When I was younger, I used to meet all those actors and musicians, and they used to sign my shirt or mug to give me an autograph. Anyway, growing up at a politically involved house had its perks. Even some of the most famous actors were my buddies back then. So, when I was at the proper age to start visiting the setting to their movies and the backstage to their concerts, I quickly got disappointed.

All those monsters in the films and the special effects in the concerts were products of computers and extras. Nothing was even the tiniest bit real.

It wasn’t the same as watching the finished movie and believing that everything is possible. Visiting the setting and seeing that everything was a lie was a hard pill of truth I had to swallow back then. Now, though, seeing that zombies do exist and walk straight into our room, the first thing that crosses my mind is that I kinda wish that these things were fake.

Silver was the one standing closer to the door so she tosses herself in front of the horde to stop them from hurting Dale. The doctor, being dumbstruck by the impossible sight, takes a step back but does nothing else to escape. He just looks at the monsters with a mixed expression of disgust and fear. The man that has pledged his life to protect and mend people is just standing still, motionless.

Zan, the savage boy, snarls at the monsters, but Silver stops him. In what must have been a second, Silver morphed into a large, bulky object, fitting the door and pushing the corpses out. It was her fencing form, best used to stop wild animals from approaching the camp.

Silver can buy us five to ten minutes before she runs out of power and the room is overrun with all those undead bodies. Dale is standing before her, shaking like a leaf, mumbling to himself.

“Doctor, please, calm down. You’re the only one in this room that can find a way out of here,” Silver says, her voice distorted.

The man doesn’t move an inch.

“Doctor...Doct...Doc…” Silver keeps saying until she can’t speak anymore. She’s now using her whole power into keeping the fence functional and the zombies out.

I turn my head and try to make a quick assessment of the situation. We’re trapped in a hospital room with a small army of dead bodies outside ready to infiltrate any moment now. Jay is still asleep and unable to move, while Zan can’t do much without his primitive spear. And we’re running out of time fast waiting for the Doctor to snap out of his shock.

At that time, out of nowhere, I see Jay getting up on his feet and going to stand in front of the frozen doctor. He’s taller than Doctor Cross, but they’re similar in every other way. They’re both athletic, both strikingly handsome, and both fit to lead. Only that Jay has more experience in overcoming impossible situations.

“Listen to me, human doctor. You have to find us a way out. I can’t die in here,” Jay says to him.

The doctor suddenly looks like he reached the surface of a cold lake. He snaps off his shock and starts breathing hungrily.

“Why...why are you awake? You shouldn’t be awake,” Dale says, mumbling.

“It doesn’t matter now. Tell me, is there a way out of this mess? Can you find us a way out of here?”

Dale looks around him and sees Zan snarling at the door, the morphed Silver into her fence form and me, still seated on the armchair in the back. To be honest, I don’t even dare move a muscle. Maybe this is all a dream, and if I move, the spell will break, and it will end up turning into reality.

Oh, who am I kidding? The zombies are real!

“I...well, there is a way out. But we have to get to the stairway down the hall. It’s the only way.”

His voice sounds shaken but optimistic. His survival instincts start to kick in.

“It might be possible, but we have to work together. What do you need, doctor?” Jay says.

“Wait! Wait a minute. I’m still processing the thought. Maybe, after all, the stairway isn’t such a good idea. It might be better to use the elevator.”

I’m confused. I still don’t know what he has in his mind, but I’m afraid that it won’t be enough. Us, five random people, one of them recently recovered from a serious injury and the other a Chronicler’s assistant, are we going to be able to make our way through all those dead bodies alive?

I’m ready to express my concerns about this plan when I suddenly stop. Seeing them work together, Jay trusting another human except me, suddenly gives me hope. There is still a chance for us to get back together if we manage to get out of here alive, but that won’t happen if I don’t help them.

Damn. Look at me, daydreaming. It’s impossible to get him out of my head even amidst a crisis.

I stand up; I quickly realize that my feet are trembling. I don’t want to get closer to the door. I’m afraid. Right at that time, something wakes up inside me; I’m in shock as well.

After seeing all these people dying two weeks ago, I’ve started being afraid of everything. I’ve spent a lot of time in the hospital trying to cope with my feelings of guilt towards those that died in our stead in the Great Embassy, but it seems that it was all for naught. Now, facing a true crisis, I’m useless.

Two Originators, both of them my friends; one of the guards of the Great Embassy being at the wrong place, the wrong time; many people that we don’t know anything about them. All of them died because of my research. In a sense, it’s my work that brought all this death and destruction; I brought chaos everywhere I went. Jay was just my luckiest victim to date, that’s all.

“Okay. So, here is the plan. Jay and I will be your vanguard. We’ll stay in front of you and push the zombies away creating a path to the elevator. We’re going to have to use the elevator to get three floors down and then the stairway to get to the parking lot of the hospital,” Doctor Dale suddenly says.

“Why don’t we use the elevator all the way to the parking lot? It would be faster and safer,” I hear myself saying.

“The elevator of the hospital is programmed to stop at every floor and open the automated doors so that no one will get trapped inside by accident. It’s a safety thing, but if we don’t get off on the first floor, we’ll get attacked by over a hundred corpses in the morgue. Yes, you guessed it right. We have to pass through the morgue to get to the parking area. And no, I don’t know who designed this building.”

Dale is babbling, trying to make sense of an improbable situation. He seems kinda cute amidst this crisis.

Damn. Stop doing this Eladia. You sound like a horny teenager.

“Okay. There’s no time for second guesses. On the count of three. One--” Jay says.

But it’s too late.

Silver suddenly runs out of power. Slowly, she transforms into a tiny ball the size of a marble. It’s a black, metal ball on that falls on the floor, letting us stare straight into our deaths. In the moments it takes us to get in line and start pushing the zombies, I manage to get a better look at them.

All of them are human with pale skins and white eyes. The color of their irises has been washed away and now they have two white eyeballs devoid of life instead of eyes. In the middle of their forehead, there is a round, flashing button, something resembling an on/off switch. I wonder if that is the thing that powers them up.

Jay and Dale stand in the front, both using their hands to push the dead corpses away. The empty bodies gurgle when getting pushed backward. I want to run, but I know that getting freaked out now, of all the times, won’t help the others get to safety faster. Even so, we’re moving at a quick pace, making a good time to the other side of the room.

It’s only after we have moved a few feet into the zombie-infested hallway that I notice that something seems off. This whole operation is way too easy. It’s like the monsters allow us to push them out of our way. At the same time, Jay seems way too passionate about kicking the corpses out of the way.

I have a bad feeling about this.

I check around me to see if there is any kind of weapon, something we can use against him if he changes, but it’s hopeless. All I can see is dead humans walking around gutted bodies lying the floor.

Oh, my god, this is a massacre.

Dale has slowed down now, watching Jay rage over the dead men from a distance. He seems confused. We all are confused as we watch him and try to see signs of his dark self, emerging, but there’s nothing.

Right then I realize that his overly violent behavior is all him, no parasites taking over, not the need to protect someone. Jay just needs something to kill.

That man, the one not able to control himself, it’s not the same man I met. Jay has changed, and I’m not sure I like what he’s become.