A/N: Hello and welcome to my new fanfic, Coyote Trail, inspired by stories like Rhodes Island's Psychologist, It's Arknights, and Atomos. But unlike these, mine will resemble something like from 'The Last of Us', which I recently managed to play and really enjoyed. So it's probably gonna be a lot more violent than the others. I think that's all I have to say on the subject so I hope all of you enjoy it!

Also, big thanks to my beta reader R3written for dealing with me!

Also, I only own Adrian!


Code Name- Coyote

Gender-Male

Combat Experience- Unknown

Place of Birth - Unknown

Date of Birth- Unknown

Race - Unknown

Height- Unknown

Infection Status- Unknown

Notes on a Post-it: Why do we even have a file on this guy anyway?


Oh, how I wish I was back home.

Not laying on grass, slumming it up with a paranoid uncle.

Cut away from most of civilization.

Leaving me with my thoughts.

Mogami River.

A haiku for the ages made by our very own protagonist, kitted out in some unholy mixture of paranoid doomsday prepper and Wild West cowboy and armed to the teeth. Literally, in this case. No matter where you point, there's a gun on his person. Or at least, that's how it looks from under the camo blanket he's using.

"The fuck is… tio thinking? Kicking me out here? He might be my guardian but still. 'For your good' my ass." The male complains, peering down at the ledge he's camouflaged under with binoculars while griping under his breath.

He spends a few seconds looking around before he nods. "I might like hunting, but a whole week? That's a bit much."

With a grunt, he jumps up, his equipment jostling. Scratching his short, brushed back hair, a huff escapes him..

A one-man army is the only way to describe the equipment he has. A bow strapped to the bottom of his backpack, a revolver at his hip, a pistol on a shoulder holster, a double barrel and a hunting rifle on his backpack, and other odds and ends located in the multiple pockets in his person.

Stretching, he hears a snicker to the side and he glares at the offender.

"You need to keep your guard up, who knows what dangerous creature could find you delectable, Adrian." His uncle spoke, his voice melding into his surroundings in a way that he can't really explain.

Adrian simply flipped off his uncle while stuffing the camouflage blanket into his backpack.

His uncle has always been shifty. A magician, a doomsday prepper, and a…

He has no redeeming qualities.

All he knew was that the man wasn't his uncle by blood, but a good family friend.

A family friend that, supposedly, Adrian invited over once and he just kinda stuck around. But he thinks that's bullshit.

Anyway, Uncle loves two things: women and mischief.

When asked the same thing, Adrian did not respond.

Still, it's not like Adrian wants to get along with his uncle. He didn't want to do much after the death of his mother. But Uncle was his legal guardian so once he was left alone, Uncle was the one who was there to help him pick up the pieces.

Supposedly.

"The opinion of a gambler, conman, and overall bastard means nothing to me." Adrian glares at his uncle, "For God's sake, just let me be depressed!"

"Never," was Uncle's response.

Quickly, Adrian peered down and around as he noticed no traps and his shoelaces weren't tied together either.

That's how good his Uncle is.

"Now, let's go!" Uncle said, pointing to a random direction as Adrian gaped.

Miles of forest was splayed out beautifully. To Adrian, it was torture.

He has been disconnected from civilization learning inane and illegal things from how to create ammunition to skinning and gutting animals. And not to mention all the magic tricks, gambling tricks and so much more all sprinkled in that have his patience thinning.

"That's i-!" Before he could consider raging at his uncle he turned.

A ravaged landscape stared back.

And so did human ingenuity.

Cities on caterpillar treads crushing everything underneath visible to the naked eye despite being miles away. Spires of crystals pointed to the sky, as if a hand pulled them up from the ground and then left them there, a spire misfortune and despair.

Adrian could only say one thing in response.

"Pinche cabron."


Adrian has no last name.

Adrian is a good man.

Adrian will not sling slurs like a madman.

He will not.

Not in English anyway.

As he slung slurs at Uncle in Spanish, French, Mandarin, Japanese, he tore up his camping area, trying to find anything to stop feeling naked and being naked. One of those was answered quickly as he found a pair of baggy cargo jeans, a gray shirt, and a brown duster coat with boots.

He looked around and noticed the absolute mess his camping site was. The tent he was in was cut up, rendered useless against the elements, his weapons were missing with the exception of the 9mm pistol he keeps on or beside him at all times.

