Note : this chapter has being recently corrected, but The point of the story is still the same.
Language Note: here's some words I might be using that are originally in Arabic, to refer to the Reader by possibly encountered Arabic characters in the story:
- (yaa hubbii = my love) > can be used to Any gender
-( Sadiqi= my friend) > originally for males but can be used As a neutral form,
-(yaa Albi!= my heart!)> can be used to address someone or as an exclamation form.
.....[chapter begins].....
"Certain zombie are still a threat, to anyone even you and yeah, humans can be your worst enemy (Y/N).
*Sighing* Hey, listen captain, if you want my help I'm coming with you and don't listen to Ivan okay? anybody who lost somebody they care about due to this apocalypse, can turn into an Ivan.
It's not an easy way to live this way, trust me.
Ivan is a good man, he just needs to understand you're good too." Mickey said grabbing my arm.
I pushed him away as gently as I could.
"You're a nice person Mickey, but I think it's for the best if we part ways here, Ivan here clearly needs support and you're a nice person, you can do that for him.
I don't need you, I'm not going to stick around and deal with his attitude, Maybe I did in the past let people like him walk all over me.
I cared enough about people, now I have to be selfish and look after myself.
Reality is different now, I don't remember who I am and I just learned that I can be somewhat of a human and a zombie at the same time.
You can't feel this hunger but I do! I'm telling you, I'm tearing Myself inside out." I said, slowly walking away from Mickey.
"if you remember you said it yourself, that if this hunger made it to a dangerous level I can turn hostile against you or any human around me" I quietly added, Mickey simply nodded at me.
Those sad pair of hazel eyes he got, told me he doesn't want to see a friend leave again so soon.
What choice do I have?
I need to keep learning about myself by myself, and if I'm going to be a danger to him or Ivan and or to anybody around in that peaceful town, I'd rather go.
this could turn out to be a bad thing.
I can't have blood of Innocents on my hand, I feel like I know what that feels like.
I don't want to feel it again, I have to learn what I am, what I can do and how to control it.
"Listen Mickey, seriously you've done enough! don't worry about me, I'll try coming back once I gather some infos on my own... thank you for everything, the chocolate bar and the clothes! and also for giving me somewhere to sleep last night.
But that's it for now, thank you for offering your help, this time however I'm going to turn you down, at least until I come back again.
i'm pretty sure I'll make it back to the tree house soon, we'll see each other again if the both of us remain alive till that moment, but for now I guess I'll be wandering around by myself." I said slowly reaching out from Mickey, I wrapped him into a hug and then I gave Ivan a sympathetic look.
You're a mean old hag, but you've been through shit Haven't you?
"Goodbye for you too grumpy grandpa Ivan! I know we hit it off bad and you're probably going to still see me as a freak the next time we meet.
I promise you I'm going to reintroduce myself new when I come back... I'll let time help me prove it to you, I'm worthy of your respect." I spoke barely holding my feelings within, being polite to an asshole really hurts.
Lowering his hat, Ivan lifted his hand giving me the middle finger "Shut up drama queen... just don't hurt anybody...or get hurt yourself." said Ivan before giving me his back, ignoring me completely.
Finally letting go of Mickey and breaking the hug.
Mickey quickly gave me a tucker bag, he said that he kept some necessities within it, like tools and some little medical supply I might need despite my regeneration ability.
the bag also had a map of the faculties, towns and Gangs around the area, and a notebook.
I didn't want to take all of this, I felt bad receiving the Tucker bag at first but Mickey insisted on me having it, so I asked him to remove any possible food in there because I wouldn't personally need it.
"You might not need it but somebody else will... just keep the snacks okay? who knows it might come in handy" he argued, I decided to follow his advice and I didn't remove whatever edible things he gave me in that bag.
I thanked him one last time with another hug, before climbing down the tree house where I found myself to be out in the open again.
I felt lonely already, well Back to the forest I guess!
Sure, it's morning and it's probably safer to be wondering around since at least I can see my way way clearly, but it's uncomfortable still.
Mickey also told me before I climb down that, I should pay attention to the notebook inside the bag it has some infos about the zombies that I'm going to be facing possibly in the forest, if I wondered too much.
He also mentioned that there was more about the HHZ in that note book, than what he told me in the tree house.
I checked the bag as I walked, and yes! Within the bag was the notebook in question.
