Arlynn's POV

I stepped on the accelerator further before swerving sharply into a new alleyway that I had never seen before. The gloomy atmosphere as well as the occasional lone zombos mulling about didn't help the situation, only elevating the level of pressure and panic.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Ren asked after a longer period of time.

"No," I answered, never taking my eyes off of the road.

"Okay."

The car screeched once more as it swerved violently, avoiding a plump zombie.

"Do you have a map?" Rennie asked again.

"No."

He let out a huff of indignation, a step away from blowing up on me, no doubt.

"Then what the hell are we doing here?" the boy scowled, holding onto the door handle as I made yet another sharp turn.

"Avoiding getting eaten actively," I snapped before turning the wheel again, making a sharp right.

"Great!" Rennie slammed his head against his chair, growling.

"Hey!" I managed to take my eyes off the road, pointing a finger at the scowling boy's face. "No attitude."

"Oh I'm sorry, I kinda have this thing called feelings where I get extremely pissed off and frustrated," he snarled.

"No, I've had enough of your bull," I glanced back at the road before swerving again. "You're not the one driving here, trying to throw off the zombs from following us around like a whole flock of carnivorous human eating birds."

"Yeah, maybe, but I'm the one who has to deal with you and Ben in general!" he grumbled.

"Well, now you don't have to worry for a while. He's kinda MIA at the moment if you haven't noticed yet," I fired back.

"MIA? More like KIA," he scoffed.

"We're gonna get him back alive," I grit my teeth, trying so hard not to explode at this twelve year old.

"That's what you said last time too," he shouted viciously at me, utter hatred shining in his small dark eyes.

"Yah, Cho Jaehwa!" I finally exploded, pulling over sharply with a squeal. The car screeched to a halt on the desolate road, the two passengers in it nearly getting flung out of the car. We glared at each other, one with undisguised contempt and hatred, the other with cold fury.

"What."

"You- you have absolutely no right to bring that up!" I stuttered, pure rage and pain filling me up.

"You had no right to lie to me either!" Ren shouted back, tears glistening in his eyes. "He was my brother! You told me he'll be back, but he never came back! You told me we'd find him but we never found him! So why the hell should I believe you now?!"

A brief moment of silence that shredded me apart hovered between us, suffocating me and effectively drowning me. I struggled to breathe for a moment, trying to think back to the current situation, trying to burn away the previous events and memories.

"Maybe… maybe it's because he was my brother too." I finally muttered, staring out the window on the drivers' side. He remained quiet at that and I simply pulled the car back onto the streets before driving down a random road in the city, all the while tracing a map in my head.

I don't know how long it passed. I simply drove the car around, successfully making a circle around the location where we had lost Ben, peering down the alleys. We kept making a circle around the area, eventually losing track of time. That is… until I heard screaming and then shots popping off. I heard a screeching of the tires from down the alley where the zombs were teeming, quickly heading down that way. Not even five seconds later, a banged-up-looking pickup truck appeared out of nowhere, right in front of our car. Startled, I slammed the brakes, instinctively throwing out my right arm across my brother's seat, trying to hold him back from going flying out of the car. An agonizing pain filled my body as I flew forwards, slamming my head against the steering wheel while twisting my left wrist. The seatbelt managed to save me from flying out of the seat, but it also gave me the chance to get a burn from the harsh yank of the seat belt. The car screeched once more, barely stopping from hitting the pickup truck. My brother and I sat in the car for a moment longer, a ringing filling my ears. I absently felt something trickling down my face but paid no mind to it, instead staring at the truck that halted in front of us. A hand poked out of the driver's window, frantically gesturing to something and waving around.

My brother responded by lowering the window and sticking his head out before shouting something. I saw movement from the corner of my eye as a gnarly hand emerged from the alley, followed by an ugly zomb body. One became two, two became five, and suddenly I realized that it was a whole mob coming after the truck. My vision shook and I felt a hand grabbing my shoulder, trying to shake me out of whatever stupor I had fallen into.

"-go!... need… go!" I heard Rennie shout from a tunnel miles away from me. "Noona!"

And like that, I gasped back into fighting mode, quickly flooring the accelerator and swerving past the truck. I glanced at the back mirror and noticed the truck following along quickly. Behind them swelled a whole gathering of the deadbrains, efficiently filling up the wide main street. And as we raced down alleys after alleys, I realized for the second time that the world was really over.