Chapter 46: Reason To Survive
’Is this really worse than being dragged out of your peaceful world and thrown into the corpse of a man who took his own life? A man whose burdens I now carry like a second skin?’
Merek squinted, a flicker of exhaustion in his eyes.
’Whether I like it or not, I’m saddled with his memories... his emotions. His regrets. Compared to my situation, you still have more hope.’
He sighed heavily, the breath leaving his lungs like smoke from a dying fire.
"Have some faith," he said, his voice low but steady. "At the very least, we’ve been given the chance to grow stronger, to survive this inhumane world. Giving up now... right after taking down a Stage-1 zombie, something that could’ve wiped out our entire group in minutes? I’d call that nothing but foolishness."
"I barely survived," Felicity whispered, her tone trembling with raw honesty. The balm had done what it could, soothing her wounds and numbing the worst of the pain but her ankle remained swollen, the healing incomplete. The ache still pulsed with every small movement.
"I barely survived my first fight too," Merek said gently, leaning in. "But l kept going. What about your family? Don’t you want to live... for them?"
Felicity closed her eyes, as if warding off a memory too bitter to face. Then, slowly, a scowl crept across her face. "Family?" she scoffed. "When the apocalypse started, I felt free, for the first time I can remember. Free from my family’s clutches. Free from their expectations. And finally free from the constant stares and pestering from men, because now they’re all too busy running for their lives to chase after me."
A smirk flickered across her face, cold, ironic, almost beautiful in its defiance. "You know what was really funny? The bodyguards my family sent to protect me. They were the first to turn. The first to become zombies. Poetic, isn’t it?"
But her expression quickly dimmed. The light in her eyes faltered.
"But when we faced that Stage-1 Type Two... and nearly died... I realized something. That wasn’t even the worst this world has to offer. That was just the beginning. If that was Stage-1, what in the world are we supposed to do when we meet Stage-2? Stage-3?"