Chapter Text
Life was hell. Life had always been hell but now it was at least 100 times worse. This probably started when the dead began to come back alive and had decided to chow down on anything with a pulse. Although it could of also started when you flunked out of college but you were fairly sure it was the first thing. When the world went to shit you honestly didn’t know how you were going to survive it, you’re still not entirely sure how you survived up till now but you are fairly certain it was thanks to your extensive list of rules. When the world was, well, normal you weren’t really much for rules. It wasn’t like you purposely tried to go against them, your actions apparently just didn’t agree with them. You’ve gotten a lot better at that now though. You’re pretty sure it’s because you made up these rules so of course you’d follow your own rules. Either that or breaking them could literally be the death of you. So that’s what you were doing right now, following your rules of survival with great diligence as you gathered some supplies from the abandoned shopping mall. There were a few staggering zombies scattered through the large building but as long as you kept quiet and out of their line of sight they wouldn’t try to rip out your jugular. . . probably.
The mall had probably been raided by a mob of people throughout the year but you still managed to find some stuff you could use for your own survival. Some non-perishable food, a few batteries and a new flash light, some ammo for your shotgun and a blade sharpener you could use on your sickle. It had been getting pretty blunt with all the use it had been getting. But the greatest find of all were two new pairs of socks!! Your old ones had begun to get holes in them so it’d be a great chance to replace them. You wished you’d found a thick jacket, it was getting cold again and your old one was so worn that it could barely keep you warm anymore. Alas no such luck in locating one. That was fine, you could survive a few more weeks, and if you began to stockpile food, you might be able to find a nice house and just camp out there for the winter. You were pretty satisfied with your haul as you closed up your backpack and chucked it over your shoulder. You were pretty sure there wasn’t much else you’d be able to collect from this mall and all the zombie’s shambling around were begging to get to you. If the smell wasn’t bad enough the lack of conversation topics they were willing to provide definitely made for bad party guests. You began to slowly make your way towards the front door, taking precautions to stay hidden and out of the way as you took shelter behind toppled clothes racks and stepping over broken displays. After all rule #1 don’t take unnecessary risks was a big one. You’ve seen a man get his throat ripped out because he wanted a jelly donut and a woman have her shoulder torn off because she thought that she’d be able to reach her children's old teddy bear. Man, people make dumb decisions sometimes. People always made dumb decisions but something about the apocalypse just made it so much worse.
You were almost at the door, just needed to get past the elevator, sneak past the few zombies hanging out near the front fountain, watch for anymore coming out of stores and your home free. You started to slowly walk towards the front, keeping low to the ground and near the walls, your trusty sickle in your dominant hand as you watched the zombies shamble along. Everything was going well until you heard a loud bang echoed throughout the abandoned building. You didn’t hesitate to dive into the help centre kiosk and ducking below the desk and holding your breath as the few zombies around the fountain suddenly sprung alive, well as alive as they can be for the undead, and began heading towards the loud sound. You leaned around the left of the desk to watch them shamble away towards the other end of the mall and let out a sigh. It sucked for that guy but they just made your job a whole lot easier. You turned back to the right and had to slap a hand over your mouth to, well you weren’t sure whether you were trying to stop yourself screaming or throwing up. Staring back at you was a very very dead man. Half of his face was ripped off and his other eye was no longer in its socket. His body was contorted over the desk and on the floor, several limbs bending the wrong way. Luckily for you his brain seemed to have leaked out of his exposed skull so there was no way he was going to come back alive to turn you into his matching prom date. Judging by his torn up clothing he use to be a security guard. After you were fairly sure you weren’t going to vomit you put your hand down only to come in contact with something laying on the ground. It was an electronic tablet in a heavy duty case, it was still plugged into the wall like someone had been charging it before it had been knocked off the desk. Turning it over the screen was slightly shattered with a chunk of glass missing in the lower right, but it still turned on and the touch seemed to be working fine. Score. It didn’t even have a pass code! It looked like a work tablet, specifically for this mall as there was a camera app that linked to various cameras around the store. Most of them seemed to be down but there were a few that seemed to be working.
“You don’t mind if I take this right?” you whispered to the dead security officer as you flicked through the camera’s. You weren’t sure what exactly you would use it for but you needed a treat, and in a worse case scenario you could just throw it at a zombies head and hope it takes them a few minutes to beat the best tetris score. Judging by how good they’ve been at problem solving so far you think you have a pretty good chance.
You were ready to head towards the door again having taken the charger out of the wall and stuffing it in one of the pockets on your backpack. When something in the corner of your eye made you stop, looking down at the camera’s it was what looked like a kid, standing in the middle of an electronics store. You couldn’t make out much detail, but by the way they were flailing their arms around you assumed they were throwing a tantrum, which meant they were making noise, which meant that’s where the zombies were heading. Sure enough checking the other camera’s that kid had a small horde heading towards them. They were probably what caused that loud bang. unlucky. . .
