I never thought how…lifeless it would feel if I ever became a zombie. And no, I didn’t mean soulless, although a monster who was completely devoid of thought probably didn’t have a soul either. This feeling was a lot more physical in the sense that everything I knew to be important in the human body was no longer there. The blood in my veins, the beating heart in my chest, my lungs pumping oxygen, not even my skin which I expected to feel more rotten.

  God, I didn’t even think I had anything down there. There was no way I was gonna live the rest of my life without the important body part of them all!

  Wait a minute… live? Live the rest of my-

  “I’m alive!” I screamed, immediately sitting back up from the grass I had been laying on. Something about the world around me looked weird. No matter where I looked, there were these green traces of what I assumed to be energy. Whether it was the trees, parts of the grass, the pack of radioactive dogs rushing towards me, or even the sky itself, the green stuff was everywhere.

  Hold on… radioactive dogs!?

  Without hesitation, I jumped to my feet and attempted to book it out of there, but the animals were faster than I thought. A few of them jumped on me and I, relying solely on instinct, punched the one slobbering on my chest in its face. I expected that wouldn’t work. What I didn’t expect was for the attack to not only work, but for it to send the dog spiraling in the air until it landed on a tree.

  “What the hell,” I muttered, the dogs quickly climbing off my body. “There’s no way I did that, right?”

  I looked at my fist, and then turned my attention to the rest of my body. My body, if you could call it that, was now a skeleton. At that point, I would've already thought I was dead if it weren't for the light green ooze layering over my bones, giving me the physique of a man who'd been working out for years with little rest. I was always considered a little skinny by a couple friends so this was a big change for me.

  Good thing I still had my brown pants.

  My mind also seemed to be a bit hazy. I was certainly aware that I’d become a zombie moments ago, and yet it felt like the realization had just settled into my brain. No… I was a zombie now. There shouldn’t be a working brain in my head. Even if there was, the ability to think or be aware of existing wasn’t a privilege zombies were granted.

  Maybe it was because I was a special type of zombie. My body was definitely bigger than the average one, that was for sure. Plus, I’ve never seen one with so much ooze on it.

  “I feel like a certain someone would get really excited seeing me like this,” I said, opening and closing my hand. “Hmm… now that I think about it, how did I end up like this in the first place?”

  Clearly, I got my ass handed to by some zombies, though I couldn’t remember why that would ever happen. I knew I was Jerome Hunter, and Jerome would always make sure to be extra careful not to let anything bad happen to him. Yeah, that’s right! I lived in a small cave in a place where the danger levels were low. I had to… ensure my survival ‘cause someone… depended on me.

  I folded my arms. “I was living with another survivor, taking care of them. Who the hell was it?”

  The sound of crunching caught my attention and I turned my head to the far right of me. The dogs from before had moved on from trying to get their teeth on me to chowing down on bags of opened chips. There were also a bunch of debris and random items near them that seemingly came from the destroyed cave ahead.

  A bean bag chair, ripped blankets, water and food packets, and some other minor stuff I spotted when I reached the dogs. Despite how aggressive they usually were, they looked pretty scared of me. Though, that fear died down when they saw how focused I was on all the other things on the ground.

  As they continued to eat, my intrigue grew with every picture I scanned. There was a photo of my human self next to a brown-skinned woman. “My wife,” I said surprisingly, staring at the smiles on our faces. “She-She’s… dead. Oh yeah, I remember now. My wife died.”

  My mood, which was about to fall off a cliff, increased a little when I saw another photo. It was the human me again, but this time I was holding a baby in my hands. It was a really cute baby too. She had a sparkle in her eyes that said that no matter how many bad things happened to me, her light would shine upon me. As long as it kept shining, the darkness would never get ahold of me.

  A living Sun.

  “Sunshine,” I shouted to the sky, making the dogs jump. “She was the one I was taking care of. My-My daughter.” I stood up, shaking my head. “She went somewhere… No, someone took her from me. Someone… D-Dan-Dante! That someone was Dante.”

  The memories from before exploded back into my mind like shrapnel, ripping through my thoughts and igniting the same fury that had burned through me when Sunshine was first torn from my grasp. No—this was even worse, hotter, greater, as though every second of her absence had fed the blaze.

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  I needed to find her, but where would he even take a little girl in a post-apocalyptic world? Lexington? No, that place got wrecked years ago. Forest Hills? No, that's like a few train rides away from here and they couldn't have gotten too far. There was still daylight. God, where the hell would a prick like that take my da…

  The Slavelands. He was gonna trade my daughter to slavery. I remember it now.

  “Fuck,” I screamed, smashing through the rocks with my fists. “That place is like days away from here. I'll never make it before Dante does. Wait. Hold on…”

  Even with the stressful situation and all the shitty thoughts running through my head, I recalled another time he was selling someone to the Slavelands. It was some prostitute, and Dante’s ego was so high that he forced the slave owner to come to him in Woodshaven. Assuming the man was still the same as he’s always been, then he'll probably do the same with Sunshine.

