I'm actually writing kinda fast? I haven't written in a long time, but this has been good... new friends in this chapter! please leave a review if you feel so inclined.
The journey to the stairwell was pulse racing, a few of the things hearing them as they tried to move silently and beginning to give chase. Keith tugged him inside the employee room and closed the door and motioned for him to stay down for now. Lance didn't really understand why they couldn't just run for it, they could outpace them to the roof after all, and close the door, and he looked at Keith to scowl in protest, before noticing Keith still looked pale. He was pulling out the monitor again, and took another swig of the half finished bottle of water while he pricked his finger again. Lance made a face at that again, which Keith ignored, more interested in the number on the screen, which Lance didn't understand. It was lower than the other one he'd seen, though considering Keith's expression, not lower enough.
The beep it had sounded echoed a little in the room though, and even Keith flinched at the sound of it, especially when a steady THUD. THUD. THUD. sound came at the door afterwards. Keith glared and braced himself against the door and Lance did the same... One of the things came into view at the window into the room too, and pressed it's face to the glass, apparently trying to chew it's way through with its greyish black teeth. Lance couldn't help it again, picturing what this man must have once looked like. No hair anymore, so Lance imagined brown hair, short in length. His eyes were probably once a hazelnut brown, Lance decided, though they were the same ugly, ice-grey all the things had. Lance decided this thing used to have a bright smile too, though he was a bit short and stocky... a loud THUD. From the thing he was imagining on the glass snapped him out of it though.
"We... we shouldn't have come in here..." Lance whimpered softly, and Keith glared at him for it. "What? They already know we're in here, more of them are gonna come... sure these three can't break it down, but how the hell do we get out of here until then?" He hissed in response and Keith sighed softly.
"No choice. Can't fight yet... blood sugar is still too high, and my insulin takes a while to peak. Safer than the pharmacy, considering that elderly Biter nearly made it in after you. You're lucky, you know. She probably had osteoporosis or something, she was slow," Keith muttered back with a sigh, taking another sip before offering some to Lance who took the bottle with a frown, and took a sip.
"So like... why didn't you come here a week ago if you were that desperate?" Lance asked softly. He wouldn't have left it so long if he was in Keith's shoes. 'Biters, huh?' Lance thought to himself too, supposing that made more sense than 'things'.
"I tried. Couldn't make my way inside..." Keith said softly, taking the bottle back from Lance and drinking more. "And anyways, I know the others will need their med's pretty soon too, some of them need them, and one... well, he can go off, but not cold turkey..." He scowled as a fourth one appeared and began adding to the thudding on the door and windows. Lance could hear them rasping too, at their trapped prey.
"Won't help much if we both die in here..." Lance sighed, before frowning a little. "There's more of your group then? How... how many?" He was a little bit hopeful maybe. Being on his own was... harder than he could have imagined before he had been left alone.
"Four, including me. You should come with me you know. With us, I mean. It's better than being alone right?" Keith asked. Anyways, their survival chances increased in a group, even Lance knew that and he nodded. Anything was better than another night so alone that he could suffocate on it.
"I um... that sounds nice. You have a safe spot?" Lance asked, looking and feeling almost hopeful. Almost, if it weren't for the steady drum beat on the windows and glass, keeping tempo with his building anxiety. THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD. Like a horrible heart beat, reminding him that he might not even live to see this group. 'Shut up. Just be quiet.' He wanted to yell at the sound, at the things making it.
"I don't think anywhere is safe any more..." Keith said softly, and Lance was a bit surprised by how soft his expression was then. Sad, angry, maybe defeated? He wasn't an easy read for Lance, but he wasn't impossible either, whenever his guard flickered a little. It seemed like that was a rare occurrence though, something that Keith tried to avoid at all costs if he could.
"I guess not huh? This sucks... how many are out there now, do you think?" Lance asked, shivering a little, scowling at the window now. They were multiplying, it seemed, and it annoyed him a lot. He had stopped imagining what they once looked like now, too many, and he kept switching which one he was picturing with his over-active imagination. They were so distracting!
"Looks like eight of them now..." Keith frowned. The tempo was increasing too and getting more frantic as they tried to chew through the glass to reach them. "They aren't frenzied up though, they probably won't get in..."
"Yeah, but we still gotta get out right?" Lance reminded, his tone mildly annoyed by the utter lack of concern Keith seemed to have with their current situation. They were probably already dead, and just had yet to go through with the act of actually dying yet.
