About an hour or so after their car accident the group was still running as fast as they could from the scene of the crash, hoping that they lost the trail of the crazy people. The teens still had absolutely no clue what was going on, but they all just continued to run as far as they could and figure it out later. They had already made it more than a few miles away from the scene and they desperately needed to just stop and take a breather for a few minutes, so once they got to a clearing that looked reasonably safe and with no crazed people around they did just that, with a few of them actually collapsing straight onto the floor of the forest out of exhaustion. Odd simply set down the kennel and allowed Kiwi to walk out onto the forest floor before he likewise fell down onto the ground, panting with pure exhaustion.
Everyone was still very stunned about what had happened earlier, and there was still a lot for them to process and take in... Something bad was happening, something very, very bad... But was this only in King County? Could this be across the entire state of Georgia? America in general? Or worse... could this even be worldwide?
Aelita reached into her backpack to pull out several bottles of water that she was saving for the trip to Atlanta, deciding to just share them with the group instead since the trip was definitely and very obviously not going to happen now.
"Here guys, rest up and drink some water and then we'll keep going in a minute or two." Aelita said as she handed out her water bottles.
"Thanks, Princess..." Jeremie smiled as she handed him one of the bottles.
Aelita smiled back at her boyfriend as she continued to hand out the bottles of water, saving one for herself. After that the group began to drink and began to try their hardest to relax, although the relaxing part was much easier said than done for all of the teens. Everyone just found a spot to sit down at and drank their water and both Odd and Aelita dumped a little bit of water out of their bottles and directly onto Kiwi so he could also drink at least a little bit of it, much to Kiwi's joy. After several minutes Yumi finally spoke up to the others.
"Do you guys think this was because of XANA...?" Yumi cautiously asked as she glanced at Jeremie and Aelita.
Jeremie and Aelita both glanced at each other out of a sudden worry at that prospect of this being some horrific XANA attack, so did everyone else in the group. If it was truly XANA that was causing this then that would easily explain a lot, so Jeremie grabbed his laptop bag and pulled out his laptop in order to check and see if there was any alerts from the factory back in France. Much to his frustration and disappointment he saw that the laptop was in pieces and was completely destroyed, most likely crushed under something from when the van crashed earlier.
There wasn't any way to confirm if XANA caused this mess or not now...
"My laptop is busted... Guys, I'm sorry, but I don't have any possible way to check now and neither does Aelita." Jeremie sighed as he simply tossed the destroyed and now-completely useless electronic away over his shoulder and into the forest, but still saving the harddrive and a few other components for if he would need them again in the future.
The others were obviously disappointed at Jeremie's laptop being destroyed and the loss of information they could have gotten. But even so they all knew deep down that the cause of all of this had to be XANA, which if true meant that they had failed in stopping that monster from killing God only knew how many innocent people... All they hoped was that this was just a crazy situation that's happening only near Atlanta and not anywhere else.
May God help them and everyone else.
Suddenly a series of growls and Kiwi's very loud barking broke the group out of their thoughts. They all looked around and quickly noticed that several more of the crazed people were stumbling towards them, causing the group to immediately put away their bottles of water. They all also grabbed their belongings and Odd quickly placed Kiwi back into his kennel, then they all began to run once more away from the crazy individuals. Unfortunately as they ran it became apparent that more was arriving in the area, so they absolutely had to move fast before they could be encircled. They ended up near the side of a large embankment as more of the crazed people began to appear in the trees, with many more awaiting on the bottom of the embankment itself.
...that's when William tripped over a rock.
The group went wide eyed with horror as they stopped and saw William fall over the side and tumble all the way to the bottom of the tall and steep embankment, his suitcase breaking open and spraying all of his clothing and whatever else he packed across the entire scene. The many crazed people down below immediately noticed when William landed with a hard and loud thud below, much to the group's horror.
"WILLIAM!" Yumi exclaimed with a horrified expression on her face.
"GET UP! GET OUT OF THERE!" Ulrich shouted as he looked around, trying to see if there was a way to get down there and help him.
