Jack’s POV

After Sam left, I stored everything and anything I could see in front of me, even some purple strange looking things that I really had the urge to see what they are used for before storing them, but when I remembered what Sam said, I laughed and just tossed them in my storage and smiled at the thought that, I can check them with Sam later.

I finished the first floor within a few minutes then walked towards the stairs to go to the second floor, and that was when I heard some voices coming from behind the wall, I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying, but I could clearly recognize Sam’s voice, I cursed and ran toward the store’s entrance and made my way to where those voices were coming from.

Just as I turned around the corner, I saw four men surrounding Sam, two on his both sides holding guns pointed at him, and one behind him laughing about god knows what, and the last man was standing in front of Sam and very close to him (too close for my comfort), so I couldn’t see Sam clearly.

I could hear the man saying something but it was very low, so I couldn’t comprehend what it was, suddenly, he stepped to the left and I saw a knife in his hand ripping Sam’s shirt while his other hand on Sam’s back. I felt my blood boiling and I cursed out loud then ran toward Sam “Shit, these fuckers.”

Before I could take even two steps, blue and yellow sparks erupted all around Sam and were hitting the men repeatedly; the men started to shake and tremble under Sam’s lightning ability and lost the ability to move.

Blood sprinkled and scattered everywhere, the man in front of Sam fell to the ground with a hole in his head, chest and his two arms had been ripped off of his body. The second man had an open chest, almost cut in half, I’m guessing from a wind blade, while the third and fourth were in similar conditions with many cuts all over them, one by one all of them fell to the ground.

I was about twenty meters away from them when Sam looked at me; I could see anger raging in his eyes and his body was emitting lightning and the sparks were still surrounding him. Just as I took another step, a bolt of lightning hit near my foot, so I halted my steps immediately.

I was confused, sad and didn’t understand why would he stop me from coming near him, I looked at Sam who was standing there. His body was trembling a little, and his hands turned into fists before hitting himself two times on his forehead with one of them, then kept his fist on his forehead and closed his eyes. At that point, it was clear to me that he was mentally struggling.

I stood there with my own struggle, I wanted to go to him, hug him and tell him that everything is going to be fine and comfort him. But at the same time, I didn’t know what was happening to him, and since he asked me to stop there and don’t go near him, I also wanted to comply with his demand.

We stood there quietly, each one of us with his own thoughts and struggles for five minutes or so until Sam finally said with a weak voice “Sorry about the attack, I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to stop myself or not if you were any closer.”

I looked at him and smiled faintly before asking “So, can I come closer now?”

He opened his eyes and looked at me then hesitantly nodded his head, I didn’t waste any time and walked directly to him and hugged him tightly. He just stood there quietly in my embrace, we stayed like that for a while until his body relaxed and the sparks vanished.

I looked fondly at his cute face and asked cautiously “What happened?”

He flinched at the sound of my voice and tried to slip out of my arms as if my question reminded him that I was hugging him, but I stubbornly hugged him even tighter and kept him in my arms. He struggled a little to free himself but eventually gave up.

He glanced at me then said angrily “Well, these shitheads wanted the car, so I told them to”

I cut him off and corrected my question “I meant, what happened to you? I don’t give a shit about those fuckers.” My voice went down and I continued mumbling “They deserved what they got; I would have done the same thing.”

He raised an eyebrow at me then chuckled before saying “To put it simply, I lost control over myself.”

I looked at him with a pout, so he continued with a sigh “Fine, I’ll explain, but first things first, can I now have my freedom back?”

I laughed at his choice of words and reluctantly released him while teasing him by saying “Though you looked very comfortable in my arms.” and smirked at him.

He just shook his head; though I could tell he was embarrassed especially as he tried to hide his faint smile and said with a serious tone “Think of it as an anger control issue, in the original timeline, when I woke up that night I was so much angry and every little thing made me boiling with rage, for example, I killed a woman just because she screamed for help, and the anger kept stacking until I started to kill for no reason.”

