Three.

Lucy wasn't wrong: I was in bad shape. Every nerve ending in my body trembled as soon as I woke up, and settled only when I slept. Each time I finally decided today was the day, I'd wake up back in bed, Lucy giving me yet another disapproving look before shutting the door behind her (I know, I know, it's not funny, but sometimes I had to feign a smirk as she suppressed a smile.) The only thing that kept me both sane and concentrated was getting my strength back. As soon as I did that, I could go. And as soon as I was gone?

'That bastard won't know what hit him.'

I know, I sound unappreciative, but truly I was thankful for everything they did. Trust me, I know id be dead long ago, freezing in a ditch or being fed to The Butchers. Time had worn down both my stonewalling and her coldness, and more than often we'd talk. Usually it was all small talk with a few harmless jabs ("Its a miracle you've survived this long, honestly...") but I've managed to get some of her story out of her tight-fisted hands: When the Dead Zone finally spread to her portion of the world, she fled from it. I guess not fast enough, because once inside she joined with a ragtag village trying to stay alive in the Zone. Soon after, her job as a Zone Medic was finalised and she became a proper Dead Zone Doctor. A few months ago, she'd gone for a walk in the short trees when she heard footsteps crashing around her. Knocked unconscious soon after, she awoke to find most of her village slaughtered by a rising crew, the leader having a face scarred similar to my captor (I pressed for information, but that's all she saw.) Her family survived, walking through the wilderness until stumbling upon a cabin virtually untouched by the sands of time. And that's where I am now, in the spare room. Even after all this, and a few back-and-fourths of my information as an exchange, I managed to keep a lot of it quiet and short. She only knew my name, Josh Miller, my experience, Innocent and not wanting otherwise, and my plans, to find the captor and maker him pay for what he did.

"Hey Josh?" She'd asked me a couple of days after I'd been successfully waking up repeatedly, slightly nervous.

"Yeah?" I nonchalantly replied. My anger had long since left me, body and mind feeling as weak as I must've looked. Despite what happened to me, I felt a sense of easing whilst here, as if I truly had some time to reset

"Did you ever... um... How do I put this without setting you off..." She seemed to stare into the distance, fixated on some point neither human nor beast would be able to pinpoint once again.

"... Catch fire?" She quietly found the end of the phrase, mumbling it as if some curse upon man. Immediately, a sense of nausea and fear washed over me, sinking deeply into my skin like ink to flesh. I took a deep breath, steeling myself, before responding quite calmly:

"No, but..." My will to continue seemed to just vanish as my eyes widened, some strange and prolonged form of shock setting in.

'Talk, you idiot, talk!'

Lucy, in her constant state of care, seemed to clock this and put her head closer to mine, trying to examine what the hell was happening, her gaze almost desperately digging under my skin and almost pushing through my crumbling restraints.

"Hey, hey. What's... What's wrong?" Her face showed genuine worry, something I hadn't seen since I was a young kid. Almost doll-like, I just continued to stare blankly as the images that managed to stayed chained to my dreams suddenly danced to life: The scar, burning bright with fury. My mother's bubbling corpse sadistic in Its dancing as she was reduced to something unidentifiable. My fathers pained face as his forehead was opened by a bullet. My brothers' throat, slit wide with a red smile-

A sudden rush of pain felt on my face knocked me back, revitalising me into reality once again. The shock was placed on both my face and felt in my cheeks as both rushed red, despite only being hit on one side. The glassy coating on my eyes smashed apart revealing Lucy once again, hand coming down from just slapping some form of sense into me. I opened my mouth to say something, but she beat me to it, anger beginning to show beneath the surgical face of calm:

"I didn't knock some life into you for you to argue with me. Now, for God's sake, what happened to you!?"

Again, my mouth hesitated, restraining itself from opening. Lucy softened her gaze, showing more pity than sympathy, before gently following with:

"The least you owe yourself is an explanation."

"My- My family have been murdered. I-I j-just need to..." Taking another shaky breath, and trying not to let the images overcome my mind, I continued to explain everything: My experience, the people who'd taken us hostage and my families lives, how they'd left me for dead, everything. Between my ramblings, my gaze shifted to Lucy, and every time it was a different look: Sometimes surprise, shock, teary, the list goes on. By the time I pour my soul onto my sheets, her face solidifies into one of a mask-like plastic: Inhuman, and strange, as if replaced by something incapable of feeling. She goes to say something, shaping her tongue to almost swear at me, before stopping and thinking again.

'To be honest, can you blame her? How'd you react to a story like this? I'd probably run, and I'm surprised she isn't.'

"You see why I didn't want to tell you much?" I said after no one uttered a syllable for a few more moments, growing evermore conscious of the divide growing in the room. She seemed to freeze her eyes on me, something between fascination and hatred sewn into them.

"Why'd you kill the animal?" She replied calmly, attempting to keep her cool. Somehow, all of the details later, the animal being slaughtered is the one thing that confuses her. I managed to completely suppress a smile.

