Achievement Hunter: The Broken

Split

As monsters look at them through the trees, Michael doesn't move. They'll attack if he moves. He stares at the eyes through the tree lining, studying the grotesque deformed figures. Red spider eyes, rotten zombie flesh, rattling skeleton bones. Every one of them made his skin crawl.
"Michael?" Jeremy groans awake.
"Shh...monsters..." Michael nods towards the hoard ahead of them.
"Oh God..." Jeremy's eyes go wide as he notices their surroundings.
"I'll distract them. You run." Michael attempts to stand, before Jeremy grips his arm, anchoring him.
"Absolutely not!" Jeremy whispers. "Michael...I can't...I can't lose you...not you and Gavin both..."
"I'll be fine, J..." Michael shakes Jeremy's arm away from his own.
"Gavin would not want you to die." Jeremy sits up.
Michael freezes in place. "You don't know that..."
Jeremy stops, glaring at Michael. "I do know that. You are not sacrificing yourself. We are finding another way out of here."
"Jeremy—"
"None of them are looking, come on. We have to be quiet." Jeremy drags Michael away from the monsters, creeping across the forest floor. Michael grips the green scarf around his neck for some sense of comfort. It still wreaks of blood, but Michael doesn't care. A crunch beneath Jeremy's foot freezes both of them in their tracks. The snapped twig was enough to alert a nearby skeleton, who shoots an arrow at the two. Michael whips out the diamond dagger, swiping the arrow out of the air before it hits Jeremy.
"Run!" Michael calls, turning to land another hit on the skeleton. "Go! Now!"
"Michael, wait—" A zombie clawing at Jeremy cuts him off. He turns to punch it, but spots four more zombies limping towards him. Jeremy punches the first zombie, knocking it to the ground. He stomps on its head, his foot crushing what would've been it's skull. He runs at the other zombies, but as he lands a hit on one of it's jaws, the other one claws his arm.
Jeremy yelps as blood begins pouring from the cut. He uses his good hand to land one more punch to the creature, however another one grabs his other arm, digging it's nails into the cut.
He manages to wrestle his bleeding arm free, spinning around and bolting in the other direction as quickly as possible.
Michael finishes off the skeleton with one swipe to it's frail neck. The zombies begin charging at him. He notices Jeremy running. Michael looks at the rotten corpses approaching him, but he doesn't fight back. He didn't ready his dagger. He just...
Stood there.
But before the zombies could get too close, something in him told him to run, told him to live. His adrenaline kicked in, forcing him to retreat, despite his internal protest. He runs further into the forest as quickly as he can. He'd gotten a couple of good scratches from his fight, but that didn't stop him. Nothing would stop him from running until eventually, the sun had risen. Suddenly, his lungs started to burn, and his legs finally gave out beneath him and he collapsed to the forest floor, catching his breath.
The zombies had begun to burn in the heat of the rising sun. He smells the charred scent of their flesh. It's a smell he never got used to, despite having to smell it nearly every morning. Michael finally looks up after what felt like an eternity of laying on the ground. A pit falls in his stomach as he realizes where he is.
He's back at the tree. Back where Gavin was killed.
Michael almost turns to run again, but his eyes catch on a shining metal in the dirt. Jeremy's radio lays in front of Michael in pieces.
Michael cautiously creeps over to the radio, carefully picking it up. It's broken, but Michael thinks he might be able to fix it. He had watched Jack and Geoff work on the other radio before, giving himself hope.
But he looks over at Gavin, sitting beside him for a moment. "Gavin...I'm so sorry..." Michael breaths. "I'm gonna make this right for you...I promise, boy..." He slowly gets to his feet, walking away from Gavin until the scent of death fades from the air, until he can breathe again. Until he can think again.
Michael sits himself beneath a tree, and begins his attempt to fix the radio. It's not easy with the little tools he has to work with, but he makes use of some of the thin twigs laying beside him, Then uses his dagger to sharpen them, and is able to use them as makeshift screwdrivers and pins. It takes most of the day and a lot of cramped knuckles later, but he finally somehow manages to get it working, for now.
He presses the call button, and awaits for a voice to come through.