Kill
2 YEARS AGO
Kai moistened his lips with his tongue, glancing over his shoulder into the still, dark house around him he turned back to the cabinets. He was quietly working the thin pieces of metal into the locks on the cabinet's handles.
Two successive clicks told him he had successfully picked the locks.
Suddenly lights flooded the kitchen and a hand yanked him from the high counter, "You ungrateful little shit!" His teeth locked down on his tongue uncontrollably as his body was flung backwards and his rear hit the dining room table at an awkward angle. He fell to the floor with the table collapsing in around him.
His heart began hammering, his breathing became heavy and he felt blood begin to fill his mouth. His brain stuttered to catch up to what was happening. When it did he found a hand around his collar yanking him from the debris of the table and his foster father's enraged face only inches from his own.
"You want to steal from me you little shit?" He screamed at the twelve year old boy. Kai's eyes drifted over the shoulder of his foster father, to his foster brother and sister, standing in the doorway. His foster brother's eyes filled with apology, he extended a hand to go help but his blood sister reached out and pulled him back shaking her head. He'd only been stealing the food for them. They'd lost their eating privileges for the past three days.
"Don't look at them you fucking thief!" Kai's eyes came back to his foster father right as a fist met him in the temple. The force sent him sprawling backward. He attempted to get to his feet. He attempted to run away but a swift kick landed in his groin.
He doubled over in agony, grabbing himself and closing his eyes as a second foot hammered into his ribs with such a crushing weight Kai thought he'd never breathe again.
"What the hell do you have to say for yourself?" The man demanded. "Hm?" The man made a motion to hit the boy again. His foster mother edged around the corner, tying her night gown. She averted her eyes from the violent scene in front of her. And instead went to lock the cabinets back up.
Kai sputtered a response, glancing to his petrified foster siblings, "I-I saw a roach and went to kill it. I know how much-,"
"Liar! Every time you speak you spout more damned lies!" Thundered his foster father, he grabbed the boy by his collar and began heaving him out the kitchen and into the living room. As Kai went, he watched the true siblings. Not just foster siblings. The boy and girl were related by more than papers but actual blood. Kai had got caught up, he realized. He'd made the mistake of thinking of them as friends.
Now they couldn't even meet his eyes as their foster father dragged him through the house to the living room and took up the barrel of his hunting rifle.
Kai swallowed hard.
"You want to be a liar and a thief?" he intimidated opening the front door of the porcelain house, "Well go out there and be a thief. In fact don't come back until you've hunted your weight in game!"
"But-," Kai stammered, "I-I don't know how to shoot a gun!"
"You should have thought about that before you tried to steal my food you fucking leach." The man shoved him from behind and through the door, slamming it hard enough to shake the shingles of the house.
Kai stepped onto the porch, his knees still shaking, his body aching. The air was cold enough that he could see his own breath. He stepped his bare feet down each step, the home nestled in a small opening of the woods that ganged up on him. He looked around, suddenly realizing how early in the morning it was. How scary the woods looked. As if the bark of the trees wore angry expressions.
Kai stepped forward in his boxers and t-shirt. One step at a time. He swallowed his fear and moved into the darkness.
Kai hunted what seemed like all day. He found neither game nor water. His stomach growled, his body ached, and he didn't need a mirror to know that he'd been bruised badly from the foster father's beating.
He pressed forward anyhow and eventually he came to a thinning river. He put the shot gun down on the grass at his side. And lowered himself to the water bringing a cupped hand of water to his mouth. He drank greedily. He had forgotten he'd bitten his tongue but the tight sting reminded him. He went to cup yet another handful only to be stopped by the sound of heavy breathing.
He paused; pulling away from the water he directed his eyes to the sound. It had come from the other side of the shallow river. It had come from a woman standing with sunken erratic eyes and poor posture. She had only one shoe. Her clothes were torn as if she'd been attacked. Her shorts were secured by a belt and her leg showed bite marks.
Kai watched the woman, "Hey." He smiled realizing maybe he'd found someone who could help him, "I'm a bit lost." He began, "My names Kai." He said as the woman began stepping into the stream with no regard to getting her shoes wet.
Kai looked around, sensing something was off.
"Can you tell me where the nearest road is?" Kai asked the woman. Her mouth fell open then and she began to hiss at him. Kai hesitated. He looked her over. She swayed on her feet; her agape mouth revealed yellow teeth, a stiff wind brought a fowl stench to Kai's nose. He did his best to not recoil from the stench, it might offend her. Now he found himself asking, "Are you alright?"