"I needed to eat, and my brain told me that was what I needed."

"Josh, the human brain doesn't tell you to rip open a damn animal instead of skinning it! You've been out in the Dead Zone, you know how bad it is! Why on EARTH did you do that?!"

"BECAUSE I NEEDED SOMETHING, OKAY?! I NEEDED TO HURT SOMETHING OR IT WOULDVE GOT WORSE! IT EATS AWAY AT MY LUCY, EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED SECOND I BREATHE, I EXIST, IT KILLS ME! I COULDNT SAVE MY FAMILY!THE GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT LOVED ME, RAISED ME, KEPT ME SAFE! AND I LET THEM DOWN!"

I snapped, practically roaring away at the medic who'd saved me. She seemed rattled by me, and once I'd finished, she didn't argue or fuss. She simply stood up, walked towards the door, and shut it. No furthers words, no arguing back, nothing.

'She didn't even look back...'

I myself was amazed, yet also confused.

'I've clearly pissed her off. Her family is still alive, what's stopping her from arguing with me? I can understand if I lost my village, but other people are crazy and someone would've ended up going psycho and killing everyone there anyway. Well... At least that's what dad told me.'

Upon waking, I found that I finally (and honestly, rather conveniently) had the strength to not only stand, but to walk again. It took a few moments to adjust to the shift but once I'd done it? Easy.

'I need to get out of here, but I've got to say thanks. It'd be rude if I didn't, they did save my life after all. And Lucy put up with my shit for free, so that's definitely worth a thank you and more'

As I began to open the door, I became aware of the crisp ambience and almost total silence that seemed to lavish the room and all those around it: A gentle cricket chirp, an occasional tweeting of birds, the wind gently rustling what I assumed was snow around where I was currently situated, it seemed picturesque.

'Almost too perfect.'

Just as the door creaked open, a distinct 'BANG' could be heard, stunning the crickets into silence and causing the few birds around to panic and flap their wings as fast as they could, the walls around me distorting the noise into something of simply flapping wings and screeches. My body froze, hand still clutching the doorknob, practically turning my knuckles white with fear. Eyes and ears alerted, i peeked through the slit to observe around me, the narrowness giving me as much sight as i expected.

'I can't make out anything, shit. I have to go out there, at least I have a chance of running, right?'

My legs didn't move, rooting themselves to the floor.

'You can barely fucking walk, much less run, dumbass'

Small branches dug their way into the boards below me, fastening them and connecting them for what seemed like eternity.

'Oh, Fuck this.'

I gently slid the door open, revealing a hallway that lead to one door at the end, two doors opposite each other on a respective side. The entire thing was both symmetrical and Pre-Zone, making what I'd just heard seem evermore jarring. Quietly, so not to disturb even the dust that buried itself everywhere, I slowly crept forward, straining myself for any information that could prove useful to me. No words were uttered, no other footsteps but my own. Nothing. Silence. Emptiness.

'This is getting weird...'

Another 'BANG,' closer this time, jarred me to the point of stumbling and hitting a wall, making my presence known.

'FUCK! They know I'm here... FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

Quickening my pace, I flung open the end door, luck being on my side as I realised it was a door to the outside. The fresh air hit me like a fist as I took a gulp, observing what was happening around me. The light, a distant and ghostly memory, stunned both my mind and my body as my eyes squinted and squirmed in their sockets. After a few seconds of adjusting to the heat change and the lighter environment, my body woke and stabilised, allowing me vision once again. What I saw was, well... in a nutshell?

Not the greatest of moments.

There was Lucy, gun in hand, firing into the woods. Each shot seemed quieter than what I was used to. Small pieces of bark flew off of trees surrounding this clearing as she sent bullet after bullet into it. From here I couldn't see what it was, but I could now make out both the gentle moaning of pure pain that came from the side of me along with patches of freshly spilled blood that seemed to almost shimmer in the sunlight. Thinking fast, I darted to the side, checking what the hell had happened and if I need to help or if someone needed assistance.

'Considering Lucy wasn't aware of my presence, I might as well make myself useful whilst she's busy.'

My eyes landed upon a male, average build. That's all I caught in the moments of panic as I rushed towards him, hands out to offer him assistance. As I sped closer, I began to take note of the pool of blood seeming to spread from a gaping hole in his right shoulder, so badly injured that I couldn't tell if it was a claw mark or a bullet wound.

'Bullet wound...'

His face, as featureless as it was in my mind, suddenly became my fathers, clear and as crisp as I remember it. The eyes of hope, the face that kept the family calm and on the right track, everything I remember about him. I blinked, hard, before stepping closer again. He wasn't saying anything, so I put my hand on his good shoulder to try and stir him, to ask him why he let the family die, but as I did so, my face became a picture of horror. His skin began to melt and pop and boil as I laid my hand on him, the bullet hole I remember becoming much more visible and aligned in his head once again. More blood, this time as thick as water began spraying out of him, covering every direction and every part of me as I fell back, stumbling and skidding away on all fours to try and get away from whatever the hell was going on in front of me. I could feel it on my skin, up my nose, in my mouth, it was getting in everywhere it could.

