I wake up in the morning before Liz wakes up. I look over her wound to see it healing nicely. I yawn putting on my shirt and the cloak. I head outside to see a foggy dawn. I frown slightly going next door to a house. I walk inside and see the house mostly untouched. I start to go through it collecting supplies. I find an outfit that looks like it would fit me. I remove my clothes and try it on. It’s a pair of black jeans and a form fitting t-shirt. I put the cloak back on and look in the mirror. “Looks good to me.” I collect all the supplies I got and head back over. I walk back into the house to see Liz waking up. She frowns at me.

“Where did you go?” I shrug tossing her a bag.

“I went next door and found some supplies for us.” She gets up getting dressed in her robes.

“I am going to go find a car.” I pause and smirk slightly as she has her back towards me. I sneak up and grab her sides. She screams slightly backhanding me. “What the hell is your problem?” I smile at her.

“You are too serious Liz.” She puts his gas mask on and flips me off going outside. I smile as she walks away but frown slightly. Why did I do that? I shake my head slightly as I start to clean up the camp. I pick up the rest of the camp and turn around to leave. I stop when I see a small child standing in front of the door. I frown as the kid looks at me.

“Zack Day.” Shit. The little boy is dressed in plain white clothes. He has bright purple eyes and a shaved head.

“Um.. hello Nightmare?” He looks up at me with wonder. He walks over to me and holds out his hand. I pause for a second and slowly take it.

“Can you help me?” I pause slightly confused as we walk outside.

“Um.. sure.. I was told not to talk to any of you except for Flint though..” He looks up at me.

“Flint is dealing with the others. He sent me to get you to help our friends.”

“Our friends?”

“Yes. They are hurting and we need them to be better.” I pause remembering something about some unfinished business Flint talked about.

“Okay.. Where are they?”

“Two of them will come to you. One is very sick. The over two you need to find.” I frown at this as I hear a car start to travel down the road.

“I have to go now. Trust Kroc.”

“Trust who?” Little Nightmare disappears as Liz pulls up in a black SUV.

“Get in. We need to make up for lost time.” I put the supplies in the back seat and climb into the passenger seat. We spend the next week traveling up to this base up north. Liz doesn’t talk much about it when I ask her questions. I don’t see Flint or any other Nightmares either. Whenever we stop, we would loot for supplies. I notice every so often I will try to flirt with Liz which I don’t fully understand why I do this. It’s like I go into autopilot whenever I am around her. We have a few run ins with the Infected but nothing too serious. As we are driving down the road one day, Liz pulls over as we see storm clouds ahead.

“Looks like we need to find a place to bunker down.” I say as she looks around for a place to stay. She pulls out a map and looks through it.

“There is a nearby bunker that the government put in a few years ago. We can stay there.” We agree and she drives there. It’s in a weird location. There is a patch of forest surrounding the entrance and large amount of warnings surrounding the area. We don’t pay attention to them because the storm is getting worse. She goes up to the door and tries to open the door. “Shit. It’s locked.” I touch the door for a second. I stand back and kick the door in. She pauses shocked. “That was a heavy duty lock.” We head inside and see an abandoned guard post. I close the door moving a desk in front of it. “You are stronger than you look Zack.” I smirk slightly.

“That almost sounds like a compliment Liz” She looks away annoyed.

“Don’t get a big head.” We start to look around the place and find a hatch that is very heavily locked. It is bolted to the solid cement that it is on top of.

“Guessing that didn’t want someone getting in.” We hear a loud bang against the hatch and we both jump.

“Or something getting out.” The cement starts to crack around it as Liz grabs her gun pointing at the hatch. We both back up as the hatch breaks open. Liz trains the gun on the opening as I pause realizing something. I don’t have a weapon. A dark hand reaches out of the hole and a dark finger pulls out of the whole. The creature is large from what I can tell. It looks in our direction and takes a step towards us. Liz fires a few shots into it and the creature stops. It continues to walk towards us and I step in front of Liz. In the light, the creature looks human. It is wearing brown prison pants. It is still large but has muscles on muscles. It’s face has a metal mouth guard around it. It looks at me and reaches up ripping off the metal mouth guard.

