Terence Campbell apparated in front of his house. The November winds were tugging at his gown. From outside, he could make out the light shining through the green curtains behind the windows in the living room on the ground floor. Apart from that, the small house lingered in nocturnal darkness.

He stormed to the front door and swung his wand, escaping the bleak weather and bearing important news. The door opened immediately, and he entered and turned right into the living room. His wife Elvina and their little daughter Felicity were sitting on the couch, Elvina having a book in her hands. It seemed like she had been reading to Felicity, but with his entrance, she stopped and looked directly at him.

“And?”, she asked him with a nervous voice. Felicity looked from the one to the other.

“It’s true”, Terence replied tersely. He approached the couch and cowered down in front of his daughter. “Hey beauty, I think it’s bedtime for you now.”

“But I’m not tired yet”, Felicity insisted. That was part of their daily evening routine, but tonight there was no time for these games.

He took a small bottle from the depths of his gown and exchanged a nod with his wife. “Not tired?”, he managed to say in a playful tone, “how about you take this sleeping draught? It tastes like cocoa.”

“Oh, really?”, Felicity asked and eagerly grabbed the bottle. Her smile faded though. “But it’s cold. Shouldn’t cocoa be warm?”

“Usually, yes”, Terence responded, “but this one tastes better when it’s cold. You’ll see.”

“Oh, ok”, Felicity answered, raised the bottle to her lips and drank the potion. “That was quite yummy”, she commented with a smile, which then turned to a slight frown and a yawn. “But now I’m feeling… so…” And with that, she fell asleep.

Terence and Elvina took her upstairs and put her into her bed, covered her with a blanket and put the cat plushie they had given her for her last birthday next to her. The potion made sure that she would sleep for several hours without waking up from any noises.

“Let’s go down”, he told Elvina after they had watched Felicity sleeping peacefully for a minute.

Back in the living room, they sat down on the couch.

“It’s really true?”, Elvina asked with a desperate tone in her voice. “The Dark Lord has fallen?”

“Yes.”

“But… How is that possible?”

“I don’t know”, Terence replied. “As far as I know, no one knows. He killed the Potters, but somehow he couldn’t kill their son and just… disappeared.” He covered his face with his hands.

Elvina gasped. She stood up and wandered around the living room for a bit. Eventually she stopped.

“What are we supposed to do now?”, she enquired.

“We have to escape”, Terence answered. “The others are… planning different things. Some want to escape too. Others want to start looking for the Dark Lord. And others haven’t even been there today. Maybe they have been captured, maybe they just surrendered themselves. With the Dark Lord gone, they might make deals to stay out of Azkaban and sell others out.”

Elvina hesitated, before asking, “Couldn’t we do that as well? It might save us …”

“No”, Terence replied determinedly. “We’ve always worn hoods, I don’t know who else is a Death Eater. Certainly not sure enough to sell them out. But maybe we have been spied on and someone is ratting us out. I’m not going to take that risk. Who knows if and when the Aurors will find us?”

He stood up and went to the wall. All along the walls of the living room, family pictures had been draped. Some more were on small tables in the room. Terence stood in front of his favourite picture, which had been taken shortly before last Christmas in Hogsmeade. It had been a very lovely day. Felicity had enjoyed the snow there a lot, which was captured in this picture, where the three of them were waving into the camera happily. Pictures like this made the small house their home.

“Before Felicity was born, I would proudly have gone to Azkaban for the Dark Lord, even would have given my life. But… I can’t… Not anymore. We can’t leave her alone and we mustn’t risk anything that would leave her alone in this world.”

Elvina nodded. “You’re right. We can’t leave her alone. We must escape.” She hesitated. “But where?”

“Anywhere”, Terence replied. “Out of the country, first, and then we just… wander around and lay low until we find a place to settle down with Felicity. Australia, maybe, or America.”

“That sounds good”, Elvina agreed.

And with that, they rummaged through the house, packing their suitcases and getting ready to escape. They started by putting together clothes in their bedroom. After that, they collected several pieces of memory, most of all pictures, from the living room and put them into a travel bag in the living room.

For years, they had led a good life, enjoying their power. They were proud to be a wizard and a witch, although technically they were both half-bloods, but the other Death Eaters did not know that. Felicity’s birth about four years ago had been the brightest moment in their lives. But the downfall of the Dark Lord was about to turn their lives upside down.

“Will you get the suitcases from upstairs?”, Terence asked his wife. “I’ll finish with filling in the provisions from the kitchen and get Felicity and then we disapparate.”

“Ok, honey”, Elvina replied and stormed off, up the wooden stair.

Terence took a backpack and hurried into the kitchen. He opened the cupboards containing their food provisions and put them into the backpack with a quick swing with his wand. Magic had its limitations – they could not summon food out of nowhere, and it was best to lay low on their journey, so stealing food was no option. They had to make sure to have plenty of food with them. Fortunately, Elvina was a great witch and had placed an undetectable extension charm on the backpack, and plenty of food could make its way into it.

The second Terence was finished and about to zip the backpack, he heard an alarmingly loud bang from the front of their house. He froze in his movements. Booted steps followed. Steps that made it into the house.

“No, no, no, no, no”, he muttered. He tightened his grip around his wand. It seemed like it was too late. Somebody must have given them away. He had not expected this to be so soon.

He pointed his wand to the kitchen door. “Colloportus!”, he whispered. The door softly fell shut and the lock clicked. Not a moment too soon.
Terence heard the door from their front room to their living room open. He got closer to the door and listened carefully. Maybe it wasn’t Aurors?

“Do you think we’re right here, John?”, a female voice was asking.

“Family Campbell”, a stern, male voice replied, “that’s here. See that bag? Seems like they were about to escape.” He raised his voice and ordered, “Spread and look for them, they must still be here. And make sure to check the basement. Use any means necessary.”

Terence had heard enough. Those were Aurors indeed and there was no way to get to Elvina and Felicity and no escape for him. “I’m sorry, Felicity”, he whispered and directed his wand on the door again. It burst open. Through the dust in the air, he could make out several figures, coughing. They would soon recover though. He raised his voice.

“Elvi, it’s Aurors”, he shouted. “Take her and get away!”

He then directed his wand at the figures in the dust. “Stupefy!” One person dropped to the floor. “Stupefy! Stu…”

“Avada Kedavra!”, a voice shouted.

A flash of green light was the last thing Terence saw. He closed his eyes and recalled Felicity’s face. He smiled.

Elvina heard the bangs and shouting from downstairs without being able to make out what exactly was happening. The only thing she had made out was Terence shouting for her to get away. But how did he imagine her to do that? They could not disapparate from their estate, they had made sure that no one could. The broomsticks were in the basement, and she could hardly take Felicity and jump out of the window from the first floor. Frankly, there was nothing she could do but surrender. She left their suitcases in their bedroom and turned off the lights in there, turning the whole floor into darkness. “Lumos”, she murmured. Her wand lighted and she went to Felicity’s bedroom. She had to gather her strength for what she was about to do.

She hurried through the corridor, past the bathroom door and to Felicity’s room at the end of the corridor. There were not many things in her room. A wardrobe whose contents were constantly changing at this age of hers, some toys scattered on the floor, a chest of drawers, and her bed, in which she was lying, sound asleep, holding her little cat plushie closely now. She remembered how happy Felicity had been about getting that plushie, how she had taken it everywhere ever since. They would have to take it with them if they actually escaped. And she looked so peaceful, all wrapped up in the blankets and holding her plushie to her face. Her black hair, which she had inherited from Elvina, spread on the pillow. Her closed eyelids covered her eyes, which were the same dark green as her father’s.

Elvina kissed Felicity’s forehead. “Mommy’s going to make it all right, sweetheart”, she whispered.

Felicity moved a bit but did not wake up. “I love you”, Elvina added with a calm voice and smiled at her daughter before she turned to leave the room.

When she got back on the floor, she heard footsteps approaching on the stairs, at the other end of the corridor. Elvina just stayed where she was, her arms just hanging down from her sides, her wand lighting the area directly in front of her. She saw light coming up the stairs, and the moment she made out the first figure on top of the stairs, she put up her hands in surrender.

The figure stopped.

“I surr…”, Elvina started, but she was interrupted.

“Avada Kedavra!”

A green flash of light approached her at a furious pace. Not the living dark green of Terence’s or Felicity’s eyes, but a bright green. A deadly green. No, Elvina thought in horror. Felicity… I’m sorry. Then, she was surrounded by darkness.

John Dawlish pawed at the dead female body on the floor with his foot.

“What, by Merlin’s beard, is wrong with you?”, Alice Longbottom enquired him. She had been behind him when they were making their way up the stairs. She had not really seen what had been going on, but she condemned Dawlish’s actions. “Just because we are allowed to kill Death Eaters doesn’t mean we have to do that!”

“The world is better off without this Death Eater scum”, Dawlish insisted. “I will not give them any chance to curse or kill me. Better them than us.”

“There’s… TONS of defensive charms you could use instead of just killing all of them!”

“But none of them could stop an Unforgivable Curse! I’ll stick to it, as long as we’re allowed to, I’ll stop each and every one of these bastards.”

Alice gave up. She had worked with Dawlish long enough to know that it would do no good. He was just too stubborn for his own good, although he was a very good wizard. But his moral compass certainly did not agree with hers.

They had got a clue about the Campbells from a captured Death Eater, who had been all too eager to sell out some of his fellow Death Eaters to avoid Azkaban. It was pure luck to capture one so cooperative so soon. That was another reason why she condemned Dawlish’s course of action. She knew Alastor Moody quite well, and he refused to kill anyone despite Crouch’s permission of completely ruthless measures. She would have to talk to him. If they just killed Death Eaters, they would all escape the country, slipping from their grasp. Maybe Mad-Eye could talk some sense into Dawlish…

For now, however, she was just looking forward to getting home. Frank was waiting for her, together with their little son Neville. She smiled when thinking of them. The two of them were giving her life so much joy. And now that You-Know-Who had fallen, they would soon have more time for each other, as soon as they had captured the remaining Death Eaters. One month, maybe two… She felt in her heart that Neville needed his parents, both of them, more than in the past time.

She was dragged out of her thoughts by Dawlish, who entered the dark room in front of which the woman had died. She followed him because she wanted to make sure he would not do another stupid thing. Or at least to hand in a detailed report with all of his misbehaviours.

Their wands lighted the floor in front of them. There was not much to be seen first, until… Was that a toy wand?

Alice raised her arm and lighted the walls of the room. A wardrobe, a chest of drawers and there… A bed.

Dawlish approached the bed cautiously, with his wand ready to strike. Alice looked from Dawlish to the bed and back when he let the light of his wand wander over the bed.

“A child”, he announced. “Must be the spawn of this scum.”