Without warning she lunged across the river, her feet kicking water aside. She crossed the distance between them so fast, "What the-?"
She threw him to the ground, her hands seizing him by both his cheeks, her mouth dripping a thick warm fluid heavily onto his fluttering eyelid. He pushed out his hands into her chest holding back her snapping teeth.
He'd been beaten once today, his eyebrows dipped harshly downward, "Not..." He struggled, "Again!" He threw the woman off. She slowly pushed to her feet as Kai rolled over in the grass. His hands taking up the hunting rifle. He aimed for the woman as she sloppily raced for him, her limbs as erratic as her shifty eyes.
He fired.
The bullet sped forward, and the kick from the rifle knocked him back. The gun kicked in his arms and smashed into his shoulder. The force knocked him from his feet and to the ground landing on his bruised rear.
The woman was flung aside as well, the shot had made purchase in her skull and her brains had erupted, landing heavily in the grass and splashing across the bark.
Breathing heavy breaths Kai looked upon what he'd done. A pungent odor hung in the air and his eyes began to tear. Not just because the retched scent but because he realized what he'd done.
He'd killed her. His heart began to ache in his chest, and he lifted a trembling hand to his bruising shoulder.
He'd killed her without thinking. He shuddered a breath.
He'd killed her in cold blood.
His eyes began to sting unbearably, and he soon found a flow of wetness rushing over his cheeks. He'd killed another human being. He got to his feet. Why? Why had he been sent out here with a rifle? Why had she attacked him?
The rifle. His fingers still felt the cool metal in the grass beside him. He jerked his hand away and stood stepping away from what he'd done.
What would happen to him? He'd be sent to juvie. Maybe prison. And he couldn't go back there. He just couldn't.
She was dead. Turning himself in wouldn't change that. They'd never believe she'd attacked him. His words were meaningless. He was just another screw up produced by the foster care system. He had no choice. All of them had disappeared the moment he'd pulled the trigger:
He had to run.
So he ran.
PRESENT
Thwack!
The back door slammed open and Korra stumbled through, tripping over her feet, she felt her body collide with a thick fence. Almost instantly a hand jammed through the wood, wanting her but being separated by the thick fence between them.
Her crew spilled through the back door, each of them stumbling as they realized how little clearing there was. Korra scrambled to her feet counting heads.
Wu followed by Kuvira. Then Daw with Asami draped over his shoulders. She slammed the door shut on the fifteen undead that brimmed behind them. She watched her crew travel behind the building.
Kuvira raised her gun and took down an undead with a single shot.
The undead pushed against Korra's weight, their strength just barely reduced by the door that naturally swung inward. If they had brains they would realize they only needed to open the door in their direction. As it was they were brain dead and pushed forward. Korra watched her crew cover a safe distance then she took her weight from the door and moved to follow them. Korra raced to catch up with her crew.
The houses were all small and close together. They passed through the thin backyards in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se.
As she just managed to reach the end of the small houses, only five yards from her crew, what seemed like ten undead spill out between them.
Asami twisted around when Korra screamed in surprise and back tracked right into the hands of an undead. He unhinged as his meal was delivered into his arms. He began to bring down his jaw only to be cut off by Korra burrowing her machete into his jaw and shoving him backwards into his friends.
"Korra!" Asami shouted as the undead continued to pool in.
"Go!" Korra said taking down an undead with her machete and slamming the heel of her foot into the chest of another, "I'll be fine! Get to the wall!"
She worked on pure adrenalin, throwing her body up and over the fence. Her back hit the ground first, and an undead leapt atop her. She drove her machete into his eye and swung their bodies over, making quick work of severing his neck from the rest of his body she took a few steps back from the fence. With a running start she leapt atop the fence of the fence and balanced there. Feeling the hands come around her feet, she didn't give them long to make purchase before jumping again to the roof of the small houses.
Grunting she heaved her weight atop the rooftop. Taking only a few moments to take a heavy breath.
Two quick gunshots cracked in the air as Korra leapt from one house roof to the other. She looked down briefly and could see Asami standing between four undead, gun raised, her finger pulling a trigger. Nothing happened. She was out.
