Upon arriving back at the Great Fox, we made a unanimous decision to call it a day and catch some much-needed rest. After the intense and eventful day we had, it seemed like the best course of action.

At first, it was nice and quiet. It wasn't until Wolf started eating chips. God, that was annoying.

"Hey, can you cut that out?" I said, covering my ears.

"Sorry, Foxy," Wolf said firmly. I let out a frustrated groan, finding it a bit too loud for my liking. Five minutes later, everything went back to normal.

"Phew." I sighed, then went back to sleep.

The sound of the alarm clock filled the room at 5:40 am, jolting me awake just a minute later. As I stretched and yawned, I glanced over at Wolf, who appeared as though he hadn't slept all night. It was no surprise, considering he temporarily shared my room as my roommate.

"Hey. Did you sleep at all last night?" I asked Wolf.

"Yeah, kid. At 2:30." Wolf responded.

"Wow, that's pretty late."

"Listen, Foxy. I'm 57, and you're 29. I could retire if I wanted to, but my bones haven't given up on me! I couldn't care less about what time I go to sleep. I might not sleep at all!" Wolf said. Quite the speech.

"Okay, sure. But you didn't have to give a PSA about sleeping." I retorted as I walked out of the room. A nice smell followed. Food? Probably. I walked toward the smell, noticing some pancakes being made. "Good morning Peppy."

"Good morning, Fox." He replied while making the pancakes. I walked towards Falco's room to see if he was awake, but he wasn't there.

"Hey, Peppy, do you know where Falco is?" I asked.

"He said he would be with Slippy, helping fix your Arwing." He responded.

"Thanks." I walked toward the garage, where I found Slippy and Falco.

"Oh, hi, Fox." Slippy said.

"Hey, Slippy, I just have a question for you." I said.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know where Falco is?"

"Yeah! He went to get the toolbox for me so that we could put the finishing touches on your Arwing." He answered.

"Thanks." I went upstairs to the supplies room. There, I found Falco. "Hey, Falco."

"Yeah, Fox?" Falco responded.

"Ready for the research mission?" I asked.

"Once I finish helping Slippy, then get something from my room, yeah." Falco answered.

"Okay." I said as I walked away. I was pretty much ready for the mission. I knew it was going to be a wild ride. I decided to head back to my room. As I walked in, Wolf told me something.

"Hey, dude, I heard from Krystal that you hit your head on some metal during a mission. You might wanna get that checked out." Wolf said.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine." I responded.

"You sure?" He asked.

"Yeah, totally." I decided to wait at the table for the pancakes. "How much longer will it be, Peppy?"

"5 or 15 minutes." He replied as my stomach grumbled. I was a little hungry, but I could wait. As I waited, I saw Falco with a backpack. Confused about why he had it, I decided to approach him and ask.

"Hey, Falco. Why do you have a backpack?" I asked.

"The things I'm bringing. Don't want them to fall off or get lost, right?" He answered.

"Oh, okay." I walked away as Peppy was setting out the pancakes. "Oh, thanks, Peppy!"

"At least I wanted to do something nice after that risky mission in Venom five weeks ago." Peppy said.

"Yeah." I said. "That was risky..." I shook my head and decided to eat.

"Hey, are we ready to go?" Falco asked, walking in.

"Can't go on an empty stomach." I retorted.

As I, Falco, and Wolf approached the hospital that was abandoned after the outbreak happened, I had a feeling that someone was going to be injured. Not infected, injured. "This is going to be crazy. Please don't let anyone get hurt. Please." I thought to myself. I started to zone out, but Falco snapped me out of it.

"Hey, are we gonna move or what?" He said. I shook my head before responding.

"Y-Yeah." We walked into the building, determined to find even just a crumb of a clue. "Falco, you go upstairs. Wolf, downstairs. Got it?"

"Yup." Falco said.

"Fine." Wolf said with an annoyed voice while rolling his eyes. So then, we all went to investigating, trying to find clues about this. As I walked into a research room, I find some oddly colored test tubes.

"What the hell is this..." They looked suspiciously made. The rubble on the floor only made it more tense, like it was rushed. One test tube row was entirely empty, and two test tubes in a mostly filled row were missing. The spots of the two missing tubes were also oddly specific. I decided to move away from it and continue, but I couldn't help but take a picture of it and put it in my research notes. "Hey, Falco. What have you found?" I asked over my earpiece.

"Nothing yet." He replied.

"Wolf, found anything?"

"Nah." Wolf replied. I decided to find other clues. It wasn't until I was ambushed by some zombies.

"Guys, get to my level. There's a zombie horde ambushing me!" I said over the earpiece.

"Alright, we'll be there!" They both said. Both of them were there within twenty seconds. Falco kicked three zombies in the way. Wolf shot some of them. It seemed like a miracle, until one of the zombies threw some rubble near Falco's legs. Falco tried to dodge it, but it resulted in one of his legs being trapped under the rubble.

"I knew it!" I said angrily while gritting my teeth. I and Wolf decided to hurry the fight so that we could check on Falco. As we finished off the last of the horde, we hurried to Falco. "Falco, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." He said. "Now let's get this thing off of me and get going!" We got the rubble off of him, but he was injured pretty badly. Broken leg, to be exact.

"Damn, Falco. That must hurt, right?" Wolf said.

"Yeah..." Falco replied. We helped Falco up, and went back to the Great Fox.

Stay tuned for the next chapter!