"James…Newton?"
I softly murmured his name. The children right beside me stared at the stunning figure of the gigantic undead who had safely brought me on the ground. Among the peculiar things we've experience, we have never seen anything alike from before. However instead of being fazed and wary, I was astonish to see a humane characteristic under the rotten skin of the infected itself.
Despite the occasion of being rescued from the swamps, an additional factor had come into fray from the zombies rushing over from the laboratory. They were 8 of them in total, worse than we've ever faced from before. Their skin may be akin from the zombies scattered inside the cities, but their flesh seems to be more deplorable than those undying corpses seen clustered on the streets. Their stench was too foul for any human to breath. Although vaguely noticed from afar, their faces seems to be stretched far and wide revealing those whetted canine teeth. More importantly, despite them being undead and voided from the healthy organs working inside their body, their chest, where the heart was supposed to be intact, was nowhere to be found on its rightful place; and whenever they pinned and gnawed someone of the human kind, they always pierces their prey's ribs, followed by their brain, and lastly their inner organs; such as the liver, stomach, and the intestines—in a relative order. Like a rabid animal hunting in the wild, they prefer eating the most delicious and delicate part or organ of the human body.
We were still trapped like rats despite standing near the open terrain between the border of the swamp and the nearby facility. The crocodile may still wish to chase our tail, and to our fore the zombies came sprinting forward, famished, as they've finally found their next meal.
The zombie named 'James' began charging forth to his kind in a briskly manner. Using his shoulder as a sort of an enlarged shield, he smashes every organisms who were unfortunate enough to stand against his path. However, 2 of the zombies were lucky enough to evade the rapid burst of James' tackle, thus they resumed their pace and heavily eyed the rest of our group and was left uninterested from the humongous zombie.
The zombie which James had already parried were miraculously left unscathed and stood perfectly fine from the aftermath. Some of them however had broken their lower limbs from the process making them unable to stand on their feet, hence they've crawled their way towards the Minotaur who had took a halt at the centre amidst from it all .
It was a battle between different types of zombies which we have never seen from before. They do not stand in equal footing and heights from James, however they carried out their advantage using quantity over quality.
While the enormous zombie is full with those tiny soldiers, the two zombies who had slipped from the battlefield targeted us, the easier prey, as if they were aware on how to fight strategically compared from what we have expected them to be.
"You guys better be standing back from this." I called their attention and ordered the children to stand directly behind me. They do not have any sort of battle experience other than running away from danger, and that too was a remarkable feat to be done. Even so, these undead, who are now throwing daggers at my front, were one of a kind and did not wish to slow down and wait for us to escape. We humans can be easily affected by any sorts of stamina loss which will hinder our usual running pace. Thus, it will better to face them upfront while coming up with a better plan to not die vain and hopefully win this fight.
I placed my bag on the ground and whispered to my back and instructed these kids to find any sort of item that can prove to be useful for my upcoming battle.
They will not participate in this match, therefore leaving me in a 1 versus 2 scenario against the living and the undead.
"Fleur-san, use this" Konoe reaches out from behind and offered me a wooden stick, sturdier from the paddle broom I've used from before. Although the wooden stick that I have isn't that sharp compared from the regular kitchen knives that could slice and dash, I can always stun them and impale their lower limbs and basically immobilise their movements.
I readied myself in my usual stance, feet apart, left hand raised freely on my side, and my right which was presently wielding a twig as a melee weapon. In a battle, she who strikes first wins the match; and so I moved on and sprinted towards their direction.
The two infected followed suit as they dashed forward with their arms open wide reaching for my body. Their tongue appears to be twisted like a rubber band as it extended forth wanting to latch the surfaces of my skin.
From here on out I would be relying on the mysterious reflex that I have obtained since the day I had dreamt about Pura enlightening me about the prowess that I apparently gained. Although I was unsure on the process of how could it perfectly work with the movements brought by my body, there was no other choice but to test it out once more in this life and death battle.