"We will, I just gotta recover a little... five more minutes should be fine," Keith said, his tone unconcerned, and apparently he had either not picked up on Lance's annoyance at all, or he didn't care. That annoyed Lance even more. This guy just had to be so cool and unfazed by the monstrosities that still thudded all too loudly against the glass and door. Keith dug through his bag now, pulling out a pink hair elastic and pulling his hair back, tying it up.
"Pink?" Lance tried to tease, smirking a little bit at Keith, but he didn't seem all that concerned with Lance's mocking. Lance teased to avoid thinking about Katie, his other best friend. He didn't know how she was either... she was younger than he was, but she was a genius, skipped up a few years and in his and Hunk's class. They hung out with her a lot, but he didn't know if she was alive either now. She always wore pink elastics though in her hair. Always. Lance couldn't help remembering how tiny she was too, and how she couldn't run without causing an asthma attack, how she coughed and hacked and gasped for air the one time he'd actually seen her run... how could she run from these things? How could she have survived when she'd have to run from these things... when she couldn't even run? The thought saddened him a lot more than he'd ever admit to her, if he ever saw her again.
"It's the apocalypse, I'm not that picky. Anyways, I'm borrowing it," Keith said, stretching a little bit now and grabbing the bag, pulling it onto his back again. Lance couldn't help looking at that jawline Keith had... or the neck, or... he had better stop getting distracted by that cute face. Especially cute with that hair up, really, damn Keith and how damn good he looked! No one had the right to look that hot during the end of the world!
"You got the medicine? Ready to run?" Keith asked, his expression setting harder as he got ready to fight. Lance pulled the backpack on, then grabbed the other cloth one, strapping it to his front since he didn't want to risk breaking any of the medicine inside between his back and his backpack.
"Not really, no, but let's do this..." Lance sighed and Keith stood up. Lance stood up too, and moved behind him, eyes on the door as Keith moved slowly forward, opening the door for the things and jumping backwards. His sword flew into action as they tumbled in. Two with bits of dark hair still on their scalps, and he cut them both down with a single swing before pressing forwards. Once he made it to the hallway Lance moved behind him and started running for the door. Keith relented the fight and turned, sprinting after Lance as fast as he could.
Left... up the stairs... Lance hit the door hard and went flying out of it, followed by Keith who slammed the door behind them and kept going for the spot they had climbed up on. Lance was there too, as the door to the roof clanked open, and the things poured out, aiming for them. Keith hopped down, the dumpster clanging far too loudly, and Lance didn't hesitate jumping after him, then to the ground. Damn Keith could run though! Keith did skid to a stop to check the corners and then sprinted to the right so Lance moved after him without bothering to check. He was lucky nothing was there, but the ones from the alley were definitely after them, and so were the ones from the roof, apparently having no qualms about jumping off the roof onto gravel.
It was a right, a left, another right, and a fence hopped before Keith finally stopped, breathing heavily, and Lance had to lay down on the grass in what used to be someone's back yard to catch his breath too. He felt almost dizzy as he stared into the perfectly blue sky, watching the wisps of stark white cloud against it. It seemed almost impossible, how blue the sky was... impossibly blue, with all the horror that existed on this miserable planet, and the sky could still be so impossibly blue. It amazed Lance a little bit, in a way. And the grass he lay in now, was as impossibly jade green, for all the blue in that sky.
"You can... really run..." He finally wheezed out softly as his breath came back, his lungs and chest still burning, his legs feeling like jelly. He focused on the blades of grass, each blade different... and long too, it had been over a month at the very least since anyone cut it, after all. He sat up when he saw something in it though, grinning wildly. An ant! He hadn't seen an ant in over a month! Lance had not realized he could even miss ants, and yet, this little ant had just caused a huge swell of joy in his heart. It was overwhelmingly wonderful that ants still existed, despite everything.
"Yeah well... I got beat up a lot when I was younger..." Keith mumbled, though he was giving Lance a curious look now. Probably the huge grin he still had plastered to his face. "What has you so happy?" Keith asked, his voice still a hushed whisper, still afraid to talk too loud, in case anything heard them.
"Dude... it's an ant!" Lance said, though as he said it, he realized it probably sounded completely ridiculous. Keith had an odd reaction too though, grinning hugely and moving closer to see too. Maybe it wasn't so strange then, how happy Lance felt to see something so fragile and small still existed.
"Seriously?!" Keith hissed in excitement, his eyes wide, his expression one of almost child-like happiness as he spotted the ant too. "You know... I haven't seen anything alive other than people since this all started... hey, did you know that ants were farming about seventy million years ago?" Keith asked suddenly.
"Ah... no, I didn't..." Lance said, a bit startled by the random factoid, but that was something he apparently did a lot too. Hunk sometimes commented that he must know as much as Katie did, but Lance didn't think that was true. Maybe Keith was kind of like him then? Lance just didn't know anything really about ants...
