Notes:
Hey! So before we start with this chapter I just wanted to thank everyone for all the positive feedback on reddit. This Fanfic was released at the same time as my other one, 'Loner Senpai in Another World', and they've both been doing very well from what it can tell, so I just wanted to thank you all.
Moving on from that, I wanted to give some details on the story. Just like with the other Fanfics, I will give Names to Sakura's upperclassmen, Guy A Guy B. Guy A (The one with Spikey Hair) will be called 'Riko', While Guy B (The one with a bowl cut) will be called Haru.
That's all I have to say for now. Enjoy the story!
_
As the group slowly came to their senses and began to calm down, Naoto could hear Noises from the other side of the door. It seemed as if the Infected had finally made it to the third floor.
"What is going on? What is going on?" Nagatoro sat on the sofa, staring at her shaking hands. The others weren't much better. Yoshi and Gamo were simply pacing around the room, apparently still thinking about what had just happened, while Hana sat quietly in a Corner.
Naoto looked around the Room, witnessing the state of everyone present. He knew that sulking around wouldn't help much right now, but he didn't know what to do himself either.
Him, Nagatoro and the others had witnessed a bunch of students trying to bite and kill eachother, while Hana had to her very own hands dirty in order to survive by killing an infected student.
"What... were those things?" Gamo asked, hoping to get an answer from anyone in the room. But, just as she had already expected, no one could give a genuine answer.
Naoto sat down on his stool next to his canvas, trying to get at least a faint idea of the situation. The sick student seemed to be the first one of them all to become aggressive, and anyone he seemed to be able to bite or lethally injure became aggressive quickly after that. Something from this situation felt extremely familiar to him.
Nagatoro was still sitting on the sofa. Her hands were frantically shaking from the stress she was under, and no one could blame her. "The students who died woke up again and started to attack people." She whispered, seemingly in an attempt to convince herself that what was happening was real and not some sort of weird dream.
Silence filled the room as everyone seemed to be in their own world of thoughts, and no one dared to interupt eachothers minds at work. However, unexpected to anyone, Yoshi was the very first one to truly speak up. She had been previously sitting on the floor, not saying a word and not looking at anyone, almost resembling one of the many static sculptures around the room.
"Doesn't...D-Doesn't this feel similar t-to Z-Zombie Movies?" She spouted out, and while it seemed nonsensical to compare this situation to a fictional genre, it truly looked like it was the only thing that could be true in this situation, which everyone subconsciously knew.
"Z-Zombies?" Naoto asked. "Like in those movies and Videogames? I-i guess it would make sense to associate those 'things' with Zombies, gi-given what little we know." He stuttered as Yoshi quietly nodded.
"What do we do now?" Nagatoro asked, finally standing up from the sofa and staring at the locked door. "It's highly possible that almost everyone who's still alive is in a similar situation to us. Should we try to help, or simply huddle up for now?"
Naoto swallowed. She was right. They weren't the only ones caught up in this mess. The entire school was probably about to be overrun by Infected. It had probably already been enough time for every school floor to be breached, and Naoto couldn't do much but wonder how many people were lucky enough to survive.
"I don't think we can risk leaving the Art Room right now." Naoto stuttered, getting a sad sigh as a response from Nagatoro, something he could understand. It felt selfish to simply huddle up here instead of at least trying to help, but their lack of information regarding their situation meant that there wasn't much they could do.
From the outside, Naoto could hear a multitude of sounds. From the scraping of shoes against the ground, the quiet footsteps of the Infected, to the quiet moans and groans coming out of their mouth. But the most painful thing to him was that he could occasionally hear the faint screams of students, seemingly as they were chased down by the creatures.
Naoto looked at Nagatoro, who was standing next to him, staring at the locked door that kept them safe from the horrors outside. Being that close to the entrance meant she could most likely hear everything Naoto was hearing.
He could tell she was visibly distressed, her hands shaking, with her eyes nearly watering. He knew it was taking her all her strenght not to break down and cry from the schock of the situation.
Naoto couldn't do much, he couldn't even comfort her. What was he supposed to say? That it would all be alright? He didn't know that. No one could know what would happen next, and that's what scared him. Staring down, he could see that his own hands were shaking as well.
Naoto tried to maintain a calm exterior. He didn't know why, but something told him that he couldn't cower in this situation. He had to be strong for all his younger classmates. Who knew when they might rely on him.
"Wh-why is this happening?" Naoto heard Hana quietly whispering to herself in the corner of the room. Ever since Naoto and the others entered the room, she had been sitting alone in the corner to the point that he had nearly forgotten she was here to begin with.
"What do I do?" She kept talking to herself, seemingly not knowing how to react to any of this. He knew that she probably had it the worst out of all of them. Not only was she alone when the Infection began, but she was forced to kill a former student in order to survive. No matter how Infected that student was, it still had the face of a human being, maybe even one she recognized.
Naoto wanted to comfort her, but simply didn't know how. He couldn't find the words, let alone the courage to approach her.
"Lighten up, kid. We're here with you now." Gamo could tell that Naoto was conflicted about how to comfort their Kouhai, so she decided to take the Initiative. Taking the opportunity Gamo opened for him, he approached Hana, sitting down next to her.
