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altf4d3lete · 8 months ago

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MY AO3 MASTERLIST

Multichapter Fics

you’ll always be a dumb blonde. (completed)

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka

Notable Tags: Grooming, Angst With A Happy Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Physical Abuse

Summary: Enid is manipulated by Thornhill instead of Tyler, and her world is flipped upside down when Wednesday Addams comes into the picture. Season 1 rewrite full of angst, betrayal, and wenclair (with some fluff thrown in).

60/60 📝 151,251

you’re the eye of my storm (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka

Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, enemies to friends to lovers, Minor Character Death

Summary: Wednesday was used to being alone in the post-apocalyptic world of the US. But what happens when she runs into a stubborn blonde girl that will change her life forever?

22/? 📝 43,345

the red means i love you (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Dark Wednesday Addams, Blood and Violence, Obsessive Love, Emotional Manipulation, Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Summary: Enid dies from her injuries after the fight with Tyler, and Wednesday is determined to bring her back.

15/? 📝 42,639

shadows of the wasteland (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka

Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - Dystopia

Summary: Wednesday Addams' father is killed and marked as a traitor and she desperately needs to know why. She finds herself venturing outside of the walls that protect her city and into the unknown for answers after a run-in with her fellow classmate, Enid Sinclair, leads to leaks of government information that was hidden behind endless locks.

39/? 📝 109,656

backstabber (completed)

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka

Notable Tags: Wenclair Is Endgame, Sexual Assault, Underage Drinking, Minor Character Death

Summary: Wednesday Addams begins dating Tyler Galpin right after her and Enid break up. But things quickly begin to reveal themselves on Enid's 18th birthday. Not everything is as it seems.

20/20 📝 32,620

Polarization (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka

Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Discrimination, Hate Crimes

Summary: FBI Special Agent Enid Sinclair is put on a serial killing case that quickly becomes personal and dangerous. With the nation's politics already hanging in the balance due to the tension between outcasts and normies, this might just be what tips the pot. Assigned as her partner in the lab is Doctor Wednesday Addams, a forensic anthropologist specializing in criminal justice and the lead forensic scientist of the forensics team. It becomes apparent when the two meet that they are vastly different. Complete opposites, even. They begrudgingly find a way to work together as a society of terrorists threatens the outcasts' existence.

8/? 📝 31,809

fall back into place (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of VIolence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka, Kent/Ajax Petropolus

Notable Tags: Inspired By Life Is Strange, Alternate Universe - Life Is Strange, Underage Drug Use, Underage Drinking

Summary: Wednesday, a high school senior, is sent to Nevermore, a private school with good credentials that can get her into an impressive college for photography and writing. A month into the school year, a string of events beginning with a familiar face being shot in a school bathroom leads her down a path of investigating time rewind powers, holes in her timeline, disappearances and murders, and people being drugged.

But the hardest part of being a hero (whether you want it or not) is realizing you can’t save everyone.

5/? 📝 16,278

i'll follow you into the dark (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Major Character Death, Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - Fear Street Fusion, Inspired By Fear Street, Alternate Universe - Horror

Summary: Wednesday Addams hates this town with her whole being. Almost as much as she hates Enid Sinclair, her now ex-girlfriend, who somehow managed to escape the clutches of Shadyside. But when undead killers begin to chase after Wednesday, Enid, and their friends, she soon uncovers there's more to this town than just bad luck, and there's more to her feelings for Enid than just pure hate.

6/? 📝16,813

when summer fades to fall (ongoing)

Archive Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair, Divina/Yoko Tanaka

Notable Tags: Wenclair Is Endgame, Enemies To Lovers, Project Partner

Summary: Enid Sinclair happens to fall face first into the strongest force on campus; Wednesday Addams. But sometimes people change, just as the seasons do.

4/? 📝 10,532

Oneshots

you hold the key(s) to my heart

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Pianist Wednesday Addams, Pianist Enid Sinclair

Summary: Enid, a well-versed piano player, plans to spend more time with her roommate and crush, Wednesday Addams, under the guise of needing piano lessons.

📝 5,758

Green Skin

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid sinclair

Notable Tags: Right Person Wrong Time, Break Up, Getting Back Together

Summary: Maybe it was just the wrong time for them. Maybe if they met again, when Enid had settled into a stable and scheduled life. Maybe when Wednesday’s rambunctiousness had wavered. Maybe.

📝 3,305

No Other Heart Will Do

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Not Actually Unrequited Love, 5+1 Things

Summary: 5 times Wednesday Addams didn't kiss Enid Sinclair, and the 1 time she did.

📝 7,193

Nightmares and Scars

Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Scars, Wednesday Addams is Soft for Enid Sinclair

Summary: When Enid wakes up sobbing in the middle of the night, Wednesday takes it upon herself to reassure her closest companion.

📝 2,843

In Every Universe

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Alternate Universe, Inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Inspired by Fear Street (1666), Inspired by Life is Strange, Inspired by The Hunger Games.

Summary: Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair are wound together with the red string of fate. They will find each other in every universe, over and over again.

📝 1,726

Bad Ideas

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Aged-Up Character(s), Smut, Sexual Tension, Blood Kink, Degradation Kink, Switch Wednesday Addams, Switch Enid Sinclair, Smoking, Drinking

Summary: Enid Sinclair finds herself immediately enamored with Wednesday Addams, a girl that goes to a different college than her. The two of them begin getting to know each other, and Enid quickly learns that she’s not the only one that had been thinking about the two of them together.

📝 8,657

from the start

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Ships: Wednesday Addams/Enid Sinclair

Notable Tags: Love Confessions, First Kiss, Pride, Wenclair Pride Event, Lesbian Enid Sinclair, Enidsexual Wednesday Addams

Summary: When Wednesday begrudgingly agrees to go to their friends' pride party with Enid, Enid decides (with a little help from their friends) that it's finally time to buck up and tell Wednesday how she feels.

📝 4,157

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dndeceit · 22 days ago

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Fander Fic Rec Friday (#8)

Halloween Hangover Edition

(Scary, Soft, Sad, and Silly Sides stories to finish off Spooky Season.)

The Is There Anything Left of Patton? series by Adrianainthesnow Post-Apocalypse/Zombie AU (Logicality) Rating: T When Virgil takes shelter from the apocalypse with Logan in his home, he soon learns that the man's late husband is haunting it in more than a metaphorical sense. Notes: I'm an absolute sucker for more hopeful zombie stories, and this is one of my absolute favorite series in that vein. This one starts out heart-wrenchingly sad, but the ending, while bittersweet, is well worth the trek you take to get there.

The iZombie AU by soysaucevictim iZombie AU (Prinxiety, Dukeceit, Intrulogical) Rating: NR It seemed like such a noble cause when he got recruited to the fight against the undead, brain-eating monsters lurking among them. At least until Roman's first target turns out to be his own estranged brother. Notes: Look, more zombies. There's so much in this series. It's morbid and emotional and actiony, dark in some places and funny at others, sometimes both at once, and overall just fantastic.

The Monstrous Roomates series by Willowanderer Supernatural AU (LAMP, Remile) Rating: T-M The interconnected stories of a paranormal polycule and their baffled and baffling ghostly roommate, Thomas. Notes: A long-running series of stories across several eras focused on a universe built around the Sides' monstersonas from Embarrassing Phases, and one that wrings absolutely everything possible out of its premise. At turns funny, fluffy, suspensful and heartbreaking.

Mold by FlowerMeat Canonverse (Gen) Rating: T Something is slowly taking hold of Roman: an infection, an itch that no amount of scratching seems to satisfy... Notes: A very different (and delightfully gruesome) take on how how Remus came to be. Very creepy, very fun (well, not for Roman).

From Time Immemorial by DramaticGarbage Vampire/Soulmate AU (LAMP) Rating: G At the rate at which his timer is moving, Logan doubts he'll ever get the chance to meet his soulmate... That is, until he is attacked one night and suddenly finds that he has all the time in the world to wait. Notes: A softly spooky, romantic story about four soulmates born centuries apart.

Monkey's Paw by alicat54c Canonverse (Gen) Rating: M Remus gets to make five wishes on a monkey's paw to change Thomas's mind to his liking. Notes: A very Remus twist on a classic horror story.

Under the Moon by Iceshard1011 Werewolf AU (Intrulogical, Anxceit, eventual Prinxceit) Rating: T When Remus is bitten by a werewolf, Roman's loyalty is put to the test. With no idea who to listen to and who to trust, he finds himself on the run with his brother, trapped in an endless chase to keep his brother alive. Notes: Or, Roman and Remus's Nightmare Fugitive Roadtrip. This one is a ride, packed beginning to end with suspense, anguish, betrayal and (eventually) forgiveness.

on crimson nights like this by AndTheyreOnFire Supernatural AU (DRLAMP) Rating: T Roman is a werewolf, tired of feeling like a burden to his partners and his brother. The ritual he finds when they search a haunted house one night could hold the answers he's looking for... Notes: Some spooky hurt/comfort with a softly happy ending.

The Creature Under The Bed series by MagpieMorality Supernatural AU (Intruality) Rating: T Remus is a demonic gremlin creature that has fallen madly in love with Patton. And, when Patton is thrown into danger, Remus is willing to fight both the Light above and the Dark below to earn their happy ending. Notes: Utterly strange, cute and terrifying and weirdly romantic.

Unlikely Hero by LeftoverParadox Canonverse (Gen) Rating: E A dangerous entity is unleashed within Thomas's mind: a side calling itself "Reflection", but known to the dark sides as the Mirrorman. When the others disregard Janus's warnings, it falls to Remus to save his fellow sides from themselves. Notes: Not the traditional horror story, but still very effectively terrifying. The Mirrorman is one of the most disturbing and memorable OC sides I've read.

Monster AU by Tapper_PlushieMama Supernatural AU (DRLAMP) Rating: M Logan discovers five men living together under a monstrous curse. Unable to tell him the details of how they were cursed or how to break it, it's up to Logan to try to unravel the puzzle at hand. Notes: Or, Logan gets to solve a mystery and wins himself five boyfriends in the process.

