Code: Survival, Season One Chapter 33: Our Lost Friends, a Code Lyoko + Walking Dead Crossover fanfic

(Anne Marshall belongs to AquaDestinysEmbrace!)

(I DO NOT own The Walking Dead, Code Lyoko or any kind of names or brands that appear in this story. I do own all OCs unless specifically named as they appear above this message.)

The next morning, the Lyoko Warriors were readying themselves and arming themselves so that they could start searching for their lost friends. With the search sectors already mapped by Jeremie and Aelita, all that was left to do was to form search teams to comb through them for any trace of the people from Kadic Academy.

With the amount of people who were taking part in the search, the two geniuses estimated that it would likely only take a few days at most before they cleared the sectors. If the Kadic people weren't found in them, then they would expand the search areas and they'd continue to look for them for as long as humanly possible.

Their friends, their teachers, and many of their fellow students were out there somewhere. They owed it to them to at least try to find them.

Having loaded the last bullet in a 30-round magazine, Yumi slung her AR-15 rifle over her shoulder along with a backpack full of supplies. She intended to find a secure house somewhere in or near Peachtree City ten miles away and to use it as a base of sorts for the next few days during the search. Yumi's goal was to spend as much time as possible in that area and to spend every waking second trying to find her lost little brother. She originally wanted to go by herself, but after much pressure from the others she finally relented and she allowed Ulrich to accompany her, if only to watch her back.

The people who were helping in the search were going to split into groups of threes and fours. Two of the groups would take a car each and they will go and search as far out as they could before they'd have to turn around. Everyone else was going to have to do a lot of walking today.

Lee strained a bit as he helped Rick load up a heavy box of supplies into the back of a four-door sedan. It took a lot of careful explaining to Clementine as to why he decided to go and help look for the teens lost friends, but he honestly felt like he could help them and he didn't want to waste a chance to do so. Rick felt the same way, which was why they and Odd were all going to drive out together. They were to head to Fayetteville, less than fourteen miles away.

Near the search zones were several towns. The Kadic people could easily be within any of them, and just as importantly there could be some supplies that haven't been looted yet.

Although the top priority for everyone was to look for the lost Kadic people, a few of the search teams were also going to try their hand at a bit of scavenging while they searched. If they didn't find the Kadic people today then finding some extra supplies would be better than nothing.

Alexandr and Robert had finally finished sharpening the blades of their knives with the aid of a tool Luke had lent them. Although the main search zones were to the north and the west, the two were going to take a car with Verity and Patrick and head south to search down there just to make sure there wasn't any sign of the Kadic people up anywhere in that direction. Greenville, about 25 miles away, was as far as they were going to go. Anne, who was finally given a medical all-clear from Carlos and Hershel with a warning to take it easy, had ditched the wheelchair they made her use and she was going to go to Greenville too.

Even Daryl was participating in this search. The search parties specifically asked for him since he was without a doubt the best tracker out of everyone who was living at the farm. It took a lot of convincing, but Daryl eventually relented. He was going to borrow a horse from the Greene Family and then he was going to head out into the foresty parts of the search areas by himself. A few of the others told him of the risks of going alone, but he was better without having to watch someone's back.

Soon everyone was ready to head out and officially begin the search. If they don't find the Kadic people today then God willing they'll at least find some trace of them...

The search parties gathered in front of the front porch of Hershel's farmhouse, about sixteen people in total. But they were in shifts, so after their searches others would also head out again later today, then tomorrow, then the day after that and so on and so forth. It would practically be continuous.

On the porch of Hershel's farm was Jeremie and also Aelita, who was still in her wheelchair. Jeremie held a clipboard in his hand which had one of the copies of the maps which were given to every search team.

Though everyone was thankful for their work, the former cops Rick and Shane were both truly impressed by how well Aelita and Jeremie organized this search. It was on-par with all of the searches they had conducted during their time in the police force. They both realized that this was very well-conducted even though these two kids didn't have experience in looking for lost people.

Looking up from his clipboard, Jeremie snapped his fingers so that everyone would start looking at him. "Okay, everyone, could I have your attention?" he asked the gathered people, quickly getting them all to listen.

After everyone's attention was on him, Jeremie continued to speak. "As you know, today's the first day of the search for our fellow students and teachers from Kadic Academy. This search isn't going to be easy, and in many ways it's going to be very dangerous for everyone who'll head out. That's why Aelita and I have painstakingly worked on all of your maps to provide you your search zones along with the best routes leading there and back."

"This will not be easy." Aelita continued for her boyfriend. "I know that we all desperately want to find our lost friends, but safety is our top priority. If you run into a herd of walkers, fall back. If you run into any of Carver's men, fall back. If you run into any other kind of obstacle - fall back. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we don't want to lose anyone during the search. So please, don't be afraid to come back to the farm if you feel that you need to."

Jeremie nodded in agreement. "Exactly. For this reason, we only want you guys to go out once today. Although Ulrich and Yumi both decided that they wanted to take some extra time to look around out there, we want the rest of you back by sundown. We don't want you guys to get lost in the darkness and end up bumping into walkers."

Everyone carefully looked over the travel maps that they got from Jeremie and Aelita, memorizing every little detail on their routes. Peachtree City, Fayetteville, Greenville, and a couple of other towns were all labeled for the teams which were heading to those places. Though it was a pretty huge risk since Carver's men were still out there somewhere, the location of Hershel's Farm was also clearly labeled. The search teams needed to find their way back after all.

