In the city center.
The sun had already risen, painting the sky a warm, orange hue that grotesquely contrasted with the cold morning air. Alex moved cautiously, leading the small group toward the city's southwest. It was the closest direction to Ron's shelter, a shelter Alex hoped was still standing.
The journey was anything but simple. They had barely entered the residential zone, and the feeling of an abandoned world was already overwhelming. They walked among the silhouettes of vehicles that had stopped abruptly, as if their occupants had just evaporated.
Cars in the middle of intersections, others on the side of the road. The 'Closed' signs in the shop windows now seemed like a cruel joke, remnants of a time when people worried about protests and not about survival.
It had only been a day and a half since it all began. The remains of civilization were still fresh, but Alex knew that soon rust and weeds would devour the cars and streets, and nature would reclaim its territory.
Suddenly, Alex stopped.
A group of zombies shambled slowly down the opposite side of the street, feet dragging and guttural moans escaping their throats. There were about a dozen. Tension washed over Alex, but then he relaxed. He wasn't alone. Tim, Emily, George, and the rest of the high school group following him were now a team.
In a low voice, Alex gave the orders.
"Use the cars for cover. Take them out one by one, slowly. Don't rush them... I'll cover Rose and Yuki."
Tim nodded, his face expressionless. Emily, who had been quiet the whole way, gripped her makeshift spear. The student group moved with a precision that impressed Alex. They used the cars to funnel the zombies, and with the handcrafted spears they'd made, they dispatched them. They didn't waste energy, and most importantly, no one got hurt.
Their method was slow, silent, and effective. Something Alex had taught them, and they could now put into practice.
Once the undead were dealt with, the group resumed its march. Just a few blocks away, a luxury store with a shattered display window caught Alex's eye. Several men crouched among the mannequins, ignoring the chaos outside. They seemed engrossed in their task of looting, their greed more powerful than their survival instinct.
Alex and Tim, on alert, drew their pistols. They were the only ones they had, as the others had been given to Marlon and the high school group. They moved to the opposite side of the street, intending to avoid the looters. The discomfort on the young people's faces was palpable. Robberies weren't something they saw every day, and the idea of people risking their lives for luxury items was incomprehensible.
"It's the first time you'll see things like this, but it won't be the last," Alex thought to himself.
He reflected on how normal all this would become, and how people would expose themselves to danger to get something that would soon lose all its value. His morality felt questioned. The world was becoming a place where the rich were no longer rich, and the only currency was life itself.
[A/N: FROM HERE.
The previous part is what you've already read, and this is what follows]
The group continued moving forward.
The traces of chaos were more than visible. The abandoned cars, the lack of people in the streets, and the broad-daylight looting were the new normal that had just been established and would accompany them for a long time. What weighed most on the young people was not the danger that lurked, but the total and absolute lack of hope.
At the high school, they had created their own bubble, their own world, and had imagined a future within its walls, but now that they were on the street, they saw with their own eyes that civilization, as they knew it, had completely fallen. They wondered what had happened the day before, and the day before that.
Where was everyone? What had happened to the people who were stranded in the city center? What had happened to those who tried to escape and got caught in the chaos and zombies?
Alex, who was at the front, couldn't see the expressions of his young companions, but the tense silence and occasional murmurs told him everything. Tim, at the rear, watched the trembling hands of the girls, their eyes fixed on the abandoned cars and the lifeless bodies that appeared on the streets.
A shiver ran down their spines, a shiver that wasn't from the cold. They knew what those bodies represented.
Alex continued to guide the group, paying little mind to the mental state of the young people. His priority was one thing only: to get out of the city and get Emily to her father. The problem was that, as they moved away from the city center, the zombies began to appear more often, not in groups, but isolated, yet with a clearly similar pattern.
Alex, a man who had developed an analytical mind from his visions and previous training, began to connect the dots. He remembered the military cordon he had to cross on Friday night to find Emily.
The way the zombies were now appearing more frequently gave him an idea. He deduced that the military's attempt to control the situation had gone very wrong. The zombies had surrounded the city center.
The next day, Saturday, the attempted escape of the people trapped in the center had only worsened the situation. The zombie hordes grew, and those left outside the cordon were the ones who were fleeing, and the soldiers who failed in their mission.
Alex didn't need to have seen it in person. The traces, the bodies, the abandoned cars, and the selective appearance of zombies in this area gave him confirmation.
