Mateo stared at the wallpaper. He hoped it wasn't true, but the proof was right there in his hands. The one on the ground, the mangled body. That was Hans' dad.

He was sure of it.

"Shit." Mateo bit his lips, his legs taking him back and forth with his hands full with stifling fingers. A lot of thoughts raced across his head like formula one cars, daring not to stop. Why was he here? What happened to him? What was he going to tell Hans?

He found Hans' dad watered-down to a lifeless corpse out in the middle of nowhere. For all he knew, Hans would just take it as an awful joke until Hans would slowly realize he wasn't joking.

Mateo couldn't imagine the look on his eyes then.

He turned to the body again. He didn't even recognize that it was Mr. Cruz, that one cool dad who'd bring the snacks and drinks to their sleepovers back in high school. The face was all but gone, with only a permanent scream fixed to it. Most of the upper torso wasn't there, leaving only the pelvis down to rot. Mateo could hardly look.

"Mr. Cruz." He crouched, his head hung up staring again at the canopy with blank eyes. He choked on his own words. He didn't know what to say nor what to do, with the silence all too loud for comfort.

"I'm sorry."

Nothing he could've said would have fixed anything. He could only give his pity.

Mateo sat there for a while. He thought of offering a prayer, but he convinced himself otherwise. If there truly was a god out there to pray to, they didn't deserve to be recognized. They must've been an awful motherfucker to let something like this happen. To think that somebody was just watching 'above' while all of this was happening made his stomach churn.

In the end, Mateo covered up the body with shallow patches of dirt and grass before going on his way. He brushed his fingers through his hair, a nick of pain prickling inside his chest. This feeling.

It was deathly familiar.

* * *

East.

Mateo followed the compass on the phone, ignoring the flashing red icon of a battery on the top right. He got out of the forest and onto a lone roadway above a cliff. Crossing the street, barriers stood between him and the pit of darkness a hundred meters below. Mateo knew. The scent of salt and the monotone waves crashing against the cliff's base, it was hard not to.

He was at the sea.

Mateo shrugged a deep sigh of relief, but by some bitter joke, the phone's battery dropped to zero the moment he checked again. He pocketed the thing in surrender. Looking back at the road, at least he had something to follow.

He started down the road. He kept himself under the cover of shadows, away from the lights of dim streetlamps. He had the same option of following the road within the treeline, effectively hiding fully from the open, but from the encounter before, he dismissed the idea. Those Walkers were nimble. Who knows if they're hiding in the canopy. Who knows if they're even watching him now.

At least on the open road he had time to see them coming.

Walking for a couple more minutes, he met an SUV crashed into the treeline.

"Please no corpses this time." Mateo cursed, starting towards it. It was up on its side, with the front lights flickering and the doors bent and hanging off its hinges. Glass shards littered the asphalt, and with every step Mateo took, pieces would crunch underfoot.

He lowered his head, looking over the inside. Blood and fluids were scattered around the interior, with a couple red handprints marred all around. Mateo trembled as he trailed his gaze. This was fairly new. An hour or two ago, maybe.

He traced the blood on the floor, coming out of the other side of the car and onto the asphalt splattering, until the trail made a beeline for it to the nearby treeline.

It was a fresh track.

Mateo straightened, mistaking the whistle of the wind for something else. He's been skittish for a while ever since he left the shop and squared up against the Walkers. He was so confident then, but reality slapped a wet-ass fish right across his face, making a mess of his plans–though it was really on him for plowing straight through without much of a plan in the first place.

He left shortly after, discarding his attempts to follow the trail into the woods. Hans' father died inside, and he wasn't about to go back into something so obvious of a deathtrap. It was a miracle he didn't encounter more of those Walkers inside. Did they think his skinny bod wasn't worth the trouble?

Mateo took one last glance at the treeline.

Maybe there's still someone out there. The thought crossed his mind before he shook it out entirely, moving on. He just barely even saved himself, and now he was thinking about saving some strangers he'd never even met.

Under the snowfall, it was a pretty uneasy feeling all alone in the middle of nowhere, especially with a magical apocalypse running around turning humans to frozen zombies.