So I decided to start reading it, I opened up at a page with the words 'Zombies stuff' scribbled and underlined in a blue pen, followed by a set of randomly written notes in an explanatory yet simple way, assuming this was Mickey's hand writing, it was nice.
I began ready to myself.
( reading the notes):
"The zombies have ranks and categories.
While some zombies have human level strength, some of them are super strong beyond human standards, some of them are super weak as weak as a child and not all zombies function in the same fashion.
The strength of a zombie can be determined by what type of zombie they are, and whether they were eating lately or not, food is also important for a zombie of any ranks.
What I mean by types is that as they eat more and more, and survive for longer years.
some of the normal zombies, continue to mutate and become stronger and stronger throughout these years that they continue to exist in.
so if a zombie is few months old, it's not going to be as strong as a 3 years old zombie.
Some mutate to a point where their bodies will no longer remain human looking, in fact they can turn to look like gigantic monsters, or resemble somewhat a big animal.
A percentage can even turn into creatures resembling trees and plants."
(stops reading notes)
Holy shit ! so normal zombies can turn into Final boss type of monsters?!
I decided to flip the pages randomly, I continued doing so till I randomly spotted a big title in red, that says 'HHZ Infos'
I decided to read some notes under that section.
(reading the notes):
"There is an awful lot of rumors about The HHZ, the human hybrid zombies and how they work.
My sources says:
An HHZ is a human infected with a different type of virus than the normal infection that spread out years ago.
An HHZ remains human looking most of the time, but can turn to a zombie of a different shape at will, when being faced with dangerous life threatening situations.
They possess a regeneration ability, they can only apply this ability to their human form and the hungrier an HZZ is, the slower their regeneration is gonna be.
Their primally source of food is the flesh of a normal infection zombie, however they can Attack humans at a high level of hunger, although the last one is most unlikely to happen.
Concerning their special Zombified abilities, some says that those half humans half zombies, I mean The HHZ can actually Sense the level of strength of any zombies nearby!
According to that, the zombies can also sense the strength of the HHZ surrounding them as well, so they might attack an HHZ or not based on their current level of strength.
Meaning zombies can be a threat to An HHZ and vise versa."
( stops reading the notes)
I stopped again while reading the note, Mickey gathered all these informations?
Dude this is a like a gameplay walkthrough or something!
These were too much of information to take in, but this also provided me with some sort of a closure and filled up my curiosity, a little.
I decided to stop reading for now, and focus on finding food for myself.
"Damn it okay, I'm even more hungry right now! I think I should focus on food instead of reading...haha not me going to eat a zombie so I can survive and not hurt humans around me!" I joked to myself, my stomach was rumbling louder by the minute.
My sanity however, that was an another case.
I grabbed the bag to open it, it's then when I noticed it had a name tag on it, "baby Rory" I read the name, but I shrugged off the thought of who that was.
While putting back the notebook inside the Tucker bag, I saw something else within the bag.
it was a face/mouth mask, I remember Mickey mentioning that i should wear it when I'm outside as he placed it in the bag.
Mickey said my face or pretty much my identity could cause problem, so for the best, I should cover it up and so I did.
As I put it on, The black face/mouth mask I found, made me feel a certain vibe.
I'm not going to lie, I felt cool wearing it!
...[slight time skip...half hour later]...
I was surprised, I was pretty sure the men killed some zombies around here last night, I mean they shot something while patrolling, right?
yet so far and for some reason there is no zombies, dead or still Dragging their feet around either.
Did someone wipe the whole area up from zombies? I'm not going to find food if zombies aren't walking around.
"Should I make some noise, I bet some of them are hiding somewhere, maybe...scared of me." saying that to myself, I started throwing rocks, shouting curses and doing anything to attract some dead alive fellas to me.
I needed to eat...I was desperate.
For a moment I thought that I have succeeded, since I heard something move in the bushes surrounding me.
I walked towards the noise to inspect it but much to my disappointment it wasn't a zombie, it was a rabbit, a cute fluffy little rabbit wiggling his pink nose.
"Sorry furry homie, I don't think I can eat ya... doctor Mickey says I should be on a zombie meat diet." I said joking, as the rabbit gave me a confused stare, I chuckled a bit, I decided to pick up the little rabbit in my hands.
