she opted to follow her companions towards the remains of the floor, her back pressed against the wall as she slowly but steadily continued to move.
"Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to blow up the canteen…" she heard Laguna mumble beside her even as the zombie creatures made their way towards them.
"Shit!"
Quistis heard Selphie curse and, when she looked to see what the problem was, she felt her throat sink further. More of those things were converging and Selphie wouldn't have enough fire power to fend for herself. Quistis and Laguna could lend a hand, but not without one or both of them falling into the room below.
Even as the thought crossed her mind, the former instructor looked down, her eyesight blurring slightly – from the infection or the lack of her glasses she didn't know – but she didn't see anything move down there. When she looked up, she realized Laguna was thinking the exact same thing.
"Selphie!" Laguna shouted and, when he caught her attention, he inclined his head in the direction of the ruined cafeteria. Selphie stared at him for a moment before nodding her assent and, after a moment, the trio jumped, Quistis quickly casting float on her comrades and herself before taking the plunge herself, the white wings strapping themselves securely onto their shoulder blades and allowing for a graceful descend.
Suddenly, her magic failed and all three of them landed roughly onto the ground, Selphie accomplishing a full summersault before landing roughly onto her backside, whereas Laguna just barely managed to land sharply onto his leg. "What just happened?" Selphie said after a moment where the only sound accompanying them was the zombies' moaning from about.
"I don't know…" Quistis frowned, pulling herself up onto her feet, even as her legs threatened to give out on her. She was suddenly very tired, and feeling very sick to her stomach, but she refused to let it get to her. If there was an antidote, she wanted to get her hands on it – even if it was too late for her.
Taking a look around, she realized they were back where Selphie and Laguna had found her, on the bottom level of the cafeteria, which was now a mess of broken bodies and debris. She wasn't sure anything could get back up after an explosion that left this much damage in its wake, but judging from her experiences of the past few hours, she wasn't betting on anything anymore.
Her vision swam again but Quistis stubbornly blinked a few times, and it steadily returned to normal. The blonde SeeD frowned, despite the return of her sight. The intervals were becoming shorter and it was getting harder to focus on objects anymore. If the spread continued at this rate, she would be blind in less than an hour.
And helpless… Quistis' frown deepened. That's exactly what we need. Blind within an hour's time, and who knows what'll happen after that.
She clenched and unclenched her fist, wishing that she had grabbed a hold of Save the Queen before she had left her room that night, but she understood that what was done was done. Though she didn't want to die, she didn't want to die useless, and was determined to help the others out as much as possible before she started craving them as an appetiser.
It's ironic that I haven't even eaten anything since lunch… she thought before squashing it. Cannibalism was not on the list of things she wanted to take interest in and she was fairly certain that, if she did come out of this alive, she was turning Vegan.
"We'd better keep moving…" Laguna said, breaking her line of thinking. "We shouldn't stay in one spot too long."
Nodding, Quistis and Selphie followed the former soldier towards the exit, but before they could leave, the familiar moaning sounds crept up on them and forced all three of them to turn around. The zombies were emerging from the cafeteria, some having lost limbs to their comrades, and one was even crawling, his legs having been rendered useless.
"How are these fuckers still alive?" Selphie shouted in outrage as she gripped the MP5K around her neck tightly.
"It's quite the trick," Quistis agreed.
"They're stubborn, I'll give them that," Laguna nodded. "But we can't stick around."
As he whirled around, however, more of his former employees stumbled into the doorway and one of them reached out to bite Laguna. The president pushed the zombies head back even as two others converged on his position. Selphie rushed in to help pry the zombies fingers off the Galbadian raised man while Quistis concentrated her Blue Magic and went to aim at the thing.
Unfortunately, her vision began to blur, badly this time. Nearly growling in irritation, Quistis shook her head and blinked, but found that it was only helping to thin out the fog. The people in front of her were nothing but big blurs, and she didn't know where one of the zombies began and where her friends ended. She continued to blink, hoping that her vision would return to her, but after a moment, it was only beginning to make things worse.
"Quisty!" she heard from in front of her; the voice belonged to Selphie. "What are you waiting for? Shoot them!"
"I…" Quistis felt her voice tremble more than heard it but despite her best efforts to control the panic that was steadily rising she couldn't steady it. "I can't! I can't see!"
She heard moaning, lots of moaning and it was no longer coming from in front of her. She could hear them coming from her left, and though she was positive it was her imagination playing tricks on her, from the right and behind as well. She tried casting a scan spell, but she felt the sparks of her magic fail before the info-vision that was granted with the spell could take hold of her. She had just become whast she'd been afraid of being – blind and helpless.