Unfortunately there wasn't a way down for Ulrich other than getting trapped just like how William was now, and even if there was a way down then it was already far too late for his friend. William got himself up and on his feet and desperately tried to climb his way back up to the others, but he failed each time due to the steepness of the embankment as the crazed people just kept getting closer and closer. William growled with frustration before he quickly grabbed a large stick in an effort to use it against the crazy people, trying to hold them off as much as he could until he could figure out a way to get out of this situation.
Much to everyone's collective despair and pure horror, that was when Kiwi suddenly jumped out of the kennel. The only thing that remained within the kennel was his collar, and the dog himself began running down the embankment in an effort to help William fight off the walkers!
"NO KIWI! KIWI, GET BACK UP HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Odd exclaimed with horror.
Alas it was unfortunately too late for Kiwi. Odd and the others in the group on the edge of the embankment were forced to just stand there and watch as Kiwi ignored Odd and heroically ran straight into the group of crazy people below them to bite at their legs or whatever else he could reach in an effort to save his owner's friend, but much to Odd's absolute devastation the dog quite simply just disappeared within the horde of crazy people very quickly. Kiwi's angered barking quickly turned into that of pure agony, and then it simply ceased a few moments thereafter...
Odd knew that his beloved pet was gone...
As Odd began to violently wail from the emotional devastation at seeing Kiwi die such a horrific death in front of him, the group continued to watch as the crazed people immediately began to pounce on William, their growls quickly being drowned out by William screaming in pure agony as a pair of the crazed people sunk their teeth into his left arm, ripping out some chunks of his flesh. The sight of this was purely horrific to all of the witnesses...
"OH MY GOD!" Aelita screamed as she watched her friend being eaten alive.
William proceeded to try his hardest to fight off the crazed people that were trying to eat him. His left arm was completely covered in blood thanks to the wounds he received from these psychopaths, but despite the agonizing pain he felt in his limb he started punching and kicking the crazed people as much as he possibly could in an effort to fight through them.
"RUN! JUST GET OUT OF HERE!" William shouted up to his friends.
William screamed with agony as another walker used its teeth to rip some skin off of the same arm that already had bites on it, but he still managed to use his stick in order to try and fight off the crazed people, who quickly enveloped him enough that the group couldn't see him anymore. They heard him screaming in pure agony and horror before he suddenly went silent, meaning that he was now most likely dead like how Kiwi was... Unfortunately the group saw more crazed people were approaching both themselves and William's position, so they couldn't stay any longer. They had to run or end up in the same position as their friend. Reluctantly the group pressed on and resumed their run away from the crazed people, leaving their friend behind to the psychos...
The group ran and ran and ran as fast as they could, trying not to think about the loss of their friend. After another hour or two of running they had made it to a street and began running down it until they could find somewhere to take shelter. Finally their luck changed when they saw a house down the street, and they hurriedly ran towards it to get away from the outdoors. The group saw the door was wide open, and after cautiously walking inside and checking out the place the group could tell that no one was home. The place was also very messy, so it seemed like whoever left did so in a very quick hurry.
As Jeremie locked the front door the rest of the group all collapsed in the living from from another round of exhaustion, but they all felt so much worse than before, physically and emotionally... their friend was gone. Dead. Their friend and their dog was eaten alive by those things...
"I- I can't believe this is happening... William's dead, guys!" Ulrich said to the others as if he couldn't possibly believe it.
"We left him there... They ate him! They actually fucking ate him! They even ate Kiwi!" Yumi exclaimed, still horrified and absolutely traumatized with everything she had seen happen to Odd's dog and William.
Ulrich went to help Jeremie push a dresser in front of the front door as a barricade, keeping the group safe for the moment. After that the two went back to the living room to sit down and rest and join the rest of the group. Yumi was almost in tears at the dual loss of William and Kiwi, and the rest of the group was absolutely shaken from the unimaginable horror they had seen today. Odd was already sitting down on a chair and he was holding Kiwi's collar close to him, traumatized and quietly sobbing to himself due to the dual loss of both a good friend and his beloved pet dog...