"That's about it, everyone." Aelita said to the search teams. "You all already know the basics, and we've told you pretty much everything else you need to know. So all of you stay safe and good luck out there today!"

With that, the search teams bid each other good luck as well and they scattered off to make their final preparations before leaving the farm. Aelita and Jeremie watched their friends pack up and head out one by one and they hoped for their safety and success.

With luck, the search teams will find a trace of their lost friends, or even the lost friends themselves.

Hours later, Ulrich and Yumi were making their way down an abandoned stretch of highway somewhere near Peachtree City, a town that was about eight or nine miles away from Hershel's farm.

The two were feeling very tired from the nearly ten-mile long walk but they still had much more work to do today before they could finally rest. Besides, Yumi wouldn't dare rest until she had conducted a very thorough search today. Finding her brother took priority over anything else.

The samurai and the geisha walked down an off-ramp and they headed into the outskirts of Peachtree City together, Yumi with her rifle locked and loaded and Ulrich with his katana unsheathed and ready to swing. The town was quiet and it seemed to be totally empty aside from a few burnt-out cars and buildings. There was a few corpses here and there on the streets and some that were visible through windows, but aside from that the town appeared to be quiet.

The two teens headed deeper into town and they walked through main street, unnerved by the sound of utter silence aside from the wind blowing. The lack of people was something they've come to expect, but no walkers? Not a single one? Something wasn't right here...

Like Yumi, Ulrich kept a watchful eye out. Their long war against XANA helped develop their fighting skills and their situational awareness, so they hoped that nothing would surprise them out here. But like always, they couldn't afford to underestimate the walkers. That's an easy way to get yourself killed.

Ulrich and Yumi both jumped ten feet in the air when they suddenly heard a noise close by. When Yumi aimed her AR and Ulrich aimed his katana at the direction the sound came from, they realized that a breeze knocked over an empty can of Coke. The two relieved teens sighed and kept walking, cursing themselves for being so jumpy. Though being jumpy out here probably wasn't a bad thing on account of the dead...

"It's so quiet out here..." Ulrich muttered as he and Yumi kept walking. He could see that they were coming up towards a residential neighborhood. Hopefully one of those houses could serve as a good place to stay for the next couple of days as they searched.

Yumi nodded. "Don't let your guard down. Anything can happen out here." she told him. Though Yumi was grateful for Ulrich coming to help her look for her little brother, she didn't want to risk him getting hurt in any way. Least of all getting bit or scratched by a walker.

Ulrich nodded back at her as they kept walking through town. They weren't going anywhere specific, they just wanted to find a secure building to use as a base while they searched together for the next couple of days.

Eventually, the couple found a place that could suit their needs.

Walking down an old neighborhood near main street, Ulrich and Yumi came across an abandoned yellow house halfway down the block. It was double-storied, so they could have a high-ground advantage. It had a metal fence with decorative spikes all around the property that could help hold off walkers. It had big yard, so plenty of sightlines in every direction. It looked like a perfect place to lay low.

However, the front door of the house was wide open and it looked like the lock was totally busted. More than likely there was at least some walkers inside...

The couple didn't waste any time. Yumi went in first since she was the one with the rifle. Ulrich followed close behind her with a snub-nosed revolver in one hand and his katana in the other. One by one the pair went through the rooms of the house and searched everywhere for walkers. There was one walker that was lurking in the upstairs bathroom, but it was quickly taken care of with Ulrich's katana. The pair were relieved that this place wasn't infested.

After the house was cleared of walkers, Yumi and Ulrich started to fortify the place and turn it into a would-be home for them over the next couple of days. They'll both sleep in the master bedroom upstairs while the downstairs rooms would be turned into a fortress. They boarded up all the windows and doors, they moved some very heavy stuff like the refrigerator to block the front door, and they also positioned a lot of extra junk on the stairs so that they could flee up to the second floor while walkers would trip and fall if they actually entered the house.

Yumi and Ulrich only started to relax once they were done fortifying the house, and even then they only relaxed very little. By the time they were finished up, the hot summer day had been replaced by a cold dusk. To Yumi's frustration, they would only have a short time to search for Hiroki today before they'd lose the daylight. They couldn't go out wandering in the night, it was simply much too dangerous for her and Ulrich.

After one last quick check over their defenses, Ulrich and Yumi left the house and they walked together further back into town. Eventually they reached main street. Hopefully one of the buildings there held some kind of clue to where Hiroki was.

Yumi was getting desperate. They had to find something belonging to her brother. His MP3 player. His journal. His clothes. His GameBoy... Anything.

Yumi and Ulrich walked into a shopping center together and they checked all the buildings that they came across. Aside from a walker which they killed, all of the buildings were clear. But unfortunately, each building that they looked through held no traces of Hiroki or of anyone else from Kadic. A bakery, a Best Buy, some restaurants, some clothes stores - none gave them what they were looking for and it was nothing less than infuriating to Yumi.

Giving in to her feelings of sheer frustration after a music shop came up empty, Yumi picked up an electric guitar and she threw it into the front window. It made a hell of a lot of noise when it shattered but she was just far too angry and upset to care about the walkers right now. Ulrich was completely taken aback by her outburst.

"Yumi, what the hell?! There could be walkers around here!" an angry Ulrich chastised his girlfriend as quietly as he could.

