“Hey, are you alright?”

  Huh?

  Ryan let out another cough as he slowly opened his eyes. Was this the place you’d go to before heaven? No, the surrounding area looked familiar. In front of him stood a young, spunky girl, one with black hair and wild purple highlights.

  “Who...?” Ryan tried to speak but couldn’t muster the words.

  “Oh, thank goodness you’re still alive.” The girl said. “Hold on, hang in there.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a protein bar and a water canteen. “Here, you’re going to want this.”

  Ryan’s eyes lit up. Instinctively, he snatched both items and helped himself, not wasting time to savor the contents while he still had them. He felt a small bit of vigor and energy restored. It wasn’t enough, but it at least helped him from dying of dehydration or starvation.

  “Whoa, looks like you were in worse shape than we thought.” She said. “Good thing we came by just in time.” Her head nudged over to her left. “We’re also picking some up on the road. Hope you don’t mind if we borrow some more from the stash over there.”

  Ryan turned and noticed the other box on the floor, which had a plentiful amount of protein bars in stock. He kicked himself internally for that one, but at least he had something for his stomach. He might’ve passed out from lack of water, however.

  “Food...” Ryan couldn’t help himself as he crawled over to the box and scarfed down a few more bars for good measure.

  “Whoa, easy, take your time. Don’t want to get yourself sick, now.” Whoever she was, didn’t seem to mind that he took from the stash. She just sat there, watching him. “Don’t worry about me. In case you were wondering, I already packed them up in my bag. We also got some more canteens with us downstairs.”

  As Ryan took another sip from the jug, he surveyed her appearance. The girl appeared to be younger than him, though it was hard to tell. She wore a dark purple shirt, ripped blue jeans, and dirty sneakers. It was hard to tell if it was a fashion statement or if they wore out over time.

  Ryan cleared his throat and tried to speak again, but all he could muster up was a simple, “Thank you...”

  “No problem. You also did us a favor, so it checks out.” She got up and extended her hand. “Come on, you going to be okay?” Ryan grabbed her hand and stood up. He wobbled a little, but regained composure in due time. He nodded in response. “Name’s Karin, by the way. What’s yours?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “It’s...”

  “Hey, Karin, what’s the holdup?” Another voice interrupted him.

  The two left the storage room, as Karin grabbed her shovel, resting off the wall. The zombies that were there before vanished. A group of motionless zombies lay on the kitchen floor, as a blonde-haired boy cleaned the blood off his spiked bat with a cloth. He wore a dark green vest, a white scratched-up shirt, brown cargo pants, and brown boots.

  “Hey, Mike,” Karin greeted him. “Did you take care of everything here?”

  “Yeah, no thanks to you. What were you even doing?”

  “Hey, I was scavenging and scouting the other side.” She placed her hands on her hips. “I’ll have you know I turned up lucky. I found some stacks of food and another survivor to boot.”

  “I see; that’s good to hear, at least. I couldn’t find anything in my area.” Mike squinted his eyes, staring at Ryan. “Hey, is he okay?”

  “A little weak, but I gave him plenty of water to drink.”

  “How much?”

  “We still have plenty of water in the canteen, no worries.”

  “That’s a valuable resource for us; you can’t just waste it on a stranger we don’t know.”

  “He was thirsty. The poor guy could’ve died without this.”

  Mike sighed. “Ok, fair. But don’t overdo it.”

  “Of course.”

  Ryan watched as they took turns stockpiling the food packets and bars into their backpacks. They only brought what they could realistically carry, leaving the rest for other potential survivors. The two loaded up and did one last search around the kitchen before deciding it wasn’t worth exploring anymore. Ryan stood there and looked at his feet. His vision was clearing up at least, but his energy was still weak, and he felt like a useless third wheel. Still, he was grateful for help and couldn’t do much in his current state, anyway.

  It hadn’t occurred to him, though. They’re people, alive and healthy, living out in this newly ruined, apocalyptic city. If that was the case, there had to be other humans out there surviving. Ryan instilled some hope; maybe he could find a way out of this mess after all. The situation might not be as gloomy as he initially perceived earlier on. Still, he didn’t like the idea of staying overly optimistic and getting his hopes up, so he settled on keeping it relatively low. It was better than nothing, after all.

  “So, you ready to go?” Karin’s voice piped up, catching Ryan off guard.

  He looked up as Mike and Karin grabbed their weapons with the backpacks in tow and looked towards Ryan. He tried to open his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. Ryan drew a blank, but also knew there wasn’t enough time to answer such a simple question. Mike told him they’d make a break for it and had already planned an escape route before coming here.

  “Zombies get aggressive at night.” Mike continued, peering his head out the door. “I’d rather we didn’t stay here too long; we have places to be.”

  Ryan just nodded, not wanting to waste any more time. He made sure to walk properly and adjust to his surroundings after what had happened earlier. Mike and Karin had their backs against the wall as they peered out the door to check for incoming zombies. Once the coast was clear, the two headed out, with Ryan following right behind him.