The Price of Humanity

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

I look around, standing at the end of the street. Second right, first left. I took the third right due to some, inconveniences.

I look back at the horde currently trapped by the fence and up at the two men who are still watching me. Some rather big inconveniences.

Taking an educated guess, I head right. Hopefully in the direction of the library. Surely if I took the third street the library should be to my right a little way?

I start walking down the street, checking behind me to make sure the two men don't release the horde again.

I look at all the buildings, peering in some of the doors before moving on. None of them look very 'library' like. I continue down the street until I reach a road heading down my right. The street I was meant to go down, I think.

I head down it, now that there are none of the dead blocking my way. I follow Adam's instruction's backwards and head down a street on my right, hoping to hell that I'm right and I haven't gotten disoriented.

I notice a large building on my left. It has large glass windows and a couple of floors. Looks 'library like' enough. I look through the windows on the ground floor and see rows and rows of books, mostly fallen over. Bingo.

Walking through the ground floor I try to remember where Adam said Mia is. A cupboard? Something like that. I make my way through the ground floor towards the stairs.

No chance in the elevator working.

I find the stairs at the back of the room and start climbing up them. They creak underneath me with every step, which isn't very reassuring, but I continue to climb up to the first floor.

Now shouting isn't something you really want to do when there are mad men in the city and walking corpses but due to the size of this library, I'm going to need to shout to find Mia.

"MIA!" I yell as loud as I can, then realise a stranger shouting her name probably won't make her want to respond. "I'm a friend of your brother's." Yeah, like she's going to believe that.

"Mia, please come out. Your brother's hurt and can't come to get you." I try, making my voice less demanding and more caring. "I'm going to take you to him." The silence of the library greets me.

Great I'm going to have to search every cupboard on every floor.

I walk around the first floor, scanning all the floors for any cupboards. I find a few but none with a little girl inside. Okay, next floor.

I head towards the next creaky set of stairs to find that they're half broken. Luckily, the right side of the stairs still goes up to the top floor, but the left side is sitting in pieces on the floor.

Did he really bring her up here?

I sidestep up the stairs, keeping my back firmly pressed up against the wall. One shifts under my weight as I step on it and I instantly freeze. It doesn't move any more however so I keep going.

God, I hope she's around here somewhere.

I reach the top of the stairs without any damage to me of them, thankfully. I'll still be able to get down after finding Mia, if I find her.

"Mia?" I shout again, trying my best to keep my voice kind and gentle. I hear a small whimper from somewhere. She's still far away but if I can hear her that means she's not too far.

The whimpering is quiet at first but as I walk closer to the other end of the floor the whimpering gets louder.

I turn a corner to find a corpse walking through the shelves. She's somehow managed to keep her glasses during her afterlife but her pantsuit is very much ruined, so much so that that you could wear her outfit to the beach and get a tan – if you wanted that look.

I pull my katana out of its sheath, the noise making the corpse turn and look at me curiously before stumbling towards me to get at my brains or any part of my body really.

I raise my katana like I've done so many times and pierce the corpse in the brain. She slumps to the ground and I look around, hoping there's no more otherwise I doubt Mia would've stood a chance against them. I continue trying to find the cupboard.

I stop walking as I realise something wrong. Something badly wrong. Why is she whimpering? I hurry up my pace and start running through shelves to try and find the bloody cupboard.

Where is she? I start to panic when I can't seem to find her anywhere on the floor.

Why can't I find her? Oh God, am I really going to have to return empty handed. Adam definitely won't stay where he is if I return without his sister.

I turn around another corner, but only see walls and shelves. That's no fucking use. I feel a familiar weight settle itself on my chest and try to control my breathing, which is a massive failure.

Oh fuck, what if she's bit? Is that why she's whimpering?

I run down the next aisle of shelves. Nope, not here either. Oh God, oh God, come on Mia give me a sign or something. I thank God, Buddha and heck, even my Fairy God Mother when Mia gives out another small whimper.

Wait? Oh, I can't have been that stupid, can I? I return to the stairs and sure enough find another staircase going up. The fucking top floor. Maybe I was that stupid.

I sprint up the stairs with the little energy I have left, how I manage to keep going have no idea – I've never really been that good at running and my stamina was non-existent before the apocalypse.

I reach the next floor and start jogging around those walls too, trying to conserve at least some of my energy. I jog around the corner and find a cupboard. Please Mia, please be in here.

I keep my katana out and lightly latch onto the door handle, I pull gently and realise it's locked. I hear a sharp intake of breath from inside. Bingo.

"Mia. It's the girl from the supermarket? Your brother, Adam, he's too hurt to come and get you so he sent me." There's silence for a few moments before I hear the click of the lock sliding.

Training my ass. Adam hasn't trained her a single bit.

I open up the door slowly and what I see brings me both relief and fear.

Mia's curled up in a ball in the corner, sweating like a pig, covered in blood.