Daw was a small ways away, he'd run out of bullets also. He had not a knife or sword. He only had his fists. Which is why he grabbed the nearest undead and took him to the ground, violently bashing its head between the hard pavement and his hands.
Korra's feet slipped and she tumbled from the one story roof. She looked around. The undead were everywhere.
She stood up despite the pain in her body and broke into a run. Her machete rocketed through the stomach of one dead, she used her building momentum to drive her body through another with a glancing tackle.
Wu and Kuvira pressed their backs against one another's. Wu raised his bony arms, two daggers in his hands. Kuvira aimed two .45 calibers. The shots began to ring.
Asami took a breath. She held the gun by its barrel now and when the first undead reached her she buried it in his skull. Hard, but not her dominant hand, and not nearly enough. He kept coming at her. A second undead closed in, grabbing her arm. She turned, removing the metal from the first skull and took the second with a hard hit across his jaw knocking him sideways.
That was when Korra burst into the fight. She took down the first undead, still pawing for Asami, driving her machete through his dented skull. She moved in on the second, running her machete through his face. Without a moment to lose, she placed her disgusting fingers in her mouth and made a ballpark whistle then pointed, "Get to the roof!"
She took Asami's weight, quickly pulling her arm over her shoulders and dragging the girl towards a nearby dumpster. Daw bound for the dumpster. He climbed up and over, quickly atop the roof. He turned and extended his hand. Korra lifted Asami, then turned for Wu and Kuvira as they finished off the few undead blocking them and the dumpster. She all but threw Wu into Daw's arms, the boy weighed nothing. She waited for Kuvira then powered her foot into the dumpster watching it toppled aside as undead closed in around her. She took a small running start then leapt.
Daw's hands caught her own and with Wu pulling him from behind the two heaved the girl to the rooftop.
Undead mobbed the house immediately. The world had become a sea of undead. Dozens turned to easily a hundred. They all reached for the skies wanting a bite of their prey.
Korra pointed to a nearby apartment building and without a single word they all began making their way over the heads of the undead.
Suyin threw the corridor's door aside and found the corridor empty. "Dammit." She swore, "Dammit!" Lin's arm moved to console her sister. Suyin pushed her away heatedly and she took a few steps towards the edge of the wall. Wing and Wei looked between themselves.
"What now?" Tonraq asked.
"Everyone." Suyin said suddenly. She pointed towards the inner most walls. Tonraq, Lin and the Beifong brothers joined her on the edge their eyes resting on what was far below.
A riot had broken lose. Fires burned away at houses. Armed men fired at men and women armed only with pitch forks and long knives.
Just then gunfire in the opposite direction.
Tonraq turned away from the massacre happening in the streets and moved to the outer wall. Two more quick gunshots rang out in the abandoned city. His eyes searched what seemed like an endless expanse of high apartments and undead. He took out his binoculars and moved them over the city. The undead seemed to be milling towards the gunshots.
Who would be stupid enough to go into the outer ring? That was when he saw Korra running across rooftops.
"Stay close, Bo." Mako said to brother as they made their way through the alleyways of Ba Sing Se. Bolin gripped Opal tightly. He'd convinced her to eat and drink. But he didn't dare ask her to walk. He carried her in his arms, cradling her head to his chest. He'd belying if he said he didn't miss the old Opal. He wanted his friendly loving girlfriend back.
Every time the thought crossed his mind he tried to rid it of himself. This is Opal now, he told himself. You love Opal. Not the memory of her.
He cupped her head in his hand and continued to carry her with as much comfort as he could. Mako placed a hand on his shoulder and he froze. Kai hadn't been paying attention and he bumped into Bolin's back.
"I think this is it." Mako said. He turned his head to Kai. Quietly Kai looked around and found what he was looking for. A fire escape ladder. He pulled the bars down and climbed up them. Mako turned to his brother.
"Bolin-," he began.
"Someone has to get Opal through those walls. She won't make it out if-,"
"I know." he looked at his baby brother and the woman in his arms. Mako had to know that Bolin loved this woman just as much as he loved Mako. But he loved her in a different way. And it didn't make this moment any easier.
"Just promise you'll run if they start throwing nerve gas. And stay away from people with guns, the men will shoot at them first and you don't want to get hit with stray bullets," Mako said, his mouth parted ready to say more. Bolin cut him off.
"I love you too, bro." Mako hesitated looking at his baby brother. His determination to save Opal. His determination to not lose anyone else.
