Hello guys! I'm sorry for the long break from writing, my brain and soul needed a break. But I'm all rested and relaxed, and ready to carry on writing about zombies and ghouls and ghosts, oh my!

Bubbles xx

-x—

"It's magic, Laxus, don't you get it? This whole time we've been wondering what that missing component was from the machine designs, the power source! This is it!"

Lucy spoke animatedly to Laxus, waving and gesturing at every word. Her excitement was palpable, spreading around the bibliophile's paradise. She bounced over to the notes she'd scribbled and shoved them into Laxus' hands. He glanced down at the notes and read with a frown on his face, his grimace deepening with every page he discarded. Eventually, he reached the last page. As his hands tightened into fists, the fragile page of paper crumpled and tore, and dropped to the rest of the pages.

"Blondie… you've lost it. I get that you're upset to be stuck here, and something weird is going on with your dreams, but you can't just make shit up to 'magically' solve everything. We're stuck in this shithole and no amount of magic or whatever shit you come up with is gonna fix it."

"You said it yourself yesterday, Laxus! What's powering the machines? What caused those things downstairs? What's going on here if not magic?!"

Fire danced in Lucy's eyes as she stood her ground against the brute of a man standing before her. With her hands on her hips and her eyes blazing, she was almost as sexy to Laxus in that moment as she was the first morning he'd seen her.

"Blondie, that light must have worked with solar power or something. There's no such thing as magic. Now stop your mental shit and come join me in the bed. The way you're looking right now, I'd almost be able to forget this crazy stuff and fuck you hard."

CRACK

It took Laxus exactly 3 seconds to register the pain in his cheek, and another 5 seconds to launch himself at the door she'd stormed out of. He growled, flared his nostrils and took a whiff of the air. He could smell her delicate scent wafting through the air – it was so tangible he could almost taste it in the back of his throat. Whatever the hell that girl had sprayed on that morning, it was strong.

Laxus stormed through the corridors, following her heavy scent. Through the twists and turns of the corridors, Laxus traced her to the door that led down to the pit of hell itself. The open door mocked Laxus with its empty frame, its open bowels taunting him with the knowledge that she was in hell and he was chasing her there. He growled and moved quickly down the stairs, two at a time. He followed her scent until-

Blood. Fresh blood. The thought popped into his head faster than he was able to figure out how he knew. The air smelled of rust and salt, the tantalising infusion that forms the liquid life running through every human's veins. He followed the smell, his feet moving quicker and quicker with every room he walked into that didn't contain the perky blonde.

She was in the room they'd found Natsu in. Blood, gore and rotting body parts lined the floor she knelt down on. She was kneeling next to a shock of white hair – white, with streaks of crimson and scarlet. She was running her hands through the mass of bloodstained hair, her other hand resting delicately on the tanned cheek of the decapitated head. The head, all that remained of the corpse, bore an expression of utter horror. Tears slid smoothly down her cheeks, tracing tracks of silver through the faint layer of grime and blood she'd managed to acquire. Laxus took a step closer, then hesitated. Stopped in the doorway, he took a moment to scan the room.

A pile of corpses lay just below the trapdoor they'd found Natsu in. Rotten flesh melted off the pile into layers of bloody goo on the floor. The odour of festering limbs pervaded the air, smothering all oxygen and making it nearly impossible to breathe. Beneath the layers of disease lay a faint smell of… burn?

Laxus ignored Lucy and stalked to the bodies in the far corner of the room. Kneeling down, he leaned close to the corpses and (trying not to gag) scrutinised the bodies. Faintly charred wafers of flesh and clothing stuck to the zombie. The crisped flesh reeked twice as badly as the ordinary odour, and though Laxus tried hard to resist, he could no longer hold down the contents of his stomach. It streamed out of his mouth, hot, chunky, disgusting mess. It came and came, and ended only when the contents of his stomach covered the floor and the corpses.

A gentle hand stroked him on the shoulder, comforting him, and he reached a hand up to grab it.

"It's horrifying, isn't it? It looks like half the hospital is dead in here."

"It's not how it looks, Blondie. It's how it smells. This shit is vile."

