章 2: We’re Going to Live Forever

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------------------------- STORY STARTO! -------------------------

"RAAAGH!!!"

The two had waited long enough, the halls of the school no longer belonged to the living. That much was clear as they ran down to the first level of the school whilst doing their best to ignore the littered corpses and painted floors.

*𝘽𝘼𝙉𝙂!*

Dorio slammed the edge of his table atop a former classmate's head, frowning in discontent as a slew of hot blood and flesh flew into his face.

However, even that was still not enough to stop the living dead—

"AaaaAAAaa" It groaned hungrily. Its teeth snapping as they inched closer toward Dorio's neck. The pair of eyes staring beyond him oozing blood did little to ease his anxiety.

So while furrowing his brows, he lifted the table over his head again, and slammed it down once more—

*𝙎𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙎𝙃!*

Only this time he was successful in squishing the thing's head to a pulp.

"...."

Dorio stared down at the crimson liquid inching toward his feet. In it, he saw his own reflection, a dark visage of what it had been that morning.

His meticulously combed back black hair was now stuck to his face glistening with sweat.

His beforehand flawless skin was now decorated with blood and scraps of flesh.

The uniform his mother had only just ironed the night before was stained by both his own perspiration and the aforementioned vital fluid.

"Okuma-san! Look out—!"

In a flash, another figure appeared before him. Her chestnut brown hair followed her dash forward as the sharpened table leg she extended in front of her pierced the abdomen of another former student.

"Hey, Okuma-san. Are you alr—?"

Realizing the young girl had mistakenly believed her target to be dead, Dorio's eyes came to a glare as he stepped on the table he slammed only moments ago and ripped off another leg.

Ignoring the surprised expression of the girl who had turned around to inquire about his condition, Dorio jumped forward and stabbed the leg right over the girl's shoulder and into the left eye of the monster that was about to lunge at her.

"Eek!" The girl jumped forward in horror, a stream of hot blood coated her back and seeped into the neck of her uniform as it came bursting from the thing's eye socket.

*𝙏𝙃𝙐𝘿!*

"...."

A silent stare was shared between the two high schoolers as the infected body finally ceased all movement and hit the floor coldly.

"Thank you for saving me, Sasami-san…" Dorio was the first to break up the silence, a grateful smile crossing his lips as he leaned his head downwards to make eye contact with his little savior.

"Nuh-uh," Miyako shook her head with a remorseful expression. "You could've handled it anyways. If it weren't for you I would have died right there… So, thank you for saving me…"

"...."

The two shared a silent stare again, this time with stubborn looks. It wasn't until after a dozen seconds that their faces both broke out into mirthful grins.

*𝙎𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙏!*

Dorio shook the blood off his table leg with a single whip before bowing down to pick up his table.

"Then we'll call it even." A somewhat tired look crossed his eyes.

"Hehehe, I suppose so~!" Miyako meanwhile deftly withdrew a cloth from her breast pocket before wiping down her glasses of the blood that marred them.

"Oh yeah, Okuma-san. I've been meaning to ask you this. But how come these things don't stay down after receiving a wound that would be fatal to us… At the very least they're still human in matter, so my strike to their abdomen should have solved it…"

"Hm, about that… Have you ever seen a zombie movie?" Dorio this time took the opportunity to glance at his companion curiously.

"Um, I'm afraid not… My parents have always restricted me from watching those kinds of violent movies until I'm older…."

A worried expression fell upon Miyako's face at the mention of her parents.

"Though to confess, I may have watched a thing or two I wasn't supposed to while they're on their trip in America… Hehehe."

At least before it transformed into a mischievously cute grin at the mention of her 'devious' acts of rebellion.

"Right…"

Dorio meanwhile was beginning to wonder if his companion was even remotely sane.

"To sum it up, a zombie is a reanimated human. In other words, a walking corpse. The prerequisite is of course death and then a cause like getting bit by another zombie. A zombie will display all the conditions of a corpse then forth, minus the rigor mortis part."

"If they display all the conditions of an actual corpse, then why can they still move after death? Why do they even attack people at that? For that they'd need some sort of cognitive function, right? They'd have to control their legs, their arms, their fingers, their teeth, and so on, all so they could pursue a desire."

"That's the part I'm getting to." Dorio broke into the discussion again before things could trail on.

"For whatever reason, these zombified humans are receiving signals to their brain after long death. And if you ever paid attention in school, you'd know the brain is responsible for EVERYTHING a human does. So this infection or whatever is likely only excluding parts of the brain that makes a human, human, but is reactivating the area that controls desires. Which in this situation, is the instinct to eat. The brain then transmits that desire to the rest of the body to make it move forth in search of quenching that order."

"Wow, Okuma-san! You really know a lot about this stuff!" Miyako gazed at Dorio with admiration, her eyes practically shining with stars as the two inched closer to the 1st floor of the school.