Mako spoke honestly, "And I love you… so don't fuck around and get yourself killed." Mako tried to beat up their old life. When they went around teasing one another. When things weren't always life or death.
Bolin smiled at the effort.
The brother's stared at one another a moment longer before Bolin turned and began walking away. Because one of them didn't they'd have stood there all day trying to be tough, trying to ignore how vulnerable they were at that moment. Trying to pretend they might ever see one another again and if they did, they might be seeing one another as an undead.
The undead had managed to get to the rooftops. They chased them from one building to the other. Always falling when they came to a gap, always five more to take their place.
Korra pushed Asami ahead of herself as Daw made the last bounding jump into the window of the apartment building.
Glass sprayed and fell in on him and he rolled to the side as Kuvira and Wu made the jump. Korra took a few steps back from as Asami braced herself. The jump was two yards wide, not something you do together. Asami knew what she had to do, and Korra had no doubt that it would hurt. She ran with everything she had putting her weight on her ankle.
Korra held off undead as the girl made the leap coming up just centimeters short. Daw still was on the ground pulling pieces of glass from his face, and Kuvira had found herself in a fight with an undead waiting for them inside. Asami seemed to drop, her scream making Korra's own scream begin to form, "Asami!"
Wu threw his upper body from the window, his hand coming around Asami's wrist as her feet dangled two stories from the ground with a mob of undead waiting below. Korra grit her teeth. Throwing off an undead with a single blow she bound the gap.
Wu strained, vessels in his neck popping. Asami screamed. Her broken arm and legs swinging heavy beneath her as the wiry guy tried to hold on. Korra hit the ground and rolled over once, ignoring the glass that scraped her forearms as she jumped behind Wu and wound her arms around his waist. Asami began rising from outside the window as an undead emerged from the shadows of the room, happy to meet the newcomer with an unhinging jaw. Korra turned moments too late as the undead's hands came around her. She was sure she'd be bitten then. She didn't care, she continued to heave. And moments before the undead's teeth made purchase a gun went off and the undead was sent flailing away.
Kuvira spared a bullet as she was bitten for the second time by an undead, this time the undead removed a chunk of her arm. The bullet stopped the undead from ending Korra's life.
Korra dug her feet into the ground and pulled firmly on Wu. Her strength everything needed to pull Asami inside the window. Asami fell inside with"Oof!" her good arm on one side of Wu's head.
"Wow," Wu said, "I didn't know you took falling in love so literally."
Asami's eyebrows dipped in confusion. Was he really hitting on her right now?
Korra moved to Kuvira's side and pulled the undead off of her. Together they finished them. That was when Korra heard the heavy breathing.
Not from her sides, the spacious room was void of more undead. No. The sound came from above. Her eyes moved skyward as the first undead dropped into the room through a gaping hole.
He was followed by several more. Too many more. Korra reached over, yanked Daw to his feet. He'd made the mistake of not turning his head. Now he was rewarded with several shards of glass being in his eyes. No one needed to say anything. They couldn't take this many. Kuvira grabbed Asami and Wu trailed behind. Quickly they raced from the room before the undead got to their swaying feet.
They entered a long hall. Only one undead awaited them. Wu managed to handle him, swinging for his knees then when down Wu bludgeoned his machete into the top of his skull.
Korra moved past him. She kicked open the door of a room. The room was empty but they ran into a similar problem – a huge gaping hole in the ceiling.
What the hell happened here? Korra wandered, kicking the door to another room. Then another. In seconds they'd cleared through the entire floor and made their way down stairs. They couldn't go up, so they went down. The first door they came to had one word written on it with spray paint: UNDEAD
Korra kept moving, thanking whoever had offered them that vital information and moved to the next story. They entered the second floor of the building and found themselves on a wrapping balcony. There had once been stairs leading to the balcony but whoever had written UNDEAD on the door, and hacked massive holes into the floorboards had also done them the favor of blowing the stairs to smithereens. Korra thanked them again silently, knowing if they weren't here they were probably dead.
There was only one door before the wrapping stairs dropped to the second floor. Korra moved her crew inside. It was a kitchen restaurant. They moved across the floorboards, guns raised. Ready for whatever came next to kill them.
Kuvira worked her way towards a closet. She swung the door open and aimed. Empty.
She moved back to Korra's flank and they all moved to clear the kitchen.
"All clear," Korra said. In a few moments they'd barricade the door with kitchen appliances and Korra was able to take a breath for the first time in what felt like days.
