Foolish decision?

'face to face with death... face to face with the truth...'

Day One

James caught up with Dion in the corridor ahead, Dion pressed his back tightly against the wall, and was making some frantic hand gestures.

James approached him in confusion, but immediately he did Dion drew him close and also pressed his back against the wall, then with a free hand he made a 'shush' gesture.

Although bewildered, James still complied.

And a moment later he felt his spine tingle.

'Of course...'

The noise Osaremeh, Brian and Abdul were making from their screams as they were probably being eaten alive was loud and it echoed far in these hollow hallways, resulting in the current situation.

Zombies were pouring in from various intersections into the hallway seeking out the source of the sound, to devour it... and theirs was no exception.

From up ahead, about five zombified teachers were stumbling over in a hungry frenzy, the road to their destination would pass by them, and since going behind was suicide it meant confrontation was inevitable, and considering their numbers, it seemed death was also inevitable.

James frowned, then he tightened his grip on the pistol in his grasp and raised it steadily.

He expertly took aim and was about to shoot when he felt a hard grip his muscular arm tightly, he turned in surprise to see Dion shaking his head.

He looked at the approaching zombies and hesitated, then he looked back at Dion and was about to speak when Dion held up a hand, then Dion demonstrated a gesture of breathing in and looked meaningfully at James, his eyes questioning.

James paused briefly, then nodded.

Dion nodded too, then glanced back at the approaching zombies with narrowed eyes, they were so close now - all five of them - they were still tirelessly dragging their broken foot behind them as they hurrried on to their desired location.

They hadn't been noticed yet, but all that could be changed in a moment.

'I hope this works'.

Dion held James' gaze for a bit then slowly raised three fingers, then dropped one a second later, and another two seconds after, once the last one dropped they both held their breaths in unison.

The zombies trudged forward, snarling and hissing, their previously human bodies dripping with blood especially from their mouth areas and one of them had a piece of someone's intestine sticking out of its hair.

The creatures drew themselves forward with determination, and within seconds they were before Dion and James, and then... they passed by.

James, "..."

James watched in disbelief as they were ignored and the zombies hurried over to the source of the still screaming students. He turned to Dion to say something, but he realized that Dion was already running towards the intersection up ahead.

He followed quickly.

Due to the distraction, no zombies were there to stop them and moments later they had run past their class, climbed the stairs and found an empty classroom where they could rest.

James breathed heavily for a while till he could catch his breath, and when he did, he looked at Dion with a smile.

"That was incredible - "

Bleargh!

Dion keeled over and heaved, various liquids and paste-like substances followed. Dion felt tears stream down his cheek as his body revolted, his body was shaking from head to toe and a buzzing sound filled his ears.

He heaved and heaved, till there was nothing left of his breakfast, and then he still continued heaving, his face turned a deathly shade of white.

But nothing seemed enough, it was almost like his body was terribly disgusted with him, suddenly a familiar feeling settled in, it was that primordial and ancient feeling of terror he had felt earlier today.

Earlier today - although right now that life felt like ages ago.

Dion barely felt goosebumps race across his skin, his already soaked school shirt became even more so, and worse still his limbs wouldn't stop trembling. A headache came on and he felt his thoughts turn mushy, he was losing ground, the only things being filtered in were his experiences during the past hour, from the first shy kid who arose to dine on human flesh, to their experience with Osaremeh and co...

Especially Osaremeh and co, it was all so vivid, and terrifying.

"SP!" James shook him by the shoulder roughly.

James couldn't act further, as he noticed movements outside the room, but this time they weren't zombies but humans.

Outside the door, he could see a couple of people nervously trying the locks on the doors of various classrooms only to despairingly move on to another after a failure.

'Humans..." James hesitated.

He really wanted to ignore them and focus on Dion, the only person who had actually helped him and was in need of his help, he wanted to just look away and not care.

But he knew it, if he ignored them they would die.

It was certain, the boy there was still trying to keep a semblance of calm but the two younger girls were a different story, one of them even looked like she was about to collapse and start bawling her eyes out any moment.

He didn't know how they had survived until now, but with coordination like that if they ran into just a single zombie they were sure to die.

Die...

Chewed...

Eaten...

'Damn it!'

He looked down at the wheezing Dion in frustration.

'What would you do if it were you, SP?'

Such a stupid question, because he knew the answer to it already.

It might seem cheesy for him to claim to know Dion so thoroughly albeit they just met, but James had just personally witnessed how much a person changed when his/her life were on the line, at that moment their survival instincts would push them to selfishly pick out the most efficient means of self preservation, even at the expense of others.

'But you Dion...'

He knew the answer.

He gritted his teeth, not believing he should be doing something so foolish once again.

But a moment later he still found himself opening the door.

"Get in!"