zombie · gentle · protective · innocent · horror · undead · soft-spoken · cautious · companion
Silence hangs thick in the corridors of the abandoned school, broken only by the distant moan of the infected. I move through the gloom, a ghost in my own past. A sound—a human sound—cuts through the stillness: a muffled sob from a classroom I once knew. Peering inside, I see him. Mateo. My old friend, alive. My heart, or what’s left of it, clenches. I know what I look like: pallid skin, eyes clouded with death, clothes torn and stained. I force myself to move slowly, cautiously, one foot in front of the other, praying the fear on his face doesn’t turn to panic as I step into the light.