"SCREW THE WALKERS!!!" Yumi snapped back. "We combed through this stupid cesspool of a town for hours and we found nothing! NOTHING!" she let out a frustrated groan. "Goddammit, I'm never going to find my brother if this is the best we can do!"

"We won't ever find him if you start smashing stuff and yelling, Yumes!" Ulrich was close to screaming at her.

Ignoring her boyfriend's warnings, Yumi stormed over to a nearby drum set and she ran her foot through the bass drum. She pushed over everything else in the drum set and she started to angrily stomp on what used to be the high tom over and over again. Ulrich was going to confront Yumi again, but he stayed where he was and he stayed quiet once he noticed that the angry expression on Yumi's face had been joined by tears streaming down her cheeks.

Yumi just needed to let it all out. Ulrich realized this, so he remained silent.

After a few moments of kicking the drum, Yumi broke down into tears and she fell down to her knees. Now Ulrich went to Yumi, and he pulled her in for a much-needed hug which she gladly returned. As Yumi sobbed, Ulrich kept his arms around her and he rubbed her back through her shirt.

"We're going to find him, Yumi... Hiroki's out there somewhere. Sooner or later you'll see him again." Ulrich assured his hurting girlfriend.

"I- I know..." Yumi sobbed in his chest as they hugged. "I- I just... I'll never see my mom and dad ever again, Ulrich... I just can't lose Hiroki too..."

Ulrich pulled back a little, looking Yumi in the eye. "You won't lose him. I swear." he promised. "If I have to tear through every building in the state to find him for you, I will."

Yumi smiled at Ulrich, touched at how much he cared about finding her brother. The Japanese teen wiped away her tears as she and Ulrich stood back up on their feet again. The two then shared a loving kiss and they were going to check some more buildings, but their kiss was quickly broken by something outside which caught their attention. Yumi and Ulrich's eyes widened when they noticed it was some car headlights approaching the store...

The couple hurried behind the checkout counter and readied their weapons as the car stopped outside the store. Yumi and Ulrich heard some doors open and close...

"-okay, so how about this place? You think anything could be in here?" a woman's voice asked.

"Nah, not here. Martinez was very clear on this. We need to gather up any supplies that're useful, not guitars and shit." a second voice, a man's, replied.

"Don't forget medical supplies. That one-handed dude we found last week needs more antibiotics." a third person interjected, another man.

Yumi and Ulrich glanced at each other with worry when they heard the voices. These were living people. Could they have been some of Carver's guys?

The couple could hear some footsteps on the broken glass outside the store. They also heard some strings being pulled on that electric guitar Yumi threw.

"Sheesh, see this mess? Someone felt like breaking shit..." the third person said as he strummed the guitar.

"What did I just say?" the second person scolded. "We're here for useful shit. That doesn't count."

"Jesus, I'll get rid of the thing then..." the third person said as he tossed the guitar back through the window.

The guitar went across the room and to the checkout counter, breaking the glass case it held. Ulrich and Yumi cringed as some glass shards landed on them, and Ulrich cursed to himself after he accidentally set his hand on some of it and cut his fingers. The sheer amount of dust that the crash kicked up was pretty bad for both of the teens but they tried very hard to stay silent. If they made any noise at all they could be heard...

Meanwhile, it seemed like the second person and the third person were starting to get into an argument.

"What the fuck did you do that for?! You realize that there could be some walkers anywhere around here, right?!" the second person scolded the guitar-thrower.

"What? Do you see any around here?" the third person asked, presumably gesturing around. "No? None? I didn't think so, Paul!"

"For Christ's sake, will you two shut up!" the increasingly-annoyed woman spoke up. "God, why the fuck did Blake put me on this supply run with you two idiots anyway?"

The second person scoffed. "Blake? You mean our new glorious 'Governor', Haley?"

Yumi got Ulrich's attention and she silently gestured over to the fire escape in the back of the store. Opening that door could potentially trip a fire alarm and cause all kinds of hell to come their way, but the two teens had to get away from these people somehow. They couldn't run the risk of these guys being with Carver or with some other hostile group. Ulrich nodded at Yumi's suggestion despite knowing the risk, and he and Yumi began to head for the door as silently as they could.

As the two teens crawled, they were forced to go over the broken bits of glass from the shattered counter case. The glass cut their torsos and their arms and legs, and they both had to bite their lips to keep themselves from making any loud noises. The people outside the music store sounded like they were getting pretty heated at one another.

"Don't mock him! Phil Blake saved us all!" the woman angrily snapped at the second person. "If it wasn't for him, the town would've been overrun by the biters by now!"

"Well, with the title he's got now, I'm gonna mock as much as I want." the second person retorted.

"Once we get back to town I'm gonna request a transfer to guard duty. I can't stand being with you idiots." the woman sounded very annoyed.

The third person groaned at this nonsense. "Guys, we've still got to scavenge up some supplies. Can we all just calm down for a minute and start looking around?"

Ulrich and Yumi's arms and legs and stomachs were bleeding from their cuts, but thankfully they made it through of the broken pieces of glass. The two crawled down an isle of guitars and guitar accessories. Despite the dangerous situation they were currently in, Yumi noticed a package of guitar strings on the shelf and she snatched them to give to Anne later when they'd get back to the farm. Ulrich was incredulous, but Yumi just shrugged in response.

