switched off light. jean kirstein ff.

one.

one.

"annie?" i exclaimed, dashing across the streets. i no longer even cared that a zombie might show up or that my screams would attract a group of them. all i cared about was my friend, annie. she had been missing for eight days and still hadn't been found. she couldn't be dead. not annie.

"kass!" i heard someone shout my name right after listening to the sound of the car engine. i didn't have to turn around to know it was pieck, but i still did. she was sitting in the driver's seat of the little black car we used when we left the shelter. we had made it suitable for the situation, protecting it with metal bars we had found so that we could confront the zombies more effectively. "get in!" she exclaimed. she had rolled down the passenger seat's window so that i could hear her, whilst waiting for me to open the door and get in. but we couldn't leave. i wouldn't leave.

i shook my head. "we still haven't found annie"

"get in kassia!" she hastily said. her whole expression had both worry and fear in it. especially fear, which scared me. pieck had countless times gone outside the shelter, even alone on occasions. she had lost her fear towards zombies a long time ago and always kept her composure. what was making her feel in such a way? "we are in danger!"

i looked around me, trying to look for that danger pieck was warning me of. i mentally remembered the weapons i had with me. two knives hidden in my leggings and a metal bar i had picked up from the ground a few meters earlier in my right hand. i gripped it tightly, waiting for any zombies to come out from between the streets, but nothing. everything was horrifyingly silent.

the sound of the horn blared in my ears. i turned around, witnessing pieck trying to get her attention. i was about to yell at her for doing that. the zombies would appear at any moment after such a bang, but she hadn't seemed to mind.

it was at that very moment, as i was turning towards the car, that i realized it all. i heard a sound and everything happened very fast from that instant on. i saw a flare spreading in the air and, then, the windows of the building across the street opened, while two people appeared with rifles in their hands, pointing at us.

"get in now!!!" pieck exclaimed. this time i didn't think twice. i reached out and opened the passenger seat door just as the shooting started, throwing the metal bar in my hand to the ground. the instant i sat down, pieck started the car as fast as she could and began to move, before i could close the door. the shots were crashing against the other side of the car, on the driver's side. pieck bent down to avoid them, even if we were protected by the metal bars, and hit the gas pedal hard, running away from there. i shut the door quickly and turned to look back.

a car had emerged from one of the streets and had started following us, still from a considerate distance, but it wouldn't take long for it to catch up.

"what's going on?!" i looked at pieck, who had her eyes fixed on the road, trying not to collide with the cars that had been abandoned in the middle of it the day it all began. she didn't answer. either she didn't know or she didn't want to.

she reached back, grabbing a gun she had left on the back seats. "take this" she handed it over and i grabbed it. she checked the rearview mirror and gritted her teeth.

i checked if the gun was loaded and turned around again. the car was already pretty close to us.

"where are zeke and the others?" i asked pieck.

"i don't know" she answered.

"why are humans willing to kill us?! did zeke do anything?"

"i don't know" she repeated. "for now, focus on surviving"