Hey everyone. I've got a surprise for you. A full length chapter from another point of view that actually continues the story. I've got the ending for this part all planned out for about 5 chapters from now. So getting close to the end, things have started heating up significantly. A bit dialogue light in this chapter, but I wanted to see how it went, and I've gotta say I think it turned out pretty well.

And please leave a review on the chapter so I know how I'm going. Writers live off feedback, and I'm not excepting. And so far, the only feedback I've had has been from family.

Anyway, enough about that. Let's get into the next chapter.

Do I really still need to say I don't own Dying Light?

"Call it a hunch. Go pack, we'll leave when everything's set."

Everything was about to get a whole lot more difficult.

Valerija

I brushed my hair out of my eye. The deep orange curls hung lifelessly in clumped strands. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I picked up the seventh pallet of wood that day. When Ari and I had arrived at the Tower a week and a half ago, no one had recognised her, just patted me on the back for returning and sent both of us off on errands. She was gone all day, running supplies from one place to another, clearing out homes, gathering equipment for the Quartermaster.

Meanwhile, I was stuck on guard duty, or being an errand boy. Sitting in the small plastic chair on the ledge by the entrance. Sometimes I went out, but even then, it was just between here and Zere's trailer. It was like they'd lost their trust in me. As if being away for a time was enough to make me join Rais. I snorted derisively at the thought. Like I'd ever join him. Today, I was stuck reinforcing the barricade between the 18th and 19th floors.

No one had asked why I returned alone without Ari. They just accepted an extra pair of hands and set is to work. If they even so much as asked where she was, I didn't think I'd find myself able to lie about it. So I kept quiet, and so did everyone else.

There was a breakout the day after we arrived. The airdrops had stopped a fortnight ago, it didn't take a genius to work out that something was happening outside the walls. It took even less of a genius to realise it was a very big problem. When we'd arrived, there were 15 people infected. Now there were only 5 left. Granted, the Antizin seemed to last longer, but it wasn't worth the cost of the lives lost.

Someone been brought into the sick bay with a bite, hidden on the back of their leg. No one even knew until the screams started. The outbreak lasted less than an hour, but it was just long enough to cause heavy damage. Both to the people, and morale. We got everyone out that we could, fending off the Virals, long enough for everyone who could to get up the stairs. Most of the floor survived, getting out with barely a scratch. But still, we lost too many. 13 people were killed, 4 of those children, and 7 more were bitten. It did nothing but give everyone more to worry about.

Lena was at her wits end, every day, someone would be brought in with an injury of some kind. Sometimes, it would be nothing more than a sprained ankle, or a mild headache. Those people were told to rest for a few days, and that would be it. Other times it was more serious. There were two major injuries that I knew of. One had been a little girl, no more than 4 or 5, brought in with third degree burns to over half her face and body. She had apparently been playing on the roof when a steam pipe burst, she would be scarred and blind for life. The second was a man, I'd never seen him before, but I could tell he wasn't going to make it. His leg was gone below the knee, he was covered in deep cuts, bruises marred his chest, probably from a broken rib, and there was a bullet wound in his shoulder and across the side of his head. Lena gave him some tranquilisers and put him to sleep. He didn't wake up.

Zere kept saying he was close to a cure. Ever since Ari had turned the antenna on, he'd been able to talk with Doctor Camden in Sector 0. They shared notes and data, trying to work out something. It was all malarkey to me, but I knew it was important. Zere knew that he had cracked it when I stumbled upon an infected at sundown. I was just down the road from a safe house when it leapt into my path. It was about the size of a female Volatile, covered in huge green blisters. Instead of attacking me like I expected, it stared at me for a minute, tilting its head this way and that. Before giving off what looked like a snort, and running off down the road. I was shaken by it, so I brought it up when I went and saw Zere next. He said if I could get him a tissue sample of one, he could study it. So, I set out at twilight the next day and waited in the same spot as before. Sure enough, just before the sun disappeared completely, it jumped out into the street, it's back turned towards me. I felt bad about having to kill one, when it had done nothing to hurt me, or anyone as far as I knew. I figured that a finger or two would do the job.

