"No don't make me do this" I let out a silent sob." You have to" My best friend urges me. Her fiery blue eyes stay trained on mine. "No, no p-please. We don't have to end it like this." Yes, there has to be a way. "You have to let me go" I take a shuddering breath at her words. I can't let her go. "I love you, I love you so much Darlene" I tuck my chin into my collarbone, taking a moment to breathe."Do it, right now. Show me how far you're willing to go to survive" Her words fire me up, the intensity shivering me to the core. The city is far off, and we are parked at a corner of the street, I look around the scattered SUV, the burn, the pain, the open bag of knives, the trashed cupboards and the red liquid pooling at the counter.All point to Zylith, the sun grazes my skin and I immediately warm up. I will survive.I ready my hand, one move to end Zylith, to strike her down, forever gone as she turns. I didn't want to have this I didn't but I had to, to live. To survive."Six more seconds BLISS" Her winces travel into my ears, her voice croaking and scratchy. Her eyes turn dark. Deep blue, her chest heaves up and down and the sun's graze is too hot, I jolt my other hand away. Here goes.Up and down. I quickly clench my eyes shut. What have I done? Did it work? When I open my eyes I see a kaleidoscope, light particles float in my visions, moving and vanishing into the carpeted rugs that coat the walls and the headboard. I perceive a light smell of chocolate, flour and eggs."Ugh" I hear a grunt and I look down to the table of chess. I have successfully won the round for once in my life. I let out a quick sigh of relief to clear the lodge in my chest, for the first time in my life, I had won a round of chess; against Zylith at that!The queen and the rook have captured the black king and his only nearby pawn weeps in agony at failing to be of service. What could it have done? If not to only promote itself to a queen. The king weeps the lose of his underlings and his love; the queen, slain in battle but he had his head caught in a cloud of pride. He advances until he only had 3 pawns left, 2 of the them almost nearing the other side to receive their promotion but at that moment, the King is captured and his head is to fit the guillotine."I knew you could do it, I guess it's time to step down from this one" She offers me a bittersweet smile barely reaching past the corners of her nose as usual but this one feels different. I feel different. Hungry.Hungry from the sizzling pancakes on the stove. Zylith has wrecked the kitchen and has somehow managed to mess up the Pancakes. How was that even possible?I nod my head, acknowledging this big step, to not only my first win of chess but to also drive the car. I settle into the cushiony seats of the SUV for the second time but I'm not in a hurry. Zylith clears our table of chess and leaves to continue flipping the pan of pancakes she has on the stove.I reach back to adjust the seat and when I feel comfortable, I push the keys in and start the vehicle. It creaks forward, the engine having a jumpstart. I smile to myself as I let my fingers grip the console."How do I drive this thing?" I nibble on my lips This felt so different from the levitation cars that were self-driven or used a console as much."You press the acceleration on your left to move forward, press the other one on your right to stop" She points at the two pad-like metal sticks under the car. "Easy" She shrugs and heads back into the kitchen. I gently push the accelerator and the car literally jumps forward. This was so different from driving out of a factory of zombies. I actually had to think this one through."Woah, slow down buddy" I shrug my shoulders and try again. It moves at a snail's pace but when I try steering to the left it halts. "What happened?" I blink in confusion as I force the console to move to the left, but the console jerks me back to the right. "Alexa? Alexa, what happened?" I call out to the AI assistant but all i receive is dead silence. I forget the people back then where literally fancy cavemen. "You need to put more power on the accelerator" I hear her call out from the back. Pans and metal clang against each other and I'm guessing she's dishing out the pancakes. Accerelator? Ack-se cell-le-rate-or? Ack! Forget it.I add more pressure to it, locking my eyes on the empty baseball pitch engulfed in tall green and yellow trees. The round pitch has small white boards fixed into random areas of the round field and it is further secured by cages, it was the perfect place for unlicensed driving to take place."You move it into this L shape when you want to" Zylith comes out from the back with an apron tied around her rectangular figure and plops on the seat, making herself comfy. She is about to keep reading the instructions from the manual book but I couldn't care less."Uh, ew don't even think about reading from a manual, let's just try it out and see what works" I pout. I press the ackserator forward and move the joystick stationed on my right to any bracket possible, it makes a click-clack sound as it slides in random motion and the car rumbles and inches back. The wheels of the car roll back and back. Back and back. "Stop the car" Zylith yells beside me as we both jerk back and the car skids against the plain, sandy field. I roll the steering console and the car goes into circles."Not like that" Zylith scoffs at me but how else do I stop a car? This stupid car, whoever made it had to be thinking something? Just because you put letters beside a joystick didn't make it more functionable. Functional? I let go of the console but the car keeps moving so in a panic I press on the acksere-lerator. Zylith looks into the mirror beside her and I look out the window almost blinded by the bright sun in the fluffy pink and green clouds. The car zooms across the radius and is headed straight into the cage. Fudge! We are going to crash. I strain my whole body to go stiff, maybe