The Night Fellow by Miranda_tries_their_best Cryptid AU (Gen) Rating: T Logan goes in search of the mysterious local cryptid known as the Night Fellow. Notes: Spooky fluff. Cryptid!Virgil somehow manages to be both terrifying and adorable.

Loop by blue_toothache Ghost AU (Gen) Rating: T Logan is the only tenant on the top floor of his apartment building. Or, at least, he thought he was until recently... Notes: A very effectively haunting ghost AU. The rest of the series is also good, but this first fic stands so well on its own.

Afraid of the Dark by Giantsketches Supernatural AU (Intrumoceit) Rating: T So badly afraid of the dark that it's disrupting his sleep, Patton is talked into buying a nightlight. But maybe what hides in the darkness isn't actually all that frightening. Notes: A short, cute fic about cuddling shadow monsters. The adorable artwork is an added treat.

WIPs

Far From Boring by Hoard_of_hyperfixations Post-Apocalypse/Zombie AU (Dukeceit) Rating: M Remus is a zombie with (slightly) more brains than most, and just enough luck to run into the one survivor curious enough not to simply shoot him on sight (and with morals just loose enough to keep his ravenous new companion properly fed). Notes: Yet more zombies. Featuring traumatic family reunions and the glorious indignity that is Remus's embarrassing post-mortem crush on Janus.

Vultures by FlowerMeat Serial Killer AU (Gen) Rating: M The sides are a tightly-knit group of serial killers, each with their own unique methods, and all willing to help the others cover up their crimes. Note: This one is super dark, but still each side's particular MO feels so uniquely them. Patton's chapter in particular is something I'm not likely to forget any time soon...

#fic rec #fander fic rec friday #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #rec list

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yourpenpaldee · 5 months ago

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·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ A BRIEF WIPS OVERVIEW.

Hello! I am not good with deadlines, especially when I set them myself. This post was supposed to be up three days ago, but it’s finally here! I’m very excited to share these projects as they were all created from different periods of my life, going back four years at the most.

These will be very short intros, but each WIP mentioned here will have a proper, detailed post when it’s time. The projects also aren’t listed in sequential order of when I’ll post about them with the exception of the first WIP.

A heads-up, most of these are romance since I used to write only romance. It was only about two years ago since I decided to finally branch out, and those stories will be coming soon! For now, I still have to figure out how to write characters that have a way higher IQ than I do…

On we go to the WIPs!

WHEN ART TALKS

— currently undergoing the first draft. — first person — a college romance where a reserved poet who is afraid of public perception connects with an outspoken musician due to their preference on using words as their art medium. — contains late night walk convos, cigarette smoking, passionate rambles, and microwaved meals. — “‘Why do we care about them when it’s our story to tell? We live our truth, we speak our truth, and we have to trust that it’s good enough because it’s all we got. The message will be received by those who are meant to hear it.’”

BLIND SECOND CHANCES

— currently undergoing the first draft. — dual first person — an adult romance in which ex-friends turned (unofficial) ex-lovers from high school decide to explore the old feelings that resurface when crossing paths eight years later. — lots of reminiscing, betrayal, weekly wine nights, and fancy dates. — “‘You’re holding onto a love from a situation where we didn’t even know our place in the world yet. We spent nearly eight years growing into the people we are now, so you need to be prepared for our dynamic to look and feel different because we aren’t the same kids we once were.’”

TO NEW BEGINNINGS

— brainstorming complete, drafting to begin soon. — third person, still deciding on the type — an adult romance story of a woman who decides it’s time to start over on a blank canvas, and meets a booked and busy workaholic along the way. — roller skating, painting, solo adventures, and plant shopping. — “‘It’s scary to deviate from your current life and start anew when your life no longer serves you or your purpose. But I’m not equipped for misery, so I’ll be damned trying to save a life that lost the chance of saving forever ago.’”

UNTITLED ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

— currently a 3am one-liner, brainstorming begins soon — pov to be determined, leaning towards third person limited. — an apocalyptic fiction where a teenage girl fights everyday to survive in an ongoing zombie apocalypse with hopes of finding her younger sister. — found family, zombie slaying, survival vs. morality, and, uh… death. — “She looked at every colorless home she walked by and wondered what stories could be told. What every stored memory that slipped through the cracks consisted of and the emotions they’d provoke. If the lives that once occupied these spaces were unfortunately fortunate enough to make it out like she did. If they constantly watched the memories flash before their eyes as they realized those would be the last batch of joyful, painless memories; how remembering became torturous and insufferable, but is all they have to remind them of their own humanity.”

UNTITLED TWISTED BONNIE & CLYDE

— currently a 3am one-liner, brainstorming begins soon — first person peripheral or third person limited — a dark and twisted romance where two toxic lovers are at the beginning of an inevitable end and play fire with fire the entire way through. — manipulation, heists, lies, and expensive jewelry. — “The venom drips off of every word she says. She watches every last drop seep into my skin and become one with the blood that runs through my veins. How it attempts to shut down my body in hopes that I’ll beg for mercy in my final moments of weakness. That I’ll surrender my life into her hands as those soulless and apathetic eyes beam with some sick and twisted excitement. But I am sick and twisted too. We are two bodies wrapped in the same snake skin, and a snake cannot get poisoned by its own venom.”

PAST LIFE LOVER

— redoing the brainstorm process — first person or objective third person (quote will be in third person) — a soulmate, young adult romance in which a girl who no longer believes in love suddenly gets pulled in by the new barista at her favorite hangout spot. — love at first sight, breakfast deliveries, denial, and baking. lots of baking. — “Then there it was. The locking of the eyes where the inability to look away grows more and more intense with each passing second. They didn’t even know each other, but something in their eyes told them that there was a home waiting for them within each other’s souls.”

ANGEL AND KEN*

— currently on the backburner, brainstorming resumes once past life lover is complete. — prequel to past life lover. — *very much a temporary title — first person or objective third person — a 50’s historical romance where a pessimistic single mother is convinced to see the greener side of the grass by a jazz musician who looks at life through a rose-colored lens. — jazz clubs, slow dancing, tea parties, and red corvettes — “‘Why shut yourself out from the world when there are people like me that have waited for you to waltz right into their life? I know, the modern day world is frightening and filled with so much hatred that it’s hard to find happiness through it all. But people find a purpose to wake up every morning because of that one person that casts the brightest light. You’re my sun in a world full of darkness, and I hope to be the moon that reflects your light when you’re no longer visible in the sky.’”

I know I keep saying it, but I truly can’t wait to properly share these projects. I just hope everyone will enjoy reading it all and find comfort within these characters :)

I will post the the detailed summary for When Art Talks either on Monday or Tuesday (please yell at me if i don’t follow through omg), and the character intros should follow closely behind!

divider creds to strangergraphics ♡

#writeblr #my wips #wip introduction #wip intro #writing wip #authors #writing #creative writing #original stories #writers on tumblr #original fiction #writing community

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nightswithkookmin · 1 year ago

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Never a dull moment in this fandom

@chikooritajjk

Do you see how petty industry players are?????

It's been how long since JK made those comments under Polyc?????

Now imagine if any girl or boy felt slighted in the least by these boys🤣

Mijoo tried to ruin lives and she wasn't even in the picture🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Now- imagine if Jungkook was pulling Vmin side by side😳

WORLD WAR ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE 😭😭😭😭😭

Jimin look like he'd post v's unwashed briefs with ass juice streaks in the bottom🤧

V will definitely post videos of Jimin with uneven facial hair while he farts in his sleep 🥲

I feel bad for this tattoo artist.

Any hate he gets is unwarranted and uncalled for- no one knows what happened ya know. But I can understand his plight.

Artists depend on reviews for the survival of their business. And it's not like people get tattoos every single day. Especially for a conservative place like SK.

One bad review can be really bad for business.

Not to mention all these people who'd make fun of him cos he lost BTS's business.

From one artist to another, I feel his pain.

At least they could have gone to him for their friendship tattoos too 😔

He tagged the post betrayal and misspelled Jungkook

That's a whole other level of petty 🤣 😂

No but why even tag JK he wasn't in the post sir😭🤣

Now, jikook yalls wrong for this😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣🤣

Not nice, my gays. Not very slay of yall

We still love you though 😘

Sorry Ahjassi😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Must hurt like a bitch😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I'll let you tattoo Jimin on my left tittie and call it even 🥴🥴🥴🥴

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skepsiss · 9 months ago

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Chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3 are up now! (7,638 words)

All chapters are now up!!

Read it here on AO3: The Last Strange Thing

Rate: Explicit (violence, gore, and s*x)

Read tags under the cut for warnings, and details.

Welcome to the apocalypse. The demo-infection has taken hold of the world, and humans are a rare thing these days. Still, people hang on to civilization in pockets across North America and beyond. Hawkins is one such place. Steve Harrington is a scout who runs missions for Hawkins, and on one of those missions, he becomes separated from his scouting partner, Robin. He has to find his way across Indianapolis in an infected world, meeting one very important individual on the way, Eddie. The two of them must trust one another in order to journey across Indiana, while perhaps finding something softer to nurture with one another along the way.

The journey is full of romance, death, action, and suspense. This is a "The Last of Us" alternate universe. This work is 100% completed, and I will be posting each chapter between now and April 7. Prepare yourself for approximately 52k of action, horror, romance, supernatural happenings, and love.

@llamalpaca will be posting some VERY COOL accompanying art that inspired this WHOLE PIECE! So be sure to give them a follow and check out that art piece when it drops in April. Look at it here!!!

Big thank you to @knormalizeknitting for being my beta reader!

Link to the Monster Reference Guide, here.

Censoring the word s*x so tumblr doesn't get mad at me. Please don't tag with NSFW or other such tags. The post itself is not inappropriate, but I want people who are going to read the fic to be aware of what is there.

