Foul language etc below. Also, more ocs. I apologise - they won't appear again. Also in case I didn't make it clear this chapter follows on from the last - I was going to have it be one chapter but it got long. Next chapter will follow the present from the first chapter again - does that make sense?

It's sunset by the time they manage to find enough bandage left in the supermarket to wrap up Rin's arm. She protests at first, but Hanayo is pretty persistent. She doesn't say anything, but Rin feels perhaps now is not the right time to say anything.

There's nothing much else inside, but behind the barricade of shelves there's a dead body. Rin pulls Hanayo back and loots the body by herself. It feels wrong. It smells. It's worse when she realises the woman bled out from a gunshot to the leg. There's no other wounds on her person.

So, humanity has come to the point of needlessly killing each other, she thinks, as she whispers a silent sorry and takes the gloves and leather jacket off the corpse. Inside a pocket of the jacket is a small torch, still working, and a packet of gum.

"Take it," Rin offer Hanayo the jacket. For protection. Hanayo makes no move to resist as Rin slides the sleeves over her arms. "There! It should… It should protect you, a little."

"… Did you have to?" Hanayo asks suddenly, catching Rin off-guard. She looks away as she slips the gloves on her hands. Too big, but warm.

"Sometimes you gotta… Do stuff. Like that. Come on, we need to check the groceries."

Looks like the raiders trashed this area, too. In fact, there's an open door just around the bend, and a single, lone zombie inside a cramped, hopefully locked, rental store. Rin signals to stay low. They creep across the floor so painstakingly slow Rin wants to scream.

The grocery section clearly once had the emergency shutters lowered, but there's a man-sized hole cut out of the far side. They're in so quickly Rin can't do a headcount of the zombies outside.

Inside the grocery store, it's unnervingly pristine. Comparatively. They do a complete check up every aisle, the ones that still stand, anyway. There's a lot of rotting fruit and meat. It smells like zombie flesh. A sense of paranoia floods her mind.

Between the two of them, though it feels like Hanayo is barely there at all, they manage to find a backpack nestled under the toiletries aisle. It's got a moderate stain of blood on the back, but inside is half a pack of batteries, an empty bottle, a battered walkie-talkie, and a few painkillers. Underneath all that is a bloodstained note. It's folded tightly, and reads, "ONLY FOR AIDA'S EYES ONLY" in a tiny, messy scrawl. Rin shoves it in her pocket as an afterthought, her fingers brushing the metal of the empty pistol in reassurance.

"I wonder who Aida is, huh?" Rin says. Hanayo looks down.

"They're already dead…" She says, whisper-soft.

"Huh?"

"… Nothing. Nevermind." Hanayo shakes her head and picks up the pack, handing it to Rin. They make eye contact for the first time since yesterday and Rin feels incredibly guilty all of a sudden.

"Hey…"

The voice is too deep to be Hanayo's, and Rin turns around so violently she nearly knocks her friend over. There's nothing there.

"Hey, you."

Ok, now she is going insane. It's been two weeks and she's already lost her mind. But there's a crackle, kschhh, and the voice speaks again, faintly, and as if with great effort.

"Hey, Mizushima, are you there…?"

"Who's Mizushima…?" Rin wonders out loud. She squeaks when the voice answers her.

"Who're you?" It asks, through a crap load of static. Ah. Rin reaches into the pack and pulls out the walkie-talkie. It's on. "Where are you?"

"Uh." Rin stutters for a moment. Humans! Other humans! But somehow, she's not as excited about that as she should be. "I'm here with a friend – the grocery store…"

There's a crackle. Then, "… Damn… Have you… her? Wait, there's…"

It cuts off.

Rin and Hanayo exchange a glance. "W-we should…" Hanayo says. Rin agrees.

After taking what they can (ignoring a suspiciously human shaped mark in a pool of blood near the bread section), and eating what little they think they can stomach, and filling up the bottle at the tap in the employee's bathroom, they start to leave. The walkie-talkie suddenly crackles back to life as they step out the hole.

"… Where are you?"

"J-just outside the grocery store." Rin responds, as quietly as she can. Maybe there's help on the way?

"Ok… Don't… main entrance. There's… of them. Get onto the roof… generator room…"

They cut out again. Rin turns the thing right off. It's too loud. She feels so hyper-alert right now that she's shaking.

The roof. How do they get there? Rin doesn't know this store very well, if at all. There's probably a ladder outside. She doesn't want to go outside. So, plan B? There is no plan B. They'll have to wing it.

There must be another way up. Maybe an emergency staircase, or something?

Hanayo pulls the jacket further over her body, shivering. Rin spares no time, prepared to check every room, every opening. Sure enough, in the central part of the building, littered with bodies and overturned trash cans and chairs and the odd tire, there are at least three zombies loitering around. They look wounded for the most part, but Rin's not dumb enough to go anywhere near them without some sort of working weapon.

