"Can you die of natural causes here?" Malik asked, content, after a while and counting up to one hundred first, before speaking.
"No. If you place your hand in the fire, nothing happens," the lady replied, her tone reverting back to the blunt one she had used when they had just met.
Malik paused at her statement. Had she fucking tried to do that before?
If she had, then she was more insane than he already thought that she was. He was, at least, somewhat relieved that she couldn't shank him in his sleep, but considering the veracity of her moods, it wasn't a risk that he was willing to take.
He thought that he had her pinned as one of those idiot anti-vaccination types who flooded social media with their distrust of science, false propaganda and belittling of those who had died from their direct actions, considering her passing relationship with apparently what had been told to her by the scientist, interspersed with anecdotal evidence that played more on emotions than anything else.
But there seemed to be something else here.
This little, old lady was not afraid of the monsters in outside, and she was lying about her intentions to help any apparent newcomers, like himself. She would have put up a sign or chosen a more visible door. She had also apparently tried setting herself on fire with this fireplace as well.
There was something else about the monsters that she refused to tell Malik about, something pivotal that had spurned all this destructive behaviour on, that she had been told by the scientist.
Malik was done with emotions at this point. They had all been used up on his Grandma and the fear he held for the two monsters that had he had been trapped by in the corridor.
He did not give a shit about this lady's feelings anymore, and he needed answers.
"You want to die again, don't you?" he bluntly asked her and felt some satisfaction as her fists clenched and her head whipped around to him.
He kept his face perfectly blank, and caught the fist that was swung towards his head, not putting any pressure on it, but grasping it firmly. He caught the next hand that swung to slap his face, his hand easily wrapping around her wrists. He could kick out his legs, if he needed to restrain her, and protect himself from her own kicks, if need be.
He had no respect for the elderly, unless they earned it, after hours of hearing them grumble and complain about having to wait in line like everybody else, and not going automatically to the head of the queue, as if they were entitled to such a thing.
"You imbecile!" she screamed out at him, throwing spittle in his direction that landed on his jeans.
"I'm not here to die!" she screeched out at him, the tenor of her voice rivalling the monster's own pitches and volume.
She sounded like a raging banshee, her face steadily turning red and her features twisting into a snarl.
Good. He'd get more information out of her now.
"Then why the fuck are you here?!" Malik shot at her back, pushing her face slightly away from his, to avoid another spit storm. It was fucking disgusting.
"I'm here, because I don't want to leave!" she sneered back at him, her eyes narrowing even further at him.
"Why?" Malik demanded of her further, holding himself back from hurting her.
He hoped that what he was doing was not showing in his eyes. He hoped that her emotions were overriding the analytical edge that she seemed to have played up when he first arrived. He hoped that she would just get to the fucking point already.
"The monsters here and the people you've killed!" she closed her eyes and screamed at him.
What?
What...
"What the fuck! I've never killed anyone!" Malik cried out at her, becoming more angry.
He gritted his teeth and let her go, throwing her back into her chair as he stood up and moved away from her, looking at the wall opposite her chair as he sorted through every single memory that he had ever had, trying to work out when he had potentially killed two people.
Nothing came up and he turned back to her, eyes narrowed. He marched up to her, stopping just out of reach of any potential, flailing hits, and looked down at her.
"Now you're lying," he declared, towering over her chair, engulfing her entire body in the shadow that he made.
"I know that I've not killed anybody," he declared once more.
It all made sense to Malik now.
Rather than own up to the fact that she was a murderer, she had been trying to keep the information that the monsters outside were the result of her killing spree, by hiding the little fact of what they really were.
That's why she hadn't gone through the ritual. She was guilty for what she had done, and had wanted to suffer some sort of consequence. She had tried to commit suicide to deal with the guilt and to atone, by throwing herself into the fire, but it had failed.
So, she had decided to sit here, with nothing but an illusion between her and certain death, waiting for the day when she would be dragged off and tortured inside the walls, probably to become whatever one of the monsters.
The first monster was the person she had killed, and the second was the girl that she had heard die.
But she was too scared to actually go through with the torture and pain. So she was just waiting here.
Nothing she was doing was out of the kindness of her heart. It was completely down to chance that Malik had stumbled into this room. Nobody else, in their right mind, would keep their door unlocked with murderous zombies outside.
Malik hadn't killed anyone. He was sure of it.