Sunday, November 22nd, Downtown.
The stench of dust and wet cardboard was the only thing that managed to cut through the heavy, silent air. We were huddled behind what used to be a pharmacy counter, now just a heap of splintered wood and shattered glass.
Outside, the world kept on growling. Not loud growls, nothing shrill; they were low, guttural sounds, as if the city suffered from a chronic stomach malaise. Every one of those sounds reminded me that the threat hadn't gone away—it had only retreated, dragging itself along in search of the next victim.
I pressed the knife against my thigh. It was coated in dark, dried blood—blood that no longer bothered me. Not anymore. And that was the part that truly terrified me.
Just two days ago, I would've fainted at the sight of a syringe. Now, a little zombie blood was nothing more than a nuisance, something I had to remember to wipe off so it wouldn't stick to my pants.
But watching that man... watching him go down, his screams muffled by the feast of rotten flesh. That wasn't a nuisance. It was a black hole opening in my gut, filled with cold dread and nausea.
I allowed myself, just for a second, to close my eyes. Two days. Just two damn days.
Friday afternoon, I had been arguing with George about the results of our high school's Anniversary preparation. A day of celebration, full of parties and events to unite all the high school students.
Then, strangely, the military arrived. They told us it was due to "protests" downtown. We felt important, safe. I thought: my father must have pulled some strings to get us this kind of protection. It had always been like that. My father—he was the solution to all my problems.
Then he was gone. Everything was gone.
The first zombie in the infirmary, the confusion, the nervous laughter of some classmates who thought it was a sick joke. Then the sporadic screams, which everyone assumed were coming from outside, from the nearby street protests.
But they weren't, and that was when it all started.
The memory of Sonny hit me like a punch to the chest. Sonny, always smiling, always cracking jokes at Tim or my father. Sonny, who had watched me grow up.
It had been in the side hallway, near the gym locker rooms.
I had insisted on notifying everyone through the communications room, and because of me, I was taken by the military to the gym, where everything soon turned into hell. Sonny came to rescue me, and in the chaos of the gym exit, he shoved me aside, putting himself between a zombie and me.
He only had a knife; if he'd had his gun, he could have just shot the zombie, but no, fate wouldn't have it that way.
He hid everything, guiding us safely back near my classroom, as if the pain of the bite he was hiding, or the thoughts of life draining from his hands, meant nothing. His only focus was getting me to safety.
He stopped almost upon arrival. He just smiled, a trail of blood illuminated by the hall lights near my classroom. He urged me to continue, not to dwell on it. But inside, I was shattered. I watched him walk away as Tim dragged me along.
It wasn't the bite that killed him, I know that now. It was because I ignored the warnings. But it doesn't matter. He died for me. His sacrifice had saved me, but it had also taught me the cruelest lesson: my idealistic impulses came with a price, and that price was the life of someone who loved me.
After that came Alex. Silent, serious, as if he already knew what was coming.
In less than 24 hours, he turned that madhouse into a refuge. He cleaned, organized, and taught us how to kill those things. He did the job the military wouldn't, the request my father entrusted him with.
Alex gave us hope, or at least, a structure that felt like hope. But even he had priorities. He had come for me. His mission was to extract me, not to be a savior. Yet, his temporary commitment had been real. He had turned the high school into a small bubble of control in the middle of the storm.
And now, only a few streets beyond that bubble, we were back in the storm.
The silence behind the counter was nearly as loud as the screams of the devoured man. I turned slightly and looked at my friends.
Amy, her chin resting on her knees, had swollen, red eyes. She was trying to be strong for me, I knew, but the trembling of her lip gave her away. George, beside her, gripped his axe with excessive firmness. His frown wasn't just from the tension of the moment; it was pure fury. Fury against the chaos, against the injustice.
Yuki, poor Yuki, freshly transferred from Japan, had shrunk to half her size, her eyes fixed on an invisible spot on the floor. For her, this wasn't just an apocalypse; it was a surreal, foreign hell.
I struggled to breathe. My mind offered no truce. I started imagining the man's scene again, but this time, my mind substituted the characters.