I swung my wooden plank the moment I had reached a point blank range from the zombie. Upon contact, the zombie tramples forward and rolls over to the side, stunned from the bash I had emitted. Then, I twisted my body to the side and latch my feet onto to the next enemy making it fall over on the floor. I too was down during the process, but again, I pinned him down and smacked everything that I have using the pile of wood on the rotten skull of the infected. My strikes however didn't produced enough power to break its head, but it was still enough to keep it at bay, away from the other zombie.
After my last strike, I pushed my side away from the battlefield and reset my body as soon studied both their movements in a fearsome expression. I couldn't help but enjoy myself moving around freely with this feather body of mine. All of their movements seems to be dull and patterned during my fighting phase, but the more I was aware of my position as nimbly moving around, the more I ended up grasping for air.
It appears that my body was now similar from a game where I had to maintain my own stamina while fighting with an ability. Although I cannot see any MP or HP bars for both parties, I was fully aware of my condition to fight or to flee at any case as possible, which my body was currently at its limit. Guessing the amount of time needed to finish this battle before I could even collapse, I can assume I still have 5 minutes to spare before ending up in that pitiful state. I am more concern of the people behind me, whom I wish to protect, than my own body.
In any case, 5 minutes is enough for us to dance, and within those seconds I swear to obliterate the enemies who dares stand against my path!
I dash straight towards their centre and wind a gust of sand in their eyes. I knew for a fact that they too rely on the five senses of the human body; namely the sense of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and lastly pain. However, their nervous system of dealing with 'pain' had already been cut off to their body due to the transmigration of the DNA from the Ophia-Virus, leaving them unable to distinguish any sort of anguish, pain, and euphoria.
Their eyes soon squinted from the tiny fragments entered in their eyes. They do not produce any sort of tears to relinquish the amount of dust to be washed off from their eyes. With no moments to spare, I swung my bat once again this time adding enough force from all of the muscles contained in my body. As the wooden club hit the target, its neck cracked and dislocated the spine connected to the brain, leaving him motionless yet alive. Despite this achievement, the bat that I've used shattered upon contact leaving it unusable for the next upcoming fight for the other zombie.
Being able to see once again, the infected peers its way not to figure but towards the people behind my back. If I would correctly guess what had happened, then maybe the dust had snuck its way a little longer than what I had expected and soon disrupted its overall sight. It was able to see things, but not as clear as it was supposed to be. Although they have eyes to rely to, their pupils were still rotten from the mutated genes inherited or consumed by the parasite, leaving every zombies defenceless; or so it seems.
The infected soon charges off straight towards the children, uninterested from the previous fight. Eventually, the kids scattered in a panic making them relentless and harnessing unnecessary noise in the field. As if the god of death have yet to mocked us farther, the crocodile from before found its way from the surface of the swamp and reveals it massive body on the grassy meadow from where we are standing in. It had eyed everyone on sight, thinking that we were all food prepared on his plate.
Despite being a child, Itsuki bravely stood his ground and raises his arms in a 'T' like manner, hoping his message had been reached from the eye of the monsters.
"STOP! PLEASE! DON'T KILL US" He yelled, accompanied with the simultaneous cries of Tomori, Konoe, and Natsuki behind his breech.
The two entities sandwiches us from both sides. Escape was inevitable.
Despite my body nearly reaching to its limit, I hurriedly launch myself off from the ground and joined the rest of the cowering children.
All I could do now was to comfort them from their…our awaited demise.
"It'll be alright. Tomori. Konoe. Natsuki"
I could hear their whimpering cries right in front of me. How I wish I could stop twisted world, this virus for ruining our peaceful life.
Providing a false hope for the future of this kids was the least that I could do for them. I knew for myself that I had reached my own limit. Frankly to say, my legs had already resigned itself on the ground as I felt my eyes grew tremendously tired begging to rest.
My whole world turned hazy, and the last thing I saw….was the zombie's worried face carrying me once more.