Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 245: Lasting Past The Month

Chapter 245: Lasting Past The Month

"We are going to have to pick up the pace," grunted Wei Xiao Li as he looked up at the sky. The sun was touching the horizon, and it was only going to be a matter of minutes before it set completely and darkness came.

Bai Long Qiang grunted, looking at the same thing. "We can keep up," he assured the other man, nodding his head in my direction to show that I was being carried.

I let out a snort, not impressed that there was an unspoken agreement that I was going to keep everyone back.

I mean, I was the slowest out of all of us, but they still didn’t need to admit that out loud. A girl had her pride, after all.

Wei Xiao Li smiled before breaking out into a sprint, the rest of his men quickly catching up while some of them even pressed on ahead.

Letting out a long sigh, I looked at Rip. "Stop for a sec," I sighed as I adjusted myself in his arms.

Trying to carry me with any type of speed would be hard if I was being held like a princess. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. I still needed him to support me under my ass since I couldn’t get my legs all the way around him, but it was much easier for him to run this way.

Kissing my head, he held my ass in his palm as he took off, quickly catching up to the men and then overtaking them.

"What the fuck?" grunted Wei Xiao Li as Rip sprinted past. "Is he a fighting power?"

"Nah," replied Bai Long Qiang, shaking his head. He was easily keeping up with the other man, the two of them running side by side. "Just a Reaver. Those fuckers are fast when they want to be."

"Reaver?" repeated Wei Xiao Li, stumbling over his own feet for a second before he managed to righten himself. "Are you serious? You have a Reaver on your team?"

"Yup," chuckled Cheng Bo Jing, easily jogging on Wei Xiao Li’s other side. "But it is more like he is letting us on his team and not the other way around."

"How did you manage that?" demanded Wei Xiao Li, and I could see his mind spinning from where I was watching the conversation from over Rip’s shoulder.

"Her," pointed Bai Long Qiang, and I wiggled my fingers in a wave.

Wei Xiao Li paused for a second, taking in a deep breath before he put on a burst of speed. "We need to hurry up. They are going to be coming soon, and we are too vulnerable out here."

"What’s coming?" I asked, cocking my head to the side. However, I could feel the ants on my skin practically dancing. Whatever it was that was coming was going to be good for me.

"The zombies. They sleep during the day and hunt at night," explained Wei Xiao Li, catching up to Rip. Or maybe it was that Rip slowed down for him.

"That seems a bit backward," I mused, looking around, wondering if I could see one of them hiding behind a building or something. I still had a hard time equating what I knew about these zombies with what I thought I knew before the end of the world.

And I think that so many people underestimated them that they actually enjoyed the misunderstanding.

"Not really," breathed out the man who I was pretty sure I was supposed to hate. At least, I disliked his leader.

But he was tolerable.

"They wait until we are sleeping and then go into our homes and pull us out of our beds. It increased the level of fear to never feel safe," shrugged the man, but I could see where it would be terrifying to close your eyes if that was the case.

Maybe the humans here should adjust to a nocturnal schedule as well.

"How many zombies are we talking about?" asked Cheng Bo Jing, not even breathing hard.

I was woman enough to admit that I would be barely able to function, let alone breathe, if I had to do all this running. It was much better being carried.

"Thousands," admitted the man, and I could see a look of pain on his face. "Not like we can really count them to know an exact number. But at least tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. The rain brought about even more of them. And the fuckers got stronger... faster... smarter."

We all took a second to think about what he had just said. Since I had discovered the ability to take energy from people without having to touch them, I killed every zombie we had come across before they even saw us.

I think it had given me and the guys a false sense of security, knowing how easily they could die.

But hearing it from this man’s perspective, it was absolutely terrifying.

"Are there a lot of humans left in the city?" asked Fan Teng Fei. He looked like he was just out for a stroll, and I was not impressed with his lack of effort. If I had a third life, I was going to have to be smart and take up running or something else to get into shape.

My lack of physical fitness was slapping me in the face right now.

"Before the rain came, we had maybe a thousand?" answered Wei Xiao Li with a sigh. "Now I think we have less than 500. A lot of people without powers ended up becoming zombies after drinking the rain, and then, of course, the zombies can transform humans too, if they chose."

"Shit," breathed Ye Yao Zu. "There were millions of people here before the end of the world."

"Six million inhabitants, a few more million in tourists," agreed Wei Xiao Li.

"And now there is less than 500," I murmured. The severity of the situation hadn’t actually hit me until that moment: how many people must have died since the world imploded? But those numbers were simply mind blowing.

"Yeah," sighed Wei Xiao Li. "And I don’t see us lasting past the month, truth be told."