Haru POV

Looking around the room theres food and piles of pills on all the counters. Theres crumbled clothes in a makeshift bed and a police uniform on the floor. In the corner under another small bed of cloth theres a crumpled form in the corner a women, I think. She’s handcuffed to a support pole.

I rush over to check on her.

“Miss miss are you okay?”

“NO NO NO MORE!” She frantically tries to swipe at me and kick away. She desperately tries to hide as much of her form under the small mound of cloth in the corner. She has short dark green hair and bruises covering every bit of skin that we can see through the folds shes hiding in. The small tufts of hair remind me of moms… In a world where people have different colors everywhere green has been surprisingly rare.

“I’m I’m not here to hurt you miss. We killed him your safe…” I start to move to console her but at the sound of a whimper I hesitate and pull my hand back. I start to back away. I don’t know what to do… I I’m not I want to help but what do you do to help someone like this?

“Um Taniuchi I think it would be better if you talk with her.” I wish I could help her. I know I can’t though. If I tried to force it, I would just do more harm then good. It feels like I’m just avoiding the problem, but I at least know myself well enough to know when I am out of my element. When I went up to help her, planning just hammered me with the problems with me trying to help her myself I would never be able to help her myself…

“I’ll also get miss Shizuka, after I see if Takashi is stable…” Samada mentions to me staring inside for a moment still stunned from what we saw. I just watch from the side making sure the girl doesn’t hurt Taniuchi. Eventually the girl calms down a bit and is just crying while holding Taniuchi. I toss her the keys which one of them I assume are the handcuff keys.

I overhear her story I guess this place was hit hard on the first day. The officer came in with her partner to keep order at the pharmacy. Once zombies started appearing her partner was bitten and the manager told her to get into the back room with him. She didn’t hesitate and rushed in behind him. While she was looking at the door, he hit her in the back of the head. By the time she woke up she was handcuffed to the counter and stripped. I didn’t want to hear the details but its enough to make my blood boil. I wish I’d kept the bastard alive just to let him get infected and let him live that helish life. Then again that would mean theres a chance he would hurt someone else. Haaaa why does carrying about others have to be so hard!

“We have a group if your okay with coming with us. We are mostly girls, but our leader is male. Hes a good man though. Hes in a relationship with one of the other girls there and she would kill him if he ever touched any of the other girls.” This seemed to help the women start to sort herself out. But after a moment she just stares off into space deep in thought.

“No rush!” I call out from the side making her jump a bit and shake as she clutches some clothes over herself.

“Sorry just, I figured I’d let you know that we are heading in deeper to the city. We will be passing this place on our way back. If you want, we can give you the time to think about it and stop by this way on our way back to check in with you.” This gets a thoughtful look on her face before she winces and looks away towards Taniuchi.

“Let’s leave supplies for her, the gun too. Its hers anyways.” I place the weapon on the counter near the door.

“Um Taniuchi do you want to stay here with her until we swing back this way or come with us?” Shizuka comes in with some bandages and starts to wrap the girls’ wounds.

“Oh, whats her name anyways?” I ask while I’m already there. I whisper to to her as Shizuka is fussing over the women.

“Oh she, she wouldn’t say…” I look at her. She flinches but then matches my gaze with a bit of hatred in them. It hurts a bit seeing someone that looks so much like her look at me that way.

Looking away from her “Well regardless, what do you want to do Taniuchi?”

“I’ll I’ll stay here. She can’t be alone right now. She also can’t be around men for a bit. I hope she comes with us but I also understand if she wouldn’t feel safe.” I nod in acknowledgement.

“Alright well stay safe. I don’t want you to go getting hurt out here without us. If anyone tries to come in just keep the back door locked and if they break in don’t hesitate to shoot.” I give her a serious look.

She wilts beneath my gaze but gives a small nod. That good, I’d rather not lose someone I wonder if I will go negative in the quest if I lose a survivor? I also don’t want to see someone that looks like that get hurt.

“Regardless let’s get ready to head out the sooner we check on Samada’s place the sooner we can get back then check on the other girl’s family.” I begin packing up the bags into the back of the car theres plenty of room. We head out with one last glance at the store we drive off to check on Samadas family.