"Yeah. Earliest fossils suggest they came into being as the species we know today around a hundred and thirty million years ago. Earliest evidence of farming comes in during the tertiary period, about seventy million years ago though. What's really cool is they developed fertilization protocols and learned to secret chemicals that inhibit mould growth even before we existed as a species and..." Keith trailed off, turning pink suddenly and pulling away. "We... we shouldn't linger..." He said suddenly.
"Ah? Right, right... hey ant friend... you keep anting okay?" Lance whispered to the ant, who was none the wiser about anything either of them had to say to it. Lance stood up and grabbed his pack, still breathing a bit harder than normal, but his lungs ached less now, and his legs felt ready to move once more. Keith lead the way, slowly this time as they walked, his hair still tied back and out of his face. Lance couldn't help but stare, whenever he thought Keith wasn't looking. Lance didn't really pay attention to where they were going, the street names not sinking in too well, but he did notice everything as they walked too.
He noticed the flowers, in full bloom in so many gardens, the way the lawns looked, more natural than usual. He noticed several bright yellow dandelions growing between cracks in the sidewalks, and the odd house with boarded up windows, though whether the occupants still remained there was unknowable. Lance noticed the sky, the cloud that looked just like a rabbit, and the one near it that looked just like a dragon, and he noticed the heat of the midday sun on his back and neck. He noticed the light sheen of sweat on Keith's forehead, and the way some of the strands of hair stuck to his neck and face, and how Keith's expression never faltered, and how Keith's eyes looked constantly for any sign of threat. Lance also noticed just the slightest movement from the corner of his eye and froze for a moment, causing Keith to pause and look at him, then follow his gaze.
Even more silently than they had been, they crept past that street where a hoard of at least fifty moved, away from them. Lance had no desire to attract their attention, though he did wonder where they were going, what they were following. Did the things migrate like birds? Or had something caught their attention? Or maybe they just felt a need to move, like he usually did. Finally Keith pointed to a building. An apartment building, with a buzz-in entry. Keith pressed one of the buttons tap, tap, hold, tap, and the door buzzed to signal it was opening. Lance wasted no time in hurrying in after Keith and closing the door behind them, and Keith seemed to relax more now.
"It's just our group in here..." Keith said as he walked towards the stairs. Electricity was still running and there was an elevator but Lance didn't want to risk that. If it stopped, there was no way to get out after all.
"Really? No one else in the building? How many unit's are in here?" Lance asked in surprise. A locked building like this seemed like a great spot to survive. Of course you had to still go and get supplies and stuff, but if the whole building pulled together...
"Well. Most people got sick and we um... some of them we didn't allow to get... past a certain level of sick. They didn't want to get that sick. Others I guess were out when everything went to shit... anyways, it's only fifty units in here," Keith shrugged. Lance had to suppress a shudder at the idea of killing people while they were still people but in a way he understood. He would rather die as himself too, than become one of those things out there, eating anything they found. They made their way up to the fifth floor, and down the hallway, to the fifth door on the left, which Keith knocked on the door. It was a series of specific knocks though, one slow, two fast, two slow, a pause, then two slow. When the door opened, it was another Japanese man who stood there, with a rather large scar across his nose, a shock of white hair and a very worried expression on his face.
"Keith! I told you not to go alone!" He said, though this new man looked relieved to see Keith apparently unharmed. Lance noticed his right arm was artificial, greyish, and sort of robotic looking. One of those new 3D printed models, he remembered seeing on the news.
"I didn't have a choice, you guys would have slowed me down too much. Anyways, I found someone, so I wasn't alone," Keith said, his tone a little angry, which caused this new guy to frown a little bit, though the look of concern on his face was one that made Lance... almost a bit jealous.
"Ah... you... oh. Hi, um... come on in..." White-hair said as Keith pushed his way past into the apartment, grumbling under his breath now. "I'm Takashi, but most people just call me Shiro..." He offered his artificial hand to shake and Lance hesitated a second before taking it and shaking hands. It felt oddly formal, considering their circumstances, but it was almost a welcome relief too.
"Hi, nice to meet you. I mean, it's nice to meet anyone these days, right~?" Lance joked. Even at the end of the world he still had a sense of humour. He had to, in a way, or he wasn't sure he could keep going. Shiro did grin a little at that as he let Lance inside the apartment.
"I guess that's true," Shiro agreed but the sound of running came then, and from inside the apartment. Lance was so used to being on edge that his whole body stiffened up at the sound of running now, though when someone skidded to a halt, something else sprang to life inside him.
"Hunk!"