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Chapter 1

It's been three days. Three days since they'd seen sunlight, since they'd been above ground. The lack of space is driving her crazy, you can tell. She paces all day, all night. Won't sit down, won't sleep, until she's able to go above ground. She insists on going up and clearing them out. But you won't let her. She's exhausted, she'll only hurt herself.
And so you wait for them to leave, or for someone to clear them out for you. The entrance is barricaded with spikes so they can't get in. Occasionally she'll go and watch them, stand only far enough away that they can't scratch her. Stare into their lifeless eyes.
It's only a matter of time until she bursts out of the underground cavern. She'll stop listening to you, she'll ignore your pleas and demands and go up top.
You know that you should probably take the chance, go up and retrieve your gun. But your gun is stuck in the body of one of them. You'd have to sneak up on them, and it's hard.
But maybe she could do it. You watch her as she walks to the end of the cavern, spin on her heel, and walk to the other end. Back and forth, back and forth. It's not helping her. She needs to rest, but she won't listen.
“Hey.” You say, softly, so you don't spook her.
And she stops, turns her head to look at you. Her eyes are hollow, different, none of the usual sparkle or fire.
Dead.
Like them.
“Come here.” You wave her over, and she just stares. Stares at you. Not really looking at you, more like looking at the air in front of you.
“Come here.” You say, firmer, snapping your fingers to get her attention. She blinks, her head tilting just a bit, and you can see she's not all there. Like she's withdrawn inside again to listen to the voices. Picking up a few pebbles, you throw them at her. They hit her stomach, and she doesn't react, just keeps staring. Sighing, you stand up and walk slowly towards her. You move to put your head on her shoulder, and she jumps back suddenly, snapping her gaze up to your eyes, coming back from her fantasy land. A small whimper escapes her before her eyes can focus on who you are.
“Shhh.” You place your hand on her shoulder. She's tense, to the point where you can feel every muscle beneath her shirt. The Tide changed her, in more ways worse than better.
“Come on. Sit down.”
This time she follows you, her steps heavy and dragging. She hasn't slept in over a week. You sit down against the cavern wall, and tug on her arm. She sits down next to you, curling up against your side as you put an arm around her, as if you could protect her from everything that's tearing her apart inside.
In a few minutes she's asleep, which surprises you. You though she'd be awake for an hour, or more. But her breathing slows and her tense stature grows slack with sleep. So you sit still as possible, counting her breaths to pass the time. Seven, eight, nine, ten. In and out. Your finger run absentmindedly through her hair, loosing some knots that had formed. The thick, wild waves and half-curls twist around your fingers, only to be dropped and get twisted again. She shifts, and you look down to see a small smile upon her face. The first you'd seen since you'd been forced to take shelter in the cavern.
Tearing your eyes from her face, you look to the thin tunnel that leads to the entrance, and listen. You can hear the moans and sighs of the dead, but they sound fewer now, farther away. Maybe soon you'll be able to get out of here. Then you can join up with the rest of your group. They should be easy to find, after her lusus is summoned and he is able to track them down. In a few days, maybe. You won't tell her, of course, for fear of getting her hopes up and having them crushed.
You look back down at her. A lock of dark hair has fallen into her face, and you brush it away, tucking it behind her ear. Leaning your head back, you feel the cool stone against your skin, and you wait for her to wake up. It's going to be a while, but you'll be patient. It's one of the things you've learned to do since the Tide.
~*~*~
It's been another two days and she's slept through half of it. You never knew she could sleep that much. But she seems better now, not drawing inside, not pacing as much. She's gone to the entrance and said that there's fewer out there. You've made plans to escape in a few days, before more show up again. You've been dosing on and off, not that you need the sleep, but because there nothing else to do. All of your stuff is back with the rest of the group, so there wasn't any food either. She said she was fine and that she'd gone periods of time with no food when she was little. The lack of food wasn't helping anyone, but so far you two could stand without trouble. She was standing now, using one fire-tipped finger to burn shapes into the stone. You hadn't seen her flames in a while. It drained her energy if she used it too much, but not using it made her jittery. You watched the bright orange flame, blue closest to her fingertip, the thin trail of smoke drifting up and dissipating. She looked over at you and smiled, then crawled over to lay her head in your lap. She looked up at you, her gaze curious. You longer tensed or looked away at her touch. You allowed her to be close without even thinking about it. The Tide changed you as well, just as it changed everyone. But this time, you think, for the better.
Running your fingers through the thinner hair near the base of her horn, you give her a small smile. She captured your hand in two of hers and ran her own claws over yours. It used to look strange, you thought. Gray and green together. It used to look different, not completely right, but now it just looked natural. Felt natural. Her skin was much softer than yours, not as thick either, but compared to a human's it was like metal. Her nails, long, thick and yellow, tapped against yours. She sighed, nuzzling your hand. You ran your nails lightly down her cheek and along the underside of her jaw. Her neck stretched, and she growled lightly in the back of her throat. You could feel the rumbling under your nails as you scratched her neck and jawline. She began humming as she cuddled closer, moving her head so you could rub behind her ears and along the base of her horn.
