Dying Blood

Chapter 31 - Walking with Kaleb

Third person pov

  Later after lunch, at 1:22 p.m., Kevin and Kaleb are outside of the base walking in the forest. Ron, Juan, and Maria are back at their place playing a board game in order to have some fun. Tim and John are practicing their shots at the shooting range. As they walk together while observing their surroundings for any intruder that might attack them, Kaleb said to Kevin, "So you're saying that you had a library of journals and notebooks back at your home?"

"Yes," Kevin answered back positively, "and my grandfather has one as well. But for learning books, I mostly preferred YouTube and my phone, but I do have some physical textbooks and novels I inherited from my grandfather when he and my grandmother passed away 3 years ago."

"I see," Kaleb replied. "I think they're smart and bookworms."

"Sort of," Kevin partially agreed with him.

Then, suddenly, a zombie saw them from the distance, and it charged towards them in a fast speed. Kevin and Kaleb noticed this very quickly in alert, and Kaleb aimed his sniper rifle as Kevin flinched in fear. Kaleb then fired his weapon towards the zombie, killing it instantly.

"It's dead now," Kaleb said to Kevin. "You may come out now."
Kevin lowered his guard down, only to see a dead zombie on the ground.

"Thanks," he said to him. He then said that line in Tagalog and Japanese.

Mildly confused by his languages, Kaleb asked, "What?"

"Oh, that means thank you in Tagalog and Japanese," Kevin explained in response.

"Are you a multilingual or something?"

"Yeah, I loved to learn languages, you know. The languages I had learned are: Tagalog, Spanish, English, Japanese, and Korean."

"Wow, that was a lot of learning."

"Yeah, I'm currently working on Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Dutch."

"I see. Nice. That'll be convenient if you travel across the world."

"I know."

After that, Kaleb grabbed his walkie-talkie and contacted one of his comrades, "Guys, we had a dead zombie body lying around at southwest. Can you take care of it?"

Then, moments later, someone responded, "Okay, we'll be there. Just stay in your location."

"Got it."

And so, Kevin and Kaleb stayed in their current location until some of Kaleb's zombified soldiers came. They passed the time by talking about stuff like educational and family backgrounds. In that conversation while sitting on a fallen log, Kevin found out that the reason while Kaleb became a soldier is that he was forced to drop out of medical school by his father and become a soldier like his father. He also found out that he has a rivaling brother named Ray, who actually the one who had almost killed Wesley Magkalon. But Kevin and Kaleb don't know what Ray did to Wesley yet until the right time.

Later, three of Kaleb's zombified soldiers came with a huge human-sized bag to collect the dead zombie body. As they collect and stuffed it inside the bag, Kevin thought to himself, "You know what, I decided to live my life as if no disaster had happened," Indeed, Kevin decided to live his life as if no disaster had happened to him. This was considered as denial, but it was one of his coping mechanisms.

Then, once the zombified soldiers had collected the body, they suddenly heard a scream coming from the distance, and they both got alerted by it. Kevin and Kaleb stand up, and they all looked at their right and readied their weapons just in case. And then, Isaiah, who had ran out of bullets, was running out of the trees while being chased by a zombie. As Kaleb and his zombified soldiers aimed at the chasing zombie, Kevin goes first and slashed and stabbed that zombie to death. Zombie blood splattered on Kevin's clothes and face. Isaiah then stopped running, catches his breath, and turned around, only to be surprised to see a dead zombie. Kaleb and his zombified soldiers watched this with amazement.

"Wow, that kid was so badass," one of them commented.

"I know," Kaleb responded.

Kevin then breathed heavily, turned into Kako, and said, "Thanks, Toshi-senpai."
I then sighed in relief, turned around, and asked Isaiah, "Are you okay, young man?"

"Yes, thanks," answered Isaiah back in amazement. He then thought in his mind, "He's like an anime character."

After that, Kaleb said to one of his zombified soldiers, "We need another body bag."

"Right," one of his comrades agreed.

Later at the twilight time, Kevin, as the real Kevin, told Riley what had happened that day. Riley was surprised by it then, commenting, "Wow, that was dangerous."

"Yeah, but I'm used to it," Kevin positively replied back. "I liked imitating my favorite anime characters."

"I know that you and me are otakus," Riley agreed with him.

Kevin then smiled at her. Kaleb was with them while his zombified soldiers are back at the base.

After that, the twilight time was almost over, and Kevin quickly dig into his pants pocket to retrieve their connector, that colorful piece of shoelace. He then passed it to Riley, and she grabbed the other end with her right hand. Kaleb watched this with astonishment. And so, Riley disappeared along with the shoelace she was holding. Seeing this, Kevin looked at his right hand and said to himself, "Next time."

"Wow, the Love Bond was such a rare supernatural event," Kaleb said to himself. He knew this from Ron.

After that, Kevin looked at him and said, "Let's go back, shall we?"

Kaleb agreed, and he and Kevin grabbed their weapons, and went back to the military base.

Later at night, while Ron, Juan, and Maria are on a mattress reading a book, Kevin was writing about his day in his journal in every detail. He was in a positive mood and was satisfied by what happened today.

"I hoped I'll able to live a normal life tomorrow," he thought to himself. "I'll just act like one of my personalities."