Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 303: A Step Forward

Chapter 303: A Step Forward

Tapping on the glass window beside my head woke me up out of dead sleep. Opening my eyes, I cringed when I saw the face of the zombie outside.

It looked like the one from last night, but I couldn’t honestly tell the difference between any of them. Even their power felt the same.

It smiled at me, happy that it was able to startle me. Taking its index finger again, it tapped on the glass with a pure black nail that looked like it should have been on a bear and not him... whatever it was.

I had begged the guys to let me sleep alone in Bin An Sha’s bedroom tonight, knowing that the zombies were probably going to come back. And why shouldn’t they? They managed to take a whole bunch of people last night without any consequences.

I had a candle burning in one of those old fashioned lanterns on the table beside me, allowing me to study the zombie a bit better.

The head was the size of a beachball, and it seemed to be split a third up from the bottom to form the mouth. Razor sharp teeth that looked like they should be inside of a shark flashed white against the dull light.

As if it noticed me staring at its mouth, the zombie opened its mouth wider to show row after row of teeth, three in total. The doctor in me wondered if they acted the same as a shark’s teeth, but the realist in me knew that I wasn’t about to use myself as reach.

Its eyes were sunk into its skull, white against the pale blue of its skin. The pupils themselves were blown out, looking like a cat’s eye or something. They must expand to gather more light at night and contract during the day.

Were they nocturnal creatures?

No, not possible. I had felt them around during the day, even if I hadn’t seen any.

I actually just noticed that it was bald. Whatever hair it would have had as a human had long gone, leaving smooth, shiny skin in its wake.

"Interesting creatures, huh?" grunted Bai Long Qiang as he appeared beside me. He held up a hand, offering me more fire so that I could continue to study this apex thing in front of me.

"It is," I nodded, never taking my eyes away from the zombie outside. It seemed to copy my movement on its stick thin neck. Its head tilted too far back before going too far forward, causing both Bai Long Qiang and I to laugh.

Apparently, the creature hated that because it twisted its mouth like it was hissing. However, the glass between us was too thick, and I couldn’t hear anything.

It went back to taping at the window before it pulled back its hand and sent it through the glass.

"Watch out!" shouted Bai Long Qiang, diving toward me in order to drag me out of danger. But this was part of my plan.

Faster than I thought I could move, I grabbed the hand of the zombie and pulled it even closer toward me as its body was plastered against the other side of the glass.

"What?" demanded Cheng Bo Jing as he rushed into the room. He must have heard the glass breaking. It was either that or Bai Long Qiang had yelled loud enough to wake everyone up.

"We are under attack," I said with a smile as I pulled the power out of the zombie and brought it into myself.

The zombie twisted and tried to pull its hand back, but I had a solid grip, and the rest of the window wasn’t going anywhere.

"Ah, now I see it," I murmured as I watched the zombie wriggle like a fish on a hook. I could see the fear starting to take a hold as the nearly immortal creature began to realize just what was happening. "Fear is a very heady thing."

The zombie started banging on the glass with his other hand, but he wasn’t able to get the momentum needed to break it.

"Shhh," I whispered to it as it slowly stopped struggling. I was trying to find a balance between taking too much and killing it all at once and not taking it so slowly that it was able to regain its strength and come after us again.

I debated about whether I should let the creature go so that it could warn the other zombies about me, and killing it.

If I had thought letting it go wouldn’t backfire on me, I might have agreed to that option. But there was something I was scared about.

I could kill one zombie, maybe even two or three at a time, but there was no way I’d be able to take on an entire tide by myself. And if the zombies were becoming scared of me because I was a drain on their power, I didn’t want to give away my location and have them decide to just kill me.

"I’m sorry," I whispered to him as I yanked out the rest of his life force, and he disintegrated into the wind. "It’s nothing personal; it’s just a matter of survival."

Dusting my hands off, I turned around to see an entire room filled with very pissed-off men, including an adorably cute 3-year-old, all glaring at me.

"What?" I asked, blinking innocently. It wasn’t like I was trying to die, and I wasn’t actually putting myself in danger.

"I believe we talked about using ourselves as objects of experimentation," said Bin An Sha, adjusting his glass before cracking his neck side to side.

"We did," I assure him. "Which was why I didn’t volunteer my arm to see if its teeth worked the same as a shark’s."

"I’m sorry, I think I misheard that," muttered Ye Yao Zu, shaking his head. "Did you say that you contemplated doing that?"

"For less than a second," I continued, the smile on my face never leaving. I had confronted a fear, and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was. That was a huge step forward for me, and I was going to enjoy it.