The two teens made it about halfway to the fire escape when disaster struck. As he crawled forward with Yumi, Ulrich's leg accidentally bumped into a stand that was holding several violins. The stand tilted over before it fell down onto another stand that was holding a bunch of drum cymbals. The resulting mess was very loud.

As Ulrich cursed to himself, those people outside the store heard the noise and they all readied their guns. Either there was some walkers or some people in there, and they weren't going to go in to check.

Yumi raised her head and she saw those people aim their guns into the store. She gasped and she dived back down along with Ulrich just as the bullets started flying. The two teens desperately hid behind any cover they could get, which was mainly just a shelf and the guitars on it.

"OH GOD!!!" Yumi exclaimed with fright as she and Ulrich were fired upon.

"DON'T STOP, YUMES!!! KEEP MOVING!!!" Ulrich yelled with an equal feeling of fright to Yumi over the gunfire as they crawled. With all these bullets flying all over the place they couldn't risk standing up and getting shot. They crawled as fast as they could for the fire exit.

The gunfire seemed endless as the two Lyoko Warriors crawled. By some miracle, they made it to the fire exit without taking any bullets. Yumi kicked open the door and then she and Ulrich ran outside as fast as they possibly could while the fire alarms went off. Those alarms might make those shooters realize what Yumi and Ulrich were doing, so now they had to get out of sight quickly.

The pair ran away from the building, but something suddenly grabbed Ulrich from behind as he ran and his katana was snatched away from him. Yumi turned to see that her boyfriend was now being held with his katana to his throat by one of the shooters. Without hesitation, Yumi raised her AR-15 and she aimed at the shooter, but she couldn't manage to get a clean shot since he was using Ulrich as a shield.

Yumi's never killed before, but she'd gladly end this bastard's life before she'd allow him to end Ulrich's. This standoff lasted for only a few moments before the two teens and the shooter saw a bunch of walkers had arrived to the shopping complex, having been drawn by all of the gunfire. Those other two shooters still at the front of the store were now screaming as well as shooting, so the walkers probably got to them as well.

When he saw several walkers approaching out of the corner of his eye, Ulrich found his chance to get away from this guy. As Yumi looked on, Ulrich slammed his head against the shooter's nose and Ulrich snatched his katana back while the shooter was stunned. Ulrich then kicked the shooter straight into the walkers.

The shooter screamed as the walkers swarmed him. Yumi and Ulrich didn't waste any time running for their lives...

Ulrich didn't dare think about how he just caused a man to die...

A few hours after they first set out, Jennifer and Pete were deep in the forest near Sharpsburg and they were looking for any signs of the people from Kadic. Kyra was also with them, and as they searched she kept a rifle tight in her hands and kept an eye out for walkers or Carver and his men. The last thing they needed was for something hostile to get the jump on them.

As they walked, Jennifer and Pete were in the middle of an extraordinarily, massively, enormously important discussion about something. It was something that was very dear to both of them even in the middle of the end of the world. Football.

"-what are you even talking about, Pete?!" Jennifer asked with an incredulous tone. "Dude, look, I get it: you're old. I don't mean to be rude, but you're old. I understand if things are a bit different when it comes to football these days compared to back in your day, but there's no way in hell that the Browns would beat the Cowboys!"

"Are you kidding me?" Pete deadpanned.

Jennifer looked at him incredulously. "God, we have people like Witten and Tony Romo playin' for us!... Er, well, played for us, I mean... Y'know, since football's probably dead along with the rest of the world by now? Anyway, you get my point... The Dallas Cowboys are the best."

Pete laughed at her response to an earlier statement of his. However, his laugh was not one of humor. "Kid, there's only one thing that really matters in the NFL: wins. The last time I checked, the Browns and the Cowboys have met... what, thirty-one times? Maybe thirty-two over the years? I know for a fact that out of all those games, the Browns have seventeen wins and your Cowboys have fourteen. So, there you go: the Browns are better than the Cowboys."

"But you know that the Cowboys have won five out of the eight Super Bowls they made it to, right? The Browns haven't even made it to one let alone win." the Texan teen countered to what Pete had said. "Besides, you and I know how rowdy Browns fans can get when they don't get their way... remember Bottlegate back in '01?"

"We don't talk about Bottlegate, Jennifer. It's best you understand that it's still an open wound for me even after the end of the world. Cleveland got robbed that day, and to my dying breath I'll always say that Bottlegate was a justified response to the robbery."

"Yeah, well, tell that to the people who got concussions because you guys couldn't handle losing a game."

"That 'highway robbery' which happened to us that day hardly counts as 'losing a game', Jennifer."

"You're conveniently ignoring the point of what I said. Go figure."

"'Go figure'? What exactly do you mean by that, Jen?"

"Nothin'. I just know a whining Browns fan when I see one."

Kyra was half-tempted to just shoot herself to get out of listening to this debate. Although a lot of her friends (even including some of the French ones) liked American Football, personally she hated it, and she was far more of a fan of ice hockey. Throwing a ball around under the hot sun? What was so fun about that compared to skating on the cold ice? Christ, she loved hockey so much that even her first words were literally: "Go Maple Leafs!"

In any event, Jennifer and Pete continued on with their debate as they and Kyra continued their trek through the woods, coming up on a small creek. The three stepped on some rocks sticking out of the water so that they could cross over to the other side of it, and they continued onwards. Jennifer and Pete kept on arguing about their football teams and Kyra was just trying to keep doing her best at drowning it all out. Unfortunately she wasn't having a lot of luck.