if I acted like I wasn't there the car would stop but it only goes faster."The break's on your left, Bliss" Zylith urges me and I can almost see the imaginary cliff of what we would fall into if the car breaks through the cage. The air rushes and I feel my blood rush to my heart but I manage to shift my left foot out of its daydreaming while releasing the right one. The breaks halt the car into a screech and I get down from the SUV to look at the damage I've incurred.The SUV did hit the cage and the metal caved out, I remove my seatbelt and hop off the elevated platform of the SUV to land on the dusty baseball field inching closer to the metal to look over the edge and to my utmost relief there is no cliff. "I see why we need manuals" I chuckle as I walk back the length of the white SUV branded in the name 'Ready to rumble' I'll need to remove the tacky design. Heck, even a huge Ka-Chow would be better than this."I'm gonna get something to clean up the mess" I look back at the busted-up cage, I couldn't just leave it like that. What if the police checked CCTV and found me here. I would be put in jail, and I would never go to my favorite musician concerts, and I'd never find Birdie a girlfriend, I'd be a failed mom. I'll never be a mermaid .I panic at the idea of receiving a cup with a Kajolet printed on it saying "Worst mom of the year". NOOOOOI begin my walk to the other side of the base, looking for those white platforms I think they call base in baseball. Making sure to fake a slight limp, I stumble across the baseball, the zombies would think I'm one of them since is how they walk. Right? I know it's stereotypical to automatically think all zombies have a limp to their walk but that's how most of the zombies at the factory had walked. It's a theory. And it needs to be experimented on.I spot one of the bases and take a light jog up to it. I squat down at the base to fit my fingers underneath it to raise it back up my chest. The dust and sand smear my black suit and this thing is surprisingly heavy, probably the weight of a basket of apples. I limp to another nearby base and get down on my knees, the base squeezed between my chest and arms holding my weight down as I get ready to uproot another base.I dig my fingers into the earth and feel a small sting so I quickly retract my hand to look at the hand but not before spotting someone coming out of a bush."Is that a survivor?" I squint my eyes at the haggard person swaying in the air. They look so malnourished with their tattered clothes and heads hanging low. "Excuse me sir- Wait will they be offended if I call them by a sir." I muse to myself for a brief moment."No way, they might be a ma'am though...but they have no curves and are quite flat." I look back to the swaying person who is slowly raising their head, their neck is a slight black from grim and they jolt at every sway of the wind always on alert. When they look up, black orbs stare at me and I move backwards but the base holds me down.A slight roar of an SUV with a tacky design jumpstarts me and I turn around to see Zylith in the driver's seat. That's not fair!, I think to myself as she comes out of the cage break but when she moves the car farther away to let me see the other side of the pitch, three mad zombies are already running towards the car. I turn around in a hurry just in time to see the swaying zombie limp towards me. I let my breath hitch, maybe if I didn't breathe. Maybe if I didn't blink it would forget I was ever here. Like bears. They leave you alone when they notice you aren't a threat. Quite territorial creatures but this zombie isn't a baseball player from the suit and tie outfit they have on, I recognize it's from the KINGSMAN tailor so this zombie is definitely a man. You ask me man or bear and I shall undoubtedly without further waste, choose bear in every parallel universe I could possibly be in.I shove the base off my body and the zombie senses my panic, it takes off leaving a cloud of dust in its wake, pickles on ice cream, I scream in my head as I twist my body, plant my leg into the grainy texture of the earth and I'm taking off in the direction of the SUV. There is one problem with this situation though, the driver's seat is on the left, and I'm on the left side of the pitch, for me to enter the SUV, Zylith has to be out of the seat, or better, the console should be on her side of the car."No pancakes if you don't make it" I hear Zylith yell as I push forward to the SUV, I was never one for running but I refuse to die just when I could have a taste of the delicious creamy and savory dough of chocolate pancakes. I had also just won a chess round, this was the best moment of my life and I'll be damned to let anything ruin that.I see Zylith scramble to the passenger seat, but she keeps a steady hold on the console, the zombies chasing the SUV spot me in the clear open field and one of them diverts its pacing towards me. So now, one zombie is coming at me from the front and the back. I hear a screech from my back which almost causes me to trip, but I round towards the SUV. How didn't we hear their loud screech? Oh, the crash...Zylith swerves the vehicle to get closer to me while facing the field's exit. I change my body's pace and against every odd, Zylith manages to open the driver's door...with her almost flying out of it. The car inches closer and so do the zombies. I skid onto the ground, stretching my left leg out and placing the right hand to the ground. The zombie in from of me limp-gallops past me and doesn't even try to turn around. I reach the van just in time to grab the outstretched hand of help, placing my right foot on the platform, I jump into my cushion seat and the hand lets go of my hand while I grab the steering console...it looks like a wheel. I hit the accelerator and we zoom out of the circular baseball pitch.With a dry, airy and hard pancake shoved into my mouth, at least it's chocolate.And Zombies do limp. Huh.