Zere's results came back a few days later. And whatever he was doing, it was working. The tissue show a full reconstitution of the infected area, and complete inhibition and destruction of the active virus. Whatever that meant. I didn't pretend to understand, so I asked what he meant.

"It means, that it's dying. The virus is being destroyed faster than it can replicate! This is extraordinary! In 5 or 6 months, I think that we can actually have a chance at a usable cure!" He hugged me tightly at the end of his explanation, and I quietly crept out while he was distracted.

Jade was... not doing well. Months of having no contact with us had not helped her at all. She was still taking Rahim's death hard. When she asked me what his last words were, I hesitated, caught off guard by the question. I told her that his last words were about Ari, I expected to see sadness or something of that kind. What I didn't expect, was pure anger at the mention of my sister. I could almost feel the hate rolling off her.

"She was the one who saw him the most, she was the one who could have stopped him. But what did she do? Nothing! She sat on her arse, waiting for something to happen, and when nothing did, she comes running to you. She should have talked him out of going for that nest, but she didn't, she said she'd go with him. She supported his fucking stupid idea, when she should have been the reasonable one. So don't... don't ever mention her around me again." She stormed out of the room after that, leaving me shocked in her wake. I knew that she'd have come up with her own version of the events that happened, but I had no idea they'd be that twisted, and would influence her enough to hate Ari. I just prayed that she wouldn't find out that the mysterious girl in the mask was Ari.

As for her, I hadn't seen much of her since we arrived. I only saw her in between missions, and for only an hour each time. I could tell that being back near the Tower was taking its toll on her. She was jumpy, almost as if everyone was put to get her. No matter how many times I talked to her, trying to get her to snap out of it, she'd push me away, and shut everything out. It was at these times when I knew that she still wasn't all there. Part of her had been left with Rahim, and it was doubtful she'd ever get that back. She wouldn't talk to me about anything from that time, and when I told her what Jade had said, she replied that she probably deserved it. Whenever I caught her without her mask on, which wasn't as often as I would have liked, I could see the rings under her eye, and the constant tired look on her face. She wasn't sleeping well, I could see that clear as day, the problem was that I had no idea how to help her. The only thing I could think of was to get her to confront what she feared about being back. But after what Jade had said, I doubted that would work anymore. I had to just let her work things out in her own way, whatever that was.

Brecken was as stubborn as ever. Pushing for things to happen quicker than they needed to, taking unnecessary risks, and just being a general ass. He went on another night mission, trying to steal Antizin from Rais himself. He made it out, barely. He didn't lose anyone, but one of the better runners, Amir was his name, was put out of commission from a broken ankle. It put more strain on Lena, to take care of yet another injured, and the other runners, to pick up the slack in his absence.

Nadeau was having a hard time without Ari there to talk to. She was his sister in all but blood, and he seemed like he was tearing himself apart trying to find out anything he could. My reassurances that she was alive did little to help, but calmed him down enough to do his job properly.

I had no clue on anything Rais was planning, but everyone knew it was something big. His men had all but abandoned the streets, collecting themselves back at the garrison. They seemed like they were mobilising for an attack, or a move, or something. It worried me, whenever Rais' men went quiet, it was a bad sign. One of his men was captured by Brecken, and pumped for information. There was going to be an attack on Zere. Rais knew about the cure data, and wanted it for something. We removed Zere from his trailer, downloaded all his data onto hard drives, and moved everything into an unused room on the 20th floor. He would be safe there, for a while at least.

And then we were back to me. I was holding up okay, considering. Rahim's death hadn't affected me as much as Ari. I was close to him, but not that much. It made me feel like an asshole for the first week or so after it had happened. Ari had been wallowing in sadness while I was running around, trying to keep us alive for another day or so. Since arriving at the Tower, the hardest thing I'd had to do was hold down the little girl while her burns were being treated. That tore me up for days afterwards. Something about children getting hurt always seemed to get to me. I was going fine. At least until the attack.

