CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

Well nobody noticed the change except an half zombie sleeping in a tree at the middle of nowhere. Marvellous eyes snapped open as he became alert, the tree he had chosen to sleep in was leafy so that he could enjoy the cozy feeling of the leaves. But

all of a sudden, that cozy feeling seemed to be disappearing. Another reason why he was on alert was because of the slight change he felt in his body, he could feel something awaking inside him slowly, and he felt a strange heat rising from the depth of his insides until it became unbearable. Finally unable to hold in the pain, he let out a loud roar. His zombie side was fighting for control over his body with his human side, and it was winning. Stranger however was the fact that with that one roar, dark clouds suddenly began to cover the sky as though a terrifying storm was brewing. As he let out more roars in agony, the sky suddenly burst open as if whatever it contained had become too heavy for it to carry and lighting bolts as thick as baby thighs descended.

As his last strand of humanity was about to be severed however, he turned taking advantage of his enhanced abilities and leapt into the sky in a desperate attempt to go far away. If anyone of his friends were around and saw him the way he was,

perhaps they would still be confused. But he knew what was happening, he could feel his human part loosing control of his body. Just like the other zombies, his zombie part was upgrading.

With reluctance in his heart, Marvellous looked back in the direction from which he came. Perhaps if it was any other time he would be amazed by how fast he had gotten as his zombie part started upgrading, but no, it was actually one of the few times he was truly broken in the past few years of the apocalypse. Thinking back to his childhood and the memories that he shared with his friends, he face darkened in worry as he felt like his heart was shattering. A pained smile appeared on his face as he thought of all the childish moments he shared with his friends, all the pranks they pulled on each other, the fights they had, the secrets they shared. Unable to hold it in any longer, a tear slid down his cheek as the last strand of his humanity was finally severed. He was no longer a human, but a king. A zombie king and even more. . . A LIGHTENING POWERED ZOMBIE KING!.

*******

Roosevelt was jolted awake from her sleep, shifting into a sitting position she could see the rest of her friends rising as well.

Confused, they all gazed in the distance where ominous clouds had converged and were still converging with no signs of stopping anytime soon. Hearing a bunch of successive resounding roars in the distance, they finally seemed to realise what was

going on, as their eyes immediately swelled with tears. The roars in the distance were just too familiar for them to not recognise despite it now sounded somewhat distant. Even with reality staring them in the face, they could not just accept the fact that they were finally loosing a friend and were hopeless about it. They always subconsciously knew that the day was

going to come, but they just never expected it to come so fast, besides they weren't even willing to think of such a scenario as what was happening now. The fact that MARVELLOUS was actually turning into a ZOMBIE!!!.

"Is. . . Is . . . Is that. . . Really happening?". Roosevelt asked, tears running down her cheeks as the realisation of what was happening hit her.

Reality was staring her right in the face but she did not want to accept it, she just wished it was a nightmare and she would wake up at any moment to see him still placing all the responsibilities of their protection and care on his shoulders like a big brother, that she would wake up to see him acting all matured before all of them and beating the hell out of the boys when

they teased him. She wished she was just in a fragment of her own imagination and. . . and at anytime she would be pulled out by one of her unserious friends pulling a prank on her or that he would come to check on her and wake her from this horrible dream she was having and tell her to always place something soft under her head to have a pleasant dream.

'Why!!!'. She thought, 'during the outbreak of the apocalypse she lost her family, her life - even though it was nothing interesting - everything!. Even the people she met later on had all died, now the people she had slowly learnt to trust once again seemed to be destined to have the same fate. Everyone around her seemed to died, SHE WAS A PARASITE!'.

As tears flowed down Roosevelt's cheeks wetting her cloths, a feeling of heart shattering to pieces seemed to invade her very core as she remembered the face of the guy that was willing to take the bite for her a complete stranger, the guy that was always putting himself in the shoes of a parent for them to have all they needed, the guy that had to carry all their burdens on

his shoulders despite being their age - even junior to some - thinking to that point, she realised that she was feeling an emotion she had never noticed, perhaps that was the reason why she would always take an extra look at him when he was looking the other way, perhaps it was why she would always find his casual jokes funny, she realised that. . .SHE WAS IN LOVE!.

*********

Back at the sanctuary it was utter chaos, people were gathering in front of the vice leader's house instead of the leader's own. But it was for a reason.

"The sanctuary head also fell ill?. . . what's going on?", a woman whispered to another.

"Are we going to be left with no leader now?". Another whispered to his neighbour.

"I heard that not only the leader that has unexpectedly been bedridden with illness", a man said.

"Really?. . . Then there are other people unexplainably ill!". Someone exclaimed.

"Of course!, few days ago one of my neighbour's son directly took ill".

"So what exactly is going on?".

"Honestly, same as you I have no idea".

"Why is the vice leader not showing up?", someone asked.

"That's right, we've been here for so long. Is she not going to give us some face and see us?". Someone menacingly spoke.

Turns out that for some reasons, ever since the strange gas appeared and the zombies evolved, some humans actually fell ill. Not only the 'sanctuary of mystery' was faced with the strange situation, the whole world was under the same crisis of agitation of the unknown. Nobody knew if there was a reason it was happening or if they would be the next at any time so they turned to their leaders for answers. But even they were just as ignorant of what was going on as their members.

The crowd gathered in front of Anthonia's house whispered and spoke to each other on their personal conjunction as to what was going on, at least they were not having to worry about zombies as much as before. Under the constant raiding, the numbers of the zombies left in the city had dwindled to a scanty amount. Even if they were upgrading, it was a fact that their numbers were lacking. Besides they were already building a wall round the sanctuary to keep the zombies away. It was just that having people numbering up to a hundred including their leader take ill within few days had shaken them and they had no

idea what to do.

"Just what is going on?". An old man unknowingly let out his thoughts. "Is an outbreak about to happen again?", he said.

Those words were actually the main worries on majority of their minds, having their worries spoken out by another, they decided to follow through and soon everyone was voicing their own thoughts and agreements.

"Yeah!. . . what's going on?", a man shouted.

"We want answers from our leaders!", another man howled.

"Is this some kind of infection or disease outbreak?", a woman asked.

"We want our leaders to speak to us!".

"I don't want to die!".

"What's really happening?. . . First the zombie apocalypse then this?", a middle aged woman shouted.

"Are we really going to die?".

". . .".

Just like that, the people crowding together began another bout of shouting, screaming and questioning. The zombie apocalypse had already hit them hard enough, their evolution even harder, now this?. . . NO WAY they were going to sit back and watch, they wanted answers. They wanted to know why everything seemed to be pointing in an unusual direction, but even the leaders of the sanctuary were in the dark on the matter and were unable to make sense of anything at all. While they were giving themselves headaches though, one thing was certain. A CHANGE HAD BEGAN!!!.