Jennifer was practically outraged when Pete started rambling something about how the Texas Rangers sucked and how the Cleveland Indians were better, apparently switching the topic from football to baseball out of nowhere. They both were struggling really hard not to raise their voices at each other, because who knew if herds of walkers of some of Carver's men were in these woods or not.

Like their argument before, Kyra did her best to drown this one out too as they continued to walk. It was very far from easy though since there really wasn't much to help her ignore them. Oh, how she wished that she could've asked to borrow Odd's MP3 player back at the farm before he left with Rick and Lee...

And then there was this terrible heat. This insufferable heat. Every moment of every day she felt like she was trapped deep inside of an easy bake oven. How could people down here even live like this?!

Kyra truly loved being a guest in this country before the outbreak, but by God she'd take the winters back home in Ontario any day of the week. Even the subzero weather during the winters at her grandparents home up in Yellowknife would be wonderful right now. To her, freezing to death all the way up there in the Northern Territories was much more preferable than boiling to death down here.

Anyway, the three of them continued to make their way through the forests and Kyra continued to try her best at drowning out the debate which had suddenly morphed from sports to politics. They were talking about stuff that shouldn't even matter anymore, like the state of the economy before the outbreak, or President Resnick's track record in regards to wars places like Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or something. It was quite simply baffling to this Canadian how Americans could still find different ways to argue with each other even after the end of the world.

Luckily, Kyra's misery wasn't going to last much longer as she finally noticed something through the trees. It looked like a... football field? Not actual football, mind you, but American football. There seemed to be some tents set up all across the field...

Although they had to keep searching for the Kadic people, this place could still be worth a look. Some extra supplies never hurts anyone these days.

Jennifer and Pete both stopped their debating when they noticed the football field and the tents too. They immediately went silent, and Jennifer readied her revolver while Pete readied his hunting rifle for whatever could be waiting for them out there.

Kyra aimed her pistol ahead of her as she slowly approached the treeline, logos and red crosses becoming visible on the white canvas tents that were set up. After a few moments the three of them crossed through the trees and made it onto a gravel road, looking at the football field that was across the street.

The tents appeared to be FEMA and American Red Cross camps which were set up along with countless others around the country during the early weeks of the outbreak. A few of these tents were burnt to the ground or had been ravaged by the elements, but many other tents still looked pristine and untouched. Hopefully there could be some evidence that Kadic people had came through here at one point or another... but if not, then like how Kyra thought earlier, this might still be a good place to scrounge up some supplies for the people back at Hershel's Farm.

The man and two girls made sure to keep an eye out for walkers as they crossed the gravel road, heading into the camp through an old turnstile. There was trash all over the place along with some corpses here and there but none of them looked like they were moving. Since it looked like the place wasn't infested, the three decided to head deeper into the camp and look around for any signs of the people from Kadic Academy.

Jennifer scrunched her nose at the sight of a rotting corpse laying in a pile of yellow trash bags covered with biohazard symbols. God only knew what was in those bags and neither she, Pete or Kyra dared to check. "This place is a mess..." she muttered to Pete and Kyra as they walked through the camp.

"Yeah, but we've got to comb through it and see if our friends have come through here. The sooner we do, the sooner we can leave." Kyra reasoned to her friend, keeping a firm grip on her pistol in case they bumped into some walkers.

The Texan teen nodded before she went to check the inside of a FEMA tent, and after she was certain it had no walkers inside she began to look around for any kind of good loot. Kyra and Pete didn't dare go too far away from her but they did start to look through some other nearby tents as well. Hopefully they'd find some kind of trace of the lost Kadic people somewhere in all of this mess...

As Kyra searched one of the medical tents, a sudden stench filled her nostrils and caused her to gag very violently. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand and looked around for the source of the disgusting smell. It didn't take Kyra too long to find the cause. The Canadian girl's eyes widened when she found the source of the smell. In a far, shadowy corner of the tent, Kyra could see a medical stretcher with what she could only assume was literally thousands of flies buzzing everywhere around it.

It was hard to make out what was on the stretcher at first. But once Kyra saw what it was, her stomach churned. On the stretcher's metal frame was the shackled-down and half-eaten corpse of a very young boy. The dead child was likely not much older than three or four years old at best. It was yet another young life prematurely extinguished by this horrible pandemic, only one out of God himself only knew how many poor children...

The little boy's Mickey Mouse jammies and his rotting skin were almost completely covered in his own old dried, dark-red blood. The little boy's stomach had been torn open so much by the walkers that Kyra could see some of his organs. What was left of the boy's eaten-up intestines were now hanging off the side of the stretcher and they had coiled into a pile down on the ground below him. It was a sight that came straight out of the only worst kinds of nightmares...

... and what was even worse than all of that horror was that the child was a walker now.

As the undead child noticed Kyra and reached out towards her in a desperate but futile attempt at eating a fresh meal, Kyra felt bile rising up in her throat. She found herself unable to look away from the truly disturbing sight in front of her. For several moments the poor girl was frozen by horror. Those dead milky-white eyes and the smell of the blackened and rotting flesh of the walker child were being burned traumatically into her mind for the rest of her life. Its growls sent heavy chills down her spine.

Silently, Kyra finally managed to stumble away from the walker child and out of the tent, unable to even try to put the poor creature down. After she exited the medical tent, Kyra walked a few steps before she collapsed onto her hands and knees and threw up on the ground. Kyra had tears streaming down the sides of her face and she could still hear the quiet, low growls of the walker child coming from the inside of the tent.

