All Tadashi could feel was heat. It seared through his back like a knife and a piercing light struck his eyes. He tried to turn away, but an unseen force took him by surprise, dragging him across the gravel.

"Shit shit. Hamada! Can you hear me?"

He could barely open his eyes.

"Come on Hamada, isn't this supposed to be your element? You gotta do it right. Get up!"

Do it right? He could feel himself drifting away, his hazy mind bringing him back to a foggy, obscure region left repressed. Get up, you're making breakfast today. A small figure clambered on top of him. He stared at it and his hands instantly reached out.

Laughter and blood.

Then there was the blood. A pool begun to form around him and the pain was greater than anything he could remember. Greater than the time he broke his arm trying to repair a machine. It was an emotional sort of pain, the kind no one really remembers or forgets- the kind that lingered with intensity. It ended with a sloppy, smacking sound and a lot of weeping that sounded so familiar. He was crying: but why?

Then consciousness started washing itself onto him. He was on a marbled surface and someone had wanted him to get up. Tadashi staggered to his feet before a new pain in his ear immediately overcame him, sharp enough to kick him awake.

Tomago.

Tadashi stumbled around blindly, his feet unsteady and unaccustomed on the smooth, polished surface. He nearly slipped when a firm grip suddenly steadied him, propelling him upright once more.

"Can't you just stay down when I need you to?"

Tomago ransacked his bag and dug through the contents. She retrieved the first-aid kit and tossed it towards him.

"Your wound re-opened. You got another ten minutes to fix it up and we'll get moving. They're on the fourth level."

Tadashi's hands instinctively moved towards his injury and sure enough, a sticky wetness had seeped through the fabric. He removed his shirt and began undressing his wound, his eyes surveying the area around him. Tadashi realized that they were on the second level and the steps of the stairs behind them were trailed with intermittent spots of blood. He also noticed Tomago had moved a sizeable distance away from him, her eyes especially fixated on a particular spot across the building.

That or perhaps she was just uncomfortable with being near him. But there was nothing surprising about that, especially if someone had a wound like his own. A scab had initially formed around the area where half the stitches once were, but now it was simply a torn mess of black crust and blood. He cleaned his abdomen slightly with the less soiled portions of the old bandage, and began wrapping it with the new roll.

"You called her name, you know."

Tadashi narrowed his brows, his hands moving faster. "Who's name?"

"Sara."

Tadashi's body lurched as he registered the name being said. He had not heard that name in eleven years.

"You said it while you were out. You said a lot of things." She suddenly stopped, and Tadashi realized the roll of bandage in his hands had been crushed.

It had been that way after the outbreak since Tadashi could remember. Conversations about his past life were off-charts and many treated it like poison; they avoided any mention of his wife or daughter.

He smoothed the bandage down roughly.

"She didn't get into an accident."

Tadashi could see Tomago's body instantly stiffen.

"I shot her."

Suddenly there was a weight upon Tadashi's shoulders. He felt vulnerable and foolish, as if he were a young child caught lying by a parent.

"When it first happened, they used to say that the moment someone gets infected, it takes less than a few days for them to turn into one of those things. The symptoms were supposed to be obvious what they didn't say was that for some people, even the airborne spores are lethal. They can stay latent, waiting, until one day it just happens. You don't even have to get bitten."

Tadashi began tearing pieces of the leftover cardboard roll, willing himself to continue.

"I thought Sara had a cold." He fingered the piece of cardboard in his hand, swallowing as he did so. "I gave her Ibuprofen and every other thing I could find, but the fever only went up and she couldn't breathe properly. I shouldn't have left her alone but I needed to go out to get her more. And when I came back-"

"And?" There was a forced tranquility in Tomago's voice.

"It was dark and there was a crowd outside my room. They said they could hear something so someone tried to force their way in. But I got up and sprang the guy. I… I didn't know why I did that. I just didn't want anyone to know about Sara. And then suddenly everyone was onto me. Someone pinned me to the wall and said I was hiding something behind the door. But they were right because I didn't dare to open it."