Taniuchi’s POV

Haru is doing a lot to help us. He keeps on putting himself on the line. He he killed that man… He saved Takashi after the gun shot. After we heard the shot, we both froze for a moment we rushed that way after the scream, but it was still a delay.

I I froze when we saw the bleeding Takashi on the floor. I was useless if Haru hadn’t made me snap out of it I would have just stood there and watched him die. I-I just wish I wasn’t so useless. We were on track when Shido had us run inside to save us from the zombies out there. We… we did some unsavory things. Denying other students into the room. Shido attacked a student attempting to join us. I kept pushing it off saying that he was doing it for our sake. He called them a weak link, not worthy of the future he had planned for us. But after seeing what Haru is doing. Seeing how fair things have gone, I can’t help but realize that he was just using us as tools and tricking us. I feel in my heart this broken promise that he kept whispering to us. But I realize he was lying even if I don’t want to fully admit it. -sigh-

I look at the police officer women. Its been a bit since the others left. She still hasn’t given her name yet. I’m sure if I checked the uniform, I might find it but that’s a bit of an invasion of privacy. She spent a good amount of time kicking the dead fat guy in the junk. It was a disgusting sound. The squelches as she stomped and kicked. The sound of meat being ground. It sent a shiver down my spine just like the crying that she was releasing the entire time along with the string of curses.

I wish I was stronger. I wish I could be there for her. I talked with Miko before, so it’ll just be like that right? I’ll try to be strong for her though I’ll just… yeah, I’ll do what I think Haru would do.

“He- hey” I move up next to her and try to get her attention. She doesn’t really notice me at first so I reach out and touch her shoulder.

“DON’T TOUCH ME” She lashes out missing me barely with a swipe. Then she realizes who it is and relaxes a bit then looks guilty.

“Sorry, sorry sorry just…Just I…” She goes back to crying again I I don’t know how to approach this. Do I hug her? Do I leave her alone? She seems a bit… unstable.

“Its okay, I’m just here to help. Tell me what you’re feeling if you want. But I’ll be here all the same if you don’t.” Yeah, that sounds right. Its kind of what Shida told us when we were crying in the locker room.

“I was forced for hours. I could hear the screams of people outside begging for help. I could hear children crying as he he that thing.” She stomps the body again. “Continued to beat me… laughing at the sounds of the pain going on outside… There was a family I heard them outside. They had a daughter who was sick. They noticed the world was crumbling so they came to get as much of their medicine as they could before everything fell apart. I could hear him, talking to them. Gagged in the back room all I could hear were the cries of the desperate man as he shot the daughter then the man. He laughed about it for a few… few minutes before he resumed his ‘FUN’” She kicks him again. I look at the man with newfound disgust.

“I get that… just theres nothing we can do about it now. They died… HE died. Theres no way to undo anything that happened but we could use your help. Protecting other young people from more people like him making sure more daughters arnt shot more girls don’t have to suffer through what you did.” If we can direct this anger towards him to a helpful thing, we might be able to help her through this.

“That won’t fix whats happened theres no ‘fixing’ things. Though I’ll still never feel. I’ll still never get that back… when when I look at myself It just feels so it’s not me, I can’t be that. It wasn’t me that went through those things because if it was then I don’t want to be me.” Shes crying again looking at her own reflection traces some of the bruises in her own reflection. In the shattered mirror on a wall.

“Well then don’t be you anymore, no one knows you, the world is over. You can reinvent yourself? Like I’m not saying you need to become batman but you can be anyone you want to be since everything that was the old you is gone. If you’d like we can keep what happened from the others. Let you pick your own story to the start off your new life.”

“That… that actually sounds…okay.” she looks thoughtful at this.

“I’m not sure how well I’ll be around…males though.”

“Small steps, we have separate sleeping areas anyways at the moment. If you’d like you can bunk with one of us or have your own, I’m sure Haru would understand.” I chuckle a bit.

“Heck a lot of the girls threw themselves at him and he awkwardly turned them down because he loved his girlfriend. Little did he know it was his girlfriend that challanged us to try. It’s a bit cute that hes that loyal so I’m sure he will treat you the same as anyone else no matter what happened.”