"Kyra?!" she could hear Jennifer say with concern from nearby.

Kyra didn't say anything as Jennifer and Pete hurried over to her side. With wobbly hands and knees and with tears falling down onto the ground below her, all that Kyra could do was look up at her friends before she gestured back over towards the entrance of the tent. Jennifer and Pete realized pretty quickly that Kyra had seen something that was absolutely horrifying inside there.

"D- Don't go in there..." the Canadian teen muttered, wiping away some of her tears as she tried to stand back up. Her knees were so wobbly that she couldn't.

As Jennifer helped Kyra back up to her feet, Pete decided to go against Kyra's advice and he cautiously approached the entrance of the tent. He readied his rifle, but like Kyra he was caught totally unprepared for what he saw. He stumbled back away from the tent, his face now a pale white from utter horror. Luckily for herself, Jennifer didn't dare try to look inside the tent. She took their reactions as a sign that she shouldn't even try to look in there...

Pete didn't react as badly as Kyra did at the sight of the walker child, though it was clear that he had been greatly affected by it too. Gathering up his courage, he set down his rifle and he readied a pocket knife as he headed into the tent. He couldn't just leave that poor boy alone like that...

While Pete took care of the walker child, Kyra tearfully looked up at her fellow Lyoko Warrior and one of her closest friends. All that Kyra could say to Jennifer was just one simple sentence. Over and over again...

"D- Don't... Don't go in there..."

As he drove with Patrick, Verity, Anne and Robert down towards Greenville, Alexandr was thinking quite a lot about things. With his elbow absent-mindedly propped up against the driver's door and with one hand on the steering wheel, Alex's mind wandered and he kept thinking about lots of things. The group's current predicament, how bad the global pandemic got, the good old days back at Kadic Academy... and of course, he couldn't stop thinking about his family back in Moscow.

If the calendar that Jeremie was keeping track of was as accurate as he claimed it was, then today was Alex's mother's birthday. Her name Alyona Mayakovskya. If she was still alive then she'd be 42 years old today. Alex hadn't seen his mother in a few years though, and with this pandemic he was certain that he never would get the chance to ever again. Same with everyone else in his family...

Odds are that they were probably dead by now, though death would've been a blessing compared to turning into a flesh-earing walker. He didn't dare think of the possibility of them being walkers at this very moment. However, there was one person Alex didn't mind thinking of as dead. His own father.

Alex wasn't too close to his father growing up. A combat veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan back in the 80s, Alex's father Evgeny's war experiences during combat against the Mujahideen was not pleasant. He lost a lot of friends over there. The trauma had turned him a terrible heartless drunkard. A bastard. A disgrace.

Unfortunately, Alex had more than one memory of his father beating his mother. Thanks to his father's constant verbal and physical abuse, his mother never really got to celebrate her birthdays very much... She saved Alex from so much terrible things at the hands of Evgeny...

Evgeny was the reason why Alex's mother sent him to attend Kadic Academy all the way in Paris in the first place. She was able to because her sister worked in the Russian embassy and was able to pull a couple of strings. If she wasn't able to do that then Alex would've kept suffering alongside his mother.

As awful as he knew this was to think of, a part of Alex honestly hoped that his mother was dead by now. His old family home on the outskirts of Moscow had a Soviet-era emergency bunker built underneath it by some member of the Soviet Presidium decades ago.

Alex didn't want to imagine his precious mom locked down in that cold bunker with only his father for however long this outbreak has lasted... Death would be preferable than that kind of misery. He wouldn't wish that kind of anguish on even his worst enemies.

His mother's birthday was actually part of the reason why Alex was helping in this search. Of course Alex was still going to do his best in the search for the lost Kadic students and teachers, but if he had the chance then he wanted to do something to honor his mother too. He wasn't sure what yet, but he'll think of something. He hoped so at least... He kept thinking of ways to honor his mom as he drove.

In the backseat of the car, Patrick and Verity were wearing thick sunglasses to block out the pain-inducing sunlight as best as they could. Their attempts to nurse the terrible hangovers they earned from last night's events had totally failed and now they were just riding out this storm for however long it lasted. Their memories of yesterday were still very hazy and unclear, though they were pretty sure that they had, uh... 'done it' together.

Alex turned onto another road, causing a beam of sunlight to go through the window and hit Verity and Patrick right in their poor hungover faces. Patrick cringed hard and he silently shielded his eyes despite the sunglasses, but the drama queen Verity let out a loud hissing sound. Almost like a cat caught in ice water.

"The liiiiight... it buuuuurrrnnnsss..." Verity hissed, desperately trying to use her jacket as a face covering.

"It's your own faults, y'know." Anne chastised her two friends in the backseat. She rolled her eyes as she was greeted by a pair of middle fingers from them both.

While Patrick and Verity desperately tried to keep the sunlight away as if it was the plague, Alex brought the car to a stop in a parking lot outside the courthouse in the center of town. If there was any trace of the missing Kadic people in Greenville, these teens were going to find it. If they found nothing, then at least there's bound to be supplies to take back to the farm in the meantime.