Additional Tags: action, romance, hurt/comfort, alternate universe, The Last of Us AU, canon divergence, apocalypse, apocalypse au, body horror, gore, blood, animal and human death, excessive force (weapons), level of violence and graphic nature of imagery that aligns with Stranger Things, dead dove don’t read, dead dove don’t eat, smut, nsfw, frotting, handjob, happy ending, zombies, zombie apocalypse, steddie, stobin, platonic stobin, Steve and Robin are best friends, Steve and Robin are platonic soulmates, slow burn, emotional hurt/comfort, angst, miscommunication, misunderstanding, Steve Harrington loves Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson loves Steve Harrington, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bisexual Eddie Munson, betrayal.

#my_writing #eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington #stranger things #steddie fic #The last of us #TLOU #Stranger Things Reverse Big Bang 2024 #stobin #robin buckley

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blossom-hwa · 5 months ago

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elegies | k.th

pairing: Taehyun x Beomgyu genre: angst, apocalypse!au warnings: cursing, character death, mentions of blood and guns, zombies word count: 7.1k notes: — this is the second rewrite I'm posting here of this story! you can find the original and the first rewrite linked below :) As the world around him falls, Taehyun keeps moving on.

Lavender Mist | the things we lost along the way | TXT Masterlist

Kai disappears in the middle of the night, and all he leaves behind is a note.

I’m sorry. But everyone’s leaving and I have to leave first or you’ll leave me too.

Don’t look for me.

That’s it. That’s all, the culmination of nearly twenty years of friendship—familiarly messy handwriting scribbled in fading pen on a scrap of dirty paper, fingerprints of dirt smeared on the edges. It’s still in Taehyun’s backpack, crumpled so much by now it’s unreadable, but it doesn’t matter. He couldn’t forget those three sentences if he tried.

I’m sorry.

Taehyun’s sorry, too. Because for all the betrayal of Kai’s disappearance—he chose to leave, chose to vanish, chose to leave Taehyun behind in this shell of a world when they’ve been best friends for so long—Taehyun wonders if things would have happened the same way if he’d been more observant. Less consumed in his own grief. Able to see Kai, really see him in the days after Yeonjun and Soobin left. Would the blank of Kai’s silences have managed to permeate the dull static of his own thoughts. Would Kai have come to him? Would he have been convinced to stay?

They look for him anyway, Taehyun and Beomgyu both. The undead roam and the sun burns fierce, but even as the heat sloughs off his skin and the faces of the undead haunt his sleep, Taehyun can’t stop, won’t stop, even when Beomgyu lays a hand on his arm and says with his eyes that Kai isn’t coming back.

Because he can’t be gone. Not like this. It’s just—a cruel joke. It has to be. Taehyun searches every house and sees Kai hiding behind every corner. He ventures into abandoned subways to find Kai walking out of an old train. He wanders the earth in a daze, seeing Kai everywhere and nowhere, and he’s gone but he can’t be he won’t believe Kai can’t be gone he can’t be gone I need to find him—

Then an undead lurches out of a gas station bathroom and nearly takes a chunk out of Beomgyu, and Taehyun remembers he still has someone to lose.

So he opens his eyes. Blinks away the visions of Kai that haunt the corner of his eyesight, and forces himself to see the world beyond the blank space that Kai left when he disappeared. There is still someone here. Someone left. Someone with him—who stayed even after Kai chose to leave, who still cares for Taehyun, miraculously, even after weeks and months of neglect. And so they move on. As five minus two minus one.

So it’s something of a fucked up joke when Kai returns.

. . . . .

He appears as a shadow in the corner of Taehyun’s eye. Another hallucination, Taehyun thinks at first. A mirage in the heat shimmers rising from the sunbaked ground. He turns away, ready to ignore it, but then Beomgyu gasps, too.

“Kai.”

Taehyun blinks, and there’s his friend standing in the sun, staring back with shattered eyes.

Everything in Taehyun screams to sprint forward, to grab Kai and shake him and hug him and punch him hard. Sob a garbled mix of something like fuck you and how did you find us and I’m so glad you’re back and what happened to you—

But then he sees the black veins creeping up Kai’s neck, and he knows.

“Taehyun.” Kai’s familiar voice cracks on the syllables of his name, but his shattered eyes are clear, so clear. He doesn’t move, but Taehyun has to fight the urge to step back. “Please.”

Please. His head spins. The world is static and only Kai’s bruised face is clear. Please. What the hell is he asking for—

Bulging pupils drop to the gun at his side, and Taehyun understands.

“No. No.” He shakes his head, takes the step back. “No, no—Kai—I can’t—”

“Please,” Kai whispers again. “For me.”

Solid in the haze of the sun and the moment, Beomgyu’s hand makes its way to Taehyun’s shoulder. He barely feels it, almost doesn’t even remember anyone exists but Kai and him, but he does hear when Beomgyu’s whisper flutters past the static and into his ear. “You don’t have to.”

And he’s right. Because Taehyun doesn’t have to—in the strictest definition of the word. He doesn’t have to raise the gun, put Kai out of his misery the way Kai wants him to. The world will move on if he doesn’t. He could turn around and walk away and nothing would be any different.

Besides, Kai was the one who left first.

But—he’s also wrong. Because Kai’s been bitten and if he doesn’t die, he’ll live forever in the worst way possible. Because if Taehyun does turn away, he’ll be condemning Kai to a fate they’ve both agreed is worse than death. Because Kai is still his best friend, no matter what, and who is Taehyun to resist a dying boy’s last wish? What is he, really, if he doesn’t?

Taehyun’s hands are cold. He doesn’t shrug off Beomgyu’s grip, but he does shake his head. “No,” he replies, numb fingers wrapping around the barrel of the gun. “No, I do.”

Kai stares up at Taehyun as he readies the weapon, cracked glass eyes almost whole as a little smile glimmers on his face. “Thanks,” he whispers, and in that moment, Taehyun can’t do it. Won’t do it. This Kai looks too much like the old one, the one with a bright smile and a dolphin screech laugh and dark eyes that glittered with mischief—

Dark eyes marred, now, by those bulging black veins crawling across bruised, burnt skin.

Almost on reflex, Taehyun pulls the trigger. Bang.

And what remains of Kai slumps over, blood and brains pooling in a deep red puddle on the dusty ground.

Taehyun stands there for a while. A second, a minute, an hour—he’s not sure. It’s cold and it’s hot and the world is hazy and he can’t move, can’t tear his gaze away from the remnants of his best friend.

“Taehyun.”

When he finally reacts to his name, Beomgyu has definitely said it more than once. His grip has tightened on Taehyun’s shoulder but when Taehyun finally twitches, the rough-soft hand loosens, slides down to his wrist. “Come on,” Beomgyu says quietly, tugging slightly. “We need to go.”

Blood and brains, still open eyes. A smile.

Taehyun doesn’t move.

“Taehyun.” The grip tightens. “Let’s go.”

Go. Let’s go.

“Taehyun.”

He forces his eyes away from the bloody hole blown into Kai’s head. Vaguely, he feels the gun being peeled out of his hand, hears the safety clicking back on. Beomgyu tugs at his arm again and with a final whisper of his name Taehyun follows, numbly, Kai’s bloody face all he can see.

. . . . .

How do you remember the dead?

It’s a question Taehyun hasn’t been able to answer in the months since the outbreak, when the initial slew of bodies filled the streets and his parents never came home. He could have answered before—smiles immortalized in picture frames, voices in videos taken on phones with the recorder laughing behind the camera. But the internet is gone now and with it the hundreds of thousands of memories people left stored in the cloud. Photos are easily crumpled, even those tucked into plastic sleeves eventually ruined by rain or dotted with dust and dirt, and the time it takes to properly sketch and color a scene to remember is a luxury no one can afford anymore. It’s not as if Taehyun ever had the skill for it anyway.

Memory, then. The duty of the human mind. But the brain is a fickle thing—imperfect, messy, jumbled and imprecise compared to the printed photos he once held in his pocket and backpack, the pictures and videos he had saved on his phone. It remembers what he wishes it wouldn’t and lets go of what he holds most dear. The voices of his family, his friends. Their smiles, their laughs. Ghosts, now, all of them—so faint and pale compared to the horrors that haunt him now. These are the things that leave.

Kai’s bloody face is one of the things that stays.

It haunts him in the days after, that vision of a bloody smile. Beomgyu’s gasp, the black veins creeping up Kai’s face, spasms of pain ruining the angelic picture his friend had once been. The gun barrel between his hands, the broken look in Kai’s eyes, a whispered plea for a mercy that only he could grant. The whole moment is so vivid in the way Kai’s last smiles aren’t. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair.

Life isn’t fair, his parents had told him in the past about things like broken crayons and strict teachers. Move on, and let go. And maybe, in the old world, he could have taken that advice. But they weren’t there to see the world crumble. They weren’t there to watch Taehyun take his first undead life at the ripe age of nineteen, his first real life weeks later. They weren’t there when the ropes at which he could grasp in this swirling ocean of a desert frayed and snapped, when the world took everything and everyone away and left him behind. They weren’t there to watch their son shoot his best friend in the face.

How do you move on when there’s nothing to move on to?

Life isn’t fair. Taehyun hates his parents for leaving him with that, and loves them for not knowing better. What a luxury it would be to have been left behind in the strange world of before, of neon lights and supermarkets and the ability to store laughs on the cloud, never to face this new earth full of monsters only before seen in nightmares. He’s grateful they didn’t have to see what he’s become. He resents that they left him to figure this out alone. He prays that their lives ended as painlessly that they could have. He cries when it hits him, over and over and over, that he’ll never see them again.

Move on, and let go.

He's so glad they died in a world where that was the best advice they could have given, and hates them for not living long enough to give him something better.

(What would his parents say if they knew what he had done? What words would they have given him to live off of?)

(Would there be anything to say at all?)

So Taehyun doesn’t move on. Can’t. Because—he needs to know. How do you reconcile the horrors of now with the joy of the past, keep the memories of the dead alive without seeing their bloody faces every minute? He can’t remember Kai’s laugh or his music, not when his mind won’t stop playing that moment on loop, a faint smile, a whispered thanks, a sharp bang and the remnants of Kai’s body falling, falling, falling to the ground…

Five days after he pulls the trigger, Beomgyu finally begins to tell him.