After putting on some pants, he flicks the safety on and huffs while placing it in the waistband of his pants. Stepping out of the gaping cut left in the wall of the tent, Adrian looks around the campsite and shivers.

He may have a few problems with his uncle, but Adrian can respect the skills that were borderline beaten into him just like how Uncle can respect what Adrian decided to do with those skills. Like padding his coats with enough kevlar to render small caliber gunfire near inert. So, how did he sleep through someone stripping him naked when the chirp of a bird woke him up?

He shakes his head. "One thing at a time Adrian. What do we want?" He paused, almost as if expecting someone to answer, before answering his own question. "Our guns and to know what the hell is happening. Sadly, only one of those things is possib-Ooh. Magazine."

In the middle of his ramblings, Adrian bent down and scooped up an empty black magazine and gray magazine for his Colt Defender. Beside it was an open box of rounds that originally held fifty.

"Wait, where's my bag?" At the thought, Adrian immediately straightens up and glances around in a hurry before he notices a brown bag with things scattered around it. Jogging towards it, he grabs it and inspects it before sighing in relief when nothing out of the ordinary was found.

"Thank god. Now," he sighs, looking at the strewn articles of clothing and objects, "time to take inventory."

Half an hour later, he grumbles as he loads the ammunition into a magazine, the click as the 9mm bullet slides into the magazine relaxing his frayed nerves. A few seconds later, he gives a shivering breath.

Despite the calming click of ammunition, his mind was anything but calm. The constant clicks are the only thing keeping him from screaming in rage.

Everything was gone. His jacket padded to hell and back, his weapons, sans his pistol, his ammunition, tools, materials, everything.

He now only has changes of clothes, a pistol with three extra magazines, a light backpack, a portable sewing kit, and other odds and ends to keep him alive.

He's practically a newborn.

Reaching over for his magazine, he blinks when he finds all three are filled with the 9mm rounds. Though it's a calming ritual, loading magazines with bullets can get tedious. Opening the journal he uses, he flips through it, looking for the plans for an automatic magloader.

He removes the pen and rests the small journal against his thigh and looks up in concentration.

Adrian has to do something. He can't stay here forever. He needs a plan, or at least a goal. So he begins to write.

First, he needs to find out where he is, so exploring is a must.

Second, he has to find out how he got here. Because he's fairly sure this isn't America or anywhere else on Earth.

Third, his guns. They need to return to their rightful owner.

He doesn't care if they're not the same ones, he just needs something weighing him down.

With that, he closes the journal and puts it away before standing up.

He begins to descend, his steps silent, only interrupted by the displacement of dirt and the crunch of twigs and leaves. It was quiet, Adrian could enjoy it, but not for too long.

With a twist, he removes his backpack and pats the side of the backpack and he brings out something that looks like a walkie-talkie. He stares at it, noticing that there is no signal when he listens in.

Well, it's not like it can be that bad.

So, with that, he starts fiddling with the walkie-talkie, going through all the frequencies and speaking into them, trying to find something within a shorter area. Nothing. Hell, some don't even exist.

Scoffing, he moves to the radio button and starts going through the options. Again, nothing.

Wait, there is something. Raising the volume of the radio, he stops while the person starts to talk.

"Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is your host coming straight from the middle of nowhere, Avery! The Pirate's Cove is open for all and any that wish to listen. I hope all of you had a splendid New Year's because I sure did! Now, as much as I know many of you would love to hear me babble on and on, but it's Wednesday! It's the middle of the week so it's time to listen to some music. First off, a personal favorite of mine, give it up for…" He continued on, naming a band and some songs he didn't know. Soon enough, Adrian's attention was elsewhere.

If anyone were to ask what he found the most important thing on him it'd be three things. The watch on his right hand, the gold cross around his neck, and a brown cowboy hat. The watch was something he bought with his own money while the necklace and hat are the last gifts he ever received from his parents.

His mom gave him the necklace and his dad the hat, so his panic was understandable when he couldn't find the hat.

It was also a coincidence that he finds that same hat resting on a rock, pointing to a town in the distance.

He smiles, picking up the hat and placing it on his head, completing his look of an old-fashioned gunslinger. Now all he needs is a revolver and the look will be complete.

So, with a smile on his face, he begins his trek towards the town, missing the black crystals hidden by the tree and bushes.


"Fucking crystals." Adrian curses as he quickly puts on a gas mask, not trusting those crystals to either be safe or good for any person. Especially when there's a corpse covered in the damn things.

