MISTAKE

Pain. A lot of pain. He couldn't tell what was going on. He tried opening his eyes, but didn't perceive anything but a dark, blurry mess. The terrible headache was severely impairing his capacity to think or make sense of anything. Where the hell was he? What was he doing? His memory was hazy.

William groaned in discomfort. As he slowly regained consciousness, he tried to rub his eyes, but his arms felt weak. With a lot of effort, he managed to reach his face. It felt cold to the touch. It seemed like he was laying on the ground, but the apparent darkness made it impossible to get anything out of his surroundings.

As he unsuccessfully attempted to sit up, a faint light suddenly manifested to his left. It probably wasn't too bright, but given his state of confusion, it seemed blinding. He also heard some sort of distant mumbling. It was a soft sound, almost like a voice trying to communicate with him.

"…am… Will… …wake…? …an you he… …me?"

The sound went on for a couple of seconds, and he felt a slight tugging on his body, like someone trying to shake him awake without disturbing him too much. The shaking seemed to work, as the voice gradually became clearer and clearer.

"William… can you hear me…? William…?"

As his sight came back to him, he could finally identify the source of the voice. Nora was kneeling down by his side, faintly illuminated by the light of a candle. She looked tired, very tired. He was unsure of the circumstances, but he could notice her ripped, dirty clothes and the blood on her right arm.

"Nora… Ugh, shit–" just speaking caused stinging pain on the back of his head. "What happened…?"

"You were knocked out, they got you from behind…"

Upon hearing that, William remembered. About coming to the other shore of the river looking for the solar panel, getting ambushed by those men in the dark corridors, and then… nothing. He felt like he was forgetting some important piece of information. Who were they, and why did it feel like he knew them?

"I see… Damn it, it fucking hurts…" he kept complaining, as he tried to sit up again.

"Careful, I think you were hit pretty badly…" Nora tried to help him get up as gently as she could, until he was finally resting up against the wall behind him.

A couple of minutes went by. William kept is eyes closed for a while, while his acute headache waned.

"Um…" Nora muttered under her breath. William opened his eyes and looked at her. She was staring at the floor and throwing short glances over to something in the darkness, beyond the range of the candle light.

"What is it…? Just spit it out…" even though he appreciated her being there with him, he was pissed. Not at her, but at their luck. It was common sense to try and keep looting trips as uneventful as possible. And that day was pretty damn full of events. He wasn't in a good mood.

"I… I got some things while you were unconscious…"

"What…?"

Nora reached over and grabbed her backpack from within the darkness. He could tell she had to make a certain degree of effort to drag it, it looked heavy. She opened the zipper on the top, and pushed the bag really close to William, so he could properly see what was inside. His eyes widened up.

The bag contained several cans of food, along some packages of dehydrated beans and pasta, among other various things. Finally, some good news. The revelation actually seemed to help him regain the strength he was missing on his arms, encouraging him to slouch over the bag and rummage a little bit through its contents.

"But… how? You got all this on your own…?"

"I also got this…"

Nora reached for the darkness again, grabbing his own backpack this time. Then, she proceeded to open it and pull out an object. Her eyes were brimming with insecurity, yet she held the prized solar panel in her hands like a hunter showcasing a hunting trophy with pride.

"After I dragged us both into this apartment, the shamblers outside seemed to move away for some reason… So, I got out and took a look…" she explained.

"Wait, hang on… Shamblers? What even happened…!?"

"W-Well, after you were knocked out, those men tried to… a-assault me. And then, the noise attracted the shamblers, a-and all hell broke loose…" Nora's voice started trembling and stuttering as she recalled the events.

'What in the world…? How is she even alive!? And she even dared to go back out afterwards…'

William raised an arm and grabbed Nora's shoulder. She flinched and looked at him, fearful.

"Listen… I don't know how you managed to survive that on your own, but you really shouldn't have gone back out. Are you even aware of the risk you put yourself in…?"

"…I-I can't."

"Huh…?"

"I can't sit tight and do nothing. I'm weak, I don't know what I'm doing if I'm not following you around, I'm so scared…" her eyes became tearful. "B-But I can't just cower in fear… It's addictive, you just keep crying and crying, hoping that the bad things will go away, but they never do. To wallow in your own fear can feel cathartic in its own way. But it never fixes anything. I-I can't go back to that, I–"

She didn't sound like she was speaking to him anymore, she looked as if she was going over something on her mind, speaking to herself. William gently shook her shoulder, causing her to flinch again and cutting her off mid-dialogue.