“They’re still with us.”

Taehyun isn’t sure why that’s what brings him out of this half lucid stupor. Vaguely, he understands that Beomgyu has been talking to him for a while. Talking at him, at least, because he definitely hasn’t been responding. But for some reason he hears that sentence, fully registers it, and though there must be some context he doesn’t have the constant aching grief catches fire in his chest and all he can think is how dare you, how dare you, how fucking dare you try to say that to me now—

“How do you know?” He has Beomgyu’s dirty shirt in his grip, the older boy looking up at him with eyes wide in confusion, surprise, burgeoning anger of his own. “How do you fucking know? How could you say that to me, how could you try and say that after I killed him with my own hands—”

And then his eyes begin to burn. And the tears begin to fall. And the fire dies as soon as it blazed, melted under the weight of Beomgyu’s words, and he’s crying, sobbing, his grip on Beomgyu’s shirt gone as every tear he hasn’t been able to shed over the death of everyone he loved releases itself from the broken remnants of his soul, and he’s crying, and crying, and crying—

Beomgyu’s face swims in his vision. It’s so clear, that moment, despite the blur of his tears obstructing the large eyes and thin lips drawn in a pinched, painful expression Taehyun recognizes from his own few encounters with a mirror since it all started. Because—fuck, Beomgyu is grieving, too. Kai wasn’t just Taehyun’s friend. At some point in time, he was Beomgyu’s too.

Yet despite this grief, Beomgyu’s eyes are soft. No longer angry. And—in the future, Taehyun will know why. Because the loud and playful and endlessly, carelessly kind Beomgyu that he’d known from a distance on the schoolyard is somehow still the Beomgyu of this deadened husk of a world, brash and cheerful and sweet chaos personified in his lightning sharp laugh, still a ray of kindness and raw hope despite all the world has done to make him otherwise. In the moment, though, he doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand. Can’t comprehend how Beomgyu couldn’t hate someone who’d killed a boy they both knew because for all that they’d each pulled the trigger, it had never before been on someone they knew as a brother, a boy they both cherished and loved. So why was Beomgyu still here and trying to comfort him, of all things, when Taehyun was the one who’d caused him so much pain?

“He’s dead,” Taehyun sobs. “He’s dead, and I killed him.”

“He asked you to,” Beomgyu replies quietly.

Against his will, the image returns. Kai’s eyes, so clear, so earnest as he asked despite the oozing veins spasming up his neck and cheek. Please. For me. Words as lucid as his eyes had been, then, devoid of the glazed grief they’d held when Yeonjun and Soobin went, of the emptiness they’d borne the night before he left. In those last moments, if you could ignore the final phases of infection creeping up his skin, he’d have been indistinguishable from the childhood best friend Taehyun had known all his life.

Taehyun squeezes his eyes shut against the scene burned into his vision. Please. For me.

Who was he to refuse the smallest of mercies to the boy he’d always called a friend?

But still, the grief keens in his chest. But still—even then—

(Mom, Dad, I’m so glad you never saw me like this.)

“It wasn’t fair of him to,” Beomgyu continues, cutting through the ache. “But he did.”

Taehyun’s stomach lurches. Twists. It wasn’t fair of him to. No, it wasn’t, but what else could he have done? What else? He was already in the final stages of infection. He had no weapon that Taehyun could see. What could Taehyun have done—what the fuck else could he have done, what other fucking choice did he have—

Life isn’t fair.

Not fair. Never fair. It never could’ve been, never would’ve been, not in this world where he’s been cursed to remain amidst the ashes of everything he’s ever known.

“None of this,” Taehyun grits out, trying not to scream, “is fucking fair.”

“It isn’t,” Beomgyu agrees. “And they—Kai, Yeonjun, Soobin, everyone—they know that.”

Clear as day, unsaid words hang in the air.

None of this is your fault.

“That’s how I know they’re still with us, Taehyun. Because nothing was fair to them, and nothing is fair to us.” Beomgyu had been holding him before but somehow Taehyun was also holding Beomgyu, then, fingers and legs twisted, their sides pressed together as the older boy heaved a deep, shuddering sigh that Taehyun could feel against his chest. “They know it, and they accept it. They must.”

So honest. So sound. So reasonable in Beomgyu’s soft voice, even though on the schoolyard, Taehyun had often fancied himself the more logical and cynical of the two, between his skepticism and Beomgyu’s purported cheer. He listens, and tries to hear, and though the moment is but a blur between the pounding in his head and the tears in his eyes, some things echo. Some things stay. Beomgyu’s words ground him, his voice hoarse with tears, whispering so clearly into Taehyun’s ear.

“I want you to know, too, Taehyun. That’s why I dare to say it.”

. . . . .

In the weeks after, Taehyun thinks. And wonders. Ponders Beomgyu’s words and their truth, teases apart belief from fact. It’s true that life is unfair, that nothing has been fair for Taehyun or Beomgyu or anyone else they knew, but how does Beomgyu know with such certainty that the others know? That they believe, and understand? Because knowing and believing are not one and the same, and besides, they’re dead. How could Beomgyu ever know the thoughts of the dead?

“I don’t know,” is what Beomgyu admits when Taehyun finally finds the courage to ask. They’ve long stopped counting the days but it’s been some time, maybe a month or two, though neither of them can be sure. “Like you say, it’s belief, not fact, but only in the sense that they never told me. I believe in them.” He sighs a little. “That they would never blame us for their circumstances, the way we’d never blame them for ours.”

Taehyun stares at the ceiling, feeling the rough, dusty carpet beneath them. They’re lying in another abandoned house, the previous one picked clean of the few provisions it once had. Picture frames of a happy family haunt the tables and walls, and he tries his best to ignore their eyes staring down at him from their perches. Some of them have fallen to the floor, knocked over by another survivor too worried about food to care about a few smashed pictures and panes of glass.

Or perhaps the photos unsettled them as much as they unsettle Taehyun, and they gave in to the urge to shatter the frames on the ground.

Grief and loathing rise in Taehyun’s chest, and he swallows around the urge to vomit. Beomgyu is better than he is. Taehyun still finds himself cursing his parents for leaving him alone like this. Soobin for getting sick. Yeonjun for disappearing. Kai for forcing him to pull the trigger. Even Beomgyu, sometimes, for making him wanting to stay alive even the slightest bit when it would be so much easier to just give up. Which is none of their faults and he would never want the dead to return just for the sake of his own cold comfort, but it still fucking hurts and sometimes it tries to eat him alive.

He tells Beomgyu as much, not really knowing what reaction to expect, but the older boy only shrugs from his position splayed out on the floor. “But you could never really blame them for this, could you?”

He’s right. Taehyun couldn’t. Which just makes everything hurt more.

“I don’t want to think of them this way,” he says. To his side, he feels Beomgyu’s eyes turning to him, but Taehyun keeps staring at the ceiling. “I just—I want to remember the good things. The memories we had. And how they should have been, if we were all still alive.”

“…Remember when I told you they’re still with us?”

Taehyun almost snorts. “I nearly strangled you, I think it’d be hard to forget.”

“Yeah, well.” Beomgyu snickers too. “Besides that, I was being serious, you know.” His tone turns somber, and even though sleep pulls at his eyelids, Taehyun strains his ears to listen.

“It’s not really remembering,” Beomgyu says quietly. “At least for me. It’s like…a certainty. Knowing that they were there. Knowing that they lived, knowing that I loved them, and knew them, and knowing that they loved and knew me too. I was touched by them when they lived.” He takes a deep breath. “So as long as I live, a part of them…they’ll always be alive, too.”

Beomgyu’s words wash over Taehyun’s skin, a light balm to soothe the ever-present ache in his chest. It’s a lovely thought—so lovely, really, that only Beomgyu, the last ray of raw hope in this world, could have thought of it. But when he finishes, and the silence falls again, something about it still doesn’t sit right with Taehyun. Because it’s all a little too lovely for this broken world of disaster and death.

“How can you think that?” Taehyun asks, and there’s no venom this time. Because for all the beauty of Beomgyu’s words he still can’t quite comprehend them, understand how Beomgyu could ever accept them fully. He wants to know. Needs to. Kai’s face still haunts him whenever he closes his eyes, blood and a smile and stifling smoke rising from a gun in his hand, and he needs it to stop and Beomgyu’s the only one who knows how. How do you remember the dead for what they were, and not just the monsters they became?

“I don’t know,” Beomgyu says again, voice almost frustrated and uncharacteristically sharp. He softens, though, when Taehyun finally meets his eyes. “I just…” He swallows. “I don’t think I’d be able to live if I didn’t believe in it.”

They sit in silence for a while as Taehyun mulls over Beomgyu’s words. I don’t think I’d be able to live if I didn’t believe in it. He understands. It feels like if he doesn’t believe in something, the grief will bury him alive.

“I feel like I’m dying,” Taehyun says quietly. “Every moment, even when I’m not.” Drowning in what is, what was, what could have been.

“Me too,” Beomgyu replies, and in the fractured starlight glinting into his dark eyes, Taehyun knows he’s telling the truth. That he’s dying, but his belief lends him a rope in this dark, dark ocean of blood and sorrow, a rope to cling to that keeps him alive.

I want to believe, too, Taehyun screams inside. I want to. I need to.

“Taehyun.” Moonlight glints in Beomgyu’s eyes. “Look at the stars.”

Taehyun looks out the window. The black night glitters with little diamond stars, so bright and so beautiful that his breath catches. How had he never noticed them before?

“Sometimes, when it’s my turn to watch, I look at them. And I pretend.” Taehyun follows the trail of Beomgyu’s finger as he points to the sky. His eyes, once fractured, now glitter wholly in the moonlight, soft and shining and lovely, all-knowing, so full of a glowing foreign hope. “Like, in that cluster, maybe that’s my mom. And my dad, and my brother. And maybe, next to it, there’s Yeonjun and Soobin and Kai right there.” His finger shifts slightly. Hovers. When he looks back at Taehyun, there’s a little smile on his lips, strong and soft and sure. “I like to think that someday I’ll join them, and we’ll finally be together again.”

