After TPOT 9, the infection was never cured. Two brings the infection to the equation playground, letting all hell loose.
Warnings for this book! Violence, sickness, gore, gore art, disturbing imagery, death
This apocalypse had started about five months ago. Most of the numbers had been smart, boarding up as quickly as possible.
Six had grown defensive over Nine as soon as she started showing symptoms of infection; he claimed he would watch them and kill them as soon as they were obviously infected. Nobody was able to change his mind on this, and when the time came, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Six had been infected as well, and Five killed him off, taking their shovel to his skull in a gruesome display. They did the same to Nine, almost getting swiped before her body stopped thrashing, brain thoroughly mangled.
Five seemed to have things figured out: destroying the brain of each zombie they killed, burying it, constantly wearing gloves, and carrying around that shovel. None of the other numbers had seen Five so violent, even when they were previously worked up, but it definitely kept some sort of order in the Equation Playground, so nobody questioned them.
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Seven would stay in their house most of the time, refusing to talk to anyone for more than an hour and keeping everyone out. They grew secretive, always seeming to need to go home and bring some food or water with them. Five grew suspicious of Seven, accusing them of being infected, but nobody else backed them up, so they backed off... for now.
Eight and Ten kept to themselves for the most part as well. Ten would occasionally come out and catch up with everyone, especially Five. He listened to their rants intently, memorizing anything he could. Then, Ten would use it to encourage and comfort the other numbers, being the main voice of reason in the playground.
X and Four stayed in their home. Four would occasionally come out and get water, quickly returning to X for another week or so.
May 16th.
X sat at the table, pushing around some cold mashed potatoes with their fork. They weren't hungry. How could they be hungry? Four wasn't hungry. Did he think X wouldn't notice the smaller portions he ate? How selfish would X be to eat more than Four after he was the one who put effort into cooking? X couldn't bring themself to eat another bite, but the thought of wasting food in a time like this was almost sickening. They sat in silence, weighing the guilt of each option.
X's mind wandered, creating detailed scenarios. Four getting mad that X wasted food, Four going insane from the isolation, Four getting infected, infected Four attacking X.... Eventually their mind wandered from Four, thinking about Two. Zombified Two attacking Four, Two somehow being healed and returning to their normal self, calling out to X to come outside, that everything was okay. They imagined Two's voice, quietly whispering just outside the thin window... "X... come outside... It's me..." X's mind settled on that scenario, carrying it on as he zoned out.
"X.... hurry up.... Out here.." Two's voice felt so vivid... X could almost hear the whispering..
"Out here... It's Two.... Come out here..." X began to zone back in to the quiet kitchen, focusing on the low buzz of the ceiling fan.. Gee, they must really miss Two.