This was nothing short of a nightmare. A horrible, terrible nightmare...
"T- This has to be a bad dream... This is a bad, bad dream..." Aelita tried her hardest to convince herself as she rested her head on her backpack while holding her doll Mister Puck as tightly to her chest as she possibly could, her eyes still widened and her face pale from worry and pure horror.
Jeremie immediately went to sit next to Aelita and to try and support her through this, but the second he placed his hand on her shoulder she flinched and brushed it off, not out of anger but much more out of trauma and fear. Jeremie understood as both he, her and the others have already been through so much in such a short time...
"I know this seems bad, guys... William and Kiwi are both gone, and who knows where our friends are... But we have to try and focus on getting through this, and we have to find our friends. Over the years we've all survived a lot of the danger XANA forced upon us, so we absolutely can survive this until the government finally steps in." Jeremie assured.
The others all glanced at their genius friend with mutual feelings of fear and horror, but they all knew he was right. William and Kiwi were gone and nothing could change that, but they had to try to find their friends and get through whatever this was together. They would probably have to acquire some weapons as well... They had to survive this!
"We might need to go and find weapons... If those... things... did that to William and Kiwi, then they'll try to do the same to us. We have to survive this... even if that means by any means necessary." Yumi added in, deciding to focus on surviving instead of what happened to William.
The others all were taken aback by Yumi's suggestion and they all glanced at each other... Find weapons? Actually take a person's life if it came to it...? They all knew they had to try and do whatever it took to survive whatever this insanity was, but killing another person was an idea that many of them struggled to take in even after seeing what happened to William and Kiwi... Those crazy fuckers were willing to eat a human being and a dog alive. They would end up the exact same way if they weren't careful.
"...Yumi's right. Right now our main focus is to survive and to try and find our friends... along with my brothers." Aelita finally spoke up as she finally calmed down a little bit, agreeing with her friend as she sat up to talk with them.
Her brother Chase and her stepbrother Dylan were with the rest of the Lyoko Warriors when they came to Georgia a week or two before Aelita and the others did. She knew that Chase always kept a handgun with him and he knew how to use it, so the odds that he and the others were still alive was still pretty decent thanks to that. She hoped that was the case at least... But her parents were still back in France, so she was also silently praying that they were both still alive and that this apocalyptic scenario wasn't happening overseas...
"I'm sure they're alright, Aelita... Worried, but alright. Your brothers and our friends are all very tough, and they'll get through this just like how we will. All of us will... Kiwi and William were the first and last one of us to die." Ulrich assured.
"I hope you're right, Ulrich... I really, really do..." Aelita sighed as she leaned back down to use her backpack as a pillow.
Dylan, Chase, Patrick, Verity, Kyra, Amy, Robert, Charles, Miranda, Rebecca, Jennifer and Alexandr... The rest of the Lyoko Warriors all had to be alive out there somewhere. She and her friends had to find them, no matter how long it would take...
"We should all try to get some sleep... If we're gonna be looking for weapons tomorrow then it's gonna be a really long day." Jeremie predicted.
The others all nodded in agreement with Jeremie's suggestion to rest. Every single last one of them was exhausted from everything that had happened that day and they desperately had to try to catch up on some sleep. So one by one the group began to barricade the house with what they could, which was done when all of the teens went to board up the downstairs windows with pieces of timber, nails and some tools that was stacked up against a shed in the backyard. Thankfully this was all done within ten minutes, and after that both Yumi and Ulrich went to the kitchen to push the refrigerator against the backdoor as another barricade.
After that all of the teens retreated back to the living room and picked a spot to sleep for the night. Odd simply retracted his reclinable chair and continued to hold Kiwi's collar close to him as he began to try and sleep, and thankfully the couch had a pullout bed that could fit two. Jeremie and Aelita were given the bed by Yumi and Ulrich, who simply decided to lay out a blanket on the floor and use their bags as pillows together. With that, everyone went to lay down at their spots and they all eventually drifted off to sleep, knowing that the next day was probably going to be just as exhausting as this one was...