"It smells as bad as the rest of the hospital. I wonder how they got burned, though. I didn't see Natsu with any matches or anything."

Laxus turned to glare at Lucy. Her worried face suddenly aggravated him, her hand suddenly felt like a foreign entity invading his personal space. He shoved her hand roughly away and stood, towering over her once more. Laxus pushed past Lucy and stomped over to the pile of corpses.

"If you ever hit me again, Blondie, I swear to Mavis I'll lock you down here with these things."

Lucy took a shocked step backwards. What? Why would he say such a thing? As she watched him stand straighter and puff out his chest, realisation came to her in a flash. He was embarrassed that she saw him being weak in front of him. This show of aggression was only him trying to re-establish himself as a strong male. Honestly – men and their egos.

Lucy rolled her eyes and sauntered up to him.

"I'm sorry, Laxus. I won't hit you again. But seeing as we're on this topic, I'd rather you didn't call me crazy. I know I'm right. Can we please figure out why these things are burned? Then we'll go back up, I'll cook you dinner, and we can go to bed. Is that alright with you?"

Laxus grumbled, but eventually acquiesced and nodded his head. He moved over to a position in the floor where he could see burn marks. There was another burn mark… and another… all in different directions. Laxus frowned and pulled Lucy over so he could explain what he was seeing.

"See how the marks are all going in different directions? They're all going out. Something exploded from here outwards and hit a few of these things. Those guys in the corner got burned head on. This pile only got slightly charred. My guess is that some weak explosion hit them from this point outwards. Maybe that Natsu kid threw a gas bomb."

Lucy frowned at the floor and started searching. No bits of plastic, metal, nothing to suggest that any sort of device had been thrown to start a fire.

"I think we should ask Natsu what happened. He was here, after all."

Laxus frowned slightly, but eventually agreed that asking the brat would be a good idea. They headed out of the room, Lucy taking one last lingering look at the head of white hair.

"Did you know that guy?" Laxus asked gruffly, unsure how to deal with her sadness.

"We passed each other in the corridor once. I didn't know his name but that day… He smiled at me. It made my whole day brighter, to know that people could still smile in this place. I didn't see him again after that – I assumed he'd been released."

Lucy pulled her arms in towards herself and gripped herself into a hug. Soon enough, loud wracking sobs were pushed from her tiny body, and she could no longer walk. Laxus swooped down and picked her up bride-style, her fragile frame moulding perfectly to his arms. He kicked open the door to a bedroom and was pleased to find it free of blood and zombies. He set her down on the bed and lay down beside her, folding her into his arms. She lay in his arms, sobbing, and her beautiful face was blotchy and red, shiny with tears.

Laxus stayed silent and just held her, stroking her back gently with his fingers. The wet patch on his shirt grew and grew, his ears were starting to hurt with the constant wailing, his eyes were aching from the bright lights above him, but still he held her silently.

Soon enough, her sobs trailed off into small whimpers, which quietened into small sniffles. Lucy sat up and swiped her wrist over her eyes in a surprisingly innocent gesture. Laxus sat up and twisted around to sit beside her. He nudged her softly with his shoulder and looked down at her.

"What was that about, Blondie?"

"It's just… I don't want to be like them. Every day, I wake up and I'm so scared that they've broken into our safe place, and we're going to end up like everyone else in this place. I don't want to be a zombie. I'm just so scared, every day, and saying that man back there… it put everything into perspective. We have to get out of here, Laxus."

"We'll get out of here, Blondie. You and me, we're stuck in this together now."

"But we can't just leave things the way they are, Laxus. We can't leave other innocent people in here to be… eaten and… ripped apart. I can't do that."

Laxus rolled his eyes and stood up. He pulled her by the hand to walk with him, and she followed him quietly. He led her up to their library and sat her down on a plush armchair.

"Where did you hurt yourself? I smelled blood when I came down those stairs."

"Laxus, there's blood all over the place down there. You can't possibly have found me by the smell of my blood."

She shrugged her shirt off her shoulder and displayed the jagged cut on her back. Laxus took their first aid kit from where they'd placed it on the desk, and wiped the oozing cut with an antibacterial wipe. He taped the wound up and plastered it shut.