Asami collapsed into a chair. Daw moved to a sink with Wu and began flushing his eyes with water from his canteen. Kuvira slid her back down the wall and came to a resting position against it.
That was it. Korra thought. Silence. No one had anything to say. They'd just been through hell and they'd only come halfway.
No one wanted to say to, but they all knew it: They simply didn't have another one of those in them.
Kuvira touched her fingers to the fresh bite mark on her arm. Her eyes misting up she looked away. Korra glanced at Asami who had begun to undo the compression Korra had made for her. They hadn't had time to ask questions. All Asami knew was that Kuvira had been bitten and for some reason Korra had kept her around.
Korra was glad she had. If she'd come through that window and Kuvira hadn't been there, Korra would have let herself be bitten before letting Asami fall to her death.
Korra took a seat beside the woman. They didn't meet each other's eyes. Korra simply picked up a towel from a nearby dining cart and extended it to her.
"Thank you doesn't seem big enough for what you did." Korra said some time later. Her eyes trailed to the woman's face, she had no ear. The skin around the wound had already begun to die. It didn't bleed either. The blood seemed suspended almost. As if it was too thick. It oozed with visible chunks.
She was dying. It was killing her. When Kuvira finally met Korra's eyes she noted her pupils dilating slowly before expanding slowly.
"We're not to the wall yet." Kuvira said quietly. She pressed the cloth into a fresh cut from the glass. Kuvira allowed the cloth to drop; she knew it was pointless to be concerned about hygiene and infection. She was dying. There was no way around it, "I won't make it to the wall." She said simply.
"Kuvira," Korra began. Kuvira had come two years into this. She'd been left for dead, she'd survived two harsh winters, she'd survived that day at the vet's office, and now she'd die here in Ba Sing Se. "I'm so sorry." Korra said.
"You have to kill me before something else happens," Kuvira said. The sound of lapping water had ceased and Korra knew everyone was listening. This was the worse way to die. You could be killed by a wild animal looking for a meal in the winter. You could be killed by another human. But killed by an undead?
To be tortured by your own body.
That was hell on earth.
"I might change in the middle of a fight or something and hurt one of you guys. So just, kill me now while it's calm."
Korra swallowed. She'd hoped Kuvira would make it to the walls. She'd hoped to prolong this moment. To prolong keeping good on her word.
"How?" Korra asked.
Kuvira took out her .45 caliber, "Seems fitting." She extended the steel weapon to Korra, "It only has one bullet in it."
Kuvira took a deep breath, "I don't want to wait till I'm dead, Korra. You know how people get right before they change." Korra nodded. She could recall the first few weeks two years ago. How they became belligerent and paranoid.
Kuvira stood and moved towards the closet she'd cleared on the way in. She opened the door and cast a glance to Korra.
Korra looked to the rest of the crew. Wanting them to say she didn't have to do it. That this was all a prank. That Kuvira wasn't changing. She'd be the pain in the ass, bitch she always was to Korra.
But she knew from the weight of the gun that that simply wasn't so.
Korra followed Kuvira. Her hand shaking. Her heart in her stomach. Her eyes itching with tears.
Was she about to take a woman's life?
When she came to the closet she looked around. Cleaning supplies were stocked up with brooms, mops, and dust pans.
This was the place Kuvira would die. Among the cleaning supplies at an unnamed hotel. She'd die from a single gunshot to the back of her head. There would be a syrupy puddle of blood around her. She'd changed so much that her blood had begun to run thick in her veins like the undead's did.
Kuvira lowered herself to her knees. She closed her eyes. Korra raised the gun.
Was she about to take a woman's life?
The gun began shaking in her hand. Her jaw began to quiver. She was a protector. She was a soldier. She looked out for people.
Was she truly about to take a woman's life?
A hand came around her own. She recognized the cool touch immediately. The hand removed the gun from Korra's. It did not shake. It did not falter. It simply took the weapon from Korra's hand.
"It's not murder for the sake of violence or hatred, Korra," Asami said quietly, "It's murder for the sake of mercy and compassion. For-,"
"Survival." Kuvira finished Asami's thought.
Korra walked away then. She stood a few feet from the closet doors. She heard the sound of Kuvira's voice: "Thank you."
The sound of the gunshot made Korra jump, the sound of Kuvira's body falling limp against shelves made her sob.