Alice approached the bed as well. A little girl with black hair was lying there, sleeping peacefully.

“The poor worm”, she said emphatically. “Both parents dead…”

Dawlish gave her a look full of disgust. “I don’t care about the spawn of Death Eaters! But maybe you’re right… We should end her suffering…”

Thoughtfully, slowly, he raised his wand.

“What… what are you doing?”, Alice enquired, concerned and horrified at the same time.

“What needs to be done”, Dawlish replied with cold voice, directed his wand at the child and took a deep breath.

“Expelliarmus!”

Dawlish’s wand left his hand, flew through the air, and Alice caught it.

“What the fuck…”, Dawlish growled and turned toward her. “Give it back!”

“No”, she replied.

“I said, give it back!”

“No”, she insisted and directed her own wand toward him. “I will NOT let you hurt or even kill an innocent child!”

“How innocent could she possibly be, being the spawn of Death Eaters?”

“Did she make her parents join them? Could she have talked them out of it? Merlin’s beard, she probably didn’t even know anything about that!”

Dawlish looked at her, angrily but silently.

“Do you have children on your own?”, she enquired.

“No, you know that.”

“Then you can’t possibly understand”, she concluded.

“I do understand that she’ll cause trouble once she gets older”, Dawlish grunted. “You’ll see, she’ll just turn out on the dark side, just like her parents.”

“You don’t know that”, she countered him.

“What are you going to do with her, then? I thought you had your own son, want to adopt a girl in addition?”, he asked mockingly.

“Don’t need to”, she replied coolly while approaching the bed. “There is procedure. First, we look for any living family members. And if we don’t find any… Well, my sister Lisa can’t have children on her own, I’m sure she and her husband will happily adopt her.”

She bent over the bed and picked up the child. She was surprised that she still didn’t wake up, but she was clearly still breathing and her heart beating. She also found it astonishing that she was still holding her plush animal, a little grey cat. Alice took her safely in her arms.

Dawlish snorted and left the room furiously. Alice shook her head and followed him downstairs.

The other Aurors and the members of the special unit of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol who had accompanied them on their raid were rummaging through the ground floor. They were looking for any information they could use to track other Death Eaters.

“Have you found anything?”, she enquired the leader of the special unit.

“Nothing useful”, he responded. “Some family pictures, but it seems like they didn’t have any information on other Death Eaters, at least nothing we could use.”

“Have you found any information about a child, maybe? Seems like they have – or had – a daughter.” She moved her chin to the sleeping girl in her arms. She saw the couch and laid her onto it carefully.

“I’ll ask the others”, the wizard opposite her answered and turned away to talk to his colleagues.

Alice sat down on the couch, next to the girl. It had been a long day, like most days in her profession this time. She saw a travel bag next to the couch and heaved it up before she opened it and looked through the contents. There seemed to be pictures and other mementos in this bag. She was surprised that they had been going to take those with them. She looked at some of the pictures. One of them attracted her attention. There was the little girl and her parents waving. It seemed to be snowing, and the happiness the family radiated there reminded her of her own family. She sighed. She hoped this war would be over soon before more families were ripped apart…

She kept the picture of the Campbells. It might be the last thing the little girl could keep from her family.

The wizard she had spoken to before got back to her.

“We have found some cards, for birthdays, Christmas, and for giving birth. It seems like the name of their daughter was… is… Felicity”, he reported.

“Felicity Campbell”, Alice tried to speak the full name. “That is quite a lovely name. Thank you”, she said to the wizard. She stood up and stretched before taking Felicity into her arms again. “It seems like you have things here under control. I’ll disapparate to the Ministry, see if there is some family left for her.”

“Yes, madame”, the wizard replied and turned around again to investigate the house more.

Alice left the living room and exited through the front door. Dawlish was standing next to it, smoking a cigarette.

“You’re really going to do it, then?”, he addressed her.

“If what you mean with it is find a safe place for her, then yes”, she answered tiredly.

He shook his head in disapproval. “You’ll see what you’ll get out of this”, he commented.

“I assume I will.” She was not in the mood for another fruitless discussion with Dawlish. This time, she was the stubborn one, but she did not care. “Here’s your wand”, she added and threw it to Dawlish, who was not able to catch it, holding a cigarette in one hand.

“Damn you”, he cursed while she was walking away from the house.

She ignored him. She took some more steps through the dark streets in the night. Eventually she halted and looked around. There was no light in the houses around her, and the street was empty. “Time to get you to safety”, she murmured to Felicity before she took another step and disapparated, leaving behind the dark, empty street.

“… they will never regain their sanity.”

Lisa Jenkins broke down at the table, bursting out in tears. Augusta, the mother of Alice’s husband Frank, had just delivered the devastating news to her. Alice and Frank had been attacked by Death Eaters who had tortured them with the Cruciatus curse. They demanded intelligence in You-Know-Who’s whereabouts, but Alice and Frank had been unable to provide them with the information they had desired. The Death Eaters, eager to find a way to their master, continued torturing them until they eventually lost their minds. They were now at St. Mungo’s Hospital, unable to speak, unable to recognize the people around them, and unable to take care of themselves.

Vincent, Lisa’s husband, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. She gave in to her emotions. She was glad that she could do that in Vincent’s arms. He gave her the security she had always been looking for without having to speak too much. It did not matter to her that he was a muggle, unable to perform any magic.

She sobbed in his arms for a while. She was glad that Augusta did not interrupt before she got calm enough to talk again.

“Wh-what’s going to happen to their son?”

“I guess I will raise him”, Augusta replied matter-of-factly. “Frank had no siblings, so unless you feel you can raise him as well, with that child you have already adopted…”

Lisa covered her face with her hands. She knew that raising two children, neither one of them her own, would be too much for her. They just did not have the space for another child in their small apartment. It had been hard enough to make do when they adopted Felicity. And she had already caused some issues in the one week she had been with them. Lisa did not blame her, of course. She was just old enough to understand what was happening, or at least to understand that something had happened. Having her parents ripped away from her at such a young age, she needed time to settle in. But was it not her family duty to adopt her sister’s son? And could she really raise the child of people who had been of the same kind as those who had damaged so much damage to her sister and her family?

Then again, Felicity did not have anything to do with that. She was in bed, sleeping right now. The one week had been problematic. She really missed her parents, but Lisa felt like things were getting slowly better and she had been willing to be patient with her. Now, could she do that to her, an innocent child? Give her away like that, only to have her having to settle in at another new place? Could she possibly live with that?

She remembered the day Alice had come by and asked her if she would like to raise a little girl. Her research at the Ministry of Magic had not provided her with any living relatives. Since Lisa and Vincent could not get any children of their own, Alice had considered this a better solution than giving Felicity to another family in this time. Many would be very reluctant to adopt a child of Death Eaters. Lisa, however, had accepted gladly, although she had known that problems might arise.

Thinking of her little sister made Lisa shed some more tears. She had such a good and kind heart. To some extent, she had always been more mature than Lisa, although she was two years younger. She was also so talented and full of joy and enthusiasm in the things she did, it was hard to imagine for Lisa that all of that was just gone like that now.

She swallowed hard and exchanged a quick glance with Vincent. He gave her a slight, nod of approval, making clear that whatever her choice, he would support her. The decision was hers to make.

She considered the options. If she raised Felicity, Neville would be raised by Augusta, who was quite an intimidating person. But Lisa knew Frank, Augusta’s son, and he had turned out a fine, young man, so how hard could it really be being raised by her? Felicity however… If Lisa would give her away, she would end up in yet another family. Maybe someone was willing to adopt her despite her heritage. But would that not be too much for a four-year-old child? Too much change, too much having to settle in a new place all over again?

What would Alice do in her situation?

Well, she knew perfectly well what Alice would do. And she should do just that to honour her memory. She wiped the tears off her face.
“You take Neville and raise him”, she said to Augusta, “we already have a child.”

Author's note: After some weird months, I present you a fanfiction from the Harry-Potter universe. The idea hit me and this part was finished in just about three days. The next months will be quite important for me, but also stressful (legal name change, writing my master's thesis etc), so I don't know when I can write anything else, but I hope I can make do at some point. Feedback is highly appreciated!!!

Cheers,
Filas

Author's Note:

After over a year, there is something new from me. I am terribly sorry for the long delay, it's been a crazy year. Got my master's degree, wrote quite a lot actually after that, but when getting unemplyoed after that, stumbled right into a depressive phase which is, among everything else, not great to revise chapters or write new ones. But yeah, with the prospect of Corona, applying for jobs is off anyway and I can spend some more time on proper writing for the time being. I hope I can put online some more chapers from this fanficition and the Walking Dead fanfiction in the next few weeks and I also hope that you enjoy this. Stay safe and take care!

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“Muuuuuuum, do I really need to wear this?”

“Come on sweetheart, it’s only every once in a while.”

“It’s at least four times a year!”

“There’s worse than that. Now hold still so I can…”

“Ouch!”

“I told you to hold still…”

Felicity tried to hold still and relax while looking into the mirror and watch her mother pluck out each hair on her head. At least that’s what it felt like to her when her mother tried to get Felicity’s hair in shape before adding a hairbow. That had been preceded by the fight over what Felicity was supposed to wear. Her mother had insisted on her wearing a frilly green dress with a red waistband that ended in a bow as well. Felicity had refused to put it on. However, as she was only eleven years old, her mother had won that fight, of course.

Felicity and her parents were having teatime with the rest of the family today. Sure, that did not happen too often really, usually for Christmas, Easter, and maybe one or two Sundays a year. However, Felicity was among the youngest members of the rather large family. Only Neville was younger than her and he was the only one around her age. But being only eight years old, it felt like he was decades younger to Felicity. So, all she could do at those family gatherings was to bear the chatter of adults and hope there was at least delicious tea and/or cake.

It didn’t make things easier that, technically, she wasn’t really related with them.

She felt a final pull at her hair. In the mirror, she saw her mother attach the red bow in her black hair.

“Done”, Felicity’s mother gave a relieved sigh.

Oh dear, Felicity thought and pulled a face. It was not like she hated dresses. She just didn’t fancy too frilly ones, especially when she was forced to wear them for a bunch of people who didn’t really accept her in the family.

Her mother patted her shoulders. “Now put on your ballerinas and get to the living room. We’re going to leave any minute.” With that, she left Felicity alone in her room.

Felicity liked her room. It wasn’t too large, but she felt like it was really her room, other than the outfit she had to wear. A small bed, a messy desk, and the cupboard with a mirror attached to it, offering enough space for her clothes. The bookshelf contained several, well, books. Felicity loved reading, even novels from muggle authors. She had to admit that when writing, some of them were actually able to plant some magic in the world – although they had some misconceptions when writing about magic. A poster of the Holyhead Harpies was draped on the wall next to her bed. The window offered a good view on the courtyard, which she preferred over a view on the street. That was all, but that was all she needed.