"Hana. Calm down. If it will help, tell us what happened." He asked her, to which she looked at him, before looking down again. There were a few moments of silence before she finally spoke.
"A...a kid suddenly entered the clubroom in a panic...I tried to get him to explain what happened, when he suddenly fainted. W-when he woke back up, he began getting aggressive and repeatedly tried to attack and bite me, so I...I..."
She couldn't seem to end her sentence no matter how hard she tried, and everyone in the room knew why. It's because she had to kill that student. Naoto could see how much she was struggling, as her eyes got watery yet again.
"I'm sorry... I just didn't know what else to do and I panicked. I'm sorry..." She was sniffling at this point, trying to hold back tears. Naoto couldn't Imagine what it must've felt like for her to be forced to repeatedly beat someone repeatedly to death in self defence.
"Don't worry. It's okay. There was nothing else you could've done." Naoto did his best to comfort her. He didn't expect his words of comfort to do much instantly. For now, it felt like she just needed time to process everything.
_
As a few minutes went by, the atmosphere lightened up a bit. They had already calmed down enough to discuss things properly, trying their best to unitedly understand what was happening.
Amongst the many topics of conversation they were having, one of them stuck out. What would they do next? They definitely couldn't stay in the classroom for the rest of their lives, and they didn't even have enough food to last a single day. All they had was some leftovers from their meal before the Infected began to attack.
"What do we do about food?" Nagaotoro asked understandably.
"I'm not sure. There might still be some food at the Cafeteria. We could also look for lunchboxes in the other classrooms. But I'm not sure if we should risk it right now. From what I can hear, there's a pretty big number of Infected outside." Naoto responded, his ear leaned against the door.
"Can we just call those things Zombies for simplicity?" Gamo complained. Although it seemed to be a pretty worthless topic considering what was happening, it atleast seemed to prove that things had calmed down in everyone's by at least a slim margin.
"I guess." Nagatoro responded. They had been huddled up in the room for about half an hour and there didn't seem to be much to do except wait.
All of a sudden, Naoto could hear that the footsteps of the Zombies multiplied in numbers, as if they were moving quicker, maybe even running. His theory was proven true, as the footsteps seemed to get farther and farther away. The simplest explanation was that they were chasing a student unlucky enough to come across them.
"Guys! The door is cleared up from what it looks like. I think we can get a look outside." Naoto said, before reaching for the Handle. Before he could open the door, he heard footsteps coming from the other side.
Unlike the Zombies, these footsteps were organized, and he could tell that it was people. From the speed of all the footsteps, he could make out that the group of people consisted of about two to three members.
The footsteps got closer and closer, before stopping in front of the door, at which point the footsteps were replaced with loud banging from the other side.
"Let us in! Please!" Naoto could make out the voice of a Boy. However, the tone of that person seemed familiar to him. He suddenly heard another person speak.
"Open! Please!" It was another boy. Just like the first one, it seemed to be a familiar voice, but he simply couldn't put his finger on it. Before he even responded, a third voice chimed in. Unlike the first to, this was one he clearly recognized from the words that were spoken alone.
"Senpai-Kun! Are you in there? Please! Open!" The voice seemed desperate, almost as if they were running from something. Without a second thought, Naoto opened the door to which all three people stumbled inside, before closing it shut again.
Looking at the group behind him, he saw two boys and a girl on the floor, having tripped as they entered the room in a panic. Both of the boys were quite tall, with one sporting long, spikey hair, while the other one had a simple bowl cut which seemed to nearly cover his eyes.
He didn't even need to take a closer look at the girl to recognize who she was though. Heck, he could tell from the voice alone. From the curled, blonder hair to her may hairpins, this was no doubt his other underclassman, Sakura.
"Sakura?!" Nagatoro, Gamo and Yoshi screamed in unison, seemingly overjoyed that her friend was okay. She had declined joining them for lunch, stating that she'd be hanging out with both of her Senpais that day, so they didn't know what had happened to her up until now.
They all collectively rushed towards her, helping her up, before giving her a group hug. "I'm so glad you're okay." Gamo said, embracing their friend as Naoto checked up on the boys.
Getting a closer look at them, he was finally able to recognize who they were. He had very often seen them hanging out with the group of girls, specifically with Sakura. He had even had a judo match with the Spike-Haired one, which he ended up losing by points. He even knew their names, which he had previously gotten by asking Sakura one time. The boy with the Spiked hair was called Riko, while the other one was called Haru.
Haru was already starting to get up by himself, but Riko was having trouble getting up, as he had fallen on his back. Naoto reached out a hand to him. "Are you okay?"
Riko held his hand and slowly stood up. "Y-Yeah. Thanks."
Naoto approached the girls, who had finally sat down on the couch. Even Hana, who was previously sitting at the corner, was now leaning on the side of the couch, having seemingly calmed down more.
As Naoto looked at the fresh batch of survivors that just arrived, he pondered to himself. If they managed to survive running trough the school for about half an hour before making it to the Art Club, could they do the same and explore the school?
"Guys. We need to discuss what we're going to do now." Naoto called out to everyone, finally locking the door behind him as he sat down on his stool, ready to discuss his plan of scavenging for supplies throughout the school.
_