You could just leave, the door was right there, barley a few feet away. You got some new supplies, some killer socks, a new tablet. Well an old new tablet, it was impossible to get anything completely new these days. Point is you could just leave and go on your merry way. But that was a kid, one that looked scared. Could you really just leave a kid to die alone? Their parent’s probably got sick of trying to look after them, or they left them here to go scavenging and became dinner. You could probably get to the kid before the zombies did, you were faster and if you went around to the left, cut through some other stores and make a distraction of noises as you went you could probably get there and distract some undead before the kid got his skull shattered. The only issue then would be getting out but that sounded like a future you problem. Rule #1 briefly flashed through your head but this wasn’t an unnecessary risk. It was saving a kids life. A kid you don’t know. A kid that was scared, no one deserves to die scared and alone. You’re going! You took a deep breath before standing up and knocking over the brochure stand that rested on the counter, creating an echoing thud through the silent mall, before sprinting back towards the escalators. Taking the steps two at a time as you practically pulled yourself up with the banister. At the top you took a hard left turn watching as some zombies slowly began to reach for you from across the way, but they were way too far to even be close to you. Sprinting down the hall you turn into one of the stores, knocking your shoulder into a flimsy looking clothes stand, letting it clatter to the ground before kicking open the door at the back running across it to slam open the door on the other side, entering a shoe store that had been raided beyond recognition. You exited this store and turned briefly to watch a few zombies go to inspect the fallen clothes rack. Making it to the next set of escalators you watched as a few zombies tried to clumsily crawl up them but you ignored them as you slid down one of the railings, hitting the ground at a rather fast pace and stumbling but managed to keep standing, pushing forward as you continued to run. It was getting harder to breath and you could feel your lungs burning. Then it was a right, a sharp left, a small vault over a counter, spin dodge that zombie, slid under that bench, knock over that stand and continue forward. You skidded to a halt as a horde stood in front of you. Plan B, take that right, through the back to the service corridor, jump over that mop bucket, keep going strai- woah! A zombie had reached through some elevator bars trying to grasp at your shirt, you managed to quickly push yourself against the opposite wall just out of reach and keep pushing forward. It was almost impossible to breath now, your vision was getting spotty, through those double doors, left and then another left. You could hear the kid yelling by now and he was loud, you better be louder. Grabbing the fire alarm on the way past you yanked it down, the alarm blaring through the mall as you made it through the back door of the electronic store and noticed the kid standing in the centre of the room, you skidded to a halt in front of him. Your chest burning and eyes blurry as you took in the kid. . . it wasn’t a kid, it was a skeleton. A short mad skeleton who had apparently been yelling about something. Obviously not a zombie, he was talking and zombies still had flesh, albeit rotting it was still hanging on to them. This skeleton was evidently a monster. An angry monster who was glaring down at you as you stopped in front of them placing your hands on your knees as you tried desperately to get some oxygen into your lungs.
“Oh man. . . you’re. . not . .” You said between heavy breaths.
“HUMAN!?” He yelled glaring at you. You don’t know how he was yelling, he didn’t open his mouth. You were going to say a child but hell human worked to.
“Yeah. . . That” You saw the movement in the corner of your eye before you heard the groaning, the fire alarm not helping with the whole hearing thing. You jumped around taking a step back in the process as the zombie tried to lunge for you. Grabbing the monsters wrist you sprinted towards the front of the store and then to the left, a sharp right and, watch your left for that zombie, straight out the other entrance to the mall. You quickly pulled the monster in front of you as you came to a stop. He stumbled at the quick motions but managed to catch himself. You turned to the wall on the side of the mall kicking off it to gain some height as you jumped up and grabbed the gated fence with your sickle still in your hand, pulling it down to the ground with a thud. Just in time, as the zombies reached out towards the two of you, saliva falling from their mouths, loud snarling and the rattling of the gate filling the quiet parking lot as they tried to reach for you. You were having trouble breathing as you now sat on the ground letting your sickle lay there as you ripped off your backpack and frantically began searching through the pockets. You could feel the skeleton looming over you but didn’t turn to look.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT YOU PATHETIC PEASANT! HOW DARE YOU DRAG ME OUT HERE LIKE THAT, I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THAT!” His voice was loud and deep and grating and really really hard to ignore.
“m’lord? why are you out here?” there was another voice, low and gravely, or was it nasally, you couldn’t decide. It didn’t matter, someone else was here, but you didn’t care. You had to find it, it had to be here. You always carried it on you. Your lungs were on fire, you hated running!