Felicity blew raspberries. She could just put on some sneakers or boots, but she knew that her mother would send her right back anyway. Maybe even use a binding spell to attach her ballerinas to her feet for several days. Nothing Felicity would enjoy. So, she stepped to her wardrobe and grabbed a pair of black ballerinas. At least they were rather plain, without any bows. She put them on and left her room, getting to the living room.

She got there quickly. After all, they were just living in a rather small apartment in Leeds, not in a big mansion. With her father being a muggle, who was working for an insurance company, the flat couldn’t look too magic in case he had colleagues or clients or friends over. Her mother had to be careful when performing magic to keep the flat clean or when cooking and had to make sure that no muggles witnessed it. To Felicity, it seemed like her mother had got quite the hang of that, at least she hadn’t noticed anything going wrong in that regard yet.

Her parents were already waiting for her in the living room in front of the fireplace. Both of them were also dressed for the occasion, her mother wearing a white dress that was decorated with flowers. Felicity wondered if she felt as bad and uncomfortable in it as she did in her outfit.

Her father was wearing a black suit. Felicity was tempted to roll her eyes. Her father’s suit looked just too plain, even to her. The wizards in the family would be wearing dress robes which looked a lot fancier. Then again, Felicity knew that her father was not ashamed of who he was and although she might never tell him, she was proud that he didn’t care about the glances he’d get from those fancy-dressed other men. And she knew that, although he wasn’t a man of many words, he really loved her. Like her mother did. It showed as they smiled at her entering the room. That was the most important thing to Felicity, after all.

Her mother looked at the clock on the wall.

“We better hurry, we’re a bit late.”

With that, she stepped to the fireplace and picked up a pot. Felicity sighed. Portkeys were too complicated to register at the ministry and apparition with three people was too much for her mother (aside from the fact that her father always threw up after apparating). Broomsticks were no option too with her father being a muggle. So, floo powder was the only reasonable way of transportation to Tibberton near Gloucester, where the family gatherings used to take place. That was where her grand-aunt Augusta lived with Neville, and they were the ones with the most space for those meetings. They were living in a rather large mansion.

Basically, Felicity didn’t fancy either of those ways of transportation. All of them were rather messy and each of them had its disadvantages. Riding on broomsticks took its time and, depending on the weather, could get quite cold eventually. The biggest issue of apparition was that splinching could occur if something went wrong, meaning that the person apparating left behind body parts. Felicity’s mother, who worked in the Ministry of Magic, in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, had witnessed several of those incidents. Her job was to alter the memories of muggles who had seen what had happened. She didn’t want anyone from her family to suffer from splintering. In combination with her being cautious when performing magic, that resulted in them avoiding apparition. Aside from that, Felicity hadn’t learned to control magic yet and was years away from figuring out how to apparate on her own. If it wasn’t for that danger, just appearing in one place seemed pretty cool for Felicity, but she hadn’t experienced apparating at all yet.

Felicity’s father was the first one to grab a handful of floo powder from the pot. He was the only non-magic person, and it was easier to fix anything that might go wrong with him going first. He stepped to the fireplace and tossed the floo powder into the flames which immediately turned green. He stepped into the fire which did no harm to him.

“Longbottom House, Tibberton”, he spoke very clearly, and then vanished.

“I think that went well”, Felicity’s mother said while looking into the flames which had turned red and orange again. Felicity didn’t know if she was talking to her or to herself. Her mother then turned to her.

“Well, your turn, honey pie”, she said and offered her the pot with the floo powder. Felicity grabbed a handful of the glittering powder.

“Remember, pronounce it carefully and be also careful with your elbows…”, her mother started the usual lecture about floo powder. But Felicity interrupted her.

“I know, mum, it’s not the first time I’m using floo powder.”

“Well, maybe, but that doesn’t mean that nothing could go wrong this time.”

Felicity rolled her eyes but didn’t respond. Instead, she stepped to the fireplace and tossed the floo powder into the flames. She stepped into the fire. She could feel a bit of warmth, but it was a rather pleasant temperature. Felicity had locked her jaws, knowing that getting ash in her mouth might cause problems.

“Longbottom House, Tibberton”, she said, and she was torn into the chimney. At least that was what it felt like. She spit out the ash she had got in her mouth while saying those three words. She was revolving around herself through the floo network. She pressed her arms against her body to keep them from being hurt. A roaring noise engulfed her, just like the green flames. In between, she could catch a glimpse of the other fireplaces connected to the network and the rooms beyond, for a part of a second each.

She felt a tingling in her stomach, and, knowing what it indicated, stretched out her arms a bit to make a more elegant arrival than just being spat out by the Longbottoms’ fireplace. She made a little somersault and immediately stood up and looked around. That was the Longbottoms’ house indeed. Her father had also arrived already and had made place for her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and quickly got her out of the way to make place for her mother too.

“I can move on my own, you know?”, she asked him.

“I know, honey”, her father replied absent-mindedly.

In that moment, the flames in the fireplace roared and turned green before spitting out Felicity’s mother, who landed there elegantly. She looked around quickly and got to Felicity and her father, who were standing at the wall.

“Did all go well?”, she asked and, before any of them could reply, took out her wand. “Here, you’re covered in ash”, she said and with that she moved the wand all over Felicity and her father to remove the ash off them before cleaning up herself.

After the cleaning was finished, they had a quick look around. It was a nice room. Not too large, but two armchairs were draped around next to each other in front of the fireplace. Only a small table was standing between them. Felicity knew that her grand aunt used this room for the most part as an arrival room for guests using floo powder. That way, people could get cleaned up in private and not interrupt a party, which would take place on the upper floors. Still, if you had a fireplace, it would be a waste to not have chairs in front of it.

“Well, up and at them”, Felicity’s mother suggested and walked across the room toward the only door. Felicity and her father followed her to the corridor which led them to the stair and also the exit door. Felicity’s mother walked upstairs, with Felicity following her and her father at the rear. The wooden staircase groaned with every step they took, but the groaning soon got drowned out by the chatter from upstairs that grew louder with each step.

As they reached the first upper floor, they went left, leaving the staircase and entered through a massive wooden door, decorated with carvings showing the ancient scene of wizards and witches defending a castle against trolls. As was usual for magic pictures, the carved figures were moving and gave a quite realistic impression on how that battle was going, with the wizards and witches being smart enough to finally defeat the trolls.

Felicity didn’t have a lot of time to admire the woodcarvings though. Her mother waved her wand and the door opened easily like it was the easiest thing in the world. Felicity couldn’t wait to go to Hogwarts and learn that kind of magic for herself.

The door gave way to a large hall, almost as large as the flat of Felicity’s family. A massive table was set in the middle of it, with around twenty wizards and witches – predominantly elderly ones – sitting around it. They were – as expected – dressed in overly fancy and partially frilly robes and dresses. The table was overloaded with tons of cakes and cookies and old-fashioned teapots and cups.

On their arrival, a tall, elderly woman noticed them and stood up to welcome them. “Lisa! Vincent!”, she exclaimed and approached them. She was wearing a long, green dress and a hat with a stuffed vulture on it. She was also carrying a bright red handbag. It was a warm day in May, so she wasn’t wearing the scarf made of fox fur which she used to wear in winter. She gave both of Felicity’s parents a firm handshake.

“Hello Augusta”, they said.

“And that must be Felicity”, she added when facing toward her and held out her hand. Felicity timidly offered her hand only to find it squeezed in a firm handshake as well. She wasn’t sure if she heard her hand crack but was glad once it was released anyway. Her grand aunt did this to everyone, but Felicity actually liked her for not treating her any different than other people, unless other family members.

“My, my, haven’t you grown into a young lady”, Felicity’s grand aunt added, looking at Felicity’s dress. Felicity tended to disagree. For her, her outfit clearly was still rather childish than lady-like, but instead of verbalizing her objection, she just smiled and nodded.

“Happy birthday, Augusta”, Felicity’s mother said and offered Augusta a small package. Felicity knew it contained another hat for her grand aunt.

“Oh, thank you, Lisa, that is kind of you.” Augusta took the package but didn’t want to open it, apparently. “Neville, Neville, where are you?”, she said instead and looked around for a moment. “Oh, there you are.”

A young boy approached them. He had a round face and blonde hair, having a bit of resemblance with Felicity’s mother. In fact, he resembled her more than Felicity did.

“Oh, hello Neville”, Felicity’s mother said.

Neville seemed a bit shocked for a moment, looked at Augusta, and then at the knees of Felicity’s mother. “Hello, Aunt Lisa”, he mumbled timidly.

“Take this and put it to the other presents, will you?”, Augusta said to him and gave him the package. He took it and carried it through the room to a pile of packages. He put it there clumsily – only to have one or two other packages fall to the floor.

“Oh Neville”, Augusta sighed and went to the pile to fix it, leaving Felicity’s family on their own. Felicity just noticed that her grand aunt went for a rant at Neville and felt sorry for him. Age difference or not, Felicity had a hunch that the reason for Neville’s clumsiness and his timidity was a lack of self-confidence. But being treated the way he was, not only by his grandmother but especially from the rest of his family, wouldn’t help him gain any confidence. It also didn’t help that he hadn’t shown any sign of magic so far. Most of the family feared that he was a squib, born into a family of wizards and witches, but not being able to perform magic himself. Not like his family hadn’t tried to make Neville perform magic. Felicity had overheard her parents once talking how his grand uncle Algie had shoved him into the sea in Blackpool, almost causing him to drown. She had a feeling that Neville’s potential magic was more important to family members like Algie than the actual person Neville.

Then again, it was not really her family. They were here because Felicity’s aunt Alice, the sister of her mother, was married to Frank Longbottom. They were Neville’s parents, but they were in a hospital, as far as Felicity knew. She didn’t know why they were there, nor had she ever met them at all because her mother would go visit them on her own, leaving Felicity at home with her father. She knew that her mother was a Prewett by birth, but that family had branched out a lot. A family gathering from that side might require the Great Hall of Hogwarts.

She didn’t know a lot of people of her father’s side of the family either. She knew they were muggles and that they mustn’t find out that the magic world existed, so they weren’t really invited to their place. Felicity herself was deemed a risk there, being at such a young age and not being able to control her magic yet. That was also why she was barely ever allowed to invite friends to her place. In each case, they were invited to the Longbottom family meetings, and they usually accepted in order to get that extended-family-sense and to keep in touch with the magic community aside from Felicity’s mother’s work in the Ministry.

Felicity and her family moved around the table looking for some vacant seats, smiling and greeting the people already sitting around with nods. Eventually, they found a few seats next to each other where they took place, Felicity in between of her parents. The two of them got pulled into conversations right away. The person sitting opposite of Felicity, a woman in her middle ages, didn’t take much notice of her, so she shrugged and took some of the cake and tea.

