𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙢 𝘽𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨

Chapter Five

Y/N

The first two times I smell food, the meal has already been claimed by a Boney. They snarl at us as we pass them, crouched over their catch and clutching the still bleeding organs defensively.

Each time, Roo nudges me on faster, almost protectively, until we are out of range. We have to travel further into the city, deeper than I've ever been before, to the area where the buildings climb into the sky and graffiti decorates abandoned cabs and police cars.

We're shuffling passed a large whitish building when I suddenly catch a whiff of life. I pause, closing my eyes and breathing in deeply. Yes, that's definitely live food.

I grunt, and Roo imitates my inhale. The corner of her lips twitches just slightly in a show of excitement. I nod, and we head up the steps into the building, following the smell of warmth and flesh.

Once we're inside, I can tell that this building used to be a hospital. There are beds and wheelchairs and electronic equipment that's long since died. The part of me that still recognises irony stirs into life.

People have always taken sanctuary from death in this place, and yet here come the dead to claim the living all the same. Nice to know some things never really change. It's almost poetic, in a disturbingly macabre way.

The Hunger is twisting up my insides, and the smell of flesh is getting stronger as we shamble up a service staircase to the next floor.

I bump into a chair, and it tips over onto its back while I stagger to regain my balance. A few feet further down the hall one of the others knocks a plastic bin off a table, and it clatters loudly on the tile.

It doesn't matter; we're so close now there's no escape for the humans. Eager moans roll from our group as we get closer to the door that separates us from our dinner. I can see the back of a person's head through the window panel in the door, and my heart would've leapt if it still worked.

I crash through the door and almost immediately take the butt of a rifle to the face, sending me sprawling. That turns out to be my saving grace because a spray of bullets strikes right through where I was standing. A redheaded Corpse collapses instead with a drop of brown blood oozing from the hole in her forehead.

The humans are shouting, and the Corpses are growling, and the whole place has descended into absolute chaos.

I look up in time to see two Corpses team up on a man with black hair, and he shrieks as they bite into his flesh. I'm still struggling to get back to my feet, my stiff, awkward limbs refusing to cooperate. I've managed to get up on one knee when it happens.

I see her.

She slides out from behind the shelter of a shelf, a handgun held aloft in a steady grip as she puts a bullet in the temple of a Corpse to my left.

She's beautiful. She's got hair like spun gold, strands hanging loose from her ponytail to frame her flushed, round cheeks. Her dark brown eyes are narrowed in focus, her thick lips pursed as she concentrates on her target.

It's so much more than just her looks, though. She's so alive. She is fire and passion and energy. She's like a perfect classic rock ballad, with strength and fight beneath the soft words and story. She is the will to live. Looking at her almost makes me feel something more than just Hunger. It's like - hope.