He tightens it, giving it an experimental tug and shifts around as he starts his trek through the contaminated area, ignoring the black crystals growing out of the people.

He wonders what happens as he peers into a car, his trigger finger caught in a constant state of resting on the trigger and away from it, unable to find the right position for the situation he's in. The words on the signs resemble the pinyin writing system from China from his world but the characters don't seem to click in their entirety.

Spotting a store, he goes to the sidewalk, taking an audible breath as he tries to ignore the accumulating sweat under the mask and the lightness of his pack. Hopefully it'll have what he's looking for.

Adrian stops, giving the door a light shove, and finds that something's stopping it. Taking a step back, he rears back a leg and releases it into the door.

The only thing he got for his trouble was a foot stuck in the door.

"Fucking-gah!" He started before he fell on his back, after pulling himself away.

He stared at the sky for a second before getting back up, looking around for anything that could help with opening the door. He notes an alley as he picks himself up from the floor and opens the door.

Immediately, he stiffens as he looks around, something pricking at his hands as he shivers uncomfortably.

Outside, the black crystals were menacing, but they were visible and the wind didn't feel off. Inside? It felt radioactive.

Not that Adrian knows what radioactivity feels like, but the sensation he gains from just being within the store leaves him scared and at a loss. So he defaulted to his usual attitude.

"Alright! I have a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it on an ugly motherfucker." He says as he holds the pistol with both hands. He looks around at what must have been a break room as he begins to walk towards the lockers. Some still had the locks on them.

"This place already looted?" He mumbles out loud, a habit he picked up from general isolation from society.

Idly, he stared at the small padlock and pondered.

No thoughts or ideas came to his mind so he engaged the safety of the pistol and slammed it down on the flimsy padlock, breaking it. Nodding in satisfaction, he disengages the safety and opens the locker and looks at the inside, spotting a backpack.

Grabbing it, he throws it onto the table and sits down. Unzipping it, Adrian starts the process of connecting events. He even found a phone.

Turning it on, he stops as he stares at the Lock Screen. Glorious society.

On the screen was a pin-up of a woman, showing off a tantalizing view of her breasts and covering up enough while winking. "Woah," he couldn't help but mutter.

He spent a little bit too long staring as he shakes his head and opens the phone, noting that it still has battery but not too much. But that was the least of his concerns, because there was also no reception. The phone might as well be dead and it'll make no difference.

Cursing, Adrian tries to call someone from the phone anyways, but no one answers. So he does the next best thing: he begins traveling through the phone, looking for information in the kid's numerous apps while trying to translate the language. Under his breath, he hisses, "Who needs this many apps? I didn't even know phones could hold this many."

The texts were damning if anything. Seems like terrorists were interested in the area and they were 'Infected' or something.

"Well, that's weird. That's what the crystal is?" He mutters out loud.

Incidentally, he taps a different app and jumps when a loud sound comes from it, causing the phone to jump from his hand. He tries to catch it but instead swats it into the wall. Adrian stares for a long second before returning to the backpack.

Inside were assignments from the local school and books. None of them seemed to be about history so Adrian put them aside and reached in once more.

His hand gripped something large as he brought it out and his eyes widened. "A shiv." He notes the grip of half a scissor wrapped by a binding as he stares at it for a second. "God, poor kid." Adrian muttered before putting the shiv away as he stared at the backpack. It didn't need a genius to find out what happened.

He places his own backpack on the floor and removes a small satchel, in it were leather working tools as he grabbed a pair of scissors and began to cut up the backpack.

Half an hour later Adrian now had an extra pocket filled with cloth on his backpack.

Who knows, he might be able to increase the amount of stuff he can carry later.

With that, he grabs the pistol from the table and continues his exploration of the store.

He almost missed the slobbering sound as he froze. It…sounded like a wolf, but that doesn't make sense since a wolf wouldn't be interested in human food. Right?

Slowly, Adrian hid behind a counter, his steps slow and silent, as he finally managed to peer around the corner of the counter of the front desk.

He wished it was a wolf.

He stared at the… thing eating the corpse. There were those weird crystals growing on its body with blood painted all over its face. Creepy enough as it was, its eyes were a whole different story as they twitched and darted around in an almost possessed, demonic like fashion.

It paused and turned but Adrian's back was already against the counter as his hands tighten into fist as he prepares himself.

