There came a shift in their relationship. It transcended ''romantic friendship'' as the prehistoric snobs called it. Now it just felt like a typical cohabitation, a mutually intimate relationship. Dating essentially. Still pleasing in its own right but shocking for how normal it felt. Still very surreal that someone was willing to attach themselves to Bryan of all people.

But here he was, living in the woods with a girl who was deeply emotionally invested in him. Someone who didn't give a hoot about the fact that he was a zombie cyborg, no longer human, yet she treated him like he never died at all.

A week passed in the cabin and a routine began courtesy of Josie fluttering about, in charge of the housework, cooking, cleaning, and maintenance. She grew up with a bunch of younger siblings so it was inevitable that she was like a proto-housewife.

It seemed she liked to tidy up the place, remove clutter and keep everything in order and Bryan liked to watch her work, especially in short shorts, just long enough to not outright reveal her shapely round ass but just enough to arouse the imagination by sculpting it. She looked good in them. She looked good in anything she wore.

It was nice to come back to the cabin after messing around in the woods, taking potshots at animals, and waiting for any news from Lei. Bryan didn't own a phone. He didn't want to either. All communication to the outside world was through Josie but he didn't mind this. Nor did he mind the scent of breakfast, stirring him awake every morning.

Because of the generator, he could go longer without food and water than living humans, and his appetite never quite got to the severe degrees that rendered most living people crippled with hunger. But here Josie was, cooking for him. And best of all, he'd wake up with her sitting on the bed, beaming a bright smile when he fluttered his eyes open.

"Rise and shine!" she'd say and today was no different.

"Right…" he groaned and sat up, feeling the weight of the mattress shift somewhat. Saying something to another person in the morning that wasn't a threat didn't come naturally to him, even if that person was Josie. Usually a "hey" would suffice. He took the plate she offered him and took her own portion. Today it was something called "sinangag" and "tocino" which Bryan mentally translated to fried rice and bacon. Thus they ate their breakfast in moderate peace interlaced with more of Josie's stories.

Normally Bryan didn't give two shits about culture and that hadn't changed much, even if he was getting somewhat intrigued by whatever Josie would feed him with and the education she'd give. When he asked her once, she explained that her father had trained her in the arts of traditional Filipino cuisine and whatever else people ate around the world.

Unfortunately for Bryan, he couldn't pronounce half of the stuff she presented. But it tasted pretty good, whatever it was called. Food was just a means to keep him running but with the animals he'd kill and take home, he had grown mildly curious to see what she'd make.

Once done, they went downstairs and Josie puttered around, washing dishes, pans, cutting boards, and everything she had been using. It all got a meticulous scrubbing. Outside the sun beamed, casting pure sunlight through the ugly blinders, meaning that a fireplace wouldn't be needed alit.

Soon, Josie finished with her washing, eventually making her towards him. She walked a little awkwardly, then stopped, her cheeks reddening. She slipped a hand between her legs rubbing against the fabric covering her thighs.

"Oh they are chafing…" she said, a little dejected before she looked at Bryan. "They are getting chafed. Do you want new clothes? I certainly do."

Bryan shrugged, apathetic but understanding. He fetched the car keys from the kitchen counter, and she followed after him, skipping to the vehicle, happy as could be.

A supply run for new garb was in order. And some gasoline. Bryan had managed to fix the car and maintained it to the best of his ability, though the engine still bitched and moaned at times while they drove out of the forest and towards the nearest town. There was a hardware store on the way to the nearest clothing store which became their first stop to pick tools and parts for the car. Afterward, the journey took them to their second destination.

While Josie was inside shopping, Bryan had hopped out of the car to repair it. As it turned out, there had been an issue with one of the struts, which Brian replaced efficiently. It was a good thing, he had Josie buy numerous parts just in case. Whereas the morning had been blasting with sunlight, clouds now roamed the heavens, bathing the sky in a formless light gray.