The afternoon went rather easy for a while. Felicity just overheard bits and pieces of the conservations around her. There were rumours that Millicent Bagnold, the Minister for Magic, would resign soon, being tired of the games for power in the Ministry. Felicity didn’t care a lot about that, though. Why would she care about politics?

The news that Britain had been chosen to hold the Quidditch World Cup in six years was old news, but Felicity eagerly listened to the talks about that, nonetheless. In six years, she would be 17 years old and right before her final year at Hogwarts. That might be THE opportunity to visit an event like that and she could barely wait for it.

Then of course there were talks about Harry Potter, the boy who defeated You-Know-Who. Felicity hadn’t learned a lot about that yet. That boy was about Neville’s age, as far as she knew, and almost three years younger than she was. It was hard to imagine for her that he was already so famous and had been since being an infant. But it also hit her that she’d be at Hogwarts with him for some years. Not like she had received her letter of acceptance yet, but still…

So far, Felicity had attended a school for muggles. It wouldn’t help her an awful lot, but her father had insisted she’d get some “solid school education” – for whatever that meant. He said that it’d be good for her to learn some general world knowledge and to not stay at home all day. She did like subjects like Arts and English, but in each Maths lesson she felt like her father wanted to torture her with forcing her to visit a regular school. Also, Sciences was really ridiculous to her, given how many “scientific rules” could just be mocked by any witch or wizard. Felicity would be happy to not have to deal with those subjects anymore once she was at Hogwarts.

This summer, she expected to get accepted for Hogwarts, Britain’s only school for young wizards and witches. There she’d learn to control her magic and to avoid incidents like the ones she had already caused, making her mother clean up the messes that had been created. Of course, those incidents included Felicity being very upset or in danger. Once at Hogwarts, she’d learn how to use her magic in reasonable ways and on her command.

At the gathering, Felicity stayed quiet for the most time, only talking when addressed by her parents. She had learnt that most adults didn’t like being interrupted by children. Although she didn’t consider herself a child anymore – after all, she was already eleven years old – she knew that adults had weird ideas on when someone was a child and when one was an adult. Felicity considered herself a good learner and didn’t want to cause any trouble, so she remained quiet. However, she did notice the cold looks shot in her direction every now and then…

“Mum, where is Neville?”, she asked her mother eventually. She had not seen him since their arrival and was getting a bit worried, knowing what it felt like to be treated like the family’s black sheep.

“Oh, I haven’t seen him in a while”, her mother replied. “He must be upstairs, getting a bit of a break from all these many people.” She was right, there were around 30 people in the room by now and it felt overcrowded for Felicity as well. “Why don’t you go and check in on him? I’m sure he likes that better than any old people doing so.”

Felicity smiled and nodded. She got off her chair and noticed that she felt a bit wobbly after having potentially one or two pieces of cake too many. She felt more stable after a few steps though, and so she crossed the room, exited through the door that lead to the staircase and went upstairs. On her own, she was small and light enough to not make the stairs groan.

She assumed that Neville was in his room on the second upper floor. Upon reaching it, she was about to approach the door, which was plainer than the one on the first floor. However, before she could open it, she heard voices from above.

“… I just couldn’t bear living in a house with that girl, leave alone raise her.”

“Yeah, me too, I just can’t understand them…”

Felicity hesitated. She was no fan of eavesdropping, but it seemed like those people really wanted to avoid being heard. And in her 11-year-long experience, it was worth eavesdropping on people who really didn’t want to be eavesdropped on.

She stepped away from the door and carefully took the first four steps on the stairs leading to the next floor to hear those people a bit better.
“They should have put her in an orphanage right away.”

“Yeah, I mean adopting a child is one thing. There were plenty of children up for adoption back then, but out of all those, they had to pick… HER?!”

“Who knows what her parents did to other families? Who knows if they had anything to do with what happened to Frank and Alice?”

“And then she has the guts to show up here…”

“I can’t even look her in the eyes.”

“I can’t understand why Augusta still invites them over.”

“She of all people should understand.”

“And why is Vincent even here?”

“Well, he’s not too bad a guy…”

“But he doesn’t belong to us!”

“You’re right there…”

“What is this family coming to?”

Felicity had heard enough. Forcing her emotions inside, she carefully went back to the second floor, opened the door leading to the living area there and closed it just as carefully, giving her best not to make a single sound. Once the door was closed, she leaned against it and took some deep breaths, tears running down her cheeks. From what it sounded like, it had been at least three people up there, but she was not able to tell who they were. It only was fair to assume that grand aunt Augusta was not among them, though.

She knew that she had been adopted. However, that had been so long ago, it was only natural to her to call her parents “mum” and “dad” and to just refer to them as her parents. After all, she barely remembered her biological parents. Her mother only had told her that they had been bad people and that they had been killed. Felicity could not even recall their faces. The only things she had inherited from them were her plush cat, which she was still keeping, hoping that it might help her memorize things from when she had been a little girl, and her surname – Campbell.

In any case, she had no idea what her parents and their actions had to do with her. Her parents had been her parents, but she was Felicity. She was a person on her own and had had nothing to do with whatever they had done. She had only been four, after all, when she had been adopted. Everything inside her screamed how unfair it was of those people to talk about her like that, like she was a criminal that deserved to be shunned. And even worse, they wanted to exclude her father from the family as well. What had they said? “He doesn’t belong to us”? Were they really going to exclude him just because he was no wizard? It was getting all too clear to her that she herself didn’t want to regard people like those, who just talked behind other people’s backs like that, as part of her family.

A sobbing noise from one of the rooms around her tore her out of her dark thoughts. She remembered why she had come up here in the first place.

Neville.

She wiped the tears off her face, took another deep breath and walked along the corridor. All doors were closed, and she could not recall which room was Neville’s. She held her ears against the doors to maybe make out anything that could give Neville away. And at the third door she investigated, she made out the sobbing she had heard earlier. She already had her hand on the handle but thought better and softly knocked the door. She waited for five seconds but didn’t get any response.

“Neville?”, she asked quietly, leaning closer to the door and listening closely.

After waiting another few seconds, she heard a sniff. “C-come in”, Neville’s voice said finally. Felicity pushed down the handle and opened the door.

Neville’s room was a bit larger than hers. What was most striking about it, however, was the amount of plants that Neville had put all around. Felicity knew that Neville had a thing for plants and loved caring for them.

Neville sat on the floor in front of a dragon tree. Felicity sat down next to him and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She saw that his eyes were blood-shot and assumed that he had been crying until seconds before. He avoided looking at her, however. Felicity realized how similar she actually was to him. They were both outsiders in this family, and it wasn’t just for their age. But she didn’t think it’d be a good moment to talk to him about that. After all, he was only eight years old, and a boy at that. He needed some other kind of tending, she felt.
“Those plants of yours look really good”, she said.

Neville looked at her quickly. She thought he had the slightest hint of a smile on his face.

“Thanks, I take care of all of them”, he replied.

“Wow, that’s really amazing, Neville.” She meant it: she couldn’t take proper care of plants if her life depended on it.

His smile widened a bit. Felicity felt like she should stay on that track.

“You know…”, she started.

In that second, the door burst open. Grand uncle Algie stood there. He was a huge man, about 6-foot-tall and of stocky build.

“Neville, come on, you won’t get your magic started by sitting around those plants”, his voice roared. He stormed through the room, approaching them. Intimidated by his stature, Felicity fell back from him. Algie ignored her, though. He grabbed Neville, who seemed to be in shock himself, and dragged him out of the room.

Felicity fought off the state of shock, managed to stand up and hurried after them. She followed the open doors and ended up in the living room. Algie was about to open the large window, holding Neville tightly, making sure he couldn’t escape. It took Felicity a moment to figure out what was about to happen.

“STOP IT!”, she shouted.

Algie had already managed to open the window. Felicity charged at him and tried to release Neville from his grip. “LEAVE HIM ALONE!”, she screamed.

Algie didn’t seem to care too much, though. He shoved her away. She stumbled and fell to the floor.

“Don’t worry, I’m not doing anything to Neville. Nothing that could harm a wizard, that is.”

And with that, he put Neville on the windowsill, grabbed him by his ankles and then, before Felicity could do anything, Algie was holding Neville out of the window, only his feet in his hands.

Felicity couldn’t believe what was happening. She had heard what Neville had to go through, but she had never seen it for herself.

“STOP IT! LEAVE HIM BE!”, she shouted at Algie. She didn’t dare charge at him again, however. What if that made Algie lose his grip and dropped Neville? All she could do was to make him see common sense.

“Did you do that to your children too?”, she inquired.

“Didn’t have to”, he responded. “I never had to worry about having put a squib into the world.”

“So, you don’t care about Neville but only about his magic?”

Algie didn’t respond this time, but Felicity took his silence for a ‘yes’.

“That is so stupid!”, she said.

“What is going on here?”

Some family members had made their way upstairs. Felicity could make out her mother, but also grand aunt Augusta and some others.

“Grand uncle Algie is trying to kill Neville”, Felicity exclaimed.

“Don’t be ridiculous”, Algie replied from the window. “I’m just helping his magic a bit.”

With that, he shook Neville by his ankles.

“Don’t you see how messed up this is?”, Felicity demanded of the others.

“Come on, Algie”, her mother tried. “This is going too far.”

Algie ignored her, however.

“Algie, stop it”, one of the grand aunts said. Felicity believed her name was Enid, Algie’s wife. She had even brought a plate with a piece of cake with her. She held it out to him. “Have some lemon meringue, isn’t that your favourite cake?”

“You’re right, it is”, Algie replied.

And then it happened.

He turned around to accept the piece of cake that Enid was offering to him. When doing so, he let go of Neville’s ankles. Accidentally or on purpose, Felicity couldn’t tell. She screamed and rushed to the window, shoving an absent-minded Algie out of her way. She looked out of the window, hoping there was any way she could save Neville. She forgot for a moment that even if there was a way to help him, she probably couldn’t do it.

What she saw, however, was a massive surprise. Neville was bouncing from the front garden onto the street, just like a bouncy toy ball. He seemed to be perfectly fine. It seemed like he had just performed magic.

That reminded Felicity of the story her parents had told her about when she had performed magic for the first time. She had been only five years old and had been crossing the street to pet a cat that was sitting on the other side. Felicity had not been minding the traffic, though. She had been about to be hit by a car but just appeared on the other side of the street, being perfectly safe and unharmed. Apparently, that was something that magic would do, save their lives.

A sigh of resignation next to her grabbed Felicity’s attention. She turned her head and saw that her mother and grand aunt Augusta were also looking out of the window. Augusta had tears in her eyes and looked overwhelmingly happy, glad that Neville had shown that he has magic inside of him. Felicity’s mother, however, looked less happy.