"Blondie, I smelled blood, I followed the smell, I found you. Okay?

"But Laxus, you can't have smelled blood. Unless… has anything else weird been happening with you? Other senses?"

Laxus frowned and started to shake his head, but a niggling voice told him to stop. He furrowed his brow and thought back on the day and all that had happened. The smells, the sounds, the lights… that wasn't normal, was it?

"I… It's all of my senses. I heard things I shouldn't have been able to. I smelled your perfume and followed that, then I smelled your blood and followed the smell to you. I've been seeing everything clearly, clearer than I have been… What the fuck is going on, Blondie? What the fuck is happening to me?!"

Laxus stood up and stumbled backwards, glancing wildly around. Lucy stood and rushed to him, put her hands on his cheeks and dragged his face down towards hers. After planting a gentle kiss on his lips, she said, "It's okay, Laxus. It's okay. Don't freak out."

Laxus quietened and looked into her eyes, admiring the golden gleam that highlighted the chocolate brown. Her lashes fringed her eyes, framing the beautiful orbs with a thick layer of black. Her skin, still pink from crying, so smooth and soft. That blonde hair, so similar to his own, long and silky, enchantingly knotted and messy. Laxus looked down at her chapped, rosy lips and started to speak.

"Blondie… I want to… I mean… We need to go and talk to Natsu. We need to figure out what happened so we can fix it. And so we can help other people in this hellhole."

A small smile inched its way onto Lucy's face, expanding into a full-blown grin as she leapt into his arms and flung her arms around his neck. Whispering muffled thanks into his shoulder, Lucy could feel her heart bursting with happiness.

-x-

They walked into the kitchen together to see Natsu sitting forlornly at the table, an untouched mound of food in front of him. A mug of ice cold coffee sat in front of him. Hearing a noise in the doorway, Natsu leaped off the chair, brandishing the mug as a weapon, flinging coffee all over the kitchen floor. Upon seeing that it was them, his jaw slackened and his face morphed with shock.

"I thought you guys left me! I came to find you this morning and you were gone, but that door to the stair was open and I could smell blood. I thought those things got you..."

Lucy smiled and said, "I wouldn't leave you, Natsu. You're with us now. We're all gonna look after each other, and if we find anyone else, they can join us too."

Laxus glared daggers at Natsu, but grumbled out, "We all need to have a talk. We need to know more about you, where you've been hiding, what you know, and what the hell happened in that room yesterday."

Lucy grimaced at the tension between the men and walked to the fridge. After taking out the ingredients to make a simple pasta dish, she looked at the boys and told them to sit while she cooks. As she chopped vegetables, she directed her questions to Natsu.

"So Natsu, where were you hiding before yesterday? I searched all of those rooms down there several times, and I never saw any sign that anyone else was down there. I kinda thought it was just me and Laxus left."

With an embarrassed chuckle, Natsu replied. "We were hiding out in the roof. After the lights went out, Elfman and I broke out of our cells and bumped into each other while searching for food. We came up here a couple times to get food, but one day the door to the stairs was shut, and we couldn't get in. We used the trapdoor in the office downstairs to get into the roof. There were a lot of stairs up – I think it even went higher than this floor. We ended up in the attic, and we pretty much just hid up there for a while."

Lucy giggled at his embarrassed smile, and began chopping red peppers with the sharpest knife she could find.

"So, how did yesterday happen then? If you were safe in the roof, why did you come down again?"

Natsu's face darkened. "We needed food. We came down to see if we could get into the kitchens some other way, but I tripped on one of the beams and fell through the roof into that bedroom. It was night… they heard me. They got into the bedroom and rushed at me but… Elfman… he saved me. He jumped through the hole and boosted me up. He saved my life. I was trying to pull him up, but those things had grabbed his legs and were biting them all over. My hand slipped, I couldn't help it, I let go of him and he just fell into the things. He was screaming and I COULDN'T DO ANYTHING! I was useless!"

