Tu Es Ma Lumière

42 - Zombie *Modern*

His breaths huffed in the cold wind, a small cloud escaping his mouth and nose with every exhale. The metal of his gun that was safely holstered in his pocket was cold every time the skin of his palms swiped against it. He hissed in breaths, his blue eyes cat-like wide. His pupil was the smallest dot as his head scanned from left to right, looking out for his enemy. His footsteps were too loud upon the abandoned concrete. His heart hammered in his chest as he walked the abandoned roads and streets in search of supplies.

Once upon a time, it was an extremely different view that would overtake his vision. The streets would be full of people, the sound of chatter and cash registers echoing for miles to come. The smell of freshly baked goods in the air, freshly brewed coffee from each and every street corner cafe in the country. Bags of freshly bought clothing would rustle as their masters walked along the roads, diving into shops and bakeries along the way. It wouldn't be anything like this.

The streets of Edinburgh high street were now completley vacant. Not a sound echoing the formerly populated streets. The stores were all ransacked beyond repair, people taking what they needed without thinking of anything else but survival. The disease hadn't been able to be controlled by anybody, spilling out into the open world. People protected their families and themselves as much as possible, but it had been three years now. No cure was in sight except perhaps the cruellest. Remove the head or destroy the brain of the walker until there was none left.

His eyes sparkled when he scaled the street and found the next one that was just past the large entryway. Victorian architecture on top gave way to a pharmacy that stood not too shabbily next to a few ruined clothing shops and restaurants. He rushed out of the arcade and sprinted over towards the entryway. There were no walkers around, but that didn't always mean safety.

The man shoved open the pharmacy doors and saw quite a few items that he could fill his rucksack up with. Soaps, vitamins, razors, daily medication, bandages and plasters, anti-bac wipes and energy supplements. He quickly filled his rucksack with everything he could find, leaving room at the top for water and food, that he quickly found in a water cooler and on a few shelves. 

Sighing with relief, he turned around to exit. A moment-long spike of fear went through his veins as he caught sight of a walker crawling on the pavement outside the pharmacy. It looked horrid, it's legs completley gone, guts and burned skin and clothing trailing behind it as it's hands drug it along. A trail of blood was left in it's wake, and Francis was pretty sure that it had an eye and part of a jaw missing from it's rotting flesh. The putrid smell of it caught his nostrils, and his repulsion was quickly put aside as he rushed to open the door and retrieve his gun from his pocket after it had passed him. He face the back of the crawling walker, quickly shooting two bullets into the back of it's head. It hissed loudly, before it slumped to the ground and moved no more.

He breathed a sigh of relief, quickly guarding his back by going back into the pharmacy and stuffing whatever he could into his spare pockets. After all, sunscreen would be important when the winter finally thawed and summer made her way into the world again. And you'd never know when you'd need a few more bars of trail mix and protein shakes.

He quickly moved out of the pharmacy and scaled back his steps, walking over towards the arcades again. He jumped when a walker suddenly jumped out of a shadow and made it's way towards him at a rather fast rate.

He hissed in irritation -whilst backing up- when both his gun and his knife were momentarily stuck in the pants of his baggy cargo trousers. But he didn't really need it when a loud gunshot went off above him and the walker collapsed in front of him.

He didn't cringe as the blood coated him. Blood didn't scare him anymore.

"Are you okay?" a voice asked. For a moment, he thought it was God, since the voice came from up above, but he looked up and saw that it wasn't God, but perhaps an angel. A raven haired angel in camouflage and black, wielding a shotgun in her hand and a belt full of blades, guns and other tools that he couldn't identify.

She frowned as he didn't respond, quickly throwing her body over the balcony and landing the twelve feet easily, standing just in front of the walker that she had murdered for him.

"Are you alright?" she tried again. "It didn't get you?" 

"Uh-" he stuttered, not being able to think clearly at the sight of a sudden raven haired beauty in his vision. "yeah-" he managed. "thanks." he stated, nodding down to the dead walker at their feet.

"No problem." she shrugged. "I'm Mary, what's yours?" she asked.

"Francis." he mumbled, finally pulling himself together. "Are you a ninja?" he joked. "That jump was bad-ass." he grinned.

"Not quite." she smirked. "Never been scared of heights, and now not zombies, either." she stated. He smirked in humour. "Are you alone?" she asked him.

Francis shook his head, wiping the blood off of his face with one of the wipes he had taken. "No, my brother and our three friends are about somewhere. As well as my entire family hiding out in a little house not that far from here. Kinda disappeared on them to get supplies." he shrugged. "How about you?" he drawled.

"Never, my brother and my cousin, as well as my three girlfriends." she clarified. "Uh-we've got a kinda safe place up North, not that far away. I know we don't know each other -like at all- but wouldn't a safe place where there's no zoms be better than patrolling the streets of Edinburgh in October." she nodded once. "It's gonna be snowing soon, and you'll have no chance of survival. By zoms or anything."

"Ah," he nodded. He didn't think about that. It hadn't been so bad in France, but it got real bad and he had to go. They all did. "yeah. Sure." he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly in front of this beautiful girl who had saved his ass and was now offering him respite. "You're from here?" he asked.

"Born and bread." she grinned. "And you're French, from the accent, right?"

"Yup."

She whistled. "I heard it got real bad around there, didn't the president get turned while on the radio?"

He winced. "He did." he stated. "Not fun to listen to."

"I can imagine." she nodded, walking away from the zombie. "Why don't you get your little entourage and we'll see what we can do about fitting'm in the van? Then we can get a little respite from the cold?"

"As long as we've not gotta eat haggis, then sure." he smirked.

"Unfortunately, we don't have snails for all your Frenchmen, so I'll suppose you'll have to make do with James' bean soup and crackers." she grinned.

"Sounds like a plan."

~~

Hope you enjoyed this little nothing chapter, and I've decided to try and write as much as possible in this trying time, since I know you guys need entertainment in quarantine and I need escapism from my sucky life. So, I really need you guys to suggest things and stuff for me to rewrite in Frarytales. Sometimes your girl runs out of ideas and it's over to you guys to suggest things. I know you guys hardly ever suggest things for me to write, but in these circumstances, we all need as much Frary as we can get!

Also, after this dies down, I'm gonna be taking a little break from Wattpad for a week or two. I just need a bit of time to have a breather from this stuff, and to figure out story plots since I literally never get the feedback that I need to make stories quicker. I can count the amount of times I've gotten good feedback on literally one hand and that really sucks, so it's time to stop asking for it and just do stuff myself.

Stay safe!

Love,

me

:).