Another lovely cliché, one that could only have sounded so beautiful from Beomgyu’s own voice. And this time, when Beomgyu’s hand lowers to the ground, Taehyun finds himself bound by the spell of his words for just a moment longer as the stars twinkle cheerfully above him.

But they’re too lovely. Too bright. Too beautiful to be proper elegies for the dead, when their cruel hope never even dims as the pieces of Taehyun’s world shatter one by one. They could never reflect the sorrow he carries in his scraped hands, the grief he cradles in his ruined chest, the memories, good and bad, that he clings to in the fragments of his broken mind. And as Taehyun continues staring, staring, trying to summon the hope that sparkles so beautifully in Beomgyu’s eyes, all he can think is one thing.

The stars have no right to shine this brightly, not when everyone he loves is dead.

. . . . .

It’s not the only fancy of Beomgyu’s that Taehyun doesn’t understand. Beomgyu sees so many stars in his sky, finds hope in so many strange little things—a tiny flower by the side of the road, a single whole lollipop in a dusty convenience store, a rare, cool wind breezing through his hair as they trek from one shelter to another, taking from empty grocery stores and hiding in abandoned subways. It’s fascinating to Taehyun, really—that Beomgyu can go through so much, can see Kai’s bloody face in his memories every day, and still find something in nothing and believe it matters. He’ll turn around to find Beomgyu humming old songs to the empty air. Inhaling the scent of nature’s overgrown flowers so deeply he chokes. Making bracelets in five braided colors of string as a byproduct of a night’s boredom, looped around his wrist when Taehyun wakes.

“I found the string in a random room and remembered making these when I was a kid,” is all he says to the question in Taehyun’s raised eyebrows. “Got bored while you were sleeping.”

It feels strange, the sensation of the soft, thin braid tickling his wrist as Beomgyu ties it in place, shifting against his skin as he turns it this way and that. Five threads messily twisted and turned together. Five colors, five boys, five friends…

Material things don’t last. Taehyun knows this well. It’s one of the first things he learned in the days after the world fell apart—when the photos he carried of his family finally ripped to the point of no return, victims of dust and rain and his dirty backpack and pockets, when the mementos of home he tried to take became more burdens than memories and he had to leave them behind. But though he knows this, something akin to hope still flares, the tiniest spark, in his chest.

Later, he’ll admit to himself that he’d hoped, foolishly, that this could be his grounding. That this could be how he would remember. But for now he pushes the spark away, looking at Beomgyu and raising an eyebrow to hide the lump welling in his throat. “You sure this is a braid?” he asks, and neither of them says anything about the way his voice catches on the last word.

Beomgyu sticks out his tongue and Taehyun has to hide a smile at how ridiculous the older boy looks, eyes narrowed and glinting with mock hurt and mischief. “You don’t need to wear it if you don’t want to, jerk.”

Even as Beomgyu says the words, though, Taehyun knows that nothing could ever induce him to take it off on his own. Because for all he can’t understand Beomgyu’s stars in a dark, dark night, Taehyun does understand how he feels about the lovely stars in Beomgyu’s own eyes that make him want to listen to everything the loud-mouthed, sweet-tongued boy has to say. A candle lit in the dark, a rope thrown to the drowning.

A single star in Taehyun’s black night, the only one he could ever say was truly beautiful.

Which is why, perhaps, when the bracelet disappears several months later after a too-close call with a horde of the undead, Taehyun feels like something in his chest has been ripped open and torn out. It was bound to happen, he knew—the strings were already thin and faded before Beomgyu found them, and the dust and grime of every day under the hot sun couldn’t have helped. But still, when they get away and Taehyun realizes only dried black blood and sweat now decorate his wrist, not a hint of the five colors to be seen, he nearly goes back. Nearly turns around and sprints to where he almost died just to find it again. Because of that hope, that cruel, dangerous hope—hope when he knew, he knew, that it couldn’t be.

(Hope is meant for the naïve. Hope is meant for fools. Hope is meant for the people who still see loveliness in a world torn apart, for the people who look at the stars and do not see the cruelty of their beauty, only their cheerful, everlasting glow.)

(Hope is a sword that attacks the wielder and weakens him to the world, showing him the love obscured by dust and static and blood.)

(Hope is a word that gives the world meaning again.)

(Hope is a weapon that snatches that meaning away.)

Beomgyu stops him, a hand on his wrist. “Leave it,” he says quietly, his fingers wrapping gently around Taehyun’s arm. “It’s done what it can.”

But—it hadn’t. Hadn’t, at least, the way Taehyun wanted. It hadn’t remained the grounding point that he needed. It hadn’t kept the horrors away. In fact, it was one of the horrors that tore it from him, tore away Beomgyu’s gift and the meaning attached to it, leaving only black blood behind.

(Hope is a weapon that snatches that meaning away.)

Taehyun cries that night, tears running hot and silent down his cheeks as Beomgyu breathes softly in his sleep. And when Beomgyu eventually wakes to Taehyun’s quiet sobs, he doesn’t stop the older boy from wrapping his arms around him, bringing Taehyun’s head down to his shoulder, and letting the tears soak into his shirt.

Because for all it seemed Taehyun never understood Beomgyu, it had always felt like Beomgyu understood him.

. . . . .

Beomgyu knows, too. That material items don’t remain, that they can’t be counted on to house the memories they need, desperately need, to preserve. Taehyun was there when Beomgyu’s own photos became too crumpled and torn to salvage, when the braid he’d made for himself disappeared beneath the dust and dirt of the earth just days after Taehyun lost his. For all his sentimental nature, Beomgyu understands the world around him, knows that despite warmth of its burning sun, nature is cold and unforgiving to those who have wronged it.

So when Taehyun finds the empty can of lavender Febreze in Beomgyu’s bag, he feels like he should be surprised. The last of the scent has long since dispersed into the air, memories of the smell relegated to the back of his mind, so when it comes out in his hand he blinks a little and for a moment there is some surprise—he’d thought Beomgyu tossed it when it emptied. But then he blinks again, and he has to wonder how he ever could’ve thought Beomgyu would even think of throwing it away.

It had been a rare cool day when Beomgyu plucked the can off a barren supermarket shelf and shoved it into his bag, despite Taehyun’s raised eyebrows and obvious concern for the state of his remaining sanity. Taehyun hadn’t asked questions then, but when they found shelter for the evening, just a few days out from where they hoped to reach a survivors’ compound, he’d raised a pointed eyebrow as Beomgyu produced the can from his bag.

“Don’t interrogate me!” Beomgyu had yelped, hands raised in mock indignation as Taehyun fought to hide a smile at his antics. “I’m innocent!”

“I wasn’t going to interrogate you,” he’d replied, giving up on hiding the smile. There was no point anyway, not when Beomgyu looked so carefree, so happy, so unchanged despite the cruelty of the world around him. “I just want to know.”

The hands came down, but Beomgyu’s smile stayed. “I don’t know,” he’d said, shrugging. “It was just there, so I took it.” Taehyun had snorted at that, but he wasn’t done. “I guess I just…didn’t want to leave with nothing at all.”

Despite the previous levity, Taehyun remembers a tightness in his chest, a prickling behind his eyes as he stared at the almost garishly purple can in Beomgyu’s dirty hand. That was something he could understand.

“Do you even know how it smells?” he’d asked, ignoring the stupid lump in his throat. He’d never quite given up on that habit, not even long after Beomgyu proved he could read Taehyun no matter how he tried to keep his tears quiet.

But Beomgyu didn’t say anything, just looked at the can with a guiltily mischievous expression on his face. His finger rested on the valve as he looked back up at Taehyun, ready to shrug again as he grinned. “Look, it has to be better than the things we smell outside.”

It was better, but mostly because it’s hard not to be better than the stench of rotting corpses mixed with the tang of dried blood coupled with the scent of blooming flowers in the hot wind that somehow makes it all worse. Strong, too—clearly a year of sitting unused on a shelf hadn’t done much to dampen the scent. When Beomgyu sprayed it the first time, more on accident than anything else, they had to stifle coughs and sneezes for too many minutes as the mist tickled their noses.

And yet they kept it.

Which is weird, because most useless things that Taehyun and Beomgyu, despite his inner child, would put in the same category as questionable year-old Febreze get left behind. It’s a luxury, and there’s no space for luxuries in their bags—not phones, not photos, not dingy string bracelets braided with threads in five different colors. Things like Febreze weren’t supposed to have held a place in their lives.

But as the days pass, Beomgyu carves out a place for its too-strong flowery sweet scent. A tiny puff in the air when they return to their current shelter after finding the compound razed to the ground. A small spritz to freshen up before they move on to the next abandoned home. And as they keep struggling through their barren world, emptying the can on their way, Taehyun begins to wonder—when humanity has completely fallen and another race takes up the earth, what will they be remembered by? Will it be the broken braided bracelets threaded in five different colors fallen by the side of the road? Will it be photos of the dead left in abandoned frames in abandoned homes, or stuffed in dirty bags and soiled by dust and rain?

Will it be an empty can of lavender mist at the bottom of a survivor’s bag, the strong, sweet scent of home still a wisp in the air?

Because for all the tickle of lavender mist grates on Taehyun’s nose at the start, slowly, subtly, it does begin to smell of home. Of comfort. Of rest. Of Beomgyu’s presence on the days when Taehyun can’t hold the gun for fear of seeing Kai’s bloody face, when Taehyun can only find death and disaster in every street they pass, when he can’t stand without the world crashing down on his shoulders. On these days, there’s always the weight of Beomgyu’s hand in his, in the press of his body against Taehyun’s during sleepless nights, in the brief dusting of lavender mist into the air…

And one day, the scent isn’t too strong. It isn’t too sweet. It’s a break, a respite, a piece of the old world that miraculously wasn’t lost even in the wake of disaster.