That suited Bryan just fine as he tightened the last screws, tightened bolts and nuts, and popped the wheel back on. He had done this numerous times before in his lifetime. Cars and repairs never interested him, but mechanical efficiency was necessary to have when you traveled across the planet.

As time passed and his hands reeked of oil, there was no sign of Josie yet, something that put Bryan on edge. She had been dressed in shades, a hood, and a mask, hiding her identity completely whenever she went inside stores just in case someone recognized her and tried to fuck with her. From where the car was parked, he could see directly into the store but not much else than its front windows which had been overly stuffed with mannequins.

After far too much time, Josie finally exited the store with shopping bags dangling from her arms. And here he thought, she was just in need of some new shorts. She wore a big grin on her face as she popped the door to the passenger seat open and placed each bag on the floor in front of the seat before she hopped in, her expression twisting a bit at the scent of car oil.

"I bought some for you too. I hope you don't mind," she announced, rolling down the window to let some fresh air in.

Bryan shrugged as he put the keys in the ignition and twisted, pleased to hear the car comply without issue. "That depends if I can fit 'em."

"I uh…I checked the labels on your jacket and pants so I have an understanding of your sizes," Josie smirked with a blush spreading over her face. She watched him intently like she was curious about his reaction.

"Fair enough. I hope it's something that looks good then," Bryan shrugged, and he was pretty certain he heard a faint sigh of relief from her.

"I think it is. Not a tuxedo though," she giggled.

The car drove off the parking lot, further into the town for the nearest gas station. Bryan would rather not get stuck having to refuel when he'd leave to hunt down a certain someone. Besides, getting out for a bit would probably do good for himself as well as Josie, who sat firmly in her seat, looking out the scenery zooming, deep in thought. The window had been rolled down just enough for air rushing into the car but not enough to blow one's eardrums out.

"I was wondering…what is it like to-to…" Josie began, then took a deep breath as she looked at him. "…To die?"

"That depends on how you die. Old people go out peacefully and sleep into it," Bryan answered, not particularly envious of the old farts getting the peaceful way out. More so he was curious as to why Josie would ask such a thing. When he sat and thought about it, she probably had a legitimate reason to be curious.

"And you?"

He pointed at the bullet scars on his torso. "Wasn't exactly the most painless way."

Josie's eyes saddened for a moment while mulling on the words, no doubt wondering about her family but if they had their heads cut off, it probably wasn't the most pleasant of endings. Bryan had witnessed enough through active warfare to know that beheading was a painful experience.

"So…did you see the light?" she posed that question so innocently that Bryan could almost have laughed, having heard the ''light'' comment numerous times from previous coworkers talking about their dying relatives.

He could imagine in the beginning, such an assumption would royally infuriate him but having it come from Josie, didn't anger him as much – if at all. Perhaps it was because he himself had never actually reflected on the boundary between life and death and having a discussion about it with someone he liked gave him a chance to ponder. He didn't blame her for asking. It wasn't every day you got to hold a conversation with a dead man walking about what ended his life.

"People who tell you that probably ate crayons as kids," Bryan answered with a sneer as the car drove down the road to the gas station and parked in front of the one available tank. Josie looked somewhat dejected; for her and many others, the light had taken the shape of peace after death.

To hear that there was no such thing, after all, must have shaken her to the core. She hopped out of the car to fill the tank, at least have gotten the hang of it now. Watching her disappointed wasn't pleasant, no matter how correct he had been.

Bryan rolled down the window, just enough for him to comfortably stick his head out. "Fact is death is literally nothing. I wasn't aware it had even happened until after I woke up. Sure, I know I was fucked the second before they gunned me down, but the moment of death is a blur. Was kinda like a candle being snuffed. Milliseconds of pain from forty million bullets in my gut and then nothing."

"Gunned down?" Josie raised a brow in surprise, before her expression turned sour, understanding the context behind the scars on his chest.

"I was a bad cop who played both sides. Got wrapped up in the squabbling of idiots unable to do a drug deal properly. Shootout happened. Lei tried to help me out instead of detaining me as he should've. I told him to fuck off and got riddled with bullets by gangsters," Bryan shrugged, speaking nonchalantly of the night when he went to meet his maker.