“That is going to be so much work for our department”, she groaned. Felicity followed her eyes and saw that many muggles had gathered on the street and in their front gardens. Apparently, all of them had just watched what had happened to Neville. Her mother would have a long day altering all their memories.

It was raining. The rain was pouring down on the woods on both sides of the road. It was also pouring down on the road she was following, alongside with the wind, giving her a hard time to make her way up. She could only hope that this was nothing more than the occasional German summer storm that would not last for much longer than one or two hours. Although she assumed it was early afternoon, it seemed like dusk, and the rain being blown into her face made it even more difficult to spot any beings that might be closing in to her. She was making only slow progress, dragging her bicycle with her and carrying her enormous backpack.

Filas was travelling by bike, being the most logical way of transport in these times. In her opinion, at least. Not depending on fuel, flexible, and in emergency cases fast enough to get out of trouble. She knew there were quite many people still relying on cars, but she did not want to take the risk of being out of fuel in the middle of an attack. After all, no one could say how many survivors there were, and how long the supplies of petrol would suffice. Furthermore, she had already experienced that people filling up were in great danger of being attacked exactly then. And, most importantly, when it all had broken loose, the roads were jammed with cars that could not move anywhere, but with her bike, she was able to slip just past them. It was almost two months now since she had left the city of Paderborn where she had lived and studied. In this time, she had learned the benefits of a bicycle. Not that it was all positive though. The panicking families stuffed into the overloaded cars not getting forward still haunted her in her dreams.

Family hadn’t been too much of an issue to Filas for several years now, and she assumed that wouldn’t change anymore, given the circumstances. After all, they most likely wouldn’t even recognise her.

Her mother had died of cancer when Filas was just 15 years old, and after that she was left with her emotionally absent father and with her most hated sister. Now, eight years later, Filas had not seen her sister for five years and her father for three years. In fact, she did not consider that a loss. She felt relieved that she did not have to care about them anymore and that she could live her life the way she wanted without being stopped by people she did not have any positive feelings for, but was forced to live with. Considering that, studying at university had been one of the best decisions in her life.

She had also got into LARPing in her last three years there. LARPing means Live-Action Role-Playing and basically means that people put on armour and weapons from past times – especially medieval attire is quite popular – and meet with other people sharing that interest, having duels, battles, or simply an old-fashioned party with a lot of campfires. As she had always been a fantasy nerd, Filas was all into it as soon as she found out LARPing existed. She learned to wield a spear and to shoot arrows with a bow – both skills had already saved her several times in the past two months, although it was not playing now. She had attached the spear to her cycle on the right side, just so it blocked neither the front wheel nor the pedals, and so she could naturally mount her vehicle from the left side. Her bow and a quiver filled with arrows were in the basket in front of the bike. She considered her spear the ideal weapon at the moment. She could not have used it for LARPing because it was a real spear that usually dealt deadly wounds – something she needed in this situation though. And as she was not in America, where ammunition basically could be found in every neighbourhood, it was better to be able to do close combat while keeping her opponents at a bit of reach. She had her bow and arrows for practical reasons as well: in case she had some time, she could make some more arrows, or she could just take them out of the dead bodies and reuse them.

She also had a large box on the carrier which was filled with drinks and food, so she could get them fast when she was having a short break. A first-aid kit was in there as well. All her other things – clothing, her sleeping bag, a blanket, and a few things she could not part with, like a few books and CDs she totally liked – were in her backpack. And, of course, her meds.

It was quite a heavy weight Filas was having with her considering that she was rather slim. Right now, having moved up for some time, her luggage was certainly a burden to her.

After she had left Paderborn, she went north first, to the larger city of Bielefeld, hoping to gain some safety there. Unfortunately, she learned there that a larger number of people also meant a greater risk of being attacked by the dead. After barely escaping, she was going north-east to her hometown Minden, although she didn’t know exactly why. She had basically cut all the bonds she had had with that town, but in that situation, it seemed logical to look for shelter in the smallish town she had once called home.

She never arrived there.

On her journey there, avoiding the motorway, she got along several other smaller towns. All of them were overrun. But not by the living. So, instead of driving towards Minden, she took a route that led her straight eastwards into an area where only few people lived. It was a slightly mountainous area, although Filas was hesitating in calling hills, which were only 400 metres high, mountains. She had spent some weeks in Extertal, a village deep in those hills, until it had been attacked from the east. She knew that there were some smaller towns in that direction, but it was then that she realized that 50,000 could be quite a high number of people when they were attacking. As she realized that the few people defending the village were overrun, she had no choice but to escape. Fast. It was a rough ride, but she finally made it. She realized that this part of the country was still too densely populated, and that she had to look for an area where really only very few people were living.

That was when she decided to head for the south, and eventually ended up in the Sauerland.

The Sauerland was a pretty large region, south of Paderborn. It was a rolling countryside, with several lakes, many forests and, most importantly, only few towns, which were not too large and therefore basically rather easy to defend if there were people who knew how to do it. Filas drove south on her bike, but also drifting somewhat into the west. She wanted to avoid the larger hills, being more than 800 metres high in the east end of Westphalia, and the larger towns of Hesse. And so she ended up on the road she was taking at the moment, completely in the middle of nowhere.

It had been raining for half an hour already, and under normal circumstances it might have been best to look for a tree as a shelter from it. Unfortunately, the circumstances were far from normal. So she just kept walking, not daring to make a rest in the potentially dangerous forest with the rain, which muted almost all other sounds that might indicate that something was closing in on her. By doing so, she was making only slow progress on her way, but that was at least a bit of progress.

After a few more minutes Filas saw a traffic sign on the right of the right of the road. Some steps later she also discovered some houses in the dense rain. Apparently, she had got to a village or something like that. She got close enough to read the sign. It said “Brenschede – District of Sundern”. Almost all German cities were surrounded by villages, which were declared as districts of the city for reasons of administration. So Brenschede was the village she entered, whereas Sundern was the larger city. Probably not especially large, otherwise she’d already heard from it, but maybe with some ten thousand inhabitants. Formerly.

It was generally safer in villages than in cities, because there were fewer people who could pose a threat to her. Yet, it was very possible that a village was already overrun and filled with them. Therefore, she loosened her spear from its fixing before taking it into her hands. It was not quite easy to drag her bike and hold the spear at the same time, but she managed it while entering the village. It did not look too good from what she saw as she got deeper into it.

It was hard to say in the heavy rain, but she assumed that the only way through Brenschede was the road she was following. The houses lined up on its sides, maybe ten houses or twelve. She heard the flowing of a river from a few metres’ distance, but could not see it. Most likely it used to be only a small river, but after half an hour of heavy raining it sounded like it was swollen up and flowing down the hill with great power. The road itself was a mess with all kinds of things lying around, preferably garden furniture. The cars were parked sloppily, some of them still with open doors or still being half on the road. One car had apparently even crashed into a house. A pink umbrella was stuck in a hedge in front of another house. Filas had not seen yet a place looking like this that was worth to linger in, so she made her way further, following the road that seemed to go steep upwards at the end of the village. That was her goal for the moment, looking into all directions and focussing on any noises apart from the rain.

Then, while she was passing the last house of the village, she heard what she was afraid to hear.

Groaning.

Not the kind of groaning she had produced herself quite a lot of times when she was simply annoyed but did not dare to groan too loudly (although these two kinds of groaning were slightly similar). Not the kind of groaning two lovers might produce. Not the kind of groaning of people carrying something very heavy. Not the kind of groaning when people woke up after a night that provided them with nothing like enough sleep. No kind of groaning that Filas had ever heard until some weeks ago. This groaning had absolutely nothing human about it. And neither had the creature she spotted on her left, which was coming from behind the last house on that side of the road. Said creature had been human once though.

It was apparently a she. Or it had been one once. Who knew if those creatures still had to be distinguished according to sex or gender? And asking for the preferred pronouns most likely would not help anyone in this situation. She was wearing an old-fashioned dress with flowers embroidered on it. The colour was hard to tell because large spots, most likely dried blood, covered the gown, which was also ripped in several places. Her legs were in tights, which were massively torn as well. She was wearing only one shoe, having probably lost the other, but she did not care about that at all. Most scary, though, was her face: covered with long hair that hadn’t been washed for weeks at least, it was a face without any human emotions, covered with many little wrinkles, showing traces of blood around the wide-opened mouth, revealing yellow teeth. It was contorted out of pure hunger and bloodlust. The skin colour did not even resemble any human skin tone. And then, there were her eyes.

It was impossible to tell what colour they had been once, whether blue or green or grey or anything else. Now the eyeballs were in a yellow tone, with red spots, probably from burst veins. The pupils were shrunken and only the black of them could be seen. The eyes were completely emotionless. After all, they were dead eyes. But they were looking at Filas while the creature was slowly coming closer to her, slowly and clumsily stumbling into her direction.

From horror movies and videogames, Filas knew the idea of beings like that. Beings that had died but were still on Earth, emotionless, brainless, heartless, only hungry for human meat. They were called zombies there, and since she had no better idea of how to call these beings, she just kept to that. It was zombies that had run over every city and every village she had been to in the last weeks. It was zombies that had attacked Extertal and wiped out its population. It was zombies that were taking over control of the whole world now, from what Filas knew. They were extinguishing humanity by making them their preferred food, reproducing that way as well. Each and every person Filas had seen being bitten by a zombie had turned into one after some time. Avoiding their touch was essential in order to survive. And that was easiest when avoiding them for good, which was why Filas was looking for only sparsely populated areas. Apparently though, that was no guarantee either for not meeting any zombies.

Filas let drop her bike to the floor after picking up her spear. She’d better get this done fast, for she did not know if there were more zombies in the village, which was quite likely. Where there was one, there were probably a lot more. She was quite happy for her spear which gave her some reach and made it more manageable to defeat them in combat without getting touched by them.

The zombie came into her reach. Filas pushed it to the right first. She was still a bit careful when starting single combat with a zombie. She could not just forget that they had been human once, unless there were many of them around her. In that case, her will of surviving got the better of her, but otherwise she was still inhibited.

However, the zombie she was facing in this moment did not give up too easily.

After some stumbling, it regained its balance and got closer to Filas again. This time, she went a bit further when defending herself and pierced the zombie’s guts with her spear. Every human being would have been stopped for good with that kind of wound.

Zombies, however, did not care too much about most wounds.

It was maybe held up because it could not simply move on and grab Filas, but that did not hinder it from reaching towards her anyway. There seemed to be only one way to keep the zombie away for good. Filas had been afraid she had to do it, but she had at least wanted to see if there was any other way to get out of the situation. Wherever she had met any zombies, there had been only one way to destroy them, which made it very difficult for people defending them.