When Taehyun looks at Beomgyu then—really looks at Beomgyu—as he spritzes small bursts of mist into the air of their new makeshift shelter, it only takes him a minute to realize that Beomgyu feels this way, too. That he’s probably felt it for a long time.

So when Taehyun finds the empty can in Beomgyu’s bag, after the momentary surprise, he blinks once, and twice, and remembers the scent. Remembers the sentiment. Remembers this reminder, however small, of home.

How could Beomgyu have thrown this away?

He tries the valve, even though he knows it’s empty. Nothing comes out.

It’s been three days since Beomgyu went. Three days since he showed Taehyun the bite festering black and red, three days since he drew the gun at his belt and weighed it in his hand, three days since he smiled at Taehyun, lips trembling, and raised the muzzle to his temple.

(“Turn around, Taehyun. Don’t watch. It’s okay.”)

(“I won’t do it until you turn away.”)

Only then, with the empty metal can in his hand, does Taehyun finally cry.

He cries for his parents, who were out when the virus got them and never managed to return alive. He cries for his friends who passed first, three of the five strings that frayed over the months until the knotted bracelet fell off his wrist, one ill, one disappeared, one shot. He cries for Beomgyu, the fourth string and his only family left, his last thread of hope in this heartless world. He cries for him, Taehyun, the fifth string and the last one alive, so far from home and never to return.

Taehyun cries for the hope Beomgyu carried that was destroyed three days ago with a bullet shot by Beomgyu’s very own hands. A bullet that took the last of all that he had, leaving him with—

Nothing.

(What will the world remember him by when he goes?)

When Taehyun wakes in the middle of the night, eyes red and cheeks sticky with tears, something in him begs to stay still. What use is there in forging on, in living when everything has been lost, when there’s nothing and no one left to survive for?

(A crumpled family photo dissolved in the rain?)

Is there even a point?

(A broken braid of five frayed strings, buried under the dust by the road?)

Taehyun stares at the gun by his side. Loaded. Always within arm’s reach. So easy to lift, so easy to position, so easy to use. It would be so simple to mimic Beomgyu’s actions from three days ago. Lift. Point. Pull. Bang.

(Or the trail of bodies left in his wake, one sick, one vanished, two shot with the very gun by his side?)

But on his other side, the can of lavender mist rolls against his hand. The metal is warm from his touch, the dirty purple of the wrapping an eyesore in the corner of his vision. He looks at it through bleary eyes and for a moment, he can almost smell it in the air—strong, floral, sweet.

Home.

(Perhaps a can of lavender mist at the bottom of a beat-up bag, the remnants of a scent that came from home.)

Material things don’t last, it’s true. Everything eventually gives way to death and decay. But in that moment, Taehyun learns—some things return anew. Bursts of five rainbow colors, a single star in a cloudy night, a remnant of lavender blooming on the breeze—and they tickle a memory in his mind, bringing back, if only for a moment, something beautiful.

Perhaps this, then, is letting go. How to remember. Not by the stars and their ominous cheer, not by memories slipping from the desperate grasp of his mind. Because he will remember. Always. By the tiny things that remind him of those he once loved, and still loves.

Memories fade. There are things Taehyun can’t or doesn’t recall for long stretches of time. Voices. Laughs. Smiles. The good and the bad, the horrors and the joys, what once was and now is. But sometimes, a piece of the current world will remind him of something. A bird’s soft chirp brings back his mother’s gentle voice. A roll of thunder crackles like his father’s laugh. Yeonjun’s reassuring grip, Soobin’s soft smile, Kai’s musicality in a light, cool wind curling through the air.

Beomgyu’s hand in his own under a night sky full of stars, fingers loosely intertwined with a promise of hope he will never understand.

(Hope is for the naïve. Hope is for fools. Hope is for the people willing to give their hearts to the world, when nothing guarantees that they will get it back.)

But this is hope. His hope. His remembrance. His elegies for the dead, poems written not in the stars but in the pockets of color he finds as the days go by. There isn’t much for him, not in this world, but there is something left for those who have gone. A hope. A dream. A wish. A prayer whispered on lavender scented air, too sweet and too strong and smelling so much of home—a prayer that things will be okay someday.

(Hope is a weapon that weakens the wielder to an unforgiving world.)

And if they are, even if it only becomes true in the last moments of Taehyun’s life, he wants to see it. For them.

(Hope is a word that gives the world meaning again.)

It isn’t easy. It isn’t fair. It never will be, really. There will always be days when the horrors constrict his chest so he cannot breathe. There will always be days when he can’t lift himself from the ground, so he tries to just give up. There will never be a reason he’s alive and everyone else is dead. But on those days, when the sun sets and the moon rises and the stars come out once more, Taehyun holds the long empty can of lavender mist, its label rubbed away under layers of dirt and grime, and he remembers. A sweet scent, a cackling laugh. A gentle voice, a warm smile.

A boy who gave him a reason to be.

So when morning rises, Taehyun rolls over. Stands. Places the empty can back in Beomgyu’s bag, picks it up along with his. Slings them over his back.

And starts walking again.

The sun beats harsh on his brow. Branches catch on his clothes. The snarl of animals and the undead alike whisper faint in his ears. But day by day, Taehyun continues, despite the strangling embrace of Mother Nature curling around him no matter where he goes. Because at night, when darkness sets and the moon rises, Taehyun will feel it. Hope. Not in the garish twinkle of the stars, not in the baleful gaze of the moon on his skin, but in the reminder of a boy whose smiles never made sense, who found things beautiful Taehyun could never dream of comprehending, but who held his hand anyway as starlight shimmered in his dark, laughing eyes.

In the scent of lavender mist filling his nose, no matter where he decides to go.

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

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salstray · 1 year ago

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Luck of the Draw - part 2

Ghost x fem!Reader - Left 4 Dead/Cod AU

This story is written in first person. I understand that some people don't like first person reader inserts, so if you are one of them, please just keep on scrolling! And if the thought of a left 4 dead/cod au sounds fun, but this one doesn't appeal to you? Feel free to write your own! Or request it from a favorite author, as long as they are open for requests and au ideas~

Warnings: A little bit of angst, I suppose, but not really. Just a vague mention of past abuse and a lack of trust on the MC's part pointed towards the boys. Also no zombies yet, but I PROMISE they will be there in the next part- This won't just be an apocalypse au, I swear it!

Words: 2.4K!

Part 1 // part 3 will be linked here when its posted!

We moved in a line. Soap up front, me in the middle, Ghost behind us. I wasn’t a super fan of having tall, dark, and British behind me at all times, but I convinced myself through an internal argument that it was better than being exposed. At least if a Jockey or something managed to sneak up on us that meant it would jump on his back instead of mine.

Our trip lasted all day. Heading almost directly southeast, keeping the steadily setting sun just to the right of our path. Soap and Ghost were dead silent the entire time and I didn’t try to take up the mantle of conversationalist in their absence. Ghost probably would have yelled at me that I was distracting them and I didn't want to see if Soap had a mean streak hidden behind that smile.

It was only once the sun started to slip down over the tops of the distant trees, out of sight, that the guys decided it was time to stop for the night.

“Better not to get caught outside after dark,” Soap muttered as Ghost took the lead of our pack, nudging open the door to a little pizza place. It was completely silent inside, with no broken windows and no visible corpses. Looked like it had probably been closed when everything went down.

“Seems pretty untouched,” I whispered, glancing down the street, in the one direction we’d seen some infected about twenty minutes ago. It was surprisingly empty of them down this road, which set me on edge. “Think we’ll find food inside?”

“Might. If not Ghost and I will share what we got,” Soap replied quietly, his eyes trained on Ghost’s back as he slipped into the kitchen with his gun raised.

“Clear,” he called. “Soap, check the bathrooms. There’s a freezer door back ‘ere I’ll poke into.” He turned to pin me with his eyes. “You, keep back.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

The place ended up being empty. Not even a blood stain to be seen. The freezer was broken, clearly, and everything that was perishable had long since perished, but there were a few canned things that had lasted through the apocalypse that we shared between the three of us. Ghost didn’t take his mask off to eat. Just lifted it up so it didn’t block his mouth and stared right back at me as I stared at the scar that cut through his lips. Maybe before all this I’d have cared more about how that made me look, how that made him think I was, but the end of the world had a funny way of reshuffling your fears and anxieties.

Once our lovely dinner was done and over with, the remaining food slipped away for the future, Ghost told Soap and I to get some sleep, then stepped out into the dining room to keep watch for the night. Soap propped himself up against the wall by the freezer door, his gun in his lap, and leaned his head back and closed his eyes. I chose to curl up in the corner along the same wall as him, with my knees tucked into my chest and my hands folded under my head.

My eyes didn’t close, however. Instead they kept staring out into the darkness, towards the dining room door. Towards where Ghost was. It sounded like Soap was asleep. He was breathing deeply and hadn’t moved in a while, but I still didn’t really trust these two.

Neither of them had shown any signs of possible betrayal and everything they had done only reinforced the idea that they were actual military men. Yet there was still that little hint of doubt at the back of my mind. That one instinct that told me to keep my guard up, my mind active, my eyes open. I trusted them to keep me safe from the zombies, but I knew the only thing that would keep me safe from them was myself.

I dozed off a few times. Never fully fell asleep, jerked awake at every rush of wind or creak of the building, but still. It was better than nothing. I probably would have gotten better sleep if I’d still been in that attic. My plan had been to stay there for a few days. Deal with the hunger for as long as I could, rest up, then search the suburbs for anything that might have been left behind by the families there.

Halfway through the night, Ghost stepped back through the door and I instantly pushed myself up so I was sitting, my eyes wide, fearing that something had gone wrong.

He didn’t say anything though. Not to me. His eyes danced over to me in the darkness, but he just walked right over to Soap and nudged him in the leg with his boot. Soap breathed deep, his eyes opening easily as he tilted his head back to look up at his partner.