What would have happened if, in trying to help, Yuki had been left behind?
The image of her thin hands scratching a zombie's clothes, her terrified, childlike face, made me clench my teeth until they creaked. Or George, with all his rage, being taken down, his booming voice turned into a choked scream. Worse yet, Alex. What if he ended up surrounded while saving someone?
Guilt burned in my throat. My instinct screamed that we were cowards for staying hidden.
That man died!He died for his people! And we did nothing.
But Alex's voice, echoing in my head, was the new truth: If we go, we die. And I can't allow that.
That was the harsh reality my idealism had to swallow. To save Amy, George, and Yuki, I had to betray Sonny's memory and the morality my father had instilled in me. I had to choose life over heroism. It was too rapid a change of mindset, a freefall into a cold, alien pragmatism. And I was paying the price with every spike of anxiety.
I looked up at Alex. He was at the entrance, listening to the outside. His profile was hard, chiseled by the dim light filtering through the broken door. His silence wasn't calm; it was containment. His shoulders looked tense, the spear in his hand ready.
Tim was nearby, watching the rear. He looked more drawn than ever. His eyes, usually warm, were bloodshot with exhaustion. Like Alex, his expression was one of extreme concentration, but he couldn't hide the almost imperceptible tremor in the hand holding his weapon.
They felt the guilt too. They, too, had failed their humanity by not intervening. But at least, they had accepted the lesson faster.
I wasn't the only one suffering. We were all in the same hell, forcing ourselves to bear the weight of another's death to secure our own lives. And in that moment, that shared, silent burden was the only solace I could find.
Alex turned, his gaze sweeping over each of us. His eyes paused on mine, and for an instant, the pragmatist vanished, revealing a fleeting trace of worry and guilt. The same pain I felt.
He straightened, and the survival Alex returned. His voice sliced through the silence like a razor's edge, low and grave, carrying the authority of an unappealable command. He forcibly pulled us out of our thoughts, obliging us to face the present.
"Let's go. We need to move."
My father's sanctuary awaited in the southwest. But to get there, I knew I would have to become a person I didn't yet know—a person willing to let others die just to keep moving.
I stood up, the armor of horror a little tighter now.
5 minutes later.
The air was still heavy with the lingering scent of blood, decay, and the city's coagulated fear. We had left the pharmacy with churning stomachs and hearts in our throats, leaving behind the fresh memory of the devoured man.
In the distance, around the corner we avoided, the growling had quieted, a sign that the horde had dispersed or was busy with what remained of the body. Alex didn't give us time to think. His voice was a low whisper, a tight wire forcing us forward.
"Detour. Low walls and constant visibility. George, cover. Tim, immediate rear. Yuki, Amy, center. Emily, on my right," Alex ordered, without waiting for confirmation. He didn't ask; he dictated the new orders of movement.
We moved at a quick pace, almost shuffling. The exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours was a tangible weight in our joints, a mental fog trying to cloud the necessary visual sharpness. The rest on the improvised beds at the high school the night before wasn't real rest. My eyes burned, but blinking was a luxury we couldn't afford.
As we rounded the first street, Alex's plan met its first obstacle: ten, maybe eleven, zombies stumbling aimlessly in front of a fast-food joint. They seemed to have been drawn by some noise or, more likely, had accumulated slowly throughout the day.
Alex raised his spear, the light barely reflecting off the sharp metal.
"Too many to pass. We can't detour without drawing more from the alley. We have to eliminate them. This is the plan: Distraction and flanking. I group them. You attack from the back. Silent and fast," Alex whispered.
Before anyone could protest or nod, Alex was already moving. He slid between an overturned car and a metallic dumpster, an efficient shadow. He took out his combat knife and tapped the edge of a broken storefront rhythmically: clack, clack, clack. The sound was low, metallic, irritating. The zombies, slow, with grayish skin and ragged clothes, began to turn, their growls growing louder, like a putrid chorus.
I watched him move with a bravery that felt alien to me. He was drawing ten monsters toward himself, gambling with his life to give us an advantage.
Would I ever have the courage to do that?