Suddenly, the sound of gunshots broke the morning silence. It wasn't one, or two, but several in a row. Alex stopped dead in his tracks, knowing the noise could attract zombies from the surrounding area.
"Everyone, get down!" Alex yelled. "Now! In the building on the corner!"
The young people, already used to following Alex's orders without hesitation, moved quickly, seeking refuge, with Tim protecting their rear. They entered an office building, pushing the door closed. The tension in the air was palpable. The young people's eyes met Alex's, waiting for his next instruction.
Everyone was on high alert, their hearts pounding. The shots continued, closer now, and the group huddled in the lobby, their eyes fixed on the door. Alex peered through the window, his face expressionless.
He could see the source of the gunshots in the distance. A group of people was trying to fight their way through a zombie horde, and they were not succeeding. Alex turned to the group and saw the terror in their eyes.
"Listen to me," Alex said, his voice soft but firm. "What's happening out there is not our concern. Our priority is to stay safe and reach our destination."
"But... aren't we going to help them?" Emily asked, her voice trembling.
Alex looked at Emily and didn't know what to say. Their conversation from the previous afternoon and the morality that Emily and her companions clung to were starting to make things difficult for him. Just as he was about to respond harshly, the group took shelter in a building.
"It looks like they managed to find a safe place," Alex said, relieved he didn't have to make decisions that could affect the young people, but at that moment, something changed.
The sound of the gunshots and the screams of a person who had been left behind echoed in their ears. They remained silent until the shots stopped and the screams turned into groans. Emily had wanted to save that person, but everything happened so fast.
She and her friends knew that if it weren't for Alex, they would be the ones on the ground. Things could change very drastically in a matter of seconds, and despite their best intentions, if they had gone out to help, they could have ended up with the same fate.
"It's okay," Alex said after a few minutes of silence. "We can keep going. There's no more danger."
They left the building, and the smell of fresh blood and gunpowder filled the air. The person who had been left behind was now on the ground, their body mangled and surrounded by zombies.
Alex didn't stop to look and continued to guide the group, taking a small detour, his mind fixed on his next destination. The young people, who had once felt safe, now felt vulnerable.
The reality of the situation had finally, definitively, caught up with them. Now that they saw it in person, they understood that the world was no longer what it was, and it wouldn't be for a long time.
An hour later.
Alex's group hadn't made much progress.
Frustration was a weight that settled on his shoulders, as heavy as the backpack on his back. They had navigated a labyrinth of streets, trying to avoid the small hordes of zombies that seemed to emerge from nowhere. They had seen them from a distance, like a slow, gray tide, and they had to retreat, change course, looking for a path that didn't exist.
The exhaustion was palpable on the young people's faces. They hadn't walked a great distance, nor had they faced an overwhelming number of zombies, but the mental stress and constant fear had taken their toll. Their muscles trembled from the tension, and every distant whisper or growl made them jump. Alex knew they couldn't stop. Stopping meant staying in one place and being surrounded. It would be a death trap they couldn't overcome.
"I miss the high school walls now," Emily murmured.
Alex heard her but didn't say anything, as he felt overwhelmed. His mind, which he thought was prepared for these situations, now felt useless against this problem. He had thought about simply pushing forward, breaking through the cordon by force, but that idea died as quickly as it was born. If he were alone, he would do it. With Tim, maybe. But he couldn't risk Emily, George, Amy, and Yuki. They weren't prepared for a fight of that caliber.
"That could work... No, it might be even riskier," Alex thought, but then discarded it just like the previous ideas.
Alex remembered his dreams of the future. In them, he used a bicycle to move quickly and silently, but the location of the zombies and the invisible cordon surrounding them made that idea useless. The frustration was overwhelming.
"So close, yet so far," Alex thought as he saw the exhausted faces of Amy and Yuki.
On the other side of the cordon, just a few blocks away, was another safe house he had prepared with his friend David. Alex felt like he was about to drown, the solution to his problem right in front of him, but unable to reach it.
He had been so focused on finding a solution that he hadn't noticed the noises coming from the second floor of the building where they had taken shelter.
It was Tim who noticed. He approached Alex, murmured about the noises, and gestured that they were people. Alex, realizing his mistake, straightened up and, with caution, began to climb the stairs leading to the second floor. The rest of the group followed him, their eyes fixed on Alex's back.
Upon reaching the second floor, Alex could see a group of five people. One of them was lying on the ground with a leg wound that was bleeding, not profusely, but one that his companions clearly couldn't contain. He was a man in his forties, with a pale, sweaty face.