She felt a hand grab a hold of her arm and struck out instinctively, feeling her open palm smash into the face of one of her attackers, even as another grabbed at her other arm. The panic she felt continued to rise until she thought she was going to scream, but a loud piercing sound, much like a gun being fired, sounded loudly and one of her attackers released her, followed by another gun fire and the loss of the other grip. More gunfire was heard around her and she assumed that Laguna and Selphie had dealt with the zombies attacking her and had come to her aid.
Suddenly, someone else grabbed her even as the shots fired changed from single charges to consecutive spurts, but before she could move, he felt her arm being draped onto someone's shoulders and recognized Laguna's voice from right beside her. "Are you alright?"
She felt tears stream down her face at the very mention of her wellbeing and she shook her head. "I can't see! My sight! My sight is getting worse! I couldn't see, and I couldn't use magic, and –"
"It's okay, Quisty." This time it was Selphie speaking to her. "It's okay, don't worry about it. Sorry I yelled – I didn't know."
Suddenly, the gunfire stopped and footfalls – two pairs from the sounds of it – could be heard approaching quickly. After they stopped, one of the two newcomers spoke and the voice was very familiar to the former instructor. "What happened to her?"
"Squall?" Quistis asked, hoping that it wasn't her mind playing tricks on her. "Did we find –?"
"No," Laguna interjected. "They found us."
"They?"
She looked up from where she was forcibly standing and took in the two new blurs. One of them was white and black – that one had to be Squall. But the other one was unfamiliar to her. This blur had dark hair, and was dressed in black all over, but other than that she couldn't make anything distinguishing out.
"She was infected," Laguna said after a moment, and Quistis assumed he couldn't answer her question just yet. "Earlier this evening."
"If that's the case," the unidentified blur said, his voice distinguished. Judging by the accent, she guessed that he was from somewhere in Dollet. He pulled his arm back and began to pull something from somewhere and Squall stepped in between them. Judging by his stance, Quistis assumed that something would have happened to her had he not moved.
"You're not killing her," Squall's voice was firm, and most people knew not to argue with him on any subject that brook that tone.
"If she's been infected for that long, then there's probably no hope for her," the stranger countered.
"Probably. That doesn't mean indefinitely."
A brown and yellow blur – Selphie – stepped beside Squall, further blocking his path. "There's a cure!" she said. "There's a way to reverse the process! Let's find it before we jump to insane conclusions!"
"If she dies, then she'll come back like those monsters," the stranger argued. "It'd be best to put her down now before she causes trouble later. Don't torture her by letting her live like this."
There was a moment where no one spoke, and Quistis vaguely wondered how much time they would waste arguing like this. She felt Laguna shift his weight from one foot to the other and knew that this was even beginning to try on his patience.
"I think," Quistis said, even as she tried to steady herself away from the veteran soldier. Clearing her throat when it cracked from fatigue, she stubbornly raised her head to address the three blurs standing in front of her. "I think that the decision would be best served... if it came from me, don't you?"
This seemed to set the stranger off guard because he began to sputter a retort. However, Quistis didn't allow him the opportunity. "I've already made an agreement with Laguna and Selphie, so let me just tell you this. In the event that I turn, that I," she resisted the urge to empty the contents of her stomach at the sheer thought and merely swallowed before continuing, "that I try to attack any one of you, you will stop me before I can hurt anyone. Those are the conditions to me traveling with any of you. Otherwise feel free to leave me behind. I could really care less."
She didn't know how she could sound so sincere having said what she had, and knew that she would rather not be left by herself, but she didn't want to be surrounded by people who weren't comfortable with being around her in the state she was in. She would be hurt if they did leave her, but she would understand.
No one said anything, not right away at least. From what limited vision she still possessed, she could tell that she had shocked them with her decision, but she hoped that they would make up their minds soon. If she was to be left behind again, she could just hide out in the kitchen until she was overwhelmed or she turned on her own.
Finally, after what felt like a small eternity, someone spoke. "We won't have to," Squall's voice came in that firm tone again, and Quistis wisely chose not to argue the meaning behind his words as she saw him turn towards Selphie and Laguna. "You said there was a cure?"
Selphie nodded – Quistis assumed she did anyway – before answering verbally. "We watched a recording that said this whole mess started out as some kind of new epidemic, only the citizens didn't take the warning too seriously and ignored it. When it got too out of hand the medical team started working on an anti-virus,"
Laguna jumped in to continue. "But we don't know where it is. The people making the message were attacked and I'm guessing that they didn't have the time to tell us before they were overrun."