'What the fuck-"

My head caught a sharp pain as I hunched over, slamming my head on a balcony rail, stunning me back into reality. As my body reconnected with my soul, I dared to take a glance back at the demon that came to terrify my before realising it was back to normal: no dad, no excess spraying blood, no nothing. Embarrassed at my lack of awareness of reality, I rushed back, applying pressure to the shoulder. No complaint of pain came from him, he just continued to stare down as I pushed harder, trying to stop the blood from pouring away, but to no avail. It continued to slip through my fingers, the hope of him surviving going alongside it. In a final moment of desperation, I took my shirt off and tied it around tightly, attempting to stop both loss and circulation. My hands took hold of his neck, checking for a pulse, all the while shots still continuing to ring behind me.

'Come on, come on, please...'

Nothing, I continued feeling

'Please, for the love of all...'

No movement.

'Please.'

Nothing.

As I let go, his body finally gave out, slumping to the floor, another life gone.

'Another person I could've saved. He was still making noise when we got out here. You let him die. YOU let this happen.'

I closed his eyes, and surveyed around him, eyes finding what looked like some form of rifle still in his hands.

'How did I miss that?'

It had a magazine and a sight, both still looked usable even if coated in still fresh blood. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I took the gun off of his hands, wiping away the blood as best as I could and shuddering to get through the building nausea I was struggling to suppress. Once it looked usable, I spun round to join Lucy, who still hadn't looked back. Once I was only a few paces behind her, I raised my gun to check the sights. My brother and I were briefly taught how to fire a weapon by my father when he still had his trusty marksman rifle: How to aim, how to pull the trigger, how to breathe after and before shooting, and so on, but the lesson was long ago, and my brain wasn't exactly in the best state to remember things.

'Still, with what I knew I could work things out.'

I raised the rifle, trying to see something in the tree line Lucy was shooting at, but all I could see was her bullets whizzing into the bark, knocking large sections of timber onto the floor. My eyes seemed to move on their own, glossing the tree line until I caught something moving briefly to my far left. Spinning too fast, I lost control of where I was aiming, and had to recenter my rifle before firing, allowing the target to move to a safer location.

"Fuck." I muttered to myself, looking through the sights again. I felt a whoosh from my front, meaning Lucy had clearly heard it.

"Josh?!" She didn't even try to suppress the shock in her voice.

"Lucy, focus!" I shouted back, trying to keep my aim steady and track whatever was traversing the woods outside of us. I could feel her glare for a few seconds before she spun around, still talking:

"Why are you out here, and why don't you have a shirt on?" She asked, continuing to fire at nothing.

"I heard the shots, and wanted to see if I could help out, and..." I trailed off, not wanting to say what an excuse of a person I was.

"And what?" She pushed, but my eyes had just caught a bush rustle. Taking a deep breath, I centred in on my target and pulled the trigger. A spray of bullets accompanied by a loud ringing soon cut out any chance I had of conversation as I tried to pull the gun down from where it had bounced to. I did, however, pick up a sound similar to the moans I had just heard, allowing me confirmation that I did hit something. After wrestling the weapon back to normality, I noticed Lucy had also stopped shooting, and regarded me with a look of worry mixed with disdain, and a small mixture of impressiveness.

"Huh. So all this time they snuck around that way?" She laughed lightly, patting me on the shoulder. "Good shot, although it shouldn't have been you, it should've been-" as she said this, she finally turned to me, and to the scene of chaos behind me: the shirt I wore soaked in blood, the pool still spreading, and the man laying dead and cold to the world.

"DAD?!" She cried out as she ran forward, dropping her gun and checking him again for a pulse. I could see her shaking and panicking as she did everything she could, at once point disappearing and coming back with an aid kit (I hadn't seen a full one for ages, so I was amazed at this.) I don't know how long we were out there for, but I didn't move from my spot and she didn't stop trying to revive him. I felt the wind change and the temperature drop before I finally stepped forward, laying a hand on her back and crouching down with her. I could see the stained tears as she attempted to get his heart starting again.

"I'm sorry." My voice broke at the end, emotions getting the best of me. "There was nothing I could do, I tried to save him, I truly did, but... he's gone."

And that was when the real tears started. She cried, and fell into my arms, bracing herself on my shoulder as she did. I froze, unsure of what to do, before putting a hand on her back and patting it in support, simply allowing her to get it all out of her system. By the time she was able to look up again, it was night. The sky had vanished and replaced itself with a blanket of darkness so thick my eyes couldn't penetrate it. As we stepped inside, we left the body out the front. I questioned Lucy on it, but she shrugged it off, telling me: "He never really wanted to be buried. If he's taken by something in the night, it would've been what he wanted."