The teens got out of the car. Verity and Patrick looked about as dead as the walkers, but somehow they managed to stay upright. Though it was much more wise to stay with a partner, Robert decided to tag along with them just to make sure that they wouldn't just keel over and die in one of the nearby buildings. Anne and Alex decided to go over into the courthouse and start looking around in there for any signs of the Kadic people.

Alex and Anne kept knives firmly in their hands as they headed inside the courthouse through the front doors. There was the remnants of a barricade there along with the rotting remains of killed walkers. They both had to be very careful stepping through them in case any were still alive and wanted to take a chunk of flesh out of their legs.

The Russian teen and the bandana-clad girl made their way through a trashed hallway, passing by some broken down doors and old paintings of figures neither of them knew anything about. The pair also rummaged through some nearby rooms for anything useful. Aside from a few energy bars in a vending machine Anne broke open, they both found nothing. Anne stuffed the bars into Alex's backpack and they kept up the search for supplies or evidence.

Both of the teens agreed to split up to cover more ground quicker. It was foolish, but they wanted to get through this quickly so they could go back home sooner. Anne went to search some Criminal Division offices on the north side of the building while Alex lingered in the southern side.

As Alex left another room, he could hear some noises coming from the end of the hallway. Alex headed in the direction of the noise, eventually coming into the courthouse's rotunda room. In there he saw corpses, some dead and some undead. Luckily for him, the undead corpses all had their backs turned to him.

Sneaking up on the closest walker, Alex lurched forward and stabbed it in the back of the head. He took the pacified body into his arms and gently laid it down onto the floor so the noise wouldn't alert his friends. He repeated the process for the other walkers in the room. But right as he killed the last one, Alex was grabbed by the shoulders and pulled to the ground by a walker which he had foolishly missed.

The walker, a dead cop, immediately pounced on Alex and started trying to sink its teeth into his neck. Alex's knife slid out of his hand during the scuffle and who knew where it ended up, so he was forced to rely on his strength to keep the walker from biting him.

Alex struggled to keep the walker's mouth and hands away from his skin. He managed to kick the creature off of him. The walker snarled as Alex hurriedly got up on his feet and looked for his knife or anything else that could be used as a weapon. He saw his knife, but it had slid all the way across the room and the walker stood between him and it. He'd have to find something else, quickly.

He found his weapon. The undead cop still had his sidearm in the holster on his belt. Alex wasted no time when the walker rushed at him again.

Dodging the walker's arms, Alex immediately kicked the walker in its kneecap and sent it to the ground. He pounced onto the creature, pressing his knee down hard against its back as he worked on getting the walker's gun.

"Stay still, dammit!" Alex growled at the thrashing creature under his leg. Damn, this dead guy was strong...

The walker snarled and thrashed and did everything it could to push Alex of of itself, but it failed. After a lot of effort, Alex managed to yank the pistol out of the holster, and he quickly finished off the walker by pressing the barrel against the back of its head and pulling the trigger.

Alex rolled off of the dead corpse and just laid on the floor next to it, catching his breath. The blood from the walker was staining the sleeve of his jacket but he didn't care about that. All that mattered to him was that he was still alive.

The Russian finally sat up after he heard a door be kicked open somewhere close by. Alex aimed his gun at the direction he heard the noise come from, but he lowered it once he saw it was just Robert, Verity, and Patrick. They were relieved to see that their friend wasn't bit or scratched. Anne arrived mere moments later, her arms full as she barely managed to hold onto the twenty cans of Pepsi which she scavenged in a break room.

Robert hurried over to Alex and eyed him, happy to see a lack of bites and scratches on his friend.

"You okay, Alex?" Robert asked, offering his friend a hand.

Alex took his friend's hand, letting him help him up off the ground. "Never better..." he said, brushing himself off after he was back on his feet.

"We heard the gunshot from across the street. Glad you weren't on the receiving end of it." Patrick said, glancing at the dead walkers that Alex killed.

"I heard the shot and I hurried over here as quickly as I could." Anne also added. She was forced to drop more than one can in her rush to help her friend. She then went to work stuffing the cans into her backpack.

Alex nodded, gesturing down at the new pistol he acquired. "One of the walkers jumped me after I killed his friends. It wasn't easy, but I won in the end... Plus I got this thing off of him, at least."

"Nice piece. It's a great find for the armory." Verity complimented.

Agreeing with his friend, Alex turned the safety on the pistol back on and he stuffed the weapon into his backpack for safe keeping. Patrick, Verity and Robert informed Alex that they were unable to find a trace of the Kadic people while looking in the buildings across the street, but they did scrounge up some supplies. Bottled water, batteries, some good flashlights and pocket knives, canned goods - stuff like that.

After they were certain Alex was fine, Robert, Verity, and Patrick decided to search the rest of the rooms in the courthouse that he didn't get to yet. After she managed to fill her backpack to the brim, Anne hurried back to the break room to get the rest of those precious cans of Pepsi which she had left behind, not daring to leave even one. Alex decided to rest in the rotunda room for a little bit longer before he'd catch up and join them in finding more supplies.

Alex found his knife and then he sat down on a bench as the others went up a flight of stairs leading to the second floor. A few moments after his friends left, something in the corner of Alex's eye caught his attention. When he saw what it was, Alex stood up from the bench and he walked over to it.

On a wall was a huge makeshift memorial put up by long-gone survivors during the early days of the outbreak. As he approached the memorial, Alex could see missing person posters and old family photographs filled with the faces of dozens of people who were all likely dead by now. The faces of moms and dads, sons and daughters, grandchildren, friends and neighbors... Under some of the posters were what Alex could only assume were personal belongings of the missing people. Though some of the items did look pretty useful, he didn't dare take any of them from this place. It would've been disrespectful.