My heart hammered in my chest as I held the rifle up. This was it. The attack that had been coming for days. It was almost midnight, and in the distance, I could hear Volatiles screeching. I'd we didn't deal with this quickly, we'd be overrun with no chance of survival. Volatiles didn't bite you, they couldn't even spread the infection, something to do with it becoming inert. What they did do was tear you limb from limb, rip your ribcage apart, and feast. All while you were still alive. It was a fate I wished on no one. Except maybe Rais. The rev of several engines grew louder. They were coming. One of the men gathered climbed the stairs to the trailer.

"Everyone get to cover. Hold 'em off for as long as you can, get into the trailer if you get hit. We don't need any pointless heroics!"

With a huge crash, the fence on the other side of the field fell. Twisted beneath the bulk of three huge vans. Men piled put of them, at least 18 in total. Almost 3 times what we had as defence. Over the top of my cover, I scanned the assembled bandits for weapons. Five rifles, two shotguns, a handful of pistols. Everyone had at least one back up weapon, either another firearm or a blade or bat of some kind. I almost dropped my rifle and ran. We didn't stand a chance. I looked over at Nadeau, who have me a reassuring smile before turning his attention back to the bandits.

That was when the first shot rang out.

One of Rais' men fell, blood spraying across the side of the van. With a primal roar, the rest of us opened fire. Seven more of the bandits fell before they could react. Then they started firing back. Shots ricocheted off the trailer, still sat imperiously in the middle of the yard.

The first of our men fell. He dived in front of one of the other defenders, taking a bullet to the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. I lined up a shot on the one who killed him and fired. He dropped to the ground, blood flowing from the hole in his neck. The second of our men fell to a shotgun, the bandit had charged straight up the middle, not caring for his own life. Six shots from my rifle took him down. Three more of the bandits were killed. They had numbers, but we had discipline. It was when the third of our men fell that I stopped conserving ammo.

Shoot, reload, shoot again. It was a vicious cycle. Five more bandits fell before another of ours. The one who gave the speech this time. It was just Nadeau and I left. Two against four. I fired blindly over the top of my cover, until the magazine ran out. I dropped it from the rifle and reached into my pack. I was on my last mag.

The screeches of the Volatiles were closer. The UV lights were still running, they wouldn't be able to get in. I aimed over the sandbags, dropping another two, as Nadeau took out one more. Now the odds had turned. I smirked, this wasn't so hard after all. And a grenade sailed over the cover Nadeau was behind.

It all happened in slow motion. The grenade bouncing off the wall behind him, sparks flying from the makeshift fuse. The look on his face as he realised he wasn't going to make it. Me racing towards him, trying to get him out of harm's way. The grenade exploding, shrapnel flying everywhere. And then it was over.

Something in me snapped. I spun on the final bandit, his gun had run out of ammo. Mine hadn't. I emptied the whole magazine into him. His chest nothing more than pulp under the onslaught. My gun clicked empty. It was over. We won. But at what cost? 5 of our people were dead, including Nadeau. The park was in ruins, Zere's trailer beyond repair, and bodies littering the ground. My stomach heaved at the thought of the people I killed. They were just trying to get by, like all of us. Although I knew it had to be done, it didn't mean I liked it. I collapsed to my knees in the mud. A sob forced its way from my throat.

We won, but sometimes, maybe winning wasn't the right thing to do.

Ari took the news of Nadeau's death silently, nodding along as if she'd been expecting something like this to happen. I could see tears beneath the mask. I pulled her into a hug, which she returned. I vowed to myself to make Rais pay. Even if it killed me, and knowing the way I acted, it probably would.

But until then, I would keep the Tower safe. It was what I'd already been doing, why should I have stopped then?

I reasoned to myself that finding Rais could wait, that he would still be in the garrison. It wasn't until days after the attack that I found out he abandoned the apartment complex of his base, and had disappeared to Sector 0. All hope of finding him again was gone. And then there were the Saviours.