Natsu slammed his hand onto the table, cracking it slightly. Flames of fury danced in his eyes, his teeth were grinding together, and he looked as if he was ready for murder.

"Then I saw you and you… you helped me. Laxus stormed into the room and started hitting them with his bare hands. You were like a demon outta hell, man. Terrifying." Natsu grinned weakly at Laxus.

Lucy finished the dish and set it on the stove to cook. Wiping her hands on her pants, she headed back to the table and sat between the two men. She patted Natsu lightly on his hand and said, "It wasn't your fault."

Laxus, frustrated, said, "What exploded in there? Those things were torched and there's ash and burn marks on the floor. Did you throw a bomb?"

It was the most sudden change Lucy had seen. Natsu's open face suddenly closed, shutters going down behind his eyes. He hunched his shoulders, looked away and mumbled that he had no idea what happened.

Lucy and Laxus exchanged glances. There was clearly something going on with Natsu, but he didn't want to talk about it… Lucy was the first to look away at Natsu.

"Maybe it will be better if we tell you what we've figured out about this place. And about the magic."

At that, Lucy threw a defiant look at Laxus. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, but raised no objections. After dishing up pasta for each of them, Lucy launched into a description of the plans they'd found: the machines that worked off some unknown power source, the repetition of the word 'magic', how the scientists had brought the dead back to life.

"Wait, explain that again. How did the doctors bring people back?"

Lucy went and grabbed a stack of paper and some pencils from the library, and returned swiftly with them. She set the paper down on the table and started illustrating her points.

"Okay, so. The machine blueprints we found suck this 'magic' from a person, killing them in the process. By magic, I mean the unknown power that fuels the machines – we aren't 100% of what it is yet."

Lucy sketched a machine and a stick man. She drew squiggly lines between the two, with arrows pointing towards the machine. Comically, she drew tiny x's over the stickman's eyes.

"Blondie, your artistry is truly magnificent." Laxus said drily, humour dancing in his eyes.

"Oh shush, Laxus. So these machines are then full of power. The doctors then used a fraction of that power to restore life to the dead person, but they hadn't planned for the consciousness. The spark fried the consciousness, effectively rendering these poor people zombies. We haven't confirmed it yet, but I think the zombies, without their consciousness, revert to their primal survival instincts: they eat. I don't think they even notice or care that they're eating people, letting alone eating them alive."

Natsu winced, but nodded. "That all kinda makes sense. How did that happen to the whole hospital, though? The doctors wouldn't have done that to themselves, that's for sure."

Lucy went quiet a moment. She nibbled on her fingernail, debating whether or not to tell the boys her suspicions. Resolving herself to trust them, she spoke.

"I think… I think it had something to do with my stepmother, Mei. I keep having dreams about her, horrible dreams. She was a really bad person."

Natsu nodded thoughtfully, but Laxus raised a point.

"What do you both remember before you got put here? Do you remember anything? I sure as hell don't. My memory is just me being in a hospital, day after day. I can't remember who I was before I was here."

Natsu and Lucy said, simultaneously, "Me too!" They laughed out loud at each other and turned to Laxus.

Lucy took a bite of her pasta, then said, "I didn't even know I had family until the dreams started right after the lights went out. My dad… he wasn't a nice guy."

Natsu chimed in, "I don't think I have any family. The only dreams I've had have been about… parties, I think? A bunch of people laughing and having fun, celebrating. I wish my dreams were real."

He trailed off with downturned eyes. He and Lucy then turned expectantly to Laxus, waiting for him to disclose if he'd had any strange memory-dreams. He looked from one to the other, folded his arms and looked away.

"I ain't telling you about my dream. They're my own business."

Although Natsu and Lucy were upset, they understood – they all had their own, deep dark secrets that they were afraid to tell. The trio chatted for a while longer, before Natsu declared his intention to "pass out" in the other office.

Lucy and Laxus made their way to their bed and snuggled up together.

"Laxus? What do you dream about?

"Bad things, Blondie. I've done some pretty… bad things."

-x-

Thank you for reading! I hope this chapter is up to standard, even if there is no smut I hope to be writing more frequently from now on.

Love,

Bubbles

xx