Wordlessly, Alex reached into his pocket for something he always kept with him no matter where he went - a picture of his mother and him, taken when he celebrated his fifth birthday in Moscow. He saw a few old candles were still on a shelf lining the memorial, so he reached into his backpack for a lighter too. Alex finally had an idea to honor his lost mother, wherever she was.

Alex set the photograph on the shelf and he set a candle on either side of it. He lit the candles, said a prayer for his mom, and then he quietly sang happy birthday for her.

When Alex was done, he blew out the candles and took the photograph off of the shelf. He ran his fingers on the faded image of his mother, smiling softly at her. "Sz dnem rozhdeniya, mama... (Happy birthday, mom...)"

He honored his mother on her birthday. Alex hoped that wherever she was, she-

"ALEX, ANNE, GET UP HERE! HURRY!!!"

Alex stuffed the old photograph in his pocket before he hurried up the flight of stairs. Anne appeared close behind him. She was cursing like a sailor because she had left her backpack unzipped by accident and her Pepsi cans were now falling down the stairs and were cracking open all over the place. The boy and girl readied their knives as they rushed down a hallway towards where they thought they heard Robert shout from. If their friends needed help, they'll be prepared.

In a complete turn around from how they looked earlier, an excited Verity and Patrick ushered in Alex and Anne at a room at the end of a hallway. When the two entered, they noticed that the room looked like the former office of a county judge. Lots of old law degrees and a fancy desk and other stuff like that was what gave the impression. Before Alex or Anne could ask why their friend shouted for them, Robert had already tossed Alex something.

The Russian caught the thing that his friend threw. Alex blinked when he saw it was just a simple pair of glasses. As far as he could tell, there was absolutely nothing special about them at all. But Robert sensed his friend's confusion, so he went to him and pointed at one of the temples of the glasses. When Alex finally noticed something written on it, he froze from shock.

"Property of Herb Pichon."

Anne was confused, not knowing who that was at first. But after she saw the expressions of her friends, she knew they had to have found an actual lead to their classmates.

Alex read aloud the name of one of Sissi's friends. He couldn't believe he was seeing it himself. These were Herb's glasses. If they were here, then he had been here. And if he was here... then maybe more of the Kadic students were too! The trip to Greenville had actually paid off!

"We've got a lead, Alex!" Verity said, excited at the thought of reuniting with her teachers and her other friends from Kadic Academy.

"That's not the only thing we found, either." Patrick said, holding up a small pink and yellow journal which he found among a pile of discarded girl's clothes scattered on the office's desk. "Sissi was here with Herb as well. This is her diary." he announced.

Though they still had no clue what happened to everyone else, now they had proof that at least Sissi and Herb made it out of Atlanta when the firebombings happened. It was only two of their lost friends out of many. But finding these glasses and that diary was still a major achievement. It was the Lyoko Warriors' first real lead on finding out what happened to the students and teachers of Kadic Academy since the pandemic reached Georgia weeks ago.

If they could follow this up and actually track down Herb or Sissi, then that'd be incredible. The search has only just begun!

Lee, Rick and Odd were currently making their way down Route 85 towards the town of Fayetteville, only fourteen miles or so away from the farm. The teen and the two men parked their car in a safe place down the road, and they all kept their guard up since they had bumped into five or six walkers along the way, but luckily they didn't see any signs of Carver or his men. Hopefully they wouldn't come across any sign whatsoever of those bastards during their time outside of Hershel's Farm.

As they walked, Lee and Rick were engaging in a pretty long discussion about the history of Georgia and the history of the United States - things they found that they both had a common interest in. Rick wasn't as into the topic as Lee the history professor was, but he still knew his stuff. It also came up that Lee had taught history to students over at the University of Georgia, the same place where Rick had a cousin that graduated once. To the men, it was a small world.

The two had a healthy debate about some certain historical topics before they switched to talking about sports. Surprisingly, they found that they even liked the same teams. Go Braves!

Although those two were talking and quickly becoming fast friends, Odd didn't pay attention to a single word from either of them. Rather, his growling stomach was the main thing on his mind at the moment aside from searching for the people from Kadic. He missed the days when food were plentiful, when he could get second helpings at lunch without too much trouble, when he could go to a Burger King and get a triple bacon cheeseburger instead of a double. And God, what he wouldn't give right now for a double order of fries or some onion rings...

Some Taco Bell nachos with extra cheese...

Some meatloaf and mashed potatoes from the Kadic school cafeteria...

Mmmm, and who could forget a big hot bowl of his mother's legendary meatballs and gravy...

... Odd decided to stop that train of thought right there. All this thinking was doing was making him even hungrier.

Alas, Lee and Rick could clearly hear each and every growl that came from the teenager's stomach. Though they were pretty hungry themselves, they were simply shocked at Odd's seemingly-unending levels of hunger. He ate before they left the farm, he had a snack three hours ago, and another just thirty minutes ago... and he was still hungry?! Rick was quite simply baffled and Lee was certain that the teen had some kind of metabolism problem or something of the sort.

But even worse than those stomach growls, Odd had became so bored that he started to sing to himself as he kicked a rock along the road. And of course the thing which he was singing was that godawful breakdance song of his...