  With that reasoning placed into my head, I bolted out of there towards the path to Woodshaven.

  ******

  Gunshots blared as the sound of screaming plagued the air. Metal repeatedly clanged against the surface along with an animalistic screech somehow strong enough to tear a few run-down buildings to pieces. I could hear all of these things while I neared the gate of Woodshaven, and yet there was only one sound I wanted to hear. My daughter’s voice.

  Unfortunately for me, someone else’s annoying voice decided to intrude in my head. It was one of Dante's loan sharks who had been shooting at a pair of survivors until she spotted me. Luckily for them, they were taking cover behind a flipped over car.

  “W-W-What the hell is a Type Two doing around here,” he said, aiming his pistol at me.

  “Out of my way,” I murmured with fury, backhanding the guy across the face, sending him crashing into the car.

  “Did that zombie just talk,” the survivors screamed at the same time.

  It seemed like every couple of steps I took led me to more and more annoyances. I took a right and handled some guys. I took a left and dealt with some other guys. I charged forward and a radioactive bird decided to grace me with its presence.

  Hold on… a radioactive bird!?

  “The Mighty Terror,” I said to myself, hardening my fists.

  Ever since my world changed, I’ve always wondered about something every time I caught a glimpse of one of these monsters. Just how strong would a freak of nature like this have to be in order to fly at that size? I mean, its wingspan was almost the same width as my cave, the cave it destroyed.

  And look at it spreading its black and yellow wings in front of me. It obviously knew how terrifying it was and this must’ve been its way of converting that to me. Then again, it didn't just need big wings to intimidate someone. It had eyes blacker than obsidian, only staring at the prey it was sure it could devour. Bone-like spikes at the tips of its feathers. A beak shaped like a giant spear. Not to mention all that green, ferocious energy radiating from its body.

  No wonder why everyone called it the Mighty Terror, and yet terror was the one emotion I didn't allow myself to feel as I stared into the eyes of the beast. Who cared about an aura laced with fury when I had a kidnapped daughter to get back?

  I gritted my teeth, the ooze sizzling over my skeleton like acid. The bird bent its body down, its sharp beak pointed at me as its feathers shook wildly. One of us was going to die, and it for sure wasn’t gonna be me.

  “Are you really sure you wanna fight the great Mighty Terror, Jerome?” Dante’s partner, Alicent, appeared next to me out of nowhere, holding her gun to my head. “You could get yourself destroyed by this monster, and Dante can’t have that.”

  “I don’t care,” I said bluntly. “You were the only one with Dante when my cave got wrecked. Tell me where my daughter is.”

  Alicent flashed an innocent smile. “You must be wondering how I know who you are despite your change in appearance?”

  “No. I’m not,” I denied, my hands twitching. “Tell me where Dante took my daughter.”

  “It's actually a long story, so I’ll only tell you the good parts. You see, the real reason the great Dante went to that shitty cave you call a home wasn’t for money. It was actually for you two. Specifically you, Jerome. Since you’re a Type Two Radion now, I’m sure you understand why now. Although, I didn't think you'd be a talking zombie. Freaky.”

  She had this look in her eye that suggested she was waiting for some kind of a reaction from me. I didn’t “If the next thing that comes out of your mouth isn’t useful to me, then I’ll-”

  “As for your daughter, that kid’s finally gonna pay for all the damage she’s done these past three years.” Her smile grew further. “She’s finally going to di-”

  I grabbed her neck and lifted her in the air, slowly choking the life out of her. “One of you assholes even lay a finger on that girl, and I'll fucking kill you. The only reason I don't do that now is ‘cause I've been doing a whole lotta punching and not a whole lotta threatening, so I want you to tell me where she is.”

  Alicent gasped, then let out a pained chuckle. “You know, the good thing about you becoming a zombie is that someone like me can hurt you as much as I want without actually killing you… Jerry!”

  “Calling more of your guys isn't gonna work on me anymore. Just in case you didn't know, I've been beating every single o-”

  At that moment, something big slammed into my back, launching me through the city. I only managed to stop myself by digging my fingers into the cracked concrete, grinding to a halt. It didn't take long for me to realize that the Mighty Terror had finally started the fight, Alicent riding on its neck.

  Alicent stood up and raised her arms, the wind blowing her long ponytail. “Introducing the newest addition to Dante’s debt-collecting group of heroes, Jerry.”

  What kind of an idiot names a mother bird Jerry? No, Dante’s not an idiot. The guy just wouldn't care.

  I took on probably the most amateurish boxer stance I could make. If this bird was so mad about its baby, then it looked like the only way to quell the rage erupting within it was to reunite them… in whatever afterlife these freaks end up in.