Tadashi gripped the piece of cardboard and wrenched it into two. "I didn't want to find something that wasn't my daughter in there."

He looked down at his trembling hands and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.

"They managed to break the door open and everything that happened next was all movement. Suddenly Sara was on top of a man, screaming her lungs out like some feral animal. Her mouth was just inches away from his throat. Then just a second later I had a smoking pistol in my hands and black fluid was running down my shirt, angled upwards onto the door of my room, across the floor… Her blood turned black and it was everywhere."

"I remember that look in her eyes. It was the same kind you see in those who are way past the mark. There was no sanity left in them." Pieces of cardboard gathered into a small pool around his feet and stuck onto his shirt, serving as an eerie and morbid reminder. "FEDRA came in and checked us for mucosal contact and crap before tossing her body away like it was shit. I cried like a bitch the entire time."

He was thankful Tomago didn't pursue the matter any further.

The climb up the stairs was slow, riddled with tension and silence. Tomago's eyes flicked up and down the man in front of her as her mind tried to process the sudden revelation. His sudden change in behaviour and extreme, violent revulsions to any thing concerning the matter: It all made too much sense to her now. It was his only coping mechanism and personal form of punishment.

Only once in her life had she felt so lost for words.

Should have been you, a voice whispered in her head. Tomago frowned. Perhaps it was right. After all, everyone left here was forsaken by everything, even the most divine. The only reason she was standing here and walking towards the fourth level was because they didn't want to let her go yet. No, they would never leave her alone. The scent of dank musty walls, the people huddled together and crying for salvation. Clasped hands holding onto one another tightly. It still haunted her and burned images behind her eyes.

The rattling of the doorknob made Tomago jerk. Tadashi was trying to unlock the door, his face creasing in annoyance.

"You mind helping me out?"

Tomago realized she was still holding onto the key, her knuckles clenched whitely against them. It took her a few seconds to release them from her hold and mechanically she moved towards the door, sliding the key into the lock smoothly.

"There's no one here."

Tomago look dazed, her brown eyes unfocused and stunned. Then her gaze snapped right back, barely concealing the anger that flared through.

"What the hell?" She roughly pushed past Tadashi, only to come face to face with a decrepit, bare room and true enough, there was no one to be seen. Whatever that she saw in front of her, she refused to believe it. She pushed the thought away from her head, and began yanking away the broken cabinets and bits of furniture that lined the floor.

Tadashi watched her with arms crossed, his mouth forming a taut line across his face. He reached out for her arm, pulling her away from the wreck. "Kid, you've got to stop this now. It's not working."

But Tomago fought against his grasp, running towards a cabinet placed against a wall. "N-no, there must be some kind of entrance some where," she panted as she pressed her body against the wood, trying to move it. "Help me move this!"

Tadashi made no attempt to move or reply. He watched as Tomago futilely tried to push the cabinet away. Her hands shook as she pushed with all her weight, the skin on her hands stretching tightly around her bony fingers. She stopped and slumped down the cabinet resignedly, her face filled with exhaustion and defeat.

The skeptical expression on Tadashi's face reminded her of herself. Especially the long, exhausting fights she had with her sister. Honey. Honey, who always tried to see the best in every situation and person. She never said it outright, but Honey had always thrived on hope. Even when Tadashi and Sara were gone, she still believed that there were people out there who would make things better.

But you never believed in her.

"Shut up." She muttered to herself. It wasn't that she never believed in Aiko. She no longer had hope for anything and Honey was so relentless in proving the world had hope that it scared her

Honey pushed herself off the brink for you. It's your fault.

"Let's continue to find Krei. They can't be too far off."

His offer took Tomago aback. She recovered quickly, catching his eyes as Tadashi offered a hand to her, hoisting her off the ground. A steely, hardened gaze had replaced the doubtful one. But suddenly his hand tightened around her wrist and he pulled her towards him.

"What?"

A quick set of footsteps and an unfamiliar voice made her body freeze.

"It won't be necessary for you to look anymore."

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and patience!