Annihilation

Chapter 12 - Twelve Hours

ELIAS' P.O.V

Dyson is dead.

Man, he wasn't even originally on my side of the team in terms of friendship, but his caring character and bubbly responses grew on me faster than anyone else's personalities did. And now he's dead. Nothing I can do will bring him back.

See, we were fighting and it turns out that the child zombie managed to dodge Cassius' big blow - to be fair, Cassius still managed to kill another one of the monstrous abominations; however, it meant that the kid got through. My sword missed the neck, meaning that I skewered her collarbone instead. She was a very clever undead, I must admit.

Lucien's shooting of Dyson happened way too quickly. Unlike the death of Lyndi, where we all had a chance to say a proper goodbye and hug her in her final moments, all we could do this time is stab the boy in the brain repeatedly and watch the life swiftly drain from his paling body. It wasn't a sight that I enjoyed witnessing, I'm not going to lie.

Now, the four of us sit in dead silence in the car. Well, dead silence is arguable, for the low grumble of the engine remains presents, and every so often the crunch of a sandwich or the slurp of a straw breaks the quietness of the journey.

"Not long now," Lucien finally utters, turning to the left as Cassius slurped on a straw. It was obvious that no one wanted to talk about the catastrophe of Dyson's death scene, but the silence could only continue for a little while longer before I'd end up going insane. I'm just one of those people who hate the quiet.

"What's our goal?" Cassius asks Lucien; biting into whatever sandwich he had this time. Man, he eats about five sandwiches for everyone that I eat. However, he has to keep his muscle mass up and the sandwiches will probably go off before tomorrow.

"Our goal is to contact my friends working over in the US," Lucien replies, looking ahead into the distance, before taking a bite of his sandwich. "Man, this chicken won't last too much longer. Anyway, we'll get a radio signal to them and attempt to get a chopper to pick us up, along with any other survivors in this country. There can't be that many of us left - we've travelled from Plymouth to London and took nearly every road along the way."

Lucien has a point. Other than seeing him, we've met no other survivors who haven't been bitten or wanted to die, like the man Lucien visited earlier. Tatiana said that she'd explain what was happening, but she hasn't done so yet. It's okay though, the explanation isn't the priority here.

"So, how long will the chopper take to get here?" I ask, eyeing Tatiana next to me. She remains curled up in a ball, watching the dead world go by as we travel towards the radio station. "I'm guessing it'll be an overnight thing?"

"That's right Elias," Lucien grins, staring at the girl next to me through the reflection of his mirror. All of us are worried about her and she knows that we care, but I can tell that she just wants to disconnect herself from reality and forget that she lost her two best friends to a bunch of flesh munching monsters. "If we contact them now and they respond immediately, I'm guessing they'll be able to send something over to us for four in the morning or so?"

"We have to wake up at four in the morning? Screw that dude, I don't usually fall asleep until two." Cassius sits in his seat, his last morsel of food in his mouth and his arms folded. None of us will be too pleased having to wake up as early as that, but if it saves our lives, I'm not going to protest.

"A mile or so left. How y'all feeling?" Lucien asks us. It's obvious what the sub-context is: How is Tatiana coping with Dyson's death? He probably does care for us boys deep down, but it's obvious that Tatiana is on his mind more than Cassius and I am combined.