Mateo tried to busy himself by summoning the orb, walking down the road all the while asking questions about the texts the orb showed before. Specifically that status screen, with all those keywords of rank, races, and whatnot. To his surprise, the orb actually made for a great company. At least, him chatting back and forth with something made him less anxious about the overall situation.

It only took him a dozen more minutes to find a small neighborhood. The streets lit up with post lights, with the few houses around not having any lights turned on. He knew this street, but the uncanny feeling almost clouded his judgment to think it was a different neighborhood entirely.

"I'm close." Mateo snapped his fingers, dismissing the orb.

He could feel his knees giving in. He's been on the constant move for a few hours already, through the woodlands and down the road. Another hour of the same routine would really destroy his legs. His sandals had already been a nightmare to work with, with the small cuts and stubbles on his toes pounding like hell.

Last he checked on the phone, it was three in the morning. It was high time to take a good long nap somewhere.

But he couldn't afford to.

Winding through the streets, Mateo dragged his legs. He wasn't about to bite the dust now when he was this close to home.

Looking around though, it was strange. The silence was far too uncanny. It all seemed to be a setup. Passing through the neighborhood, he was sure there would be something here, waiting to–

Clank. Mateo doused his arms in fire, turning to the shadows where the racket came from. Only time could've told him when he'd meet another Walker. This time though, it was only a rat sprinting across the asphalt, carrying with it an empty can.

Mateo sighed, extinguishing the fire. He needed to conserve his energy. As far as he knew, this fire magic drained his mana: the warm feeling circulating inside his chest, so he needed to save up on it until he was forced into a situation where he couldn't back out.

He ran away before. He didn't have the luxury to do the same this time.

Mateo was anxious. He was scared–and rightfully so. Looking back, he'd poke fun at undead movies for how stupid the hordes of zombies looked with all the fake make up going on, but now that he was in the exact same situation, he wished the Walkers had makeup.

Those things were mad, as if demons took possession of humans, contorting them to hideous monsters. The worst part of all was the faces they made. Even though their bodies were clearly changed, their faces still had on human expressions as if everything was completely normal.

The thought alone made his stomach churn.

Mateo pushed through the streets until it opened up to a crossing, and turning left, he followed the walkway into a large covered court complete with rows of wooden stands in and out.

It was the marketplace.

Murky street lamps lit up the place, but the area was empty, bare of any people nor Walkers. Only… nothingness, as if the place took on the definition of liminal space, a threshold into something unknown, yet far enough that Mateo wasn't there yet. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

Mateo started, slowly pacing himself under the cover of shadows, with his eyes skittering around filled with caution. The lights could only reach so far until the darkness took hold of everything else, and with a thick fog shaping around him, he needed to be ready for anything that jumped at him.

A human-shaped stain smeared the concrete below. He wasn't sure if it was the real deal, or only what his brain made a dried puddle of fish blood out to be. This was a wet market after all, but if it was real…

Mateo eventually reached the docks, the sea laid bare in front of him partially hidden behind a layer of fog.

With the splashing of waves against the pier, along with the breeze whipping by, it reminded him of the days before, with him out on the open sea as usual ferrying passengers. Back then, things were normal. No blue sun. No snow. And definitely no Walkers. It was just him and the people in the market, working hard to make ends meet.

All of that was gone now.

Mateo eyed the rocking boat anchored to a post. It was still there. His trusty old motorboat, now piled on by days of snow. He started towards it, over the pier, and jumped, landing aboard with his arms spread wide for balance.

"You sons of bitches!" A heavy hit lashed from behind, causing Mateo to tumble and roll to the other side of the boat with a thud. The world turned, as if he was stunned–his senses disoriented.

Shaking it off, he lit up his hands with fire, but he wasn't fast enough. Something pressed against his throat, taking away the air from his lungs. His eyes shot open. It was a snake-like staff pushing against him.

What the-

"Matty?!" A familiar voice called to him, with the weight on his neck finally shifted away. Mateo turned to the ground, coughing out spittles and gasping for air, until he finally fixed his eyes up to the figure with the staff.

It was uncle Pedro.