“That’s… better but I’m not going to be going into a group that’s all obsessed over one person am I? I’m not joining a cult.” She wearily looks me over again. “Hes not… hurting you or any of the other girls, is he?” An edge in her voice sounds a little scary.

“No! no no, a lot of the girls have a bit of a crush on him, he saved us all after all! But it’s a bit one way so it doesn’t mean much. The other guys rib him for it too. Rei one of the girls is also seeing one of the other boys and uh miss Shizuka is seeing ahem Haru’s… mother figure.” This makes the girl look a little surprised.

“That’s a bit… progressive. I’d never really uh considered that sort of relationship before…” Its not really common except in male fantasies online here. But… new world… new life, new rules.

“I mean theres nothing wrong with it! Just uh when I try to think about what it’d be like it… when I think of it….” She seems to trail off for a moment. “I mean um regardless. If you don’t want to be around men, you don’t have to worry about that is what I’m saying.” Oh gosh why did I say it like that. Stupid stupid stupid shes going to look at you weird. I start to poke my fingers as I feel the blush going on. Just avoid eye contact and hopefully she won’t realize your being weird… I mean shes what? 24? Shes 6 years older then me its not like anything would happen besides she has to get through this.

“Ha okay kid.” Did she just laugh? I mean I guess that works right? That’s an improvement, right? I’m doing well?

“So, whats your groups plan? Whats your next step?” She’s looking over at me now. Shes interested? I’m actually helping? YES!

“OH! Um we are uh searching areas and supplying while searching for other people’s families. We have a nice place at the moment and a-a bus and military jeep thing that can go over water and stuff. We also have a lot of guns!” This causes her to what I think is a raised eyebrow the swelling makes it hard to tell “Haru and Saeko his uh girlfriend are expert swordsmen though, so they don’t really need them. I saw him run 100 meters in like 10 seconds and that was while weaving though zombies…” I sort of trail off realizing she didn’t really listen to that part. Like she checked out when I mentioned a guy. “Regardless we have a plan! We are getting all the families for now then we are going to establish a place for farmland and use supplies from stores and stuff to get us going until we can be self-sufficient. Haru is a sciency type skipping grades and stuff so hes got all these plans for our base when we move.” Taking in a DEEP breath after rattling that all off.

“Hmm not a bad plan…. Then again doesn’t sound like theres much of a plan thought out. A lot better than just staying on my own…” she looks off at her hands clenching them.

“OH! And uh we are going to check out the police station if you uh want us to grab anything for you while we are there.”

“NO um well no but I have a bit of information for you if you’re going there. Before this all started, we emptied the backroom of guns. But the evidence room might still have some stuff. You get all kinds of people coming in and getting arrested. Within first couple half hour of this we brought in a guy with a chainsaw and another neet kid with a katana. Yelling something about how ‘his time has come to rise about all others’ and how ‘he studied the blade’ or some nonsense. He was killed within seconds by those things.”

“That’s good to know, thank you.” Trying to keep in my laughter.

“-sigh- I just wish things could have been different. I… I was trying to help people you know? Why did this happen? Why do I deserve this when I was just trying to help….” She looks down a tear in her eye.

“You didn’t deserve it. It will hurt it will harm and I wish it never happened. But it did, so we just need to work even harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again to you or anyone else. People are going crazy out there and we are finding more and more freaks that’s first instinct is to hurt those around them. We need help all but two of us are just teenagers that know a thing or two about swordsmanship. A lot of us don’t say it in front of Haru or some of the uh more active members but we’re scared. We are terrified. I offered to come out on scavenge duty with them to help since if I stayed there terrified with them it would never get better. I’m out here because I don’t want to be scared anymore. I want to help the others be just a little bit less scared. To make it just a little bit safer…” Gosh now I’m crying… why can’t I just be cool!

“That’s very brave of you... um wanna restart?” She wipes some tears away.

“Sure, um Hi there I’m Taniuchi nice to meet you.” I put out my hand to shake hers.

“Hello Taniuchi, I’m… I’m Hideki.” She sniffles. Wincing a bit when she shakes my hand.

“Like the music composer Hideki Taniuchi?”

“Shut up its all I could come up with after hearing your name alright?” she smiles again. That’s progress. I put out a hand.

“Well, its nice to meet you Hideki welcome aboard.” She takes it and she brings me in for a hug.