Alice

Dan had made a valid point, but something in me was screaming that Shun was still alive. I just know he is. Shun wouldn't go down without a hell of a fight. A plate of food was placed down in front of me. The portions were getting smaller and smaller everyday. That just proved how much time we had left. A lot of us thought that the power would go out before we ran out of food. Looks like that's not going to happen.

I ate the small portions anyway. We all needed to keep up our energy in our final attempt to kill of the zombies above us. Dan and Shun's old team were up there at the moment clearing off floors. This was their second run up there. They had returned an hour or so ago, and told us they had cleared off two floors, but lost one of the team members. I hadn't to admit it, but if Shun were still with them, they probably wouldn't lose anyone.

Shun had cleared about three or four floors, and the only reason one of them died was because Shun did something stupid and reckless. Which I still couldn't believe he would do something like that. I guess that just proves the strength of the stress being put on everyone. I looked down at my hand. The bite mark was almost gone, and all that was left were the little white scar lines that I would have the rest of my life. I was the lucky one that could get bitten and live to talk about it.

Now if I were trapped in those streets and got ripped to shreds I wouldn't make it. Just like Murucho. There wasn't even enough left of him to come back. I took a sip of my water, which wasn't as clean as it should be because the water plant had started to breakdown. It had a sandy taste to it, and I didn't even want to drink the rest of it. Boom. Our heads whipped around to the sudden sound. It wasn't from upstairs, but outside. My first thoughts were that those people in white jump suits were back, and that would mean that Shun didn't survive their torment.

Me and the other survivors ran upstairs to look out of a window. I was the first one there. Flying into the sky, was a red flare. That sound was from a flare gun. When I looked down I saw the hoard surrounding us, walking towards the red fire ball. Whoever those people were that had just signaled they were alive, wouldn't be for much longer if they kept that up. A part of me was happy that the zombies were going away from us, but I couldn't help but feel like a bad person at that thought.

Dan and his team found us looking out the window and asked, "What the hell was that?" Dan was in his leader mode as plain as daylight. That was when he made his best, and worst decisions. I turned to him as the others went back downstairs. "It was a flare gun. Somebody was trying to call for help, but all they did was just kill themselves."

He looked out the window at the smoke trail left from the flare and said, "Well, I send them my best wishes. But at least this gives us a little more time." Deep down inside, we were all thankful that those monsters were stumbling somewhere else instead of trying to break into our safe haven. I asked Dan, "Does it make us bad people to be happy that somebody else is going to die?"

He adjusted the goggles on his head and leaned himself on the metal bar he had found somewhere in the building. I saw the blood on the end, and watched it drip down to the carpet. "It would of made us bad people before all of this happened. But not now. It's everyone for themselves out there."

Shun

Another day in my own personal hell. I had never been so tired, but I refused to sleep cause I was too afraid to know what they might do while I slept. I didn't think they were still watching me. Nothing interesting was happening at the moment. Just me laying in this bed with a reversed version of the virus in my body. Yeah, nothing interesting there. I started to think they only were interested when I was in pain. The fever I had when they first injected me, was still lingering, but I felt it starting to go down.

Maybe this thing is working. I asked them hoarsely, "So, what are you people called anyway? I know you can't be with the government. Not even politicians are this evil." My voices sounded so shaky and weak that I thought it wasn't even mine. I got a response, but it wasn't from the usual voice. "That's none of your concern what our organization is called." I sighed. It was worth a shot to put a name to these people.

I could only put together my own theories. Maybe they were a rogue department to the CDC or something like that. My stomach growled. They hadn't given me anything to drink or eat in my stay. I didn't want anything anyway. Odds were that I wouldn't be able to keep it down. Although I would of thought that they'd at least give me IV fluids so I didn't dehydrate from the fever.

I guessed they figured if I had made it this far with their antidote, that I didn't need any. My vision had came back into focus recently, and I saw the room clearly again. I saw what I looked like now in the ceiling mirror. The bloodstains were still on and around me, and had started to turn brownish in color. I didn't even look like I had eyes anymore cause of the dark circles around them.

I shut my eyes, not wanting to see anymore. I turned my head and opened them back up. The bruises on my wrists were starting to heal, when they should have been there for weeks. The antidote. It's fixing the damage…It's working. I looked up at their little observing room, and saw that several on the men were talking to each other.

Did they know that their antidote was working? They couldn't possibly know. They hadn't been in here since they had that woman knock me out. I made a promise right then and there, that if I made it out of there alive that I would personally take care of Dan's wish for them to be ripped to shreds.