Opening her eyes, she looked at you sleepily. “How much longer until we can leave?”
“A few days. Maybe tomorrow.”
She smiled then. “Good.” She inched closer until her face was snuggled into your stomach. You continued to rub along her horns, and soon she was asleep.
~*~*~
You woke her up later once the noises of the few dead outside had faded.
“Wake up.” You patted the side of her face. She mumbles and buries her face in your lap. Bending over awkwardly, you give the shell of her ear a quick lick. She stirs and waves her hand. You grab it, nibbling her palm until she opens her eyes.
“What?”
“It's time to go.” You pat her head as she sits up, her sleepy eyes widening with excitement.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
She gets to her feet, tugging at your hand. “Let's go! C'mon.” You let her pull you to your feet. She's bouncing with excitement and chirping happily.
“Shhh.” You hold up your hand and take hers, leading the way into the tunnel. The only undead you can see was the one with your gun through it's arm, and one without legs.
“Alright. Let's go. We'll get my gun, and your hammer should be around here somewhere, then we'll head off.”
She nods, and steps onto the spikes. They sag a little under her weight, and she jumps off. You follow, taking a spike out of the ground and turning to the undead. She's already creeping up behind it, using the stealth you can achieve only after years of practice. She leaps past it, grabbing the butt of your gun and whisking it out of it's arm. The creature stumbles toward her, and she put the barrel of the gun to it's head. A series of shots ring off, and the creature drops to the ground. She looks to you, and you drop the spike. It's not needed. You catch the gun that's thrown to you and she looks around, going to the tree edge and hunting around. She stands, her giant hammer in hand. The spikes still had dried blood of many colors along then, and blood stained the hammer head.
She equips it into her strife specibus, and dusts her hands. “Let's get going. I'm sure we'll find Wolfdad around here somewhere.” She sets off and you follow close, your gun at your side but tight in your grip. She crouched down a bit, sniffing around. She doesn't move in a straight line. She prowls, left and right, sometimes going off the path only to reappear behind you. Sometimes she'll stop and drop down, and you'll take the clue and crouch as well. You'll have to wait for her to continue, sometimes only a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes. You don't rush her though. She'll only get pissed and lead you into a herd of undead. She's done it before.
Then she stands and looks around. Her gaze locks and she smiles.
“Zombie!”
“Where?” You whip around to where she's looking, gun raised. An undead is standing there, but their something standing behind it. It leaps and tackles the zombie, lowering it's head and biting into the back of the zombies head. It rips it's head back as she calls the name again.
“Zombie!”
It turns it's head, maroon blood running down it's chin and dripping onto the ground. Part of bone is in it's mouth, and it has a large grin on it's face. The most disturbing part is the stitches running down it's face. They stopped at his eyebrow and started again under his eye, going down to his chin. Thick scars ran vertically down his face, the stitches seeming to hold the once split skin in place.
“Zombiiiie!!” She cries, louder. You wince, she must be drawing the attention of every undead in the area. She runs toward it, jumping and hugging it.
Him.
It's a him.
Named Zombie, who just ripped the spine out of one of the undead. He's going to turn. You thought with alarm.
And he's right next to her.
But now their walking back, and she's talking adamantly. He wipes the blood off with the edge of his shirt, and you see that there's a rainbow of blood on his clothes, mostly the hem and collar. His smile never faltered, and as he looks at you, his gaze seems to burn into you. He's older than her, you can see the blue tint in his eye when the light catches it the right way.
You don't like him.
“Cali,” She says, and your gaze turns toward her. “This is my friend, Zombie.”
Zombie's smile, if it's possible, grows bigger. His teeth are stained with different colors. “Hi there.” He looks you dead in the eye as he speaks.
“Hello.”
She watches you, her ear flicks and you can see her hair shift. She takes your hand. “Where's everyone else?”
He looks at her. “Don't know. Velkor is with Mortis, where ever she's at.”
“You're not looking for him?”
“Of course I am. Though I don't have to worry. Almost everyone else is dead, except the lime, the indigo, and the yellow. And Mortis will take care of him.”
She looks at you, and you know what she's going to ask. You sigh and shrug. Her grip on your hand tightens.
“Wanna come with us? We're heading back to camp, and hopefully we'll run into them sometime.”
He looks at you and your gaze hardens. “Alright.”
She looks at you, smiles, then starts forward. You and Zombie walk along behind her. Minutes pass, then an hour, and you don't run into a single undead, and the stranger behind you doesn't turn. Maybe he's immune. Eventually you come to a break in the trees. She stands on one side of you, he stands on the other, and you three look out upon the landscape.
The hill slopes down then flattens out, with no trees. Buildings rise up to form a large neighborhood. Undead lurk everywhere where the camp used to be, and you can hear the small growl building in her throat.
You take her hand in yours and she relaxes a bit.
“This is gonna be hard. They could be in anywhere.”
“We'll find them.” You say, and you mean it. You haven't had fun like this in a while. “Don't worry, Shinrika.”