That means they're trapped, since the other exit is just across the hall. If she squints, Rin swears she can see an emergency door that, curiously enough, has been opened from the outside. She'll bet that's a staircase to the roof. Hopefully.

It's the only option they've got. Unless they want to wall themselves up in here, though she gets the feeling that could only end badly…

With a deep breath, Rin backs up to the emergency shutters, out of earshot and eyesight of the zombies around the corner. "Ok, Kayo-chin," she starts to say, until she realises Hanayo has not been keeping up. She's standing too close for Rin's liking, too close to danger. She hurriedly (forcefully) takes Hanayo by the shoulder and watches as she flinches and muffles a cry of pain.

"Hanayo," she tries again, "we have to get to the roof. Hanayo, are you listening?" Hanayo nods. "Good. There- there should be help. On the roof. Hanayo listen to me, I don't- I don't want anything happening to you, so stay close, ok? Stay safe."

Rin wipes her eye with the heel of her palm. If only she could laugh everything away, pretend it doesn't exist. But you can't make too much noise when there are zombies just around the corner. You can't just laugh away the grief and loneliness and despair.

And she's losing Hanayo. She can feel it. She doesn't want to lose Hanayo. She doesn't want to be alone.

The zombies stand surprisingly erect, upon second glance. Rin feels that heavy, sinking feeling in her stomach. They don't even look dead yet. And they're way too alert to simply sneak past like the ones outside.

Unfortunately, Rin doesn't realise that until too late.

Carefully, so carefully, Rin edges across the furthest edges of the hall, tiptoeing across the mess and she thinks there's a severed arm at one point but she tries her best not to think too hard about it. Hanayo makes a noise. It might have been herself, actually, she isn't too sure. Everything is so tense and suddenly, it snaps. The silence is over. There's a high pitched moan, nearly a wail.

And suddenly Rin's legs refuse to move any more. She falls to the ground, dragging Hanayo down with her, and Hanayo screams faintly as the nearest zombie turns its head around and latches onto them with its dead, glassy eyes. Seen. They've been seen. This was a bad idea. They have to run. She has to run. Why isn't she running?

The walkie-talkie in her bag crackles to life once more with a shout. It's a sharp sound. Probably a word. It snaps Rin out of her daze, and gives them just one second of respite as the zombies startle from the sound. But, she realises as she nearly knocks Hanayo aside in an effort to run, all the other zombies in the immediate vicinity now know where they are.

"… Hello!" Says the voice, as Rin pulls Hanayo towards the door, "are you there!? Repeat, are you there? Are you friendly?"

But there's no time. Rin feels her breath shuttering in her lungs – she hasn't slept well in ages, she's been on her feet all day, she knows Hanayo is the same. She turns her head for a moment as she enters the smashed down door. Something snags at Hanayo's sleeve.

She screams and pulls away. There's a moan. A blank face with blood-stained, gnashing teeth stares back at her as she wrenches Hanayo from the zombie's grip and towards the small, clustered staircase that takes up most of the entirety of this small room. The zombie's grip is strong. Panic.

Panic.

Without even thinking, Rin pulls out her free hand, takes the empty pistol from her pocket and launches it at the zombie. It hits, smack bang between the eyes. There's no time to celebrate and Rin feels like she's going to be sick.

Hanayo twists her ankle in her haste to get up the stairs. The zombies are relentless. There's another one trying to squeeze past into the doorframe and they're all making the same ungodly, awful noise…

Panting, Rin drags Hanayo up the stairs, heedless to her cries of pain. There's a scuffle behind them but she daren't turn around, not now. Don't turn don't turn. Don't smell. Her stomach roils.

The walkie-talkie says something again but she can't hear for the pounding of her heart in her ears. Double time. There's something sloppily pounding up the stairs behind them-

A bright burst of light from above. A screech. Rin and Hanayo keep running until there are no stairs left and the fall to the ground outside. Something slams. The door. There's someone else up here.

As quick as she is able, Rin pulls herself to her knees. There's a tattered looking woman standing by the door, with hair that reminds Rin of dried seaweed. She's loading a small revolver.

By her side, Hanayo is reduced to small, gasping breaths. She looks horrible. Rin wishes she could apologise but everything's caught in her throat and her sweat is clouding her vision.

At least they're on the roof.

Something grabs at Rin's hair and yanks it up, and she winces in pain. It's not a zombie, but somehow, Rin finds herself wishing it was. Why are all the live people so cruel?

"Who the fuck are you." The seaweed hair speaks up, as she bolts the door with a rusty metal bar and cocks her gun. Rin swallows hard.

"I said, who the fuck are you!?"

Rin starts to cry. Damn, she's so weak, crying because of that. She thought she was being rescued. The person holding her hair tugs a bit, pulling at her scalp.

"R-Rin, Hoshizora-"

"Where the fuck is Mizushima?!"

Mizushima again. Something clicks, but she can't remember quite what. Everything is blurry, like looking through frosted glass.

"Aida," says a calmer voice, a more familiar voice, "they're just children."

