warm hands; cold heart

the first encounter...

As I was thinking of the events that were and are occurring a knock snapped me out of my thoughts, I walk out of my room and go to the door to see tereva talking to someone.

"Yes thank you..." Someone says, eventually tereva closes the door and turns around,
"Who was that?" I say, startling tereva a bit,
"Ah! You scared me...that was one of the soldiers, we are going to gather rations in two hours, she was just telling us" she says, gaining her composer back from the scare.

"Oh sorry! Alright, I'll go tell payden, you tell niomi...." I say turning around and walking up the stairs from the living room up to payden's room.

As I walk up the stairs and knock on her door, I can't help but think of what it's going to be like going to see my town...or old town I should say.

I knock on Payden's door, earning a "coming!", A few seconds later payden opens the door, "hey! What's up?" She says as she fixes her hair, I'm guessing from getting changed, "so a soldier came to tell us that in about two hours we're leaving to gather rations from the town" I say smilingly, yet nervous, I still try to make others happy.

"Oh really? Damn...well I'll get prepared I guess, see you later!" She says as she closes the door.

A while later we leave the house,  somewhat fully prepared, being protected by weapons, I have two guns, and a pocket knife, as well as a few mags, and spare bullets in a bag, same with the others, as we walk through the outside and to a giant cement and metal wall, it has a door, like one you'd see on plankton from spongebobs chum buckets door, just without the window, and bigger.

We walk through the door, hearing a loud creek as it closes and a loud bang from the metal slamming together, the sound of footsteps is all we could hear as we walked around, stopping at random points to look for anything we could bring back, like clothing, food or picking up knifes or other objects for self defense, we eventually reach a 7/11, I use a rusty metal pipe, that I found and smash open the glass door, it's a fairly small store so it wasn't going to be a hassle to find anything, I duck under the bar that was sectioning the glass door in two parts of glass.

I start to search the shop, looking at the shelves, grabbing a pack of gum, some candy and a few drinks that haven't been completely smashed, payden and Tereva start checking behind the counter, finding a plain white shirt that's kind of dirty from the dirt and drinks everywhere, while niomi just stands there complaining about her feet hurting, eventually we find everything we could salvage from the store, putting everything in the bag, when we hear something or someone coming our way.

I rush to put everything away quickly, but by the time I do, a hoard of un-dead corpses are surrounding us, I scurry to the wall of drinks, stepping into sticky puddles of different kinds of drinks that spilled, payden and Tereva looking around rapidly for some way out, then the next thing I know, I was pushed, falling to my knees, I looked behind me to see niomi running away, dragging the payden and Tereva with her while they protest against it.

I look up to see hungry looking zombies slowly walking closer and closer until I feel someone grab my arm and drag me away, me and this person start running, their grip strong, not letting me go, after a bit of running we end up at an abandoned church, they sit me down, then I eventually get to take a look at them, as I look up I see a zombie, he looks like he's in his mid twenties, or at least nineteen, he has messy black hair and grey eyes, he has scratches all over, and pale grey like skin, and never in my life would I think, that I'd find a zombie.... attractive, he was definitely handsome, he sits me down on one of the benches, I follow his lead, scared and willing to do anything to stay alive, my clothes now wet from falling onto a puddle of liquids onto my knees, and he notices, he manages to speak a bit, his voice soft and welcoming, yet not strong enough to be above a whisper, "new.... clothes?" He askes, motioning to my wet pants, and dirty hoodie.

"Y-yeah...that'd be.... nice" I say, scared yet grateful for my zombie saviour, he nods and walks away, going into a back room, as he does that I take in my surroundings, the walls are a light beige color, wooden flooring, and wooden ceiling, the windows boarded up, a few rows of long benches made from wood with a blue cushioning, a few different colored cushions scattered around, and surprisingly clean.

After a few minutes the zombie guy comes back out, a purple shirt and some grey sweatpants in hand, he hands them to me, then stands there, just looking at me, "uhm, can you uh...turn around so I can get changed please?" I say, laughing a bit as he somehow blushes a bit, "y-yeah.....sorr...sorry" he says, his voice still quiet and slow, he turns around and I slip off my hoodie and shirt, putting on the shirt he gave me, then taking off my pants and putting on the sweatpants, "uhm I'm done now..." I say, fixing the clothing a bit, he turns around and just stares at me, and I do the same, not knowing what to do or say.
"so uhm, I'm amilia, what's your name?"

I ask, wanting to know more about this mysterious zombie, he just shrugs, tilting his head to the side a bit, "ah so your name is....shrug?" I say, trying to make a joke, he let's out a sigh with a light smile that drops quickly, "starts with....m...." He says, thinking, obviously trying to remember but just can't quite get it, "mark?.... Mario?" I say, but he just shrugs again, repeating his head tilt as well, "well I'm gonna call you mark!" I say, smiling.

"need....sleep" he says, pointing to the bench I was sitting on, he then grabs a cushion from the ground and places it on the bench, then stands there, waiting for me to lay down, I walk over and sit down, looking up at him, "it's kinda cold....do you have any blankets or anything?" I say, shivering a bit from the cool air in the room, I guess I just hadn't noticed it earlier due to my hoodie.

he looks down, then proceeds to take off a black sweater he's wearing, as he does I take a look at his outfit, he's wearing a white t-shirt, with some baggy blue jeans, and was wearing a black sweater until he took it off, he hands me the sweater, and I accept it, putting it on, and zipping it up, then laying down, "do zombies need...sleep?" I ask him, he shakes his head no, then walks to the bench in front of me and watches me, I avoid his gaze and eventually drift off into sleep, wondering how I'll get back to the camp.

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Hello! This one is longer than my others, but I'm definitely proud of it, have a good night!