"M-Maa~... Well, the truth is that I learned all this stuff from movies and video games. Honestly, I don't even know if that stuff will even apply in this situation. For all we know, this could just be some mythical divine punishment with no logic or reason…"

Dorio responded with an embarrassed look on his face, a slight sigh left his lips as he decided to crush the bravado the young girl had built for him.

"O-Oh… Well, it's good to think everything has a reason… At the very least it makes things seem just a little more hopeful, don't you think?" Miyako turned her eyes up at Dorio again, this time meekly.

"Yeah… if only a little, I can at least feel in control of my fate if everything had an explanation…"

"...."

The two shared a somber silence.

"In any case… What I was trying to say with all this is that you should aim for the head. That way if you destroy enough of the brain the body will stop receiving orders from it. Therefore, making the living dead truly dead."

Dorio held the table up in front of him. 'One leg left huh…' He shook his head before remarking inwardly that he could just waltz into another classroom and take another table.

The only problem, for now, was that carrying the table with only a leg had become an inconvenience, as before at least with two legs he could keep his distance from it and carry it without having to worry about a zombie biting his fingers.

"Mm! Thank you very much for the tip, I promise to keep it in mind duri—!"

However, Miyako's words were broken up by a loud drilling noise—

*𝙕𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏𝙏!* "Iyaaaah!"

A scream had transpired simultaneously.

"That's coming from the office's direction…" Dorio muttered worriedly, he had been hoping that after descending the steps they could have made it to the office without coming across too much trouble.

"Okuma-san! What do we do!?" Miyako cried out panicked, To the left was the way to the office, in other words where the scream transpired. However, to their right was the dreadful shuffling and limping of a dozen or so infected.

"Tch, that scream called them over here…" Dorio bit his thumb out of frustration. In front of them were three options:

1. Turn around and head back up the stairs. Though such an option would mean they'd have to take a long way around to get to the faculty office. By the time they reached it, it might already be swarming with infected.

2. Fight the mob to the right of them. No good, too many for just the two of them to dispatch. They'd get surrounded in seconds. The infected didn't exactly seem like the type to wait their turn after all.

3. Make a dash for the office anyways. They'd just have to hope that whatever infected were already there would be too occupied in their meal to notice them.

"Okuma-san!" Miyako cried out frantically, she tugged on Dorio's arm dozens of times to awaken him out of whatever stupor he had fallen in.

"...."

Coming to a firm decision, Dorio placed his table on the ground before ripping off the last leg and picking it back up again. He carried the table beneath the pit of his right shoulder while his right hand clung to the table leg.

With his left hand, he grabbed onto Miyako's arm before running and pulling her alongside him, straight to the office.

"Just run!" He said, practically yelling.

"Y-Yes!" Hearing affirmation from Miyako, Dorio let go of her arm so she could follow at her pace instead of being dragged.

Meanwhile, Dorio had already transferred the table beneath his shoulder to his left hand, gripping it as if it were a shield by its support beam beneath it. His grip over the table leg in his right hand tightened.

"That's—!" Though to his surprise the one who had screamed was alive and kicking. Surrounding her were a few other classmates and what looked like a teacher each fending off the approaching dead with their own weapons.

That's when he made eye contact with one figure in particular— Busujima Saeko, captain of the school's Kendo Club. Winner of the national championship that had taken place the year before.

Dorio had no doubt that's who he was facing. Her long flowing lavender-colored hair, striking blue eyes that seemed to pierce through whoever she beheld, the beautiful and slim long legs that seemed to peek from beneath her skirt, and those luscious pink lips practically every boy in the school fantasized about meeting.

Busujima Saeko, the number one most desirable partner on campus, at least those were the words Dorio's former classmates used to use when describing her. And after finally meeting the exalted "Sword Princess," even he had to agree.

But that was then and this is now.

Dorio nodded with tact and understanding. Busujima Saeko returned the same.

Wordlessly, held onto the edge of the table before arching his arm back to then launch it forward.

*𝙎𝙒𝙊𝙊𝙊𝙎𝙃!*

It soared beautifully down the hall, narrowly missing the other survivors as it slammed against an unfortunate roamer and pinning it against a wall.

"Sasami-san!"

"Yes!"

Miyako dashed forward with her own tact understanding, nimbly she raced her way to the pinned zombie. Then—

*𝙎𝙋𝙇𝘼𝙏!*

With a quick thrust to its head with the table leg she had been given, it finally ceased all movement.

"W-Where the hell did that table come from?!" Muttered Kohta Hirano, who had only moments beforehand reached into his pockets to retrieve some more ammunition for his air-compressed nail gun.

That's when he scaredly turned his head to witness whoever had nearly crushed him. Though all complaints became stuck in his throat as the behemoth-sized figure was dashing straight toward him with a broken table leg in hand.