So Filas pushed the zombie back, pulled out her spear, and drove it through the zombie’s skull, piercing its brain.

Its limbs became numb immediately, and after groaning throughout the whole combat, the zombie let out one final groan and grew silent. There was not the slightest degree of humanity even in that final sound it made before falling to the ground and staying there motionless.

Trembling, Filas pulled her spear out of the more than dead body and cleaned it with the zombie’s ragged clothing. She did not know what to feel. She had killed a huge number of them already, she had had to, but she could not forget what and who they might have been not too long ago: humans with their own histories. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, daughters, sons... And she had no idea if there were still people out there who might have cared about them. But this one had been killed by her. And her friends or relatives would probably never find out. It bothered her. A lot.

Filas did not have too many people she could care about. No true family. Only few friends, and even fewer after her coming out. Her few friends in real life had already disappeared when she left Paderborn. And most friends she had made in the last months had been online and were situated in places like Norway, the UK, or even America. She had no idea if any of them were still alive and there was practically no way to find out. All WIFI connections seemed to have been lost. She could only hope for them that they had made it. And then there was the one person that she really cared about, for whom she desperately hoped that she was still alive, out there and maybe thinking of her at this very moment. The one she had given her heart to.

But it was not the moment to get lost in her thoughts now. Filas looked around, but she did not see any other zombies approaching her right now. She picked up her bike again, put the spear onto it, and looked at the dead zombie one last time.

“I’m sorry”, she mumbled. “Really sorry”. She turned away and went forward. After a few steps she had left the village and was surrounded by forest while the road was becoming very steep. She still had to push her bike because cycling up there would have been almost impossible if she wanted to move further up, which she very much intended to do. At least she noticed that the rain had stopped.

Despite the steep road Filas fastened her pace. It was not likely that there were too many zombies in this area, particularly in the dense forest, but if there were any, it would be a most unpleasant surprise. So it was best to leave it behind her as soon as possible. Luckily, she reached the highest point of the ascent after 20 metres and she could continue by riding her bike for the next metres. She swung herself on it and on she went.

She totally loved the feeling as she increased her speed on the bike. The freedom, the wind blowing through her long hair was not dulled by cold raindrops. She knew of course that she had to be careful, regarding the still wet road, so she would not fall, but even so it was an amazing feeling, sweeping aside most other concerns of hers, and sweeping aside also the encounter she had just had. She was surprised that the road was so well built, without any potholes. She did not have to pay attention to any of those, and could go fast enough that she knew she would outpace every zombie there might be.

There, she thought with a broad smile when she saw a right-hand bend after a short slope. She loved that feeling so much when she drove through the bend. This amazing feeling in her stomach. It was like flying. Like the moment when she had agreed that the two of them start dating. She wanted to memorize this feeling, wanted to remember her until the end of her days. That might come sooner than later, but in this very moment she did not care a single bit about that. This feeling of utter happiness. Her memories of the few happy moments in her childhood. As a child, she had ridden her bike quite frequently to escape from home at least temporarily, and it still gave her an immense feeling of freedom these days. Funny how a simple bike ride could make her feel better immediately. She wondered if there were any people left on Earth who would still feel the same in these times. Probably not.

After the bent, the road went straight forward, leading her some more uphill. On Filas’ left, the mountain rose with dense coniferous forest. On her right there was an abyss, bordered from the road only by the crash barrier. Filas noticed that the barrier was not as safe as it was supposed to be, because there was a hole in it, directly before the next bent. It seemed like a car on its way up or down the mountain had crashed down there.

At the hole Filas carefully looked down into the abyss and found her assumptions confirmed. An estate car lay down there upside down. From how it looked like, Filas guessed that that accident had happened at least a few weeks ago, so there was no way she could help anyone, even if she would make it down the steep slope. She wanted to go on, but she just could not. She looked around, in each direction, listening closely to any sounds around her. After a few moments, she picked up a small stone at the side of the road, and threw it at the car.

She missed.

Swearing a little, she picked up another stone and threw it down as well. This time, a short noise confirmed her that she had hit the car. She was surprised at how loud it was in the silence all around her, but nothing else happened. No groans, no one stumbling out of the car, no one screaming for help, and, as she looked around again, no one stumbling out of the forest behind her. Whoever had been driving that car had been gone by now, but she could not tell where. With a bad feeling in her stomach she went on with her bike ride, wondering. The size of the car made her assume a family had been travelling with it. Why did they tumble down there? Had they been under attack or had they just hurried and had had one careless moment which had been their destiny? And, most importantly for her personally, had they been escaping uphill or downhill? Was she herself maybe driving into her own doom? But there was no turning back for her, as always in her life. She was probably safer the higher she got.

Lost in her thoughts, it took a while until Filas noticed how the abyss on her right slightly got less steep until it was on the same level as the road itself, covered with forest as dense as on the other side of the road. Some metres later, she slowed down as she saw a path leading into the forest on the right. It seemed forsaken in the middle of nowhere, leading into the dark forest. In earlier days, she would not even have considered to take that path, but now, in days where the straight road only seemed to lead into misery, she needed to consider each and every opportunity. If she had been with a group, this path might lead to a place that might be defended easily, but on her own it only appeared to be a cul-de-sac, a place she would have to leave again within a few days when her provisions were used up. She decided to follow the main road for some more time.

After regaining her pace, she enjoyed the silence around her, the soft breeze of the wind, smelling fresh and clean. The road, still wet from the rain before, might have looked clean as well, if it was not for single leaves and branches that had fallen off the trees as first signs of the autumn to come soon. This time, however, she could not really regain her sense of freedom. She had already made two unpleasant experiences on her way up this mountain, and she was getting more and more worried about what else might expect her. The world has fallen apart and had got way more dangerous than it already was before.

After some hundred metres, the road got too steep again, so once more, after looking around carefully, Filas got off her bike and pushed it further upwards, putting step after step, always in the middle of the road, always listening for any sounds that might announce one or more zombies, and always looking into the wood on her right, and the meadow that had replaced the wood on her left. But everything remained silent, apart from the stirring wheels of her bike and the clicking of the bike chain, and after some minutes, she thought about all of her concerns some more, moving sensual impressions to her subconscious.

Suddenly, she got torn out of her thoughts. “Put down your bike! Hands up!”

In front of her, clad in olive-green uniforms, there stood five men. They wore weird hats, and their uniforms did not look like they had been worn a lot. Their overall appearance was rather ridiculous, but Filas could not really laugh at them, most of all because of the two guns which were pointing at her.

...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Hello everyone,

here is the first chapter of the series I'm currently writing (considering the prologue not as the first chapter in that sense).

It is most of all an introduction of the world the story is set in now, and of the main character of course. It may be a little unfortunate I gave her the same name as my pseudonym on here, just ignore that please ^^ The plot will unfold more in the following chapters.

I hope you enjoyed reading it and I'm looking forward to any kind of feedback!

Kind regards,
Filas

Filas knew that kind of apparel. Rifle festival. An old German habit, where many people met to have a bunch of drinks, and few people shot at a wooden bird, and the one person who shot down the last part was crowned king. That is, he got to wear a fine uniform for several other festivals of that kind in the same year, and got to pick a woman by his side as his queen. Sounds weird, and it was, but the main purpose of it all was just getting drunk anyway.

She had hated that habit all her life. And having five guys in front of her wearing uniforms that were common for that kind of event and pointing guns at her did not exactly help her like it any more.

“Put your weapon away and take your hands up!” one of the men without a gun shouted at her. “Now!”

“All right,” she replied. She took her spear from her bike and slowly put it on the road, all of that in a very slow manner in order not to rise any suspicion in them. She always kept an eye on one of the guns that still pointed at her, and slowly put her hands in the air.

“Don’t move or we will shoot you!”

Filas obliged. She was outnumbered and those guys had guns. Of course, she would not move. She probably couldn’t even. She felt like a mouse facing a snake about to attack her. One of the men approached her slowly. “What’s your name?” he asked.

Hesitantly she looked at him. He seemed about as nervous as she was.

“My name is Filas”, she replied, and cleared her throat immediately after. She felt and heard that her throat was quite hoarse.

The man frowned. “What kind of a name is that?”

She shrugged but remained silent. Who cared too much about names these days anyway?

“Where are you coming from?” the questioning continued.

Ok, let’s do it right this time, she thought to herself. “Umm, I’m coming from Paderborn”, she replied, and was glad her voice was working better now. Paderborn was maybe not the most correct answer, but it was no utter lie. After all, that was where she had lived before it all had started. And she didn’t think that Minden was that well-known in most regions.

“Are you on your own or are there other people with you?”

“I’m alone.” The man in front of her seemed to relax a little bit. Filas had noticed earlier that some villages were very careful, not wanting to let in more than one or two people. Probably a group was considered a threat, eating away too many provisions and maybe they could even take over a place. She could understand people being careful on that matter. She still wasn’t sure if the zombies were the real plague here. However, she did not have to lie about not being a member of a group.

“And where do you want to go?”

“I’m heading south. Looking for a safe place in that direction.”

The men looked at each other and remained silent for a moment.

“Before we let you into our village, I need to look through your bag”, the man in front of Filas told her.

She shuddered. It was not like she had anything dangerous or illegal in her backpack, but she did not want to explain why she had… some things in there to these utter strangers.

“What’s in it for me after you’ve look at my stuff?”

“You may find shelter here for this night. We keep watch all day and night, so you’d be safe here. But you’ll have to leave tomorrow again. We don’t have the supplies to keep people here for a long time. And you’d have to leave on the way you came here. The other ways aren’t safe, the villages around are overrun by… those things.”

“What about my weapons”, Filas asked.

“You won’t need them here You will get them back when you leave tomorrow.”

Filas hesitated. She did not like the idea of being separated from her weapons. On the other hand, she had not slept in a proper bed for some time now. And it was getting too late to find another place for the night anyway. And if anyone dared to touch her… Well, she knew how to defend herself, even without weapons. She nodded.

“Ok,” she said hesitantly, “go ahead.” She took a step away from her bike and took off her backpack, putting her hands back up in the air afterwards, since the guns still aimed at her.

The man stepped towards her bike and skipped through her luggage. She pointedly looked away from that, because she did not want to watch how her privacy got shattered, waiting for the inevitable. Until…

“What are these?”

Filas looked at him. Of course, he was holding her little bag containing her meds. The one thing she did not want to be forced to explain. Better just tell something…

“Pills”, she said. “I’ve got this condition with my… glands, you know, and these make it… bearable.”

The man looked at the bag again. “Uh huh”, he responded slowly, apparently not knowing what they really were. “Looks like you better get some more then soon”, he added while putting it back into her backpack.