Dan

I slammed the metal bar into the zombie's head one last time for good measure. It was a weird feeling the first time I had killed one, but I had grown used to it. I turned to my team and said, "That's the last one on this floor. Do you guys want to do one more floor before we head back?" I doubted they did. We had been killing these things all morning, and were tired. Shun would of cleared twice as many floors as we have.

One of the taller members walked forward. I think he had said his name was Josh. "How about we rest and continue later on in the afternoon, Dan?" I nodded. It sounded good to me. We stepped over the bodies we had left splayed out in the hallways and headed back to the others. Normally we would of done a room check for supplies, but would go back over it later.

Right now we just wanted to get cleaned up and relax. Relax. It was such an alien word now. Nobody could relax. On the way back down, one of my team stopped and opened a window. He had stuck his head out slightly and took in a deep breath of air. I asked him, "What do you think you're doing, Nolan?" He used his thumb and pointed out the window. "I was just getting some fresh air. I've been cooped up in here so much that I wanted something new to breathe in."

I didn't think the smell of smoke and death could be fresh, but we had been rolling in it for hours upstairs. So it was a step up from that. I looked out there with him, and around the building was virtually abandoned. I stared off into the distance of where the flare had gone off. The smoke was gone. All around the sky was dark gray clouds. Not like rain clouds, but like that from smoke and smog.

It made the destroyed city look even more apocalyptic than before. Off in the distance, I caught the screams of horror. Those things had found the people who sent off the flare. Now will they come back for us? I doubted it, but didn't want to take any chances. I told Nolan, "Go tell the others that we're going back up there in a few hours." He nodded his head and ran off downstairs. I sighed and slammed the window shut to drown out the screams of the latest survivors to be eaten alive.

Alice

"What do you mean we're going back up there in a few hours?" Josh had picked up Nolan by the collar of his shirt. He was so much bigger than skinny little Nolan, and could snap him in half like a twig. Nolan stuttered to him, "Th-that's what D-Dan said." Josh dropped him and let out a huff. "I can't believe we have to go right back up there. I thought we were going later on in the afternoon or night." Nolan gathered himself off the ground and inched his way behind me.

"You see Josh, those people that sent off that flare just got caught by the zombies. And Dan doesn't want to take any chances with them coming back looking for seconds." So they got a hold of those people. That was a lot quicker than I thought. Josh shook his head. He had shaved his blonde hair into a buzz cut yesterday, and he looked ready as ever to fight. He sighed and said, "Guess I better go ahead and rest up while I still can."

He stalked off with the others, but Nolan stayed behind me. I told him, "He's gone. I think you can go downstairs now." Nolan couldn't be much bigger than me. His hair was black, but nowhere near as black as Shun's. Nolan's was much lighter, and almost looked like a navy blue. He told me, "Josh was always a jerk, and since the zombie outbreak he's only gotten worse. I kept thinking he was going to get rid of Shun and take over as leader of the team. That is, when Shun was still leading us. But I think he was too afraid. Now with Dan leading us, I know he's probably going to. It's just how he is. He always wants to be at the top of the food chain."

I wanted to laugh at the irony of this. Josh wants to be at the top of the food chain, but now he's at the bottom like the rest of us. I had seen how Josh acted, and agreed that he would do something like stage a mutiny against Dan. Thing is, Josh wasn't leader material at all. I told Nolan, "Don't worry. Dan won't let that happen. It may not seem like it, but Dan is much more like Shun than you may think."

We walked from the room and downstairs. He told me as when cleared one flight, "Yeah. I've seen the similarities. But Shun seemed more….How can I put this?….Relentless? I guess that would be the word. Yeah. I'm going with that. Dan gets the job done, but even I can see that he doesn't want to kill those things up there. Shun seemed so emotionless when he killed them."

We all had seen it. Shun even made eye contact with those things, and never showed anything but anger or hatred towards them. I knew it wasn't towards the zombies themselves. It was more towards the people who had turned them into the zombies. We were now back with the others when the phone on the wall rang. All of us dropped what we were doing.

We knew the phones still worked, but anyone we had tried to call never picked up for obvious reasons. Kato picked up the phone. "Hello?" He sat there for a second or so, and hung it up. He looked at us and said, "The automated messages are still running." We all rolled our eyes.

Of course the recorded telemarketer calls were still operational because nobody turned them off. I hated though, for a split second I thought it may have been Shun calling from somewhere to tell us he escaped and had made it out alright. It's just wishful thinking, Alice.

well, this took longer than expected. mainly cause i waited for my dad to leave and he took his precious time. -.-'' i'm going to update in a few hours after i finish up my to do list. again, check out my profile if you havent. read, review, and other things. ~Copperpelt~