“My turn?” he asked softly. Ghost nodded and Soap nodded back before he pushed himself to his feet. He also spared me a glance, smiling when he spotted me sitting up and staring at them. “Go back to sleep. Just switching the watch, is all.”

Soap stalked out of the room, looking completely awake, and Ghost slid down the wall to take the same position as Soap.

After a moment of hesitation, I curled back up on my side, falling back into the silence of the night.

Ghost didn’t let it linger between us long.

“Haven’t slept a wink, have you?” He whispered. His voice carried through the room with ease, making me flinch as it hit my ears. I shifted a bit on the floor. The urge to roll to my other side was strong, but I wasn’t willing to put my back to the room to relieve the ache in my limbs.

“No.”

He grunted. Then spoke again. “Should try to.”

“Have been.”

“Try harder.”

I lifted my head, just enough so he could turn and see how my face was twisted in annoyance.

“Bastard,” I hissed.

To my surprise, his eyes scrunched and his shoulders shook and I heard him chuckle. He didn’t seem the kind to laugh easily, but of course getting a rise out of me would do it. Ghost didn’t say anything else and I settled back on the floor a few seconds later. The urge to snap at him again was strong, yet I managed to ignore it.

“So how long have you been out here alone, lass?” Soap asked, his fingers idly drumming against the handguard of his rifle.

We were walking along a road. One side was lined sparsely with trees and the other was nothing but a rotting cornfield. It was open and windy and apparently the perfect time to start interrogating me about my past. Soap was to my left and Ghost was a few paces behind us both, his eyes scanning the fields around us. Every now and then we passed an empty car, but besides that it was completely barren.

“Pretty much since the beginning of all this,” I replied with a shrug. “My family always liked to talk a big game about what we’d do if zombies ever hit, but the second they did, it all fell apart. I was home alone. Everyone else was at work… I said they were dead, but honestly, I have no idea what happened to any of them… I stayed home for a few days after everything went wrong, though, so I figure if they didn’t try to come get me…,” I shrugged again and Soap’s face looked grim. “Went out on my own when looters turned up and started threatening me.”

“Sorry, lass,” he muttered.

“Don’t be, they were an abusive bunch of assholes anyway.” Soap’s brows raised suddenly and he glanced at Ghost over his shoulder. “I don’t miss any of them.”

“Not one?”

“Not. One.”

“Well… guess that’s a bright side, then,” he said, scoffing.

“Mhm. What about you? What’s your sob story?”

Soap shook his head at me. “No story to sob over. My family’s tucked away on base in the UK. I wasn’t working when this all went down, but was called up pretty fast once things got rollin’. Got 'em safe, then got called in.” I nodded a few times, a smile curling at my lips.

“That’s good to hear. What about you, Ghost?” I asked, turning to walk backwards a few paces so I could look at him while I spoke. “What’s your whole deal?”

Soap’s brows raised again and he glanced back towards Ghost yet again as his dark eyes turned on me. No one spoke for a short while. I kept walking backwards, thankful that this road was smooth and there weren’t any cracks or bumps for me to trip and eat shit over.

“Don’t have one.”

“A deal or…?”

“Family.”

“Because of the zombies?”

“No.”

“Why the mask?”

“Lass-” Soap started, the warning clear in his tone. “Don’t.”

Ghost didn’t offer anything else but a set of narrowed eyes, so I took Soap’s advice and turned back around to continue our walk in silence.

We were still on the road when night fell. There were no buildings in sight and no signs of any zombies, but Ghost and Soap still didn’t want to be out in the open, so we stopped just after the sun fell below the horizon, when we found a big van that could fit us all while keeping us out of sight.

It had a big enough space in the back to fit us all on the floor. Not comfortably. However comfort wasn’t the worry, at least not for the guys.

It wasn’t what I was worried about either, to be fair. What I was worried about was the fact that they wanted to keep me in the middle of our sleep pile.

“Why?”

“You’ll be safer there and I don’t think I’d survive too much longer if I woke up snuggled up on Ghost,” Soap said with a laugh.

“And what makes you think I want you snuggled up on me?” I almost snarled, snapping him out of his humorous mood. His eyes flickered down to my hands, where I was gripping my gun like a lifeline, then over to Ghost, a frown pulling at his lips.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, lass,” he said, sounding serious for the first time since I’d met him. “Swear it. All hands will be kept to themselves.” My eyes narrowed at him. “It’s just to keep you safe. Ghost and I are used to this sort of thing, even before the outbreak, we’ve done this a thousand times with people we’ve been tasked to keep out of the line of fire.”

I still wasn’t convinced.

“How ‘bout this,” Ghost said, stepping up beside me. I flinched when he reached forward and my eyes widened when I realized he was offering me a knife. “You keep this close. In hand. Guns won’t be any use in such close quarters, so if we do anything that makes you feel threatened, give us a new hole, alright?”

That was a little more reassuring… I still wasn’t completely happy about the set up, but the sun was gone and the light was fading fast and the closing darkness felt more like it was pressuring me about my choice than anything else. So, with a quiet sigh, I nodded and took the knife from Ghost.

Then I crawled into the back of the van and was quickly squished between the both of them.

Neither of them planned on keeping watch that night. Since we were in such an open space with no threats in sight, they figured it was best for them to both catch up on sleep while things were clear. I had hoped to do the same, since I hadn’t slept even a little bit the night before. I was finding it difficult to drift off, however.

It was just fear keeping me awake. Pure fear.

The knife Ghost gave me was clutched in my left hand, which was resting against my chest. On my back, I had Soap’s back pressed into my left arm and Ghost’s shoulder touching the right, giving me no room to worm away. Maybe I would have if Ghost wasn’t on his back, but he seemed to like sleeping like a vampire with his hands folded over his stomach, so…

“Relax.” I flinched at the sound of his voice and turned to stare at Ghost through the shadows, my grip tightening on the hilt of his knife. “I know you don’t trust us, but we aren’t gonna hurt you. Aren’t gonna touch you.”

He could say whatever he wanted, but words were words. They didn’t mean jack shit in the end of it all.

“Why didn’t you just let me go to the base myself?” I whispered back to him.

“Told you why.”

“I survived fine enough on my own up until then.”

“Couldn’t risk lettin�� your luck run out.”

“Thought it was just luck that kept me alive this long?”

“It's just luck that’s kept any of us alive through all this.” I couldn’t really argue with that. Zombies were bad enough. The rapid mutations only made it worse. Luck really was a big part of it, that was just a fact. “Try and get some sleep. We move out at sunrise.”

Ghost turned away from me after that, facing the roof of the van as his eyes fell closed. Less than a minute later he was breathing deeply and evenly and I allowed myself to loosen my grip on the knife. Just a little.

Neither of them moved in their sleep. All they did was breathe. They didn’t even snore, which was almost weird, but then I thought about how they were military. Probably used to falling asleep whenever they could, wherever they could. Having to be quick and quiet about resting in dangerous places. It was a skill I wish I’d gained through all this. I’d always had trouble falling asleep, even when I was exhausted, like I was now. If I didn’t manage to calm myself down and let myself rest for at least a little while tonight, I’d be a walking liability and luck would get us nowhere.

I took a deep breath, letting my eyes close lightly. Then I took another and risked rolling over onto my right side, putting my back against Soap’s and facing Ghost. I kept the knife in my hand and rested my fist next to my head, trying to keep my breathing steady, trying to relax myself enough that I could sleep.

thank you for reading :3

have a lovely day!

#Call of Duty #Simon Riley #Simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley x you #mw 2 #modern warefare 2 #cod modern warfare #Cod #ghost cod #left 4 dead #call of duty au #my works #i think thats all the dang tags i had on the last one-

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blurred-lines19 · 5 months ago

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I uploaded this chapter last year, but I'm just now posting it here! I'm going to be doing this with the rest of them over the next couple of days :P

"One bite and five days are all it took for the world to come to an end. Nearly two months after an unexplainable, violent illness swept throughout the globe like a raging wildfire, after cities have crumbled to ruin and most of humanity has been wiped out, only a few survive. Some of those still alive are just trying to survive, while others are searching for an answer—a reason why and what caused people to turn into walking, cannibalistic corpses that decay but never seem to truly die. Now, a group of survivors—a dog, few adult figures, and a bunch of teenagers—search for a cure and must figure out how to live with the undead amongst them, and how to deal with each other as relationships strain and tensions rise."

†· Word Count: 2395 †· Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types †· Rating: Mature †· Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death †· Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Silena Beauregard/Charles Beckendorf, Thalia Grace/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano †· Characters: Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, Leo Valdez, Nico di Angelo, Frederick Chase, Frank Zhang, Luke Castellan, Hazel Levesque, Jason Grace, Piper McLean, Grover Underwood, Juniper (Percy Jackson), Katie Gardner, Travis Stoll, Connor Stoll, Chiron (Percy Jackson), Will Solace, Silena Beauregard, Charles Beckendorf, Clarisse La Rue, Thalia Grace, Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano †· Additional Tags: Angst · Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence · Inspired by The Walking Dead · Title from a My Chemical Romance Song · Found Family · Bittersweet · Based on a My Chemical Romance Song · I'm so sorry · Everyone Needs A Hug · Hurt/Comfort · Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse · Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson-centric · Betrayal †· **First Person POVs** †· Rated Mature for strong language, violence, sexual references, etc..

Annabeth

I am so lost. Worst of all, I’m alone—with about twenty reanimated corpses chasing after me like they haven’t eaten in decades. (Based on the thick, dark red blood dribbling down their chins, though, I doubt it.) Despite my own desperate situation, I’m pleading and praying that Thalia, Luke, and Leo—all of them—are okay. How did we even get split up? We were all next to each other this morning, then—God, they all came out of nowhere.

The undead snarl and snap their jaws at me, showing their rotting, foul teeth—the insides of their mouths black and corroded, filled with flies and their larvae. The thundering of their clumsy, heavy steps gets louder and I snap my head back to see the growing crowd. I bite back a curse. My legs are throbbing and ache from the exertion, threatening to give out on me at any moment. Obviously, I can’t keep running forever. But I also can’t stop unless I want to get torn apart.

