Chapter Text
Mom was right - your damned bleeding heart would be the death of you one of these days. Fucking sucks that it had to be this day, though - with some nice loot stowed away in your pack. It was the suburbs. Lots of places to loot, more places to hide. Not as crowded as the city or cumbersome to traverse as a forest.
You’d found some iron nails, a whole drawer’s worth of silverware, and a really soft shirt that had only maybe one or two stains.
But you heard some unholy noise - what you identified as a yowling cat - and like an idiot you’d bolted towards the noise instead of away. Thought you’d be fine smashing in a few soft skulls and buy the poor creature enough time to get away. When you arrived, though, there were a lot more than just a few heads to smash. And the cat, wailing so pitifully, was safely nestled away atop a ledge no undead could ever hope to reach before falling to their sure second-death below.
That left you as their next target.
You took a page out of the cat’s book and started to climb, but the bricks of the house you were scaling were loose and your sweaty palms picked up dust and grime that loosened your hold.
Miraculously, you managed to reach the roof, but by then, a whole hoard of undead had been lured by your clumsy evasion and your palms were bleeding, ready to let the rot fester inside you and turn you as well if you weren’t careful. The roof under your feet didn’t feel anymore stable than the bricks holding it up and you knew in that moment that you were fucked.
Your breath quieted as you finally caught your breath. Your heart wavered as you watched the dead gather and begin clawing over each other to get closer to you. Your lips, too, began to tremble.
“Fuck, mom… ma…” You whimpered, beating your head with your bloody palm.
They won’t even know what happened to you - you weren’t supposed to go out today. But Ma said she’d let you help make the knife for her latest commission when the trader came by next with some more scrap and you’d been stupid enough to think that it wouldn’t be hard to find some scrap of your own in the nearby wasteland.
You screamed into your hands as softly as you could, wanting to claw your own eyes out. Your nose was snotty by the time you gave in and crouched down. Your mouth tasted like dirt and iron. The wasteland smelled like rot.
With a sigh, you slouched your pack off your shoulders and grabbed the shirt out, ripping it in two to tie each scrap around one of your hands. There. Reducing the risk of infection.
You’ll wait out the hoard. They’ll forget you were ever here - you’ll climb down the back of the house, jump if you have to, and make a break for it back towards the settlement. It might take a few days. You’ve got just enough water in your pack for a day - three if you spread it out - and you’ll be hungry as hell but you’ll book it like you’d just eaten a whole pot of stew.
The roof will hold out that long - you’re small. Ma called you scrawny. Mom would only hum as she brushed your ash blonde hair, run her fingers over your pointy ears, and say you were just part pixie.
If there is any fey in your blood, you hoped it granted you a little extra luck.
After the first night, most of the dead lose interest in you. They stop clawing but the cat seems to live nearby and it cries something fierce all day long - must be in heat. The zombies continue to shuffle all around.
There’s not a single opening you can identify, but you decide you’ll wait two more days to see if the cat leaves or shuts up. The sun has baked what skin you’ve got exposed and your lips are cracked but the roof holds.
Second day, a deer bolts down the street and takes a good half of the hoard chasing after it. You would run too, but the dead are alert in the wake of the recent disturbance.
On the third day, the world gets a little blurry. Your arms feel weak. Your head is stuffed with cotton. You’re tired of pushing your grimy pants down your hips to piss in the corner - not that there had been anything to piss for the past twelve hours. Maybe longer.
You knew that if you were going to run, you needed to do it soon… but you weren’t sure if you could get off the building without cracking your skull and leaking all of your brain juices for the zombies to slurp off the pavement.
The imagery causes you to cringe - you look up to the sky, you don’t know why - to pray? But the sky is clear and the sun continues to shine unforgivingly on your sore skin.
That’s when it happens; You’d never hallucinated from dehydration before, but you’re certain that’s what’s happening when a flying beast with a writhing mass of tentacles blips into existence overhead.
It blocks out the light completely and makes a screeching noise that you fear may render you deaf. It even surprises the dead - makes them all drop to the ground and start crawling.
Your heart beats loud in your ears, almost loud enough to drown out the chaos.
It’s fake. It must be. But this might be your chance, while they’re writhing, screaming from their rotting throats.
Your ass slides against the shingles of the roof as you begin your descent, not even noticing as one of those massive tentacles thrashing about until it crashes into the house and sends you flying towards the concrete.
No no no no no
Your arms flail to find purchase on something, anything, meeting the slimy, rubbery surface of the same tentacle as it smashes into your body.
You expect to go splat soon after. You expect the world to go dark.
What you didn’t expect is waking up.