"It's okay. You did a good job by gathering these. Come on, pull yourself together."

Nora's eyes filled even more with tears. After a brief pause, she nodded and tried to clumsily wipe them off her face. William watched her do it with a mix of sadness and compassion. Was he actually caring about her at this point? He probably wouldn't be alive right now if she hadn't put him to safety early on, yet she did so while dealing with whatever psychological trauma she had in her mind all this time. Was she doing it for her sister and her friend? For him, perhaps? For herself? Love, survival, fear… the answer was unclear, he was no psychologist. For an instant, he remembered some words he had told her earlier that day.

[I don't mean to disrespect, but I seriously doubt you've seen the worst.]

'I can see how that probably hurt in ways I hadn't intended… Just what the hell have you been through, Nora…?'

Some more minutes went by. They both remained silent.

…

What was that eerie feeling? His head still hurt like hell, but somehow William felt that something was wrong. It wasn't just the pain. He felt there was some critical circumstance he should be aware of, something important he was not noticing.

"We can't stay here for much longer… Even if we aren't in the best shape, we really need to move. Can you do it?" he asked.

"Y-Yeah… I think so. I'll grab my things."

As he finally stood up and grabbed his backpack, still fighting with his dizziness, he thought he heard something. Was it a rumble? It sounded like a distant tremor, like something big and heavy being dragged around. And it was getting louder.

Then it dawned on him. The realization of his mistake hit him like a bucket of cold water, and he turned to face the nearby window in horror.

"Fucking hell…! What time is it!?"

"Huh…? Ah! Oh no…!! I-I kind of stopped tracking time altogether…!"

There was barely any sunlight outside. The sun had started to set a while ago, and only the last, shy rays of light swept over the ruined city, soon to be gone. Night had fallen on them. How long had he been unconscious? How could he have forgotten about something as crucial as time?

"You shouldn't have stayed here with me! You should have gone back the moment you got your hands on the supplies!"

"W-why? What's going on? Aren't we safe as long as we stay quiet in here!?"

Nora was trying to keep her voice down, but William wasn't, he was literally shouting. He knew how useless it was to stay quiet during the night unless proper measures were taken. He rushed to the door and started pulling apart the furniture Nora had piled up against it. Such bad timing.

"Help me out here, quick!"

"A-Alright…!"

The rumbling noise outside became louder and louder, until its true nature was eventually made clear. It sounded like an aggressive cacophony of growls and screeches, along the constant hammering of hundreds of footsteps. As they got closer, they sounded increasingly more rabid and anxious. It was almost as if they knew. They knew there was a feast waiting for them.

Nora noticed the crowd of screams outside, which now sounded like they were in the street right outside the building. And they kept getting louder. Closer. She must have realized on her own the severity of the situation, as she started to panic and pull harder on the furniture blocking the door.

"Ah…! Aaah…! William, what's going on!? How do they…!?"

"They know! They can tell!!" after pulling apart to the side the wardrobe blocking the door, William swung it open without hesitation and stormed out into the corridor.

He grabbed an old mobile phone from one of his pockets, opened the flip and pressed a couple of keys.

'Come on, buy us some time…!'

A ringtone burst at full volume from the phone. He threw it back into the room they had just abandoned, just as the sound of shattering glass started to fill up the building, coming from seemingly all directions at once.

"Go for the stairs! Run!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

Both of them bolted for the stairs. As they closed the distance with the stairwell, all they could hear was glass breaking, doors getting busted down on the lower floors, roars and screeches echoing on the corridors. If the shamblers got to the stairs before they did, it would be all over. With every running step they took, William unconsciously threw a prayer to the heavens. And he wasn't a believer.

'Come on, come on, come on…!'

They emerged from the hallway into the dark stairwell. They could barely see anything anymore, only the faint glow of the moonlight remained, beaming down from the rooftop door, barely illuminating the outline of the stairs. The jarring noise of the shambler horde emerged from down below, and from the hallway behind them. With a quick look to the corridor behind him, William discerned several figures illuminated by a sickly blue glow, moving towards them rapidly.

"Up!!"

Nora wasn't replying or articulating anything coherent by now. She was panting heavily and loudly, almost wheezing as she followed him up the stairs as fast as she could. They could still hear things breaking in the distance. The screaming was getting closer, hundreds of footsteps and other chaotic sounds resonated right behind them.