Filas swallowed. She knew that. She had realized some days ago that she needed more, rather sooner than later. She could not bear the thought of being without those meds for even just one day. She had already lost too much as it was. Maybe she could find some the next day after leaving this village again in the nearest town with a pharmacy.

After some more minutes the man handed her back her backpack. “Looks like everything is in order”, he said. “Welcome to Roehrenspring, young lady.”

***

Filas stepped out of the shower, feeling really refreshed. After the men at the entrance to the village had allowed her to stay there, they had discussed where she was to spend the rest of the day and the night. One of the men, who had introduced himself as Peter Hanse, and his family had been chosen to be her hosts, and he had taken her to his home. He was a large man, around 1.90 meters high, but also quite old. He was almost completely bald, only little grey hair was growing around the back of his head. She assumed he was around 60 years old. He was one of the men without a gun, but the others had given him one. “Just in case”, they had said. She had understood that she shouldn’t try anything stupid, but she hadn’t intended anything anyway.

Roehrenspring itself was a very small village. While she had been led to Hanse’s house, they had gone right at the only crossroad around, and passed two houses. After those, they had been going some more meters before arriving at Hanse’s house. She had been welcomed by Hanse’s wife Charlotte and their son Marcus, who was maybe a few years older than Filas. Maybe even more than a few years… Like his father, he was already running short of hair at his crown.

When seeing Filas, Mrs Hanse had insisted to send her directly to the bathroom and had told her to take a good warm shower. She had put Filas’s luggage into the guestroom on the top floor, and Filas herself was most happy to oblige. She hadn’t had a proper shower in weeks and agreed that she could really use one. It was nice to get clean again, to have some time where all she could hear and feel was the warm water running down her body, while the scent of the shampoo pleased her nose. She had also noticed the razor that was placed at the wall in the shower, and the shaving foam next to it. She had no idea when the next opportunity to give her legs some good shaving might occur, so she used this very opportunity for that. It went almost smoothly, apart from the one scratch she had at her ankle now. It was probably too much to ask for a good, sharp razor in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, especially in a small village in the middle of nowhere. But the wound was no big deal, and the rest of the shaving process went on without any further accidents. Now Filas’s legs were just as smooth and clean as she could wish for.

After stepping out of the shower, Filas dried herself with the towel she had been given, wrapped it around her body when she was dry and wrapped another around her hair, because she couldn’t see a blow-dryer anywhere around. Finally, she left the bathroom and quickly made it into the room she had been given. Once inside, she quickly turned around and locked the door. The last thing she needed ever was anyone peeking on her, especially in a house full of strangers. She hadn’t had much time to have a closer look at the room before the shower, so she looked around closer now.

It was quite a small room. Left to the door, there was a wardrobe, in front of which her luggage was put. On the wall next to it, there were several windows through which she could see the roof of the house and a bit of the neighbours’ garden. A calendar was attached to the wall between the windows as well. Filas looked at it a bit closer. It said “August”, which might very well be true, but she couldn’t be sure, since she had lost count of days. The calendar showed a young woman standing next to a young man, both smiling into the camera. The part of the sky that could be seen was blue, and it didn’t seem like the photo was taken in Germany, but in a more southern place. Spain maybe? The young man though… There was a certain resemblance to Marcus, the son of Mr and Mrs Hanse. Were they brothers? The calendar didn’t look like it was produced by any company, but hand-made. From the young woman on those pictures, maybe? Was this the young man’s former bedroom, maybe, before he had moved out? What might have happened to him and the young woman? Filas had a bad feeling and remembered the car in the valley she had seen on her way up. It was too easy to die these days. She went on looking through the room.
At the wall opposite the door there was the bed, and it was quite large in her opinion. She shouldn’t have space issues later tonight when she was going to sleep. A blanket and a pillow were already on the bed as well. At the last side of the room, opposite the windows, there was an empty desk, and, next to it, a small chest of drawers, on which a small lamp was placed, which might have been used back in time for reading when in bed.

After inspecting her room for the night, Filas got to her luggage and skimmed it through for an appropriate outfit. She didn’t exactly want to put on the clothes she had worn before, and before was some days, maybe even weeks – she didn’t have much occasion or reason to change her outfit in the wilderness which was quite often also overrun with zombies. The dress or the skirt might be too much for this evening… She had no real idea why she had packed them into her backpack anyway, but they were pieces she just couldn’t part with. And maybe, just maybe, she’d find a better occasion for some more femininity one day.

She decided for the darkest jeans she had taken with her and a plain black shirt. When looking down she was quite happy with the effect her meds had had on her body so far. She touched her face and checked. She was pleased not to feel any stubbles. She didn’t exactly want to apply make-up in a zombie apocalypse situation, but she also knew from experience how narrow-headed people might be, especially those living in small villages like this one. But her face felt perfectly smooth - she was glad she didn’t need to rely on make-up anymore. She took off the towels and put them on the bed for the time being before getting dressed. After that she took her hairbrush out of her backpack and spent much time on her hair. In the last weeks, she had had hardly any time to spend much attention to that, so she was happy to do that now, getting her fringe done properly and brushing out her hair until it was so soft like silk, apart from the fact that it wasn’t dry yet. Filas didn’t feel like going downstairs yet, because she knew that her hair tended to get messed up while drying, and she decided to wait for it to get dry in this room.

She went to the windows and had a look out of it. It was quite disappointing a view though: to the left, she could see the roof of the house, and that of the neighbours too. The neighbours’ garden was in plain view as well. It had a pavilion with view on the neatly treated flowerbeds. Filas was surprised that there were still people tending to those flowers. When she looked down, she could also see the Hanses’ garden, which wasn’t too special though: a bit of a paved way next to the house, with a table standing outside as well, and four chairs grouped around it. More to her right, there was a quite large meadow, slowly ascending with the mountain at which the village was located, until a forest, barely in sight from the window without opening it, came into sight. The place seemed quite peaceful, and especially looking at the neighbours’ garden, it was tempting to forget that the world outside the village was overrun by the dead.

Filas took her eyes from that view. She couldn’t just forget what was going on in the world, partly because she was to leave the place by tomorrow again. Since her hair was still a bit damp, she had a closer look at the room. She was a bit hesitant, but opened the cupboard. She was a bit disappointed that it was empty, just like the chest of drawers. The room really didn’t seem to have any other purpose than having guests there. This seemed to be quite a boring time in this room, which she really didn’t want to leave before her hair was really dry and in shape…

But then she remembered that she had a few books in her backpack. Granted, those were smaller books, not the 900-pages-books she’d have loved to take with her, if they hadn’t the disadvantage of taking too much space. But reading some Hobbit was something at least. Filas got to her backpack, rummaged for her books (which were at the bottom of the backpack of course), and picked her copy of The Hobbit. It had been a while since she had read it the last time… After all, reading during an apocalypse situation wasn’t exactly the way to spend your time… And even before that, she hadn’t read that book too recently. She had had plenty of others, and it had broken her heart to leave them all behind, but she’d had to be reasonable when packing her bags of course. Ever since, she hadn’t even been able to read one page though.

But for now, she was glad she finally had some time for that and dropped herself onto the bed. The mat was harder than any she had had so far, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Actually, she felt like it was a very nice mat on which she would sleep fine later. But sleeping wasn’t what she was going to do now. Instead she opened the book: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Soon enough, Filas got lost in the story, reading about Bilbo meeting Gandalf and the dwarves… It wasn’t before finishing the chapter on Bilbo’s adventure with the trolls that Filas registered that some time had passed now. She touched her hair as an indicator, and it had dried by now in fact. Filas took her brush which she had put on the desk earlier and straightened her hair up a bit. She knew that it usually got quite fizzy after drying without having to look in a mirror. After some more minutes she was done with that as well. She put her brush back on the desk and bit her lower lip. She knew she had not much excuse left to delay leaving the room. After all, she was only a guest her and in fact she would like to learn some things about this place.

She got to the door, slowly turned the key and opened the door. She peeked into the corridor which was empty before leaving the room. The floor was wooden and so were the stairs. Therefore, Filas had to be quite careful with her steps – she was only wearing socks and she felt like it could get really slippery if she was going too fast. There was also a glass cabinet at the landing, where the stairs made a turn and led further down, and it wouldn’t be too much fun if she slipped and crashed into that one. But Filas made her way downstairs without any problems, and now she could hear the sounds from the kitchen which indicated that some cooking was going on there. Filas slowly approached the kitchen door on her right-hand side. It was slightly open, and now she could also smell the scent coming out. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She hadn’t had properly cooked food since leaving Extertal. If she was lucky, she got to make a small campfire at night on the road, but only if she found a place that allowed for it and didn’t attract attention from zombies. That was barely ever the case though, so she had lived from cold food out of cans for the most part, and the thought of having some proper food soon was just amazing.

She knocked at the door and entered the kitchen. She was surprised by how large it was. It appeared larger to her than the kitchen at her parents’ house, and also seemed to have been renovated not too long ago. The table was right in front of her, with four chairs being placed around it. A sideboard separated that part of the kitchen from the cooking area, with a stove, oven, and a sink next to them, and some cupboards on the other side. Opposite the door, there was the glass façade which allowed for some view over part of the village and over lots of green landscape. Net curtains covered some part of the windows though. Filas could hardly believe that a place like this still existed. Net curtains belonged to a past long ago for her, when she believed her parents were good people who’d care for her no matter what, when she lived in a quiet and boring neighbourhood, and when she thought she was just a proper kid as everyone else.

A lot had changed ever since though. And she hadn’t lived in a place with net curtains since she moved out of her parents’ house.

Mrs Hanse was in front of the stove and did some cooking. She turned after Filas had entered the kitchen though. “Ah, Filas, is it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Did you enjoy that shower?”

“Yeah, I really did. I think I really needed it…” Filas smirked.

“Heh, you bet”, Mrs Hanse grinned. “I’m sorry the water doesn’t really turn hot. But we have to ration things here, and that means no hot showers at all, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It was perfectly ok, and I’m glad to feel clean for a change, so, thanks a lot for that.”

“Well, you’re welcome. You are the first guest we’ve had in this house since… since it all started. It may be for one night only, but please make yourself comfortable here.”

“Oh, thanks, I will try.”

During their talk, Mrs Hanse turned to the stove and tended to the food.

“So, where are you from, Filas?”

“Oh, I’m from… Paderborn. I used to live there for my studies and was around that area for some time after things started to turn bad. In the countryside around there, that is. But it wasn’t safe for too long.”

“I see… So, where are you going now?”

“Just south, for starters. See if I can make it to the Alps. I think it might be easier up there.”

“All by yourself? And only with that bike of yours?”