He stopped talking for a second at looked toward the city then continued “I spent years with all this boiling rage inside me until finally, my thoughts started to calm down and I managed to control myself a little, now that I think about it, maybe my level has increased which helped my brain to calm itself down, anyhow, I spent another few years alone just sorting out my thoughts and emotions until I felt that I was in full control. After that I roamed the city trying to find other zombies with control over themselves, unfortunately, it was futile which made me angry and killed almost every zombie I tried with, then”

I motioned with my hand for him to stop and laughed before saying “So, you were the reason for the zombies' decline?”

He looked at me a little confused, so I explained “We got reports that the zombies have decreased so much in the city, so it was possible to enter the city to collect supplies and also to try to find out the reason.”

He looked at me with his eyes wide open then shook his head and said “Wow, so I was really the reason that you entered the city.”

He chuckled and continued “Anyhow, as I was saying, I killed half of the zombies’ population while trying to communicate with them, and then I used the other half as anger control practice, which helped me a lot. The problem now, in this timeline, I’m not sure about the reason, maybe because I’m experiencing this shit again or maybe because the virus’ concentration in the air is still high, whatever the reason is, it became harder to control my anger.”

He finished with a shrug, after that he pointed to the warehouse while saying “Let’s finish and leave.” And he walked towards the warehouse’s door.

I stood there absorbing the very short version of what he went through in the original timeline until it hit me hard this time, and there was no way to shove the thought to the back of my mind as I have been doing ever since I came back in time, and had to ask him, so I ran after him and hesitantly asked “That means when you approached us in the original timeline you were.”

I couldn’t continue, all the pain and suffering at that moment came back and hit my heart at full force.

He looked at me apologetically and I felt a stab in my heart because I knew the answer, and I really didn’t want to hear it, unfortunately, he said “I was watching your group since you entered the city, seeing humans for the first time in a long time reminded me of all the things that I did, of whom I was and what I became, and I reached to the conclusion that I had enough of this fucked up world, so I went to your group to end it.”

He quieted down and looked at me again with a sad look on his face then continued “In short, I was fully aware and in control, I just played zombie.”

After that he patted my back and whispered “Sorry to put you through that, I can tell that you care about me, let’s just forget about all that and focus at what we can do now.”

I could feel the tears on my cheek and the pain was suffocating me, but nevertheless, I forced a smile, nodded my head and said “Good idea, let’s start with this warehouse.”

We worked in silence for a few minutes then Sam suddenly asked “When are you planning to tell me the truth?”

I looked at him and asked confused “About what?”

He looked back at me and said “The real reason for bringing me with you, why do you care about me?”

I looked at the floor and wondered how to answer him, I definitely couldn’t tell him the truth, it would freak him out, so I said while hoping he would let it go “I really don’t wish to lie to you and make any more excuses, so, can we leave this story for another time?” I asked while looking at him hopefully.

He looked at my eyes for a little while, then said while pointing a finger at me with a half-laugh “Fine, but you owe me one Mr.” I just nodded furiously with a smile.

We continued to dumb everything in our space-storages while chatting about anything and everything. After we cleared the warehouse and the store we went to the car and left the area toward the base.

During the ride, we stopped many times near small stores and petrol stations and collected everything as fast as possible, Sam also changed his wet and damaged clothes, unfortunately for me, I didn’t get the chance to see him naked, hopefully, I would soon though *cough, cough*, anyhow, it was very smooth with no more accidents.

We also decided on a story about how we met, it went like this: ‘When I was scavenging with the team I got cornered by some zombies and got separated, then I met Sam accidentally while I was trying to take his car from his house, so he invited me in, and after we talked for a while, he decided to come with me to the base’. Simple and believable story.

We also decided to reveal some of our abilities, since we both have some similar abilities, it was better to reveal different abilities so we can use them in different situations, Sam said that he usually uses his wind ability so we decided for Sam to reveal it, and since I don’t have the earth or lightning abilities we chose to reveal the earth ability because lightning more effective against humans, that meant, Sam was going to reveal his wind and earth abilities, as for me, I reluctantly decided to reveal three of my abilities, water, fire, and space.