Aida scowls and her face contorts in rage as she glares Rin down. "Nobody is just a kid in a goddamn zombie apocalypse!" She all but yells, then suddenly placates herself with a few short breaths. The door budges slightly.

The grip on Rin's hair slackens and she takes the time to look at Hanayo, who is not being constrained in the same way, but has curled in on herself, shaking violently.

"You're all safe, right? No bites?"

Rin looks up at Aida dumbly. For some reason everything is going in one ear and out the other. "N-no…" She whispers at last.

She hopes so.

"… Fuck." Aida clutches her head and the person holding Rin's hair lets go entirely. Rin makes no move to pick her chin up. Her head hurts. "Fucking shit. Whose idea was this, I'll shoot that mother-"

Rin looks up. There are stars in the sky. She finds herself wondering if she'll ever get to look at the stars again. Maki knows a lot more about the stars than she does. Nozomi probably does, too. She prays that they're all still alive.

Someone hauls Rin to her feet by the armpits. Ow. They pull her chin up to meet them face – it's Aida's friend. Black hair, pale skin, dark eyes, and Rin realises that they were the voice in the walkie-talkie.

"Are you alone?" They ask. Rin garbles a few sounds together before forming words.

"No, uh, I-I'm with Kayo-chin,"

"Other than your friend?"

Rin pauses. "… Yeah."

"Aida, they're alone."

Aida scoffs. "What, you think I can't fucking hear? I told you we shouldn't've helped them. What a load of bullcrap…"

"I'm not about to let children die in a shopping centre because you were selfishly willing to." At this, Aida flinches. "I'm not like those bastards in the freedom corps."

During this exchange, Rin is able to inch closer to Hanayo and help her to her feet. Her face is red and puffy, her eyes are wide. Bloodshot. She is shaking. Shaking. They shouldn't have tried this.

Something bangs against the door. It won't hold. Rin's watched enough movies.

"Let's just use the flashbang and get out of here." Dark-hair takes something from a pouch. It doesn't look like a flashbang, but then, Rin wouldn't know. "We've spent way too much time here. It's a lost cause. Mizushima – there's no way we can do another run through. It's not that big a complex."

Bang. The door shudders.

Aida snatches the thing from her companion's hands and throws it off into the carpark. It goes off with a loud noise and smoke. There's no flash. It takes a while, but Rin realises that's supposed to be a distraction. She hopes it's worked. Hanayo's gripping her arm so tightly she can feel it lose circulation.

A metallic clatter comes from behind her – Dark-hair has already taken hold of a propped up ladder and has one foot ready to descend. They pause. "… Aida?"

Aida growls. "Fuck you."

Rin is taken aback by the venom in her voice. She doesn't know what this woman's deal is, but she doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to stay. Neither does Hanayo.

"Mizushima isn't here-"

"FUCK YOU!" Aida whips around, aiming her trembling gun at them. "Traitor. Traitor. Take the kids and go, fuck you. I hope you die."

Well. Rin certainly didn't see this coming. Her foot nearly slips as she follows after Dark-hair. Hanayo limps along after them, she's barely alive herself. Rin's worried. What if there are zombies below them?

She hits the ground so hard it jars. Hanayo follows. Ah. Her ankle. She forgot. The moment she falls back to try and help Hanayo, Dark-hair has a death grip around her forearm. She's locked.

They're not alone. There are some zombies still loitering around the other side of the building, unaffected by the smoke and noise. They all turn at once, a horde of unblinking, bloodshot eyes and bone-chilling screams. It's an incentive.

Dark-hair has a pace even Rin finds difficulty matching, and she can feel Hanayo lagging. Where are they headed? There's just a chain-link fence this way! Wait, they're going to-

"Climb!" Dark-hair orders. There's a distinctly human howl from the roof. Rin blocks it out and concentrates on getting her hands and feet all in the right places. Up. One. Two. Three. They're getting closer, climb faster, harder. Harder. Her legs are starting to give way. Her knees buckle. The zombies rattle against the fence.

She hopes Hanayo is with her.

She's at the top now, and so is Dark-hair. They're about to jump down, down to the ground, when there's a loud scream, and a high-pitched gunshot.

"Die! Mato, die you son of a bitch! You TRAITOR!"

Dark-hair falls limply to the ground in a pool of blood. The zombies halt their advance, swarm the body. Everything stops.

Crack. Something sharp grazes over her leg, just under her knee, and Rin falters in her climb, clumsily toppling over the edge. The ground hits her harder than she'd expected.

When she wakes up, she's in the middle of a thorny bush, it's dark, and she's alone. Everything is very quiet, and very, very still. She only knows she's not dead when she crawls out, her leg and arm caked with blood, cuts stinging her face, and sees the shadowy silhouettes of zombie shambling around the car park beyond the fence. There's a bloodied mess on the ground. Aida and Hanayo are nowhere to be seen.

She runs.

word count: 2813

do not expect another update so soon. I have school and lots of work to do, but hopefully expect it in a fortnight.