Finding Home | #Wattys2016

Chapter Twenty-One: Paranoia

A/N: So this took way too long to write and I'm sorry about that :/ But it is a decently long chapter and I intend on updating this faster. But many things happen in this chapter and I hope you enjoy it. This story is going to end up moving forward pretty quickly and I plan on working on a sequel. If you want to see anything or are confused by something I could elaborate on in future chapters, please let me know. Get ready for some drama soon! Thanks for reading! ~TGF

PS I'm sorry it took so long to update this on Wattpad, I've been busy busy at work and with moving.

Chapter Twenty-One: Paranoia

Alicia's head hurt and there was a buzzing in her ears that made it difficult to focus on anything else. The wall behind her was the only thing she was aware of besides the pain. It felt like her heart was beating in her skull and when she reached up to touch it, her fingers came away wet with blood.

A faint noise, underneath the insistent buzzing made her eyes flutter open. She glanced up, find the dirty tile of the hospital floor then the white wall. As the buzzing faded, the noise became louder, almost like a feral growl inching closer.

Everything came flooding back in that moment. The zombies, where she was, why she was there and Elyza. She had fallen. Hit her head. They were fighting zombies to save Ofelia.Where was Elyza?

She rolled onto her back and came face to face with a zombie, its breath rancid and eyes devoid of emotion. A scream bubbled in her throat but didn't have time to escape as Alicia twisted her body, kicked her legs out and shoved the zombie backwards.

Scrambling to her feet, Alicia managed to stumble backwards and further down the hallway. Her brain pounded and blood dripped over her eyebrow and into her eye as she ran.

She couldn't risk looking back, for there were a few straggling zombies hell-bent on getting as involved in the action as they could. Alicia managed to dodge them and nearly got bitten in the process. She reached the end of the hall and came to a stop, gasping for breath.

She turned back towards the direction she had come, she found only a horde of zombies caught up at the end of the hallway. The door to the infirmary was ajar and the undead were focusing in on something on the ground. Alicia's heart fell, she couldn't see through them and her eyes subconsciously tried to find the wheat-gold hair she had become so accustomed to.

Something squeezed at her heart that she couldn't place, a sense of loss she hadn't felt since Matt. She pressed her forehead into the wall in front of her as the tears threatened to fall. This had been a mistake. This entire mission had been a mistake. It was all her fault for insisting on entering the military compound.

Elyza was most likely dead or dying because of her. She would either become one of those monsters or be eaten alive and her bones left to rot. The images that fabricated in her brain threatened to send her into hysterics so she tried to push them away.

Alicia tried to focus on her breathing, to settle it and will the tears away. There would be a time to grieve. There would be a time to deal with all of these turbulent, festering feeling that threatened to overwhelm her. She had a mission to complete, a job that had to be done or this entire endeavor would have been for nothing.

With a final, calming breath, Alicia stood up straight and clenched her jaw. Her eyes scanned over the directional signs on the walls, hoping something would lead her in the best direction.

Pharmacy.

The arrow pointed to the left, deeper into the hospital. The hallway seemed to be darker than the other and Alicia imagined the cliche Greek god of choices Janus, standing there, grotesquely decomposed with his two heads and eyes as dead and blue as a zombie. He would be staring at her as if demanding she make a decision. She'd read way too much Percy Jackson and watched too many horror films in middle school.