“MUTT! THIS VILE PEASANT JUST GRABBED ME AND DRAGGED ME OUT HERE FOR NO GOOD REASON! TEACH THEM A LESSON ABOUT TOUCHING ME!” It sounded like an order, you ignored it as relief flooded through your chest. You had found what you had been looking for but no sooner had the short skeleton finished speaking you were picked up by the scruff of your shirt and shoved back against the gate where the zombies were. In a panic you didn’t even register who had picked you up as you brought your hand back and smashed it against your assailants jaw shocking them enough to drop you. You hurriedly moved away from them and the fence, bringing the inhaler up to you mouth and pumping it once, taking a deep breath in… and…. Out… in...and… out, another pump, in… and…. Out... in...and… out. Finally your lungs stopped burning and you could breath normal again. Your asthma wasn’t bad but boy did it hate when you went for long sprints through zombie infested malls, or parks, or highways. basically long sprints through anything would make your lungs burn and breathing near impossible. Turning around you could finally get a good glimpse at the two skeleton monsters in front of you. The tall one was clutching his jaw moving from side to side, as he glared down at you. Obviously the one you had punched, he had a gold tooth which was really the stand out on his skull, it went really well with the dark purple and gold collar around his neck. He was mainly dressed in dark purple and black, including black jeans, a thick purple jacket that you wanted, combat boots with the laces undone, not really practical but alright, and elbow long fingerless gloves. The other one, the shorter one was looking enraged as purple sparked in his sockets. You couldn’t really say you liked the tattered crop top that showed off his spin, but the leather jacket, jeans, studded belts and high heel boots were all killer. He looked like he was about to yell at you once again but before he got the chance you took a step forward.
“Are you ok?” you asked eyeing him worriedly. The tall one dropped his hand from his jaw, not taking his sockets off of you and the short one seemed taken aback.
“I, YES!” he said sounding confused at your question. At least he was nice enough to answer it though “WHY DID YOU DRAG ME OUT HERE?!” He asked stomping his foot on the ground like a child demanding a toy.
“What?” you asked dumbly as you began to pick up your things from where they had fallen onto the ground.
“DON’T WHAT ME!! ANSWER THE QUESTION!” He crossed his arms and began to tap his foot impatiently. Well ok?
“The zombies?” You said nodded towards them as you slung the backpack over your shoulder “You were making a lot of noise, I was afraid you were gonna become dinner” You said smiling. The skeletons glanced behind them at the gate of zombies still reaching for anything that they could sink their teeth into.
“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?” The short monster asked turning back to you
“I don’t think so? Jury is really still out on that one” you told them nodding in agreement with yourself “Why?”
“THOSE THINGS AREN’T INTERESTED IN US. THEY EAT FLESH NOT MAGIC! EVEN IF THEY WERE ATTRACTED TO MAGIC THEY COULDN’T DO ANYTHING TO ME AS I AM WAY TO POWERFUL FOR SOMETHING SO WEAK TO BEAT ME. YOU MUST BE AS BRAIN DEAD AS THEY ARE TO THINK OTHERWISE” He told you sneering over at you.
“Oh really? Wow! I didn’t know that!” You told them rubbing your neck with embarrassment, you hadn’t had much experience with monsters even before the apocalypse. But it made sense the more you thought about it. The two in front of you were literal skeletons! What where the zombies gonna do chew on their bones? You didn’t think so. “I thought you were some kid who lost his parents” you told them laughing in amusement.
“YOU THOUGHT I WAS WHAT!?! I SHOULD HAVE YOU FED TO THOSE THINGS FOR EVEN THINKING SUCH A THING!” The skeleton declared pointing back at the zombies
“I’d rather you didn’t” you deadpanned
“WHY WOULD I CARE WHAT YOU’D RATHER?” You shrug
“I did just save you” you pointed out smiling proudly at the achievement.
“YOU DIDN’T SAVE ME I WASN’T IN ANY DANGER YOU PATHETIC WHELP! I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING ON! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU EVEN DOING IN THERE!”
“Me? I was getting supplies. Look! I got these cute socks!” You declared pulling them out to show the monsters. They both stared at them for a moment before the taller one started to dissolve into a fit of low chuckles.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” The short one shrieked causing the zombies behind him to put a little bit more force in their attempt to push past the gate.
“You mean besides being alive during the zombie apocalypse? Not much” You said shrugging. The short skeleton brought his hand up to his nose ridge, scrunching his sockets closed as he does, like you’d do if you were getting a headache.
“MUTT JUST TAKE CARE OF HER”
“of course m’lord” the tall skeleton said letting his chuckling die down as he stood up and outstretched a hand to you, he’s socket beginning to spark and glow a vibrant purple.
“Woah, woah wa-” something heavy hit the back of your skull and the world around you turned black.