Postmortem, his memory never failed him and so he remembered that event vividly. Until the moment when he stared down multiple gun barrels pointed directly at him by numerous Triad members, he had never felt true fear in his adult life. A shootout had occurred, and he was the fall guy; now sitting with his back against a brick wall, blood spilling from his mouth and gushing from bullet wounds in his gut.

He raised his hand to fire a bullet but was preempted by several guns firing at him and Lei's distressed calls were drowned out by the carnage as he fell onto the ground, dead. At the time, when he was just lucid enough, he remembered that he hated the bastards who killed him. He made sure to end their lives once he was brought back to life. And now, he felt nothing. It certainly wasn't a happy memory but just an event in his life. It brought him no joy or sorrow whatsoever.

"How did you feel about it? That you died and all," Josie finished filling the tank and put the hose back in its place, rubbing her fingers together and sniffing them, grimacing when they smelled of gasoline. She did this every time, they needed new gas, no matter how many times Bryan told her that the smell was inevitable whenever one pumped gas.

"Not much. Knew it was bound to happen like that sooner than later," he answered, popping the glove box open and pulling out a box of wet wipes. Josie had begun stashing them there to clean her fingers with. After her kidnapping, she was forever wary of going to gas station restrooms, quick to snatch a few wet tissues from the box when it was held out the window.

"When I woke up in Doctor Abel's lab and he told me that I died, I thought it didn't matter since I was alive again. So fuck it, I thought, might as well stop pretending to be a functional member of society and cause havoc," Bryan explained as he put the tissues back in the glove box.

He clearly recalled how dazed he felt after being revived. It was like being awoken from a very, deep sleep. At the time, his body was freezing cold and dully aching from the pulsating wounds in his stomach, and him adjusting to getting brought back to life. The world blurred and spun around as he tried to remember how he went from dying somewhere in the back alleys of Hong Kong to laying on a steely operating table.

Without much luck in making sense of anything, he remained equally confused when Doctor Abel entered the operating room or lab or whatever that place had been – sans headgear. With nowhere to go and no one to mourn him, he had no grounds for refusal. If there had been any joy to the situation, it was a lack of consequences for not following the norms of society. After all, dead men shouldn't bother themselves with the rules of the living.

Seconds of silence passed before Josie's face clenched, distressed at that reminder of the man who took her family away from her. She kept looking distraught as she went to the nearest trash bin to throw the tissues away, eventually returning to sit on the passenger's seat. She pulled her legs to her chest and rested her feet against the dashboard.

"Doctor…" she mused with a sullen look and Bryan finished the sentence for her.

"Was the who revived me. In exchange, I had to do some favors. But I was just a means to an end, and he left me to rot. You wonder why he has that headgear? Because I threw him into a wall as revenge. Wish I could have thrown him harder," he tightened his grip around the steering wheel, careful not to crush it.

The altercation, to put it gently, happened when the doctor abandoned Bryan because he ''had no time for obsolete models'', ignoring the fact that he was been the one to start this in the first place. When Bryan tracked him down and confronted him about his impending death, the doctor tried to kill Bryan before he was hurled across the room.

Josie's expression loosened up a bit and a meek smile crept over her face. "I guess…that makes him a wolfsbane."

The wolfsbane. A flower that signified caution, treachery, and misanthropy. If Bryan recalled correctly, it was often used as a warning and people would gift each other wolfsbane flowers to make others aware of dangers ahead. Warning aside, the flower fitted the doctor to a tee. Damn, Josie's spiel about the flower shop was beginning to infect Bryan, it seemed.

"Can I set fire to him when I find him then?" he asked in partly intended jest.

"Hehe, you may," she laughed, releasing her legs to let them rest against the floor again, her feet buried under the numerous shopping bags. The car sped off again, taking a sideroad for Josie to enjoy herself in the city life before taking the long road back to the wood cabin.