The Emily of two days ago would have panicked. The Emily of now felt a mix of frozen fear and a pang of admiration. One day, I hoped the admiration would turn into action.
When Alex made an almost invisible hand signal, indicating he had the majority lined up toward him, we set off.
George led the way, gripping the axe that seemed too heavy but gave him an air of determination. Tim moved like a ghost, his hunting knife gleaming. I followed right behind him, with my rudimentary spear—a broom handle reinforced with a piece of metal crudely taped on.
We came up behind the group. Alex had already taken care of two, stabbing them in the temple with surgical precision, their bodies falling with a dull thud.
"Now! Three in the first strike!" Tim hissed.
Tim took his. George took his. I hesitated for an instant, the decomposing face of the zombie in front of me clouding my judgment.
Quick. Strong. Brain.
I stabbed it, the spear entering with a viscous resistance. The zombie collapsed, but I failed to hold the body. I let go on impact. CRASH!
The body hit the sidewalk with a dull noise that echoed in the silence. It was loud enough. Two zombies following Alex, the ones closest to our position, slowly turned their heads, their clouded eyes finding our group.
"Two! Emily!" Amy's voice, a sharp, terrified whisper, was our warning.
My spear was stuck. I pulled on it with all my strength, real panic rising in my throat. Alex, in the distance, observed the mistake, his gaze tense, but he didn't flinch. He had to trust us.
Before I could free my weapon, Tim and George moved as one. George intercepted the nearest with a dry blow of his axe to the back of the head. Tim, with his knife, silenced the second. They were fast, lethal, and their action reminded me that one's failure was a death sentence for all.
While they dealt with those two zombies, I approached Alex's position to help him, and one zombie, the one closest to me, seemed to sense my presence or maybe I was making too much noise, turned and looked straight at me.
"Kill it, Emily!" Tim shouted, still dealing with the body of the zombie he had just killed.
I managed to stab the spear, my hands slick with sweat, but I used all my strength anyway and managed to kill it quickly. I ran toward Alex, who had finished off the second to last. Now only one remained.
The last zombie, jaw slack, moved awkwardly. Alex, instead of killing it, intercepted it. He stabbed the zombie's body in the back with the spear, holding it firm, immobilized. The zombie growled and writhed uselessly. Alex backed away, his face expressionless, and signaled us, stopping next to Amy.
The atmosphere grew dense. Alex didn't want to kill it.
"Amy," Alex said, his voice low. It wasn't a question; it was an order that couldn't be disputed.
Amy trembled, looking at the pinned zombie. I understood. Alex wasn't just teaching us to fight; he was forcing us to cross the moral line, to face the death we had just sidestepped. It was a forced initiation rite for survival.
I looked at Amy, feeling her terror, but my inner voice was screaming the same thing Alex was teaching us: Do it. If you don't face your fears, you'll die.
"You can do it, Amy," I whispered, my voice raspy.
Amy approached, the spear shaking in her hands. She stabbed it with some fear, aiming for the head, but inexperience worked against her. The blow was deflected, and the spear sank into the zombie's neck. A gurgle of dark, thick blood came from the wound, the zombie's growl intensifying.
Amy gasped, pulling the spear out with a jerk that almost made her fall backward. Her eyes met mine, filled with tears of terror. Then, in an act of sheer will, anger displaced the fear. She closed her eyes, exhaled, and attacked again. This time she didn't aim for the temple or the neck. She aimed for the monster's open mouth and thrust straight through.
A disgusting sound of breaking flesh, nerves, and bone echoed. The zombie stopped. The growl was extinguished.
Amy stood paralyzed, breathing heavily, her chest heaving. There was a mix of relief, horror, and brutal realization on her face. Yuki, behind us, had her hand over her mouth, her eyes fixed on Amy with a blend of astonishment and longing. She wanted that armor too.
We continued our march, dragging ourselves through an hour of similar tension, detours, and the constant sight of other groups.
We saw scavengers on motorcycles, families crying over maps, and an organized group in security uniforms desperately searching for something. With every encounter, Alex reminded us that the human threat was just as serious as the zombies'.
Finally, we reached what should have been the border of our cage: the streets marking the limit of the city center. But there was no clean exit.