Suddenly I heard the click of a gun behind me, My instincts told me to put my hands in the air "Coming at people from behind, that's a sneaky cowardly move my guy!" I stated calmly to my surprise, I didn't want to upset the mystery person.
Maybe I shouldn't have called them a coward.
"Coward? me? No yaa Albi how cute! also, i do what I want when I want.
And I'm man cuz you're holding the prey I've been trying to hunt for the past half hour Sadiki!" said the voice behind me.
"Worry not my dude, even if I wanted to hunt or eat this rabbit I can't! trust me I have no personal use for it! you can have it." i said defending myself as calmly as I could, I wasn't aware whether I can survive a shot to the head or not and I'm not so adventurous to try and find out about it.
I should have continued reading the notebook.
"Alrighty then I believe you, but you gotta Turn around...put that rabbit down and move away slowly and I promise I'll let you leave in peace...well I mean one piece." This gun holding dude said jokingly.
he's a jokester too...nice.
I spun around, placed the rabbit on the grass and before I got a chance to back away, the dude immediately shot the rabbit in its place, killing it.
"What the HELL MAN!! wait for me at least to move away then Shoot your damn dinner!!" I screamed.
"Not so brave huh! and you got the guts to dare call me a freaking coward!" said the man, now I was able see him full view in front of me.
Turned out, this dude is tall enough to be a basketball player or a model, with his almond brown skin and dark brown eyes, curly short black hair.
He's the kind of guy that have girls and even guys swarming around him.
He's good looking no lie.
"Just hold on a second! mysterious person with a face mask on!... I'm curious, I just remembered, you told me something about how you can't eat the bunny even if you wanted to? what's that all about?" this dude dared to ask me this, I was well aware I can't tell him the real reason, but he was still holding that rifle.
"Oh nothing, nothing absolutely nothing! *sweating* really nothing suspicious! I'm just a vegetarian so I can't eat meat haha! " I lied or maybe not?
I don't know? does eating zombies instead of animals count as veganism?...ugh, cut me some slack, I don't remember anything about myself so I could even be originally a vegetarian or vegan.
The guy started laughing at my answer, making jokes too " oh Almighty Lord! hahaha no way? a vegetarian in the apocalypse you guys are crazy Sadiqi!" he said while holding his stomach in pain from laughing too much.
okay...he's annoying.
"Hey!! why you hating bruh?!" I yelled at him Dusting myself up, thankfully there wasn't any noticable blood splatter on me from this crazy dude shooting down the poor rabbit near me.
The dude stopped laughing for a moment wiping his teary eyes and straightening his posture, he suddenly asked me again with the rifle in hands.
"Hey friend I have noticed Something else! your voice is familiar to my ears? have we met before? I'm Omar by the way! Omar Chirag." he introduced himself, he lowered his rifle, finally!
The moment his name reached my ears I felt for certain he's Omar, the guy Mickey mentioned that he's on his team.
"Judging how lightly you're traveling you barely have anything to carry with you, so are you're from around here?
Why scared? Come Closer I lowered my gun you can see I'm not going to hurt you!...are you new to our town? we haven't seen a new comer in a while now! Mickey usually does the introductions." Omar said approaching me, he kept asking questions nonstop.
But him mentioning mickey, Yep that was the confirmation I needed to realize this is him, this is Omar the one Mickey was talking about and, it will be for the best if he doesn't discover who I am.
or is it not?
"I don't know how to explain this but I am a lone traveler, I am not from around here and the reason why I'm traveling lightly, is that I lost all my stuff? somebody attacked me and I don't know where I am exactly so that's the story... just let me be, deal?" I said frustrated.
I didn't exactly lie...I was attacked.
Then I noticed his experience change, he was looking at my bag and exactly at the name tag, as if he's trying to read it.
You clearly need glasses my boy.
"i'm just out to find something to eat...you wouldn't understand my situation so let's just go our separate ways okay?!" I added nervously.
Omar's face suddenly twisted in anger.
" Did you steal this from the tree house? you dirty thief!! HEY YOU COME HERE!
Who are you? and how the hell did you put your hand on Mickey's daughter bag?!" Omar screamed demanding an answer, while again pointing his gun back at me.
"What the Fuck?! Young hazel eyes has a daughter?!" I whispered to myself, and it seems the bag I was carrying belongs to her.
Baby Rory? that's her name.
....End of chapter....