“Who are you?” It’s voice is deep and husky. It has sharp teeth and a full grown beard. It’s shaven head is covered in dust like the rest of his body. Liz points her gun at his head and fires. The bullet hits him in the temple but bounces off him like it is nothing. He turns his look toward Liz. “Fire at me one more time girl and I will eat you.” I frown punching him in the gut. I feel my hand hit a break wall as I grab it in pain. He picks me up and throws me across the room. I hit the wall leaving a few cracks where I hit it. “Foolish children. You think you can mess with the killer hundreds of people. The most dangerous thing in the world. Kroc.” I pause looking up at him. Liz points her gun at him.

“Wait! Kroc?” I slowly stand up walking over to him. He looks down at me smiling.

“Yes boy?” I frown not really sure how to do this. I take a second and breath.

“... Flint Stark told me to find you.” He pauses getting wide eyed.

“Flint Stark… That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time..” He stops looking me over and then at Liz. “I am sorry.” He slowly shrinks down a little bit and looks normal sized. “My name is Kroc and I’ve been waiting for you.”

Liz pulls me over after we created a small fire. She pulls off her gas mask looking pissed. “What the hell was that?” I frown seeing her angry.

“I was told to find him by someone. He can help us.. I think..” She glares at me for a second.

“He almost killed you.. and me. I don’t trust him.” I sigh slightly.

“Trust me it will be fine.” She huffs at me and goes to the fire with me. We sit down as Kroc looks at me.

“Can we talk alone?” Liz frowns and looks at me. I pause and look at her for a second.

“Later.” Liz smiles and glares at him. Kroc growls slightly and gets up going into his hatch. I pause and look at Liz. “I will be right back.” I get up and hop down the hatch. I see a room that Kroc must have decorated. Kroc looks at me and bows.

“Nice to have you back Nightmare.” I frown at him.

“I am not Nightmare.” He looks up at me frowning.

“I know. You will never be him. However, that doesn’t matter now.” He starts to pack things in a large duffle bag. “We will start your training once we ditch the girl.” I pause confused.

“Wait. You are training me? Flint told me..” He cuts me off by tossing a sheathed sword at me. I catch it and it feels familiar in my hands.

“I will be training you how to fight. Me and Nightmare use to train all the time. We would fight each other until we would collapse from exhaustion.” He sighs looking at me. “It will take a long time for you to gain his strength but it can be done.” I frown annoyed.

“We can’t just ditch Liz. We won’t.” He frowns looking at me.

“We will.” I glare at him standing a little taller.

“We won’t Kroc. We are going to go north to a base. There we will train. Do you understand me?” He pauses for a second staring at me. He smiles slapping me on the back.

“Okay Nightmare.” He jumps out of the hole as I pause feeling weird.

“It’s Zack.” I climb out of the hole and see Liz waiting near the fire. Kroc looks at me.

“I am going to go grab some food. I haven’t eaten in a while. Don’t leave or I will kill you.” He stops to laugh as he moves the desk and leaves into the store. Liz looks at me as I push the desk back.

“Thank you.” I pause confused coming over to her.

“About?” She mutters something about not ditching her. I smile leaning close to her.

“Well I couldn’t leave you my dear.” She frowns getting slightly red punching me in the face. She looks annoyed as I grab my nose.

“Ass.” I smile trying to stop my nose from bleeding.

“But I’m your ass.” I notice that she soon falls asleep but I am unable too. I try to force myself to sleep but no matter what I can do. I can’t. I sit near the fire staring into it. I start to hear whispers coming from the darkness. My mind must be playing tricks on me. I slowly become lost in the whispers and I realize that Kroc has came back. I look up at him to see that he has a freshly killed doe. He looks at me smiling.

“Morning boss.” I frown looking outside to see the sun starting to raise. I look over to Liz to see that she is still sleeping.

“Impossible.. It was just…” He starts to gut, clean, and butcher the doe.

“Let me guess. You probably started to listen to the Whispers? Don’t. That’s the one thing I knew that Nightmare stayed away from. He never told me why though.” I frown getting up going over to him.

“Tell me what was he like? I have no idea what he is or his powers if he has any. He hasn’t shown up in weeks and..” I stop as he stands up.

“Beat me in a fight and I will tell you everything I know.” I pause a little shocked.

“Um…” He starts to head outside.

“Come on.” I frown looking at Liz. I have to know what is going on with me. I follow Kroc outside.