Filas shrugged. Mrs Hanse seemed perfectly nice, but she didn’t really want to share her anxieties with a woman she’d only just got to know. Point was, she didn’t have anyone living close to her whom she’d trust enough to travel with. And with a car she imagined she’d be more vulnerable actually, having to rely on the roads and on gas stations. She could only imagine that there might be groups of people who used them to ambush people who’d need some gasoline, take the car and maybe even kill the people in it. That was what happened in all those zombie movies and games at least, and she really didn’t want to get in that kind of situation, which she could easily end up in without anyone having her back.

“Well”, Filas started to change the topic, “how come that you have made this safe place here?”

“Oh”, Mrs Hanse replied, “I think we’ve been just lucky. The next villages are closer to some small towns, so I think those… deads just went there looking for… whatever, instead of walking up here for us. There are only few of them who are getting here at all, maybe two or three in a week, and our men take care of them. We have this building outside of the village where we have some guns for rifle festival. When things in the world started to get serious, we took them out of there, so we are quite provided for taking off some of those.

“Also, there are some farmers in the village, so we get some milk, eggs, vegetables, potatoes, sometimes even some meat. As long as that lasts, we don’t need to leave the village. And we have some generators up here as well. Some years ago, a massive storm hit the place and destroyed the electric cables. Ever since we’ve had those generators for emergency cases. As I said though, we mustn’t use too much energy to keep those generators going for a while.”

Filas nodded. It appeared like the people here had it running for themselves for the moment, but she didn’t dare to ask what’d happen if one day there were more zombies getting to the village, or the food running out, or the fuel for the generator running out. It didn’t seem like these people were actually planning for that, but rather avoiding the thought at all, from how she interpreted Mrs Hanse’s tone of voice.

“Filas, could you be a sweetheart and put the dishes on the table? The plates are in this cupboard here, and the cutlery is in the sideboard, in the upper drawer.”

“Sure”, Filas replied, and got to the cupboard. “For how many people?”

“Oh, we’ll only be four. Just Marcus, Peter, you and me.”

Filas nodded and took four plates to the table. After that, she took four knives and forks from the sideboard and placed the dishes on the table due to the position of the chairs. In the meantime, Mrs Hanse had taken some bowels from the cupboard and had started to put the food into them. The kitchen door opened, and Mr Hanse and Marcus entered the kitchen. They greeted Filas by nodding and went straight to the table and sat down.

Filas helped Mrs Hanse with the bowels though. She was mildly annoyed that those guys just apparently didn’t seem to care about helping their mother or wife respectively. However, they put the bowels on the table. There were just some potatoes and some carrots for each person, coming with some cream sauce. Filas had already guessed from Mrs Hanse’s words that meat was very rare to come by these days, even in this village, and not as easy to grow as some vegetables. The thought of having some warm proper food in a few moments was very comforting to her though. And those vegetables would be good for her body as well. So, when everyone had put the food onto their tables, she automatically took the fork and knife next to her plate and approached the food with them.

Mrs Hanse cleared her throat. Filas looked at her first, then at the others. All of them were folding their hands.

“We’re praying before we start eating”, Mrs Hanse stated matter-of-factly.

“Oh my… I’m so sorry”, Filas replied, blushing. She wasn’t religious herself at all. She may have been raised to be catholic, but that had left her even way before her coming out. And even so, she couldn’t recall having had any graces in her childhood even. She didn’t even know that was still a thing…

She put back her fork and knife and quickly folded her hands.

Mrs Hanse closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her folded hands. Her husband and son did the same, and so did Filas after hesitating for a second.

Mr Hanse then started to speak: “Our Father, who art in heaven, thank you for the food you’ve given to us. Thank you for the guest you have led to our door. Thank you also that you have chosen us to survive your cleansing of the world…”

Filas was quite brutally torn out of her comfort-zone. Cleansing?

“… And thank you for punishing people for their immoral, sinful lives…”

Here we go, Filas thought, her eyes rolling mentally.

“… men lying with other men…”

Someone please shoot me…

“… or even those men pretending to be women.”

I’ve got to get the hell out of here!!!

“We are sure you will see fit that the new world you have created will not face those threats.”

“Amen”, Marcus said.

“Amen”, Mr Hanse said.

“Amen”, Filas whispered non-convincingly after a few seconds, because she didn’t want to arouse any suspicions.

She opened her eyes, as did anyone else and they started to eat, although Filas’s appetite was all gone by now. Why was she constantly ending up with bigots? And not just moderate bigots, but the kind who always know the complete bible by heart, but also always seem to ignore the part about love thy neighbour. She would have preferred to face ten zombies out there now instead of having dinner with that kind of family.

Filas tried not to let it show though. If they noticed anything, she might be in some real danger in this house pretty soon. It served her well that none of the other people talked at all but focused on eating. So, did she try to as well now, but she couldn’t suppress her fear, a fear she had almost forgotten since the country got overrun by zombies. Fear of being attacked by zombies and being killed by them was the one thing. But the fear of being attacked by people just for being herself and of who knew what they might be doing to her if they found out, that was something completely different. Her heart had noticed that as well, it was beating so fast that she was surprised none of the others heard it.
Dinner was over soon without anyone saying any other word. Filas cleared her throat and looked at Mrs Hanse: “Do you need some help with doing the dishes?” She was glad that her voice was still working.

“Thank you, sweetheart”, Mrs Hanse replied.

If you only knew…, Filas thought.

“… but you already helped me with preparing the table, I’ll have Marcus help me.”

Marcus sighed.

“Come on, Marcus, we have a guest and you haven’t done much today. Just be a gentleman.”

Yeah, hell of a gentleman he’d be, Filas thought ironically, if he knew who I was…

“Filas, you go straight to bed…”

Heh, straight, I don’t think so.

“… you’ve got to leave in the morning after all, and you should be well recovered for that.”

Filas nodded. That part was true at least.

“Might I have one glass of water, please? For the night?”, she asked.

“Yes, of course, you just take some water from the sink, I propose. It’s the best we have, and it’s perfectly fine. The glasses are in the other cupboard there”

Filas nodded, took a glass and filled it with some water. “Thank you and goodnight”, she said while all of her innards screamed at her, telling her to run away.

“Goodnight, Filas.”

She went upstairs and put the glass on the chest of drawers next to the bed. She then went into the bathroom, rinsed her mouth out and washed her face quickly. She then went back into the guestroom and locked the door behind her. She turned on the small lamp on that chest of drawers, before getting to her luggage. She rummaged through it a bit, until she found what she was looking for: the bag with her meds. She took one of the white pills out of it. The blockers. They had tiredness as a side-effect, which was why she took them in the evening. She put it in her mouth, had a sip of water, and swallowed it.

She knew that technically it was insane to transition medically in a zombie apocalypse. The pills turned down her muscles and her physical fitness in general. This could very well lead to her death eventually, when she had to run away from zombies or something like that. And being trans was still not safe in this world, dinner had showed her that. And who knew how many bigots like this family or even worse ones were still out there, with society falling apart and no rules left? Still, she knew that this was the right thing to do. She would rather die being who she really was than live as someone she was not.

---

Hey everyone,
I'm very sorry for the long delay of this chapter. The past months have been quite rough, going from love-sickness over to some depressive phase, then uni hitting in, and all of that adding up to quite some writer's block.

I hope I can write the next chapter soon enough though and keep this story running.

Thanks for reading and I hope you're doing fine :)

Kind regards,
Filas

Filas woke with a start. It only took her a few seconds to realize why she woke up in the middle of the night. The neighbours’ party apparently had gained some more fun, so they had turned up the music. There was no way she could fall asleep again with that noise, considering there also seemed to be some people on their balcony, talking very loudly. She might just open the window and tell them to be quieter, but she was feeling way too dysphoric and socially anxious for that. She yawned. What could she do until the music was turned down again?

She turned on the lamp that was attached to her bed, slipped out of her bed and checked her alarm. It was 2 a.m. She yawned again and stumbled towards her desk. She had charged her mobile phone before going to bed and now was able to check it for notifications. There were some new notes from Kim. Filas smiled, took her phone with her and laid down in bed again. She opened Kim’s page. Apparently she had got some questions since Filas had last checked. Scrolling through that page, reading Kim’s replies, she couldn’t help herself but smile and like all of them. Soon she reached the picture Kim had posted in the evening and admired her beauty for a bit. Her long, soft, black hair. Her lip piercing. And, most of all, her eyes, shining out of Filas’s phone, while she was unable to tell their colour. Were they blue or grey? But it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was the deep connection she felt to that Dutch girl and that she just knew how much she loved her.

Filas was about to check her own social media pages, when suddenly her phone was vibrating. Who might send her a message at this time? She checked and immediately her frown turned into a smile.

“Hey, I saw you liked some of my posts :)”

Filas replied immediately.

“Hey, yeah, neighbours are having a party, means I can’t sleep ^^”

“Damn, suckers…”

“Yeah, but at least I can chat a bit with you now ^^”

“Hehe, oh you xD”

“Well, you know me ^^ You can’t sleep either, it seems?”

“Yeah, I’m just not tired yet ^^”

They chatted for about 45 minutes, and Filas felt a lot calmer and happier, but her body also felt increasingly tired.

“Well, it seems like the neighbours have finished their party… Maybe because it’s raining now ^^ I guess I should try to catch some more sleep now…”

“Yeah, sounds good, I think I’m tired enough for sleep now as well ^^”

“Good :) And thanks for the chat, it was really sweet :)”

“Hehe, you’re welcome ^^ Sweet dreams ^_^”

“Sleep well and sweet dreams to you as well, sweetie :)”

Filas waited another 30 seconds, but her phone remained silent now. She turned it mute and put it on the shelves next to her bed before turning off the lights again and covering herself with her blanket. She turned around and listened to the rain dropping softly against her windows, calming her down even more. She smiled as she was falling asleep, with love in her heart.

Mist was creeping out of the forests, covering also the road, making it impossible to see more than a few metres ahead. Filas felt like she surrounded by the void, which even seemed to mute the environment. Her hands were constantly at the brake levers, in order to not gain too much speed on her way down that mountain. She didn’t remember the whole course of the road by heart and wanted to avoid crashing down the slope. Most importantly though, through the mist she couldn’t make out any zombies soon enough by view, and the headwind didn’t allow her to hear them approach her soon enough either. She just had to be especially careful on her way down.

Filas had got up quite early in the morning. She definitely didn’t want to stay with the Hanses for any longer than necessary. After taking her estrogen pills, she had packed her luggage and gone downstairs. Mrs Hanse had already been up as well, giving Filas a slice of bread with some cheese for breakfast. This also gave Filas the opportunity to ask her for a well-supplied pharmacy close to Roehrenspring, considering her meds were running out indeed and she needed to refill them as soon as possible. Mrs Hanse had given her the directions to the largest pharmacy in Sundern, the next small town. Unfortunately, the pharmacy was in the centre of the town, