Hope, hallways, Alex

In Emily's classroom.

The question hung in the air, heavy and full of uncertainty. The thought that Alex might force me to abandon my friends and my newfound purpose of protecting this place hurt more than I expected. There was something in Tim's gaze that told me he also felt that tension, that divided loyalty.

"Alex is a man of principles, Miss," Tim finally said, his voice a low murmur. "He will try to fulfill what his father asked of him. But he is also a man who understands necessity."

His gaze shifted to the group of students, who now watched us with a mixture of curiosity and anxiety. They hadn't heard everything about Alex, but they understood that someone was coming to the high school to save me.

"The necessity of what?" I asked him, feeling a knot in my stomach.

"The necessity to survive. And to protect the innocent," Tim replied, his eyes returning to mine. "If you present him with a plan or a solid reason, and if he sees a real opportunity to establish a safe zone here, he might reconsider. But his priority will be to take you to a safe place, as your father asked."

That didn't entirely reassure me.

It meant I would have to convince Alex, and I didn't know if I would have the strength or the arguments to do so. The guilt over Sonny still gnawed at me, but now it mingled with a new determination. I couldn't just run away. Not after what had happened.

Suddenly, a metallic, distant sound, like a door being forced, echoed from somewhere below, on the lower floors. Everyone in the room tense. George and Louis gripped their weapons, their knuckles white.

"What was that?" Yuki whispered, her voice barely audible.

Tim approached the door and began to listen to the source of the sound.

"It sounds like they're entering OR leaving the first-floor classrooms. I can't say for sure," Tim said. His face grew graver, if that was possible.

"Could it be Alex?" Marlon asked, a spark of hope in his eyes.

Tim hesitated for a moment. "It's possible. But we can't let our guard down. It could be anything."

Time stretched, each second seemed eternal, as we waited. The sounds from below grew clearer: heavy footsteps, something dragging, and then, a low, unmistakable growl. It wasn't Alex. It was them.

"They're coming up!" George exclaimed, his voice tense. "I hear more than one."

Panic threatened to overwhelm me again, but I clung to the image of Sonny, to his sacrifice.

We all panicked. Unintentionally, we moved some tables, causing a lot of noise.

Tim closed the classroom door.

"Shhh! Be quiet!" Tim urged us all.

We fell into complete silence, but our faces were filled with panic. Yuki was trembling. Rose sobbed, covering her mouth to avoid making more noise.

However, we had already attracted their attention.

They were on our floor.

Suddenly, a dull thud resonated against the classroom door. It wasn't a breaking blow, but a muffled impact, as if something had crashed into it. Then, another. And another.

"They're coming!" Amy shouted, her voice sharp.

Tim positioned himself in front of the door, his weapon raised. "Stay back! You women help me with whatever comes in!" he yelled at us, and then looked at Marlon, George, and Louis, ordering them to be the second line of defense.

My heart pounded, but it was no longer just fear. It was adrenaline. It was the determination to survive.

The blows against the door became a macabre rhythm, resonating in our bones. Tim, his weapon steady, remained on guard, his gaze fixed on the weakest point. George, Marlon, and Louis positioned themselves behind him, their knuckles white, gripping their own improvised weapons.

The door gave way with an agonizing groan, and three stumbling figures burst into the room.

They were zombies.

One, a boy in a torn high school uniform, lunged at us.

Tim reacted with brutal speed. His knife plunged with surgical precision into the boy's head, who collapsed without a sound.

George raised his pistol, aiming at the second zombie that was stumbling towards Marlon, its claws extended. But Tim, without even looking at him, stopped his arm with a quick, firm gesture.

"Don't shoot! The noise will attract more!" he hissed.

Louis, with his knife, lunged to distract the zombie, creating an opening. Tim, with a fluid movement, disposed of the second with the same silent efficiency.

Marlon, for his part, had been struggling with the third zombie, using protection as defense against bites. His face was pale with fear. He knew what would happen if one of the bites landed on an unprotected spot; he would become one of them.

After Tim finished with the second one, he approached the one fighting Marlon and stabbed it in the head, just as he had done with the previous ones.

My heart pounded.

With the zombies neutralized, the room fell into a tense silence, broken only by our ragged breaths.

The urgency was palpable.

"Now!" I ordered, my voice resonating with an authority I didn't know I possessed. The guilt over Sonny had transformed into a driving force, an unstoppable power. "Block the main staircase! Everything we can move! Tables, chairs, cabinets!"

Marlon, Sophie, Rose, Amy, Yuki, Brody, Violet, and Minerva moved with surprising coordination, pushing the heavy desks to block access to the main staircase.

The metal scraped the floor, creating a deafening noise that mingled with the distant growls from outside. We knew the noise could attract the zombies, but the room was very close to the main staircase, and we had to create an obstacle so that the zombies coming from the courtyard or the first floor wouldn't come up.

As we worked, Tim, with surprising calm, began to instruct us.

"These… infected," he said, pointing to a zombie's body with his foot, "are slow, but tireless. They move by sound, by the smell of the living. One bite, even a deep scratch, and you're done. The only way to stop them is by destroying the brain."

He explained the importance of the head.

"Noise is their biggest attraction. That's why gunshots are a last resort. Knives, blunt objects, are your best friends at close range. Always aim for the head. And cover your skin. A simple scratch can be fatal."

As he spoke, his eyes lingered on me for an instant, a look that seemed to say that this information wasn't his, but something he had learned from other people.

"He must have learned it from my father, who in turn had obtained it from Alex and David," I thought as I helped move chairs.

We all listened with a mixture of horror and fascination, assimilating every word as a life-or-death lesson.

With the main staircase partially blocked, offering a temporary respite, Tim and I decided it was time to secure the rest of the second floor. The goal was to establish a safe zone on this floor, and the intermediate classrooms needed to be cleared up to secure the route.

Tim, George, and I formed an exploration team, moving cautiously through the dark hallways, while Marlon, Louis, Amy, and the rest of the girls continued to improve the staircase barricade.

Each classroom was a Russian roulette. In the math classroom, we found a solitary zombie, a teacher who now wandered aimlessly. Tim quickly neutralized him with his knife, while I felt a pang of sadness for the lost life.

In the music room, a muffled sound alerted us.

We found two students, a girl and a boy, hiding under a grand piano, trembling with fear. Their eyes widened with a mixture of terror and relief when they saw us. They were unharmed but traumatized.

I approached them calmly, offering a hand, my voice soft but firm. "We are forming a refuge. We are securing this floor. Do you want to join our group?"

The boy nodded, his body trembling with fear. The girl, in shock, could only cling to his arm.

We continued our swept.

We found another zombie in the chemistry lab, quickly dispatched.

In the history classroom, we discovered a middle-aged teacher, wounded in the leg, but conscious and clinging to a book. She was weak and scared, but willing to follow. George and I helped her walk.

Each rescue, each neutralized zombie, reinforced my conviction that my plan was the right one.

The high school, once a place of learning, was becoming a battlefield and, potentially, a sanctuary.

"This can work," I thought, increasingly convinced.

With the second-floor hallways partially cleared, the next task was to organize the chaos.

I looked around at the exhausted but hopeful faces of my friends and the newly rescued.

"We need to divide," I said, my voice sounding more confident than I felt. "One team will take care of those we just found. They need basic instructions, protection, and attention. The other team will continue securing the floor and looking for more people."

Amy and Sophie immediately volunteered to help me with the newcomers. We would explain the basic rules about the infected: silence, how to move so as not to attract them, the importance of the head to stop them, and that a bite or deep scratch was fatal.

Meanwhile, Tim, George, Louis, and Marlon had teamed up to continue the sweep and fortification of the accesses.

"Be careful," I told them as Tim and the boys left the classroom for the farther hallways.

Once they left, we started our part.

The teacher with the leg injury was carefully seated, and Violet began to improvise a bandage with strips of fabric from an old curtain.

Other students, more frightened than injured, listened attentively as Sophie showed them how to use a blunt object to defend themselves.

As we taught, we began to look for extra clothes or cardboard to make rudimentary arm and leg protections.

While one part of the group was dedicated to internal organization and welcoming the newcomers, small teams dispersed through the already cleared classrooms in search of supplies. I joined one, checking desks and abandoned backpacks.

We found some half-drunk water bottles, cookies, and energy bars from vending machines.

In the infirmary, which I had visited before, we managed to find a basic first-aid kit and some bandages. Every discovery was a small triumph.

We returned to the classroom, and I supervised the distribution, making sure everyone had at least a little water and something to eat. Many had not eaten since lunch. The anniversary had occupied part of the day, and the rest we were locked up or escaping from zombies.

15 minutes later.

"We must secure the entire high school," I stated, pointing to Sophie's improvised map. "We can expand from here. The dining hall, the gym… although the latter will present a challenge."

"It's an ambitious plan, Emily," Sophie commented, rubbing her temple. "But… what if the whole world is like this? What good is a fortress here if we're surrounded?"

"My family… If there's a chance to get out, I…" Yuki began, her voice trembling. Others nodded, their eyes reflecting the same despair.

"I also want to get out of here," Amy interjected, looking at me with guilt.

I felt a pang of frustration. I couldn't blame them; fear was a powerful motivator.

"I understand," I said, my voice softer. "But running blindly is suicidal. Here we have walls, resources, and we can defend ourselves. Besides, remember that the nearby streets are all packed with cars. For now, it's our best option. Tomorrow, we can try to advance further, secure another floor, look for more supplies… And if the military arrives to resolve everything, we can return to our parents safely," I added, though the last part made me wince.

Third-person POV.

Meanwhile, in a distant hallway on the second floor, Tim and George worked in silence.

They pushed a heavy metal filing cabinet to block a staircase that connected to the lower floors. The screech of metal against the concrete floor was deafening in the sepulchral silence of the high school.

Tim stopped; his gaze fixed on the darkness at the end of the hallway. He had heard something. A low growl resonated from there.

A zombie, with erratic movements, stumbled towards them.

George raised his pistol, but before he could aim, a figure lunged from the darkness.

It was a man.

His arm moved in a swift arc, and a knife plunged with a wet sound into the zombie's head. The infected collapsed without a whimper.

The man stood tall, his silhouette taut against the faint moonlight filtering through a distant window.

Tim and George stood motionless, their weapons ready.

The man turned to them. His face was covered in dried blood and dirt, his eyes dark and penetrating.

He carried a large backpack and seemed to have been through hell. Behind him, in the gloom, the frightened figures of eight or ten students could be distinguished, some with minor injuries, others simply in shock.

"Tim?" the man's voice was deep, but with a hint of relief.

Tim nodded with a barely perceptible movement of his head, his tense expression relaxing just a fraction as he recognized him. He lowered his weapon slightly. George imitated him, though with more caution.

"Alex," Tim replied, his voice restrained.

"We need a safe place for them," Alex said, pointing to the students behind him. "Did you secure the area?"

Tim nodded.

"Yes. Emily is in her classroom, on this same floor. We have secured the main staircase and are clearing the rest."

"Good," Alex nodded, his gaze evaluating the hallway and the improvised barricades. "Lead the way."

Tim set off, with George by his side, while Alex and the rescued students followed them.

Tim observed Alex's silent efficiency, the way his presence instilled a new layer of security in the rescued students. The path back to the main classroom felt safer with Alex nearby.

Emily's POV.

"Tim and George are back, and they're bringing more people," announced Louis, who had returned shortly before with Marlon from another hallway.

When Tim returned to the classroom, he wasn't alone.

Behind him, with an imposing silhouette and a weathered face, stood Alex. And with him, a group of new faces, scared, but alive.

For an instant, a glimpse of the younger, carefree Emily appeared on my face, a girl who believed adults would come to save her. But that image vanished almost instantly, replaced by the new reality I had embraced.

My eyes met him. I felt immense relief, a wave of hope at seeing him there. But that hope immediately mingled with a pang of concern.

He had come to rescue me.

"Would he support my high school refuge plan, or would he force me to abandon everything?" I wondered.

Alex approached me, the urgency palpable in every step, his eyes fixed on mine. His voice was deep, laden with genuine concern.

"Emily. Thank God you're okay. We must go. Your father is worried."

I looked at him, my relief transforming into an expression of unyielding, almost defiant firmness. There was no hesitation in my voice, only a conviction that resonated through the room, capturing everyone's attention, even the newcomers.

"We are not leaving, Alex."

.

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[A/N: CHAPTER COMPLETED

Hello everyone.

Another chapter from our beloved Emily. Now with more intention to lead the newly formed group. She already feels a kind of need to keep everyone safe.

In this chapter, we'll also have the first crossover with the other novel, and we'll be able to see what happened from two perspectives.

If you want to see how Alex got there, you can go read the last chapters of my other novel, "The Walking Dead: Visions of the Future." They come after the "Agents of Chaos" chapters.

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Read my other novels

#The Walking Dead: Vision of the Future.

#Vinland Kingdom: Race Against Time.

You can find them on my profile.]