I’m reaching an intersection and take a sharp right turn.

Bad idea.

My feet nearly slip out from under me as I scramble backward, running away from the cluster of walking cadavers and back the way I came. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the horde almost right next to me, snarling and outstretching their decaying arms toward me in a horrific embrace. My lungs sting as if I’m trying to breathe in hot, rusty air, the eye-watering stench of rotten flesh burns my nose as a half-decomposed hand claws at the back of my shirt, tearing a hole in it as I pull away. I yelp, forcing myself to push through the aching pain.

I turn another corner (thankfully, one without any ghouls), chucking some food from my backpack down the street as far as I can throw it, and slip into a shadowy, narrow alleyway, skidding to a stop. With my breathing ragged and unsteady, I have a hard time staying silent as I press my back flush against the hot brick wall, sweat running down my temple. Almost as soon as I step into the alleyway, the stampede of rotting corpses rushes past me, none of them appearing to have noticed me. For who knows how long—it’s hard to estimate time when you’re playing a lethal game of hide-and-go-seek tag—I’ve been rushing through Midtown, a labyrinth fallen to ruin, with only a few breaks (to say that I’m exhausted would be an understatement). And yet I still have a lot further to go to get out of here. Well, if I manage to. Honestly, I should be dead right now.

After listening for a minute or two, I exhale, collecting my wits before peaking around the corner. I sink to the dirty alleyway floor, a rat scurrying past me, and take a few minutes to catch my breath. As much as I want to rest here and not move for the foreseeable future, I need to get further away from the undead that are feasting on something—or someone—and completely ignoring the pack of beef jerky I threw. Rude. I take a quick swig of my water—quenching the dry, sandpaper feeling in my mouth—readjust my pack on my shoulder, and start walking down the alley, taking the opportunity to ease up a bit and give my legs a break.

After carefully walking a few blocks away from the horde, I found a safe place to rest and eat something. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until my stomach growled and scared the hell out of me. From my hiding spot behind the dumpster, I pull out the little bit of food that’s left in my bag: a grand feast of a fourth of my water and a sandwich. Go figure, I think to myself. Even though I tried to conserve my rations for the past few days, it was a pathetic notion, thinking I could manage, really; I hadn’t had that much, to begin with.

How is this going to work?

After pondering it for a minute or two, I decided to only eat as much as necessary to keep myself from passing out. Almost a month into the apocalypse, it’s hard to find anything. Especially in the city.

While I was staring off into space, I failed to notice the low snarling from my right. I sharply turn my head, peeking through the crack behind the dumpster. I don’t see anything... A horribly mutilated face meets mine, gnarling and screeching as it tries to reach its arm through the small gap. I fall backwards and bump into the other dumpster behind me with a loud thud, but quickly stand up. The one got itself stuck, its skin tearing off its arm as it still tries to grab at me, except the three down the alley aren’t and are already making their way toward me. I turn on my heel and bolt, my pack unzipped and its contents spilling out.

Thankfully, I make it out of the alleyway.

On the other hand, after I make it out, I trip over a raised chunk of concrete on the sidewalk and go sprawling forward, a sharp, blistering pain shooting up from my ankle as it fails to turn with the rest of my body. The side of my head bangs against the bumper of a dusty red sedan, sending a rattling feeling throughout my body—I’m only vaguely aware of the sensation of blood on the side of my head. Stars swim in my vision, but I can’t blink them away. In my dazed state, I can see (and hear) the small yet approaching group and start hacking away with my bronze dagger, praying that I’m hitting my targets. One falls on top of me, but I push the heel of my hand against its gross, rotting forehead, trying to keep its snapping jaws at bay. I plunge my dagger into its rotten pumpkin-like skull and roll it off of me.

Did it bite my arm? God, no—please. I’m not sure.

My vision inevitably clears and I manage to find my balance and stand to take down the last two undead barreling at me; I stab the first, my blade making a squelching sound when I pull it out and shove it aside as the second clumsily races forward.

Closer... Closer... THUMP!

I step out of the way at the last second, shoving the half-dead man face-first onto the hood of the car. Grabbing it by its thin, greasy hair, I pull it back and bash his head against the car over and over again until its brains splatter the hood. Then the car alarm goes off. I let go of the man carelessly, limping to the driver’s side of the car. Locked. Damnit.

I feel something trickle down my lip. I wipe my upper lip with the back of my hand, only to see blood. Great. First, my ankle, then my head, and now my nose. I’m practically a walking “Eat Me” sign.

The setting sun glares at me, and I'm only now aware of the number of dead bodies lying behind me. If there were that many earlier, who knows how many will come out—especially with the blaring car alarm.

The world seems to tilt, and my body sways as a wave of vertigo washes over me. This isn’t good, I think as I cling to a street lamp for stability. Nightfall is coming, and I’m exposed here, out in the open. And in the middle of Manhattan, to boot. Just my luck. Turning my head as quickly as it will let me, I look for somewhere to hide for the night.

I can hardly think straight... The sudden urge to vomit overwhelms me, but I choke it back down. No. Please, please, please, not now. If I got bit I swear— No. I’ve got to get a grip. ‘Panic’ is not in my vocabulary. ‘Logic’ is, however, and I need to use that right now. I make a mental note of it: Plan now, panic later.

First things first, I need to find shelter and then deal with my injuries. A barricaded apartment building catches my eye. It looks safe enough. Well, for the most part. There are a few broken windows and boards torn off and chunks of brick missing. Other than that, however, it appears pretty much untouched compared to everything else. It’s not my brightest idea, but I only have two options in my concussed state: stay in the open street, or go into the decimated apartment building, which may or may not be inhabited by the living dead.

I look both ways—fuck, I feel awful—catching a glimpse of three ghouls down the street. Since they have likely been dead since the start, their vision should be terrible. Still, to be safe, I jog across the road (more like hobble, given the state of my ankle), hiding behind various objects until I’m sure the coast is clear.

When I make it to the apartment, I only hesitate for a moment before crawling under a wooden board.

†††

I grip the railing as I begin ascending another flight of stairs, my knuckles white and palms clammy. My footfall echoes throughout the stairwell and I cringe with each step as the sound bounces from wall to wall. Could they be any quieter? Every breath sounds louder than it probably is and my footsteps thunder against the metal stairs. Having said that though, I haven’t seen or heard anything in the ten minutes I’ve been in here, so that’s a good sign.

I hope.

A white-hot fire burns in my legs, snaking its way up from my ankles to my hips. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but I can already tell I hurt my ankle pretty bad.

Finally, I reach the third floor. (The stairs weren’t too bad, but with the condition I’m in, it was absolutely exhausting.) A dirty window at the end of the hallway allows the dim, fading sunlight to shine through as the only source of light. It looks, well, abandoned; papers, trash, clothes, and broken glass are scattered through the hallway with dried blood everywhere. On the walls and the floor, really the only sign that there were ever people here. A child’s toy is laying on a dark—almost black—stain on the floor, covered with so much blood that it took me a minute to figure out what it was.

I shiver at the sight, my skin crawling, and quickly avert my eyes to the woman dressed in a dirty, torn green dress appearing in the hall. I almost call out but stop myself. The undead woman doesn’t notice my presence, going straight for the apartment a few doors down from me, and thumps her head against the door like a bird flying into a closed window. Certainly not the brightest of the bunch. She continues to try to walk through the closed door, which would be almost comedic if it wasn’t such a melancholic and dangerous situation. That woman was alive at one point; now, she has been degraded to a walking corpse. All that noise is going to attract any more that might be in here, though...

I walk towards her, carefully side-stepping the clutter on the floor, and sneak up behind her. When the half-dead woman with dull, cloudy eyes notices me it's too late. As she starts to turn around, I silently plunge my dagger up the nape of her neck and out as her body falls to the floor with a muffled thud. I frown at the sad sight and drag her out of the way.

The fact that (other than the one I just killed) there are no undead nags in the back of my mind, but what intrigues me more is the question of who or what is in that apartment. It might be stupid—extremely stupid—but it seemed like there was something in that apartment that she was trying to get to, which could be either a good or a bad sign. Best case scenario: it's empty and the dead woman was acting off of what is left of her muscle memory. Worst case scenario: undead dwell inside, eagerly waiting to tear me apart.

I press my ear to the door and listen carefully for any noise. Surprisingly, it's eerily quiet. No ragged breathing or shuffling sounds. No groaning or moaning.

Nothing.

Now that I think about it, I haven't heard anything other than myself. I'm still strongly against the idea of just waltzing into a random room, but I'm about to punch a wall if I can't find somewhere to sleep for the night. Right then, an idea pops into my head. I test the doorknob and, sure enough, it's locked. I wriggle the door knob rather loudly, waiting for something to happen. But nothing comes.

Deciding that it seems okay, I pick the lock and nudge the door to the dark room open, closing and locking it behind me. After my eyes adjust to the lighting (or the lack thereof) I scan the room cautiously. The apartment is in a state of disarray, yet spotless compared to the bloody and chaotic mess outside; an armchair in the corner overturned, stuffing spilling out of a tear in the upholstery, water dripping from a leak in the ceiling somewhere, broken and dismantled furniture spread across the room. It feels empty, yet also lived in. I swear I hear something attempting to get in, then I realize it’s just a mouse. I let out a shaky breath and try to shrug it off, narrowing it down to paranoia and exhaustion. I’m too tired to defend myself at this point. The door is locked, and there isn’t anything in here—I’m somewhat safe, for now. If I can make it through tonight, I can make a plan in the morning and figure a way out of this stupid goddamn city.

Right as I get myself calmed down, though, the atmosphere shifts. Suddenly, the air feels denser. Heavier.

Something is wrong.

The hairs on the back of my neck prick up, sending a chill through me. Before I can turn around, I hear the sound of a gun cock behind me.

“Don’t give me a reason to shoot you.”

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