Instead of seeing the freeway clear, we found a wall. A wall made of flesh. Thousands of zombies.
They were grouped, pressed against each other, stretching for several blocks, moving lazily, unable to disperse. It was an unbroken, putrid mass that reeked of death and despair.
Alex stopped dead, his face, for the first time, revealing frustration.
"The military cordon," Tim hissed, his voice full of bitterness, while my friends and I stared at the scene, not understanding.
Alex nodded, his gaze sweeping the horde. He explained: "Friday night, the military tried to contain the outbreak downtown. They wanted to control the protesters and the entry of people into the center, but they only made the situation worse."
"They kept the zombies inside the perimeter without knowing it, and then they left," he added angrily. "They didn't kill them; they just contained them. Now, the panic of those who tried to escape through this zone has created this buildup. We're trapped in a containment area."
I felt the weight of despair. My father's sanctuary, my hope for safety, was only a few miles away, but now a living wall of rot separated us.
I looked at Alex. His eyes shone with the urgency of someone who knows every second is life. If we had to circle that wall, we would have to go back toward the center and the chaos.
How the hell are we going to cross this?
Desperation felt like a fist clenching my chest. The wall of rotten flesh stretched as far as the eye could see, an apocalyptic fence separating us from my father's promise of safety. The constant growling of the mass mocked our urgency.
I murmured my internal question to Alex, though it was only a whisper: "What now?"
Alex was weighing the options. I could see the calculation in his eyes; his gaze moved from the horde to the crumpled map and then to the street we had come down, filled with abandoned cars, but also with straggling walkers who would inevitably be drawn by the noise of the cordon.
Finally, his eyes settled on us: Amy, George, Yuki, Tim, and me. We were exhausted. The adrenaline from the previous fights had worn off, leaving us shaky and exposed.
Alex made a quick decision, one that prioritized immediate survival over advancement.
"We need to rest. Fifteen minutes," he decreed, pointing to a small, dark office building whose entrance was partially blocked by an overturned filing cabinet. "Cover the rear. Tim, with me."
We dragged ourselves toward the building. The interior was a mess of paper, broken glass, and the trail of a hurried escape. We collapsed against the wall next to the broken windows, seeking visual cover behind the reception desk.
From my position, I stared at the wall. The cordon was so dense I could make out the worn clothes and decomposing faces of individual walkers. They were right there, only fifty yards from freedom. They were so close, yet the sanctuary felt light-years away.
Exhaustion hit me full force. The knife felt icy in my hand, but I didn't have the strength to move it. I closed my eyes for an instant, savoring the relative silence of the building, broken only by our heavy breathing.
Then, Tim signaled Alex. He didn't speak, just moved his knife imperceptibly, pointing toward the ceiling.
The ceiling?
I looked at Alex. His body, which had sunk into rest only a minute ago, tensed up again, becoming a hunter's figure. His eyes focused on the ceiling, analyzing.
Confused, I sharpened my hearing, ignoring my own breathing. Above the distant growl of the horde, above the accelerated beat of my own heart, I distinguished a sound. Voices. Human. Faint, but unmistakable. Someone was upstairs.
Alex didn't hesitate. He stood up without making the slightest noise, his spear ready. Tim moved toward the stairs leading to the second floor. George, Amy, and Yuki looked at me, waiting for the order.
We silently rose, our brief respite over. The external danger had quieted, but it had been replaced by the most unpredictable threat of all.
Who were they? Scared people seeking shelter, or predators waiting to ambush a tired group of survivors?
.
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[A/N: CHAPTER COMPLETED
Hello everyone.
We're back with Emily's perspective.
I included the first part so we don't forget where we came from, as this is important for Emily's decisions, her personal development, and her future interactions with the people she encounters.
I also included a zombie fight, as we didn't see much of it in the previous chapters.
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Read my other novels
#The Walking Dead: Vision of the Future (Chapter 86)
#Vinland Kingdom: Race Against Time (Chapter 111)
#The Walking Dead: Patient 0 - Lyra File (Chapter 12) (INTERMITTENT)
You can find them on my profile.]