Runaway Brain (iZombie/Flash fanfic)

Chapter 2

Seattle, Washington

Olivia Moore, known to her friends and family as Liv, stepped into the King County Morgue located in the bowels of the Seattle Police Department building. With snow white hair and alabaster skin, the young coroner's assistant appeared to be either an albino, or some kind of emo/goth snow princess. In truth, however, she was neither. Liv Moore was a zombie.

No, she was not the decomposing, foot-dragging, groany-moany, eyeball-dangling, brain-eating zombie people normally envision. Well, she did eat brains, but other than that she did not really have much in common with stereotypical zombies. Not that those stereotypes were altogether incorrect. To the contrary, if Liv ever stopped eating brains for a prolonged period of time, she would revert to the more primal zombie of such film classics as Zombieland.

Liv had not been a zombie very long. In fact, as far as she knew, zombies had not even been in existence very long. Liv's tragic existence as a member of the undead began one night at a boat party sponsored by the energy drink company Max Rager. Liv was unsure of exactly what happened, but at some point, people started going crazy. Like setting the boat on fire and eating each other crazy. She was fairly certain the designer drug utopium was involved, but beyond that she didn't really know much. What Liv did know, was that she was believed to have died and woke up the next morning in a body bag, a zombie. She quickly developed an appetite for human brains and because her taste buds were nearly completely numb, a taste for hot sauce.

Liv had once been a promising young medical intern, with an impossibly sweet and sexy fiancé, but following her transformation she quit both her job and her love. To have access to a ready supply of brains without resorting to murder, Liv took a job as an assistant medical examiner in the King's County Coroner's Office. She would simply remove and eat the brains of the recently deceased that showed up in the morgue.

Her boss, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, knew Liv's secret. Ravi had worked for the Center for Disease Control until he warned his superiors about the impending zombie apocalypse once too often and was unceremoniously canned. Now, he was a medical examiner in the coroner's office, and in his spare time, when not playing video games or attempting to woo assistant district attorneys, he searched for a cure for zombism.

Liv bounced down the steps into the primary examination room, laid down her bag and picked up her white lab coat, throwing it on. She breezed into the back office, expecting to find Ravi...alone.

"Die, you damned brain-eating zombie!"

"What's going on?" Liv asked when she discovered Ravi sitting on a small swivel stool in front of a tiny television playing a video game. Sitting beside him, also playing and shouting for the death of all zombies, was Ravi's roommate—formerly known as Liv's fiancé—Major.

Startled, both Ravi and Major spun to see Liv standing in the doorway. Ravi quickly hit the pause button on the video game and leapt to his feet. "Oh, here you are," he said in his ridiculously charming British accent. "Major bought this new video game," he began, but Major interrupted him.

"Zombie Blasters III," Major smiled at Liv.

"Yes," Ravi continued as he crinkled his nose, "Zombie Blasters. And he couldn't wait for me to get home and play it with him. So he brought it by the office."

Major set his controller down and stood, smiling at her wistfully. Liv couldn't help but think how good he looked in his navy blue t-shirt—or any shirt, for that matter. Of course, he looked best wearing no shirt at all. "Sorry, it was my fault," Major explained. "I didn't call or anything. I just popped in."

The truth was, Major "just popped in" more and more, since he and Ravi began rooming together. It was no secret that he still loved Liv, and the truth was she still loved him too. Liv did not break off her engagement with Major because she disliked him or had even fallen out of love. She broke up with him to save him from her fate. She did not want to turn Major into a zombie like her. But it still hurt her to see him, and though she hated herself for breaking his heart without a good explanation, she simply could not bring herself to tell him the truth. She had rehearsed telling him many times, but whenever the right opportunity arose, she froze. She didn't tell him she was a zombie, despite the fact that it felt like in those moments millions of people all over the world were screaming at her: "Just tell him the truth!"