One of the people, a tall, burly man with a weathered face and a few days' growth of beard, noticed Alex by chance. He opened his mouth to shout but stopped. He was aware of the situation and didn't want to attract the attention of the undead roaming outside. He simply took the sleeve of one of his companions, a man dressed as a firefighter, and gestured to him.
The firefighter turned, his eyes widening as he saw Alex. He looked him up and down. The weapon he carried, the clothes, which, while not military, seemed to have been chosen for surviving in this chaos. Alex gestured for the man to calm down.
The rest of the group realized Alex's presence, and their expressions varied. Some were surprised, others seemed relieved, but most of them were worried. They feared that Alex's group would do something to them, or that they would simply pass them by and leave them to their fate.
Slowly, Alex took off the backpack on his back and pulled out a first-aid kit. The looks on all five of their faces brightened. It wasn't something they expected to see at a time like this, at least not so suddenly. They seemed delighted with the kit, but Alex's words stopped them in their tracks.
"I just hope that wound isn't a bite or a scratch from those things," Alex said, his voice cold and emotionless.
The firefighter, who seemed to be the group's leader, shook his head and said, "No, no, it was just a fall. We tripped, and he got a cut from a piece of metal. Nothing more."
Alex knelt to examine the leg. The cut wasn't clean, but it didn't look infected and showed no signs of having been caused by a zombie. The blood, though dark, was a deep red, not black.
"It's okay," Alex murmured to himself.
Then he handed the kit to the firefighter, who, with precise and quick movements, cleaned the wound with alcohol and covered it with gauze. The wounded man let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank you," he said, his voice weak. "Thank you very much. We didn't know what to do."
"You're welcome," Alex replied in a firm tone. "But after we do this, we're leaving. We can't stay here. And we can't take you with us."
Alex's words were harsh, but necessary. In a world like this, you couldn't afford the luxury of compassion. He had to be pragmatic, or they would all die. The others in the group understood and nodded. The important thing was that their friend would be healed.
"I beg you," the firefighter said. "We need help. We were looking for our children; we got separated from them last night. Please, just for a couple of hours, so the man can rest and recover... There are zombies everywhere."
Alex stopped. He couldn't ignore the desperation in the man's voice. He looked at Tim, who nodded, understanding what Alex was thinking.
"Just for a couple of hours," Alex said. "But if anything goes wrong, we're leaving. We won't stay here to die."
The group nodded, grateful. The firefighter introduced himself: "I'm Mike, a firefighter from District 2. And this is my group: Sarah, my wife; Leo, a police officer; Clara and Paul."
Alex nodded. "I'm Alex... They are; Tim, Emily, George, Amy, and Yuki," Alex introduced himself and the rest of his group.
The silence was filled with the tension of a group of strangers who shared a space out of necessity. The young people were a little delighted to meet more people, but Alex knew that with this approach more responsibilities would be added to his repertoire, and it would be harder to get Emily to Ron.
Suddenly Alex thought of something.
"Mike, did you say you're looking for your children? Do you know where they might be?" Alex asked suddenly.
"They went with a group of my colleagues from District 2 and a police officer who was helping them," Mike replied, not knowing why Alex was asking that.
"I think I know where they are, but... I might have some bad news," Alex said in a somewhat guilty tone.
Alex now remembered, seeing Mike's uniform, that some of the people they saw earlier were wearing this uniform. At first, he thought the people were carrying bags with looted items, but with Mike's information, he realized they weren't carrying things but were carrying children.
"What do you mean?" Mike asked, concerned.
.
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[A/N: CHAPTER INCOMPLETED
Hello everyone.
I'm so sorry for the delay, and above all, I apologize again for giving you a full chapter.
This chapter is the final version, although due to my workload, it's not as well-reviewed.
Alex leads the group that left high school, and they see several devastating scenarios.
By the way, I've tried to emphasize several times, both directly and indirectly, that it's only been a little over a day and a half.
On the other hand, I won't promise anything I can't keep from now on. So if I have an unforeseen event or I'm really exhausted, I'll post a short chapter and avoid lying to you.
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Read my other novels
#Vinland Kingdom: Race Against Time. (Chapter 89)
#The Walking Dead: Emily's Metamorphosis. (Chapter 27)
#The Walking Dead: Patient 0 - Lyra File. (Chapter 9) (PAUSED)
You can find them on my profile.]