You mean if they could tell us… Quistis silently amended feeling her hope dwindle a little bit. She refused to let it show however, and instead took a staggering breath. "Well, that anti-virus isn't going to wait forever now is it? Now I'd suggest we stop bickering and get a move on before more of those things decide to congregate around here."
"Good idea," Squall said and it looked as if he were looking around for something. Her heart sank for him when he turned to the rest of them before addressing his concern. "Where are Ward and Rinoa?"
Quistis turned her gaze to the ground before directing a look at Selphie, who was quiet for once. Laguna was also remaining silent. The former instructor closed her eyes, knowing fully well that he deserved to know what had happened. She could tell that their silence was unsettling, and she cleared her throat before he could repeat his question. "Ward was with Laguna and Selphie after we split up. Rinoa and Angelo were with me."
"What do you mean…?"
"Squall, I'm so sorry." Quistis clenched her eyes shut, trying to stop the tears that threatened to trail down her face. She had done well to prevent them from falling during the moment and even a little while afterwards, but having to recite everything that happened on top of what else might happen, let alone the guilt she had – the guilt that even now was telling her she could have done something – anything – to get Rinoa to safety. The logical side of her was telling her there was no way she could have separated Rinoa from Angelo, but the emotional side told her differently. Opening her eyes, Quistis forced herself to explain further. "They didn't make it. We're all that's left."
Silence enveloped them after the confession, and Quistis could tell, even without her eyesight, that the news had hurt him. He had finally begun to show signs of extroverted tendencies, all with the help of the Timber Princess, only to have the one person who helped him make those changes snatched away as violently as Ellone had been. Probably even more so.
"Squall?" She heard Laguna ask after a moment of silence. What Quistis wouldn't have given for her vision back… "Are you –?"
"I'm alright," Squall interrupted, and Quistis could still hear some of the pain she was positive he still felt, but he had pushed most of it away, probably to sort out later. "We can't afford to fall apart, not now. But we need to get out of here."
"But Quisty was wrong about us being the only one's left!" Selphie suddenly interrupted. "What about Irvine? Didn't you run into him?"
"I did," Squall answered, and Quistis had a feeling he was about to confirm her suspicions about the sharpshooter.
"Well! Where is he?"
"He turned," Squall answered point blank, probably wanting to avoid to subject entirely. "He was wrong. There were more than one of those dogs up there."
Selphie gave an involuntary squeak of shock, but before she could dissolve in hysterics, Quistis interjected. "Selphie we can't afford for you to break down now. There's still a way out of here, once we get the anti-virus. We'll need our heads about this if we want to stay alive."
"And it's what I've been saying all along," Laguna said. "We definitely can't stay here. But does anyone have any idea where the anti-virus is?"
"I might," The stranger cut in. He pulled something from whatever it was he was wearing, and held it out in front of him at arms reach. "A colleague of mine copied schematics of a map of the entire city onto this PDA." Quistis was certain he had identified the object for her benefit.
"That's how we got through the sewers anyway," Squall said before Selphie cut him off.
"No wonder you need to shower. Phew."
"We ran into each other in a junction." The stranger explained before studying the electronic device. "Fortunately this thing runs on batteries, so we should be alright. It's around four in the morning —"
"Already?" Laguna shouted. "Where'd the time go?"
"—And according to news accounts from last night, the sun should rise within the hour. If anything, it will give us a little more light to work with." The stranger continued, despite the interruption. "The anti-virus might still be where those medical experts stashed it before they were, well…"
The stranger cleared his throat before continuing. "It wouldn't due if their only means of a cure were destroyed during a raid, so it'd have to be somewhere out of place. We'd better get a move on if we're going anywhere before sunrise."
Selphie and Squall took point, or so Quistis assumed, but before the stranger moved passed them, he stopped in front of the former instructor. "I must say, you do have a very strong immune system to have survived this long. When was it did you say you became infected?"
Quistis didn't know why, but she didn't like the tone in this man's voice. Reigning in her suspicions, she tried to make her voice sound as even as possible. "I was bitten at sunset."
The man appeared to nod for a moment before gesturing for Laguna to walk ahead while he covered the rear.
"Hey," Laguna whispered after a moment. "What do you think that was about?"
"Don't know," Quistis whispered back. "But I don't find myself much comfort knowing he's covering out backs. Squall seems to trust him, but for once I think he might be wrong."
"I'll keep an eye on him then."
Quistis nodded slightly, even though it made her head hurt worse.