CHERISH

👀Chapter 5👀

One really cannot get used to the lack of people or crowds in many places. Except for me. With or without people, it makes no difference to me as I don't interact with them in the first place. Other than the usual hi's and hello's I offer to people back then, I have little to no interaction with them.

But strangely enough, I miss people. Who wouldn't? If you were to pick between a living, breathing person and a mindless, hungry zombie, which one would you pick?

While the majority would choose people, I opt for brainless zombies. Why? In the Philippines, we have the saying, "Matakot ka sa tao, hindi sa multo." Which roughly translates to: "Be scared of the living, not of ghosts or the dead."

It means people can touch you, hurt you, and betray you. But ghosts or the dead can't as the only way they could harm you is by scaring you to death. Ghosts can't touch you therefore, they can't inflict physical pain.

I could apply this to zombies as well. Though zombies are after you, can physically touch you and eat you, that's all they can do. They rely on their instincts to survive, pushing themselves to just feed, feed, and feed until there's nothing left and they'll search for the next meal or wait for it to come by.

Humans are a different story. They have intellect, they can think for themselves, they plan, conceptualize, they scheme. It makes them more dangerous than zombies as they can strategize and fight back.

Humans are also prone to greed. If zombies only feed, feed, feed, humans can kill, gather, and hunt.

Zombies are predictable. Humans? Certainly not. You never know what they're truly thinking unless you look them in the eye and ask them, and even then, there's a possibility that they'll lie.

And you know me.

I don't like liars.

"Come out." I said, brandishing my Glock in front of me. The surrounding which previously had the ambient sound of tittering birds was now filled with an atmosphere of hostility coming from me, causing the birds to keep quiet.

Ever since I came out of the subdivision and into the village's suburbs, I already noticed someone following me. Seeing as they didn't do anything to me so far, I let them follow me until I was in front of the pharmacy.

The pharmacy was called Liberty Pharmacy, a lesser-known drugstore here in the village. I had to go on foot and alone for a specific reason; the route to this drugstore was just a small alleyway, enough for me to squeeze my 5'4 frame in. And that's saying something, as my height is considered taller than average here in the Philippines.

The pharmacy had a gate, but maybe due to urgency when the apocalypse happened and people were running for their lives, the owner left it open.

Based on the dust and the recent handprints on the glass door, someone has already looted this drugstore. It didn't deter me though. Here's me praying that they were stupid enough and were not thinking of grabbing fever medicine, think that they won't need it.

Tootsie was restlessly whining, albeit a bit guilty as well because she hadn't noticed our tail.

"It's me."

A sigh of relief escaped my lips, but I didn't let my guard down. I didn't look at him, I was busy looking at the birds as they were back to their usual noisiness, chirping and jumping on electric cables. I went back to the task at hand, facing the pharmacy, gun in hand, while asking this fucking man why he was out here.

"Well," Connor drawled out, "You forgot to tie your hair, so I brought a hair tie."

Encircled on his wrist was a simple black hair tie, to which he showed to me by flaunting it on the side of my face.