Training and experience coalesce into a hook directly into the stomach of the corpse as it stumbles. Disoriented and open, Adrian kicked the thing's leg, cracking it uncomfortably. As it falls, Adrian grabs it by the back of the head and slams its face into the edge of the counter, caving its skull in and splattering blood everywhere.

Adrian reels in disgust, his hands clenching and unclenching as he glares at the corpse. "Gross motherfucker."

He continues staring as he prepares himself for the possibility of it coming back but nothing happens. Inwardly, he tries to come up with a reason why from his large experience with the zombie apocalypse subject yet the only thought he has is that he's killed someone.

"Fucker was dead anyway." He grumbles to himself, ignoring the corpse as he looks away and starts to inspect the looted store. "With what he was wearing it's a blessing he's dead."

Adrian says nothing else as he inspects the shelves of the store and clicks his tongue at the shape of it. "Shit's been looted. No electricity either."

There was a slight sound as Adrian turned, gun extended and breathing erratic as he gulped. Cursing himself, he took a deep breath. Difficult through the gas mask, but it was doable. Slowly, all his worries melt away and coalesce into one that he would have to unpack later.

Slowly, he walks forward, his gun up and his footsteps silent as he peers at the doorway leading to the back.

After a few seconds of pointing, he lowers the gun and bites his lip. "Gotta hurry."

Jumping over the counter, he spots a safe and after opening a few cabinets and looting it of bits and pieces, he sets down and rests his ear against the safe and begins to spin the key.

Three clicks later, Adrian opens it and spots an opened box of bullets as he reaches with excitement and pockets it. "Finally."

The register was forced open already so Adrian ignores it and instead walks towards the closed door and with a jab of the shiv, a bit of maneuvering, the door opens at the cost of breaking the shiv. Inside were a few parts and pieces that interested Adrian, like the scope, another shiv, and ammo for his pistol.

He walked out of the store and sighed, jostling the backpack as he turned up the volume of his radio. "Now, let's see what else I can fi-."

He jumped at the gunshot as he ducked, scrambling over a car as he cursed. "Merde, what the-?"

Disengaging the safety of his pistol he peeks over to see a group of people firing at him with bows and guns. Flinching at the sparks that come from the gunshot, he scampers up and starts to run. Yells from behind him only inspire to continue running as he ducks away into an alley.

Yelping, he stumbles as something rams into his side as his shoulder hits the wall. The person holding onto him starts struggling while he palms for something. Adrian moves, grabbing the back of his neck and slamming it to the wall behind him before shoving him away and pointing the pistol at him.

Pulling the trigger, the person develops another hole as his head jerks back and he falls, dead as blood falls from the new hole in his face. Hands shaking he looks at his gun and then at the corpse.

The yells return as his expression becomes panicked under the gas mask as he aims.

Looking through the iron sight, he waits while walking back.

His pistol barked as the first man walked out, his head jerking to the side as he fell lifeless as more appeared behind him.

The group yells in shock as the words blend together and so does the world as he waits for more to appear.

Another came and this time his shoulder was hit before a second and third bark followed as the man fell lifelessly as Adrian started speeding out as a bigger crowd appeared as he started to run.

He ignores the whizzing of gunfire and arrows as he jumps over a fence and stumbles on the landing as he reloads the pistol, pocketing the magazine to be refilled as he pulls the slide.

This time, he was prepared when something came charging at him as he stepped forward and swung his leg into his crotch before jamming the pistol to his head and pulling the trigger as he fell down lifelessly. Picking him up, he turns, his body tanking the gunfire and arrows as he drags him back.

Finally, he drops him and runs down an alley as another person comes in front of him as he rams into her, both of them falling down and struggling as he grabs her and holds the gun to her head. "Back fuckers!"

He aimed and fired off twice, nailing a guy in the head and another in the leg as he dragged them both back and flinched when the woman in his arms yelled from a hit from a stray bullet.

Finally, he loosened up and hit the woman at the back of her head with his pistol and began to run, his mind running a mile a minute.

By the time he felt he was safe enough he leaned on a tree and slowly sat down.

Removing the gas mask, Adrian is taking deep breaths, as he falls limp. Finally, the last thing he could manage was, "That could've gone better."


A/N: So, I hope you guys enjoyed! As you might know, I have a tumblr where I'll be hosting polls for this and my other fanfictions where you can also donate cause I'm broke.

My username is the same one I use here and on AO3, so check that out if you want.

Once again, I hope you enjoyed!