William pretty much flew out into the rooftop, with Nora almost slipping and tumbling behind him. As soon as the doorway was clear, William shut it closed.

"We need to get to the river! It's our only choice!!"

"What…!? But…!"

He didn't let her catch her breath. There was no time for that. He grabbed her hand and forcibly pulled on her until she found herself running after him again. They rushed to the edge of the rooftop.

"Don't think, jump!"

William let go of Nora's hand and leapt over the alleyway, landing on the rooftop of the neighboring building. He turned around, expecting Nora to do the same thing. But she was hesitating. Suddenly, a loud bang behind her startled her, as the stairwell door was blown off its hinges by an enormous force.

The shamblers burst out of the stairwell like a continuous stream. They were tripping and stumbling over each other as usual, but they were quickly getting back up with unprecedented agility. Their eyes and veins were all glowing in that ominous blue color, almost iridescent under the moonlight. Their gazes, even while stumbling and falling over to the ground, were fixated on William and Nora. As if acting together like a single entity, they immediately corrected their course and started sprinting after them. At the same time, accompanied by even more screeches, some more hordes of shamblers started pouring into the rooftop from the sides of the building, after having climbed all the way up.

"Hurry!!"

Nora let out a terrified scream and threw herself over the gap, landing clumsily on the other side. William hurriedly grabbed hold of her and pulled her up, and they started running again. In a couple of seconds, they were entering the new building, as the horde of shamblers covered the previous rooftop and spilled over to the next one after them.

William closed the rooftop door behind them, and it was met with a barrage of blows almost immediately. He knew it wouldn't last long, barely a couple of seconds, but even that much could save their lives.

'Fuck, my head hurts. It hurts so fucking much.'

He couldn't let the pain cloud his thinking, not at that moment. One flight of stairs. Two flights of stairs. They heard how the door keeping the shamblers out was finally torn to pieces in the distance. More stairs, turned a corner, two corners, another stairwell. What was that building? It didn't matter. They needed to get down, and fast.

Glass breaking, the sound of furniture getting trampled… The multitude of angry screams followed them around the hallways relentlessly, like a hound tracking its prey. They went down more stairs. Suddenly, a door appeared in front of their eyes, and then the streets. It all happened so fast, almost like a blurry thought. Before they could even realize, they were already at ground level.

Nora's wheezing was deafening, William could swear she was pretty much crying from the effort. He was covered in sweat, panting heavily. His head hurt like hell, he could barely feel his legs. But they couldn't stop now. If they did, they'd be done for.

"Come on…!! This way, hurry…!"

"Aah…! I… can't…!!" whimpered Nora. Yet she was hurrying behind him with all her might. The adrenaline high allowed her to do so.

As they ran down the street and around the corner of the building, the windows exploded above their heads. Shamblers poured down from the floors above, slamming against the ground, breaking their bones apart from the impact. It was a literal rain of corpses, corpses that still kept trying to get up despite having shattered their limbs from the fall. Even in their mangled state, lumps of decayed flesh on the road and the sidewalk, they still kept their eyes set on the tempting human snacks, screeching, wildly flailing their crippled arms and legs in an attempt to reach them.

They did their best to ignore the crowd closing in on them from all directions. They ignored the bodies falling on them from above. They focused their attention on the river shoreline ahead. It was so close, the murmur of the water streaming down the canal was audible already.

"Jump… into the water…!! Don't give up… you hear me…!? Go… for the bridge…!!" William shouted, hoping that Nora heard him despite all the shamblers roaring as they got close. He could still hear her panting behind him. He was unsure if she heard him, but he wasn't going to stop running. He wasn't going to look back either. He already knew what was he going to see. He could hear them, the screams all around. They sounded very close, as if they were breathing down his neck. Was Nora even okay? The horde sounded closer than her wheezing did.

'You better make it, you fool…!! Don't you dare die on me now…!'

As soon as he heard the water in front of him, he jumped. As he did so, he turned slightly sideways. Did she make it? Time seemed to slow down for a moment. As he looked over, he saw her dropping down to the river by his side.

'Good, at least she made it…'

Then, a jolt of pain. But it wasn't his headache. His head had been hurting so much he had actually gotten used to it since a couple of minutes ago, the burst of adrenaline had blocked it off. No, that was different. The pain came from his left arm. He looked at it, and saw a couple of glowing eyes staring right at him.

'Ah, fuck… You've got to be fucking kidding me…'

He broke the surface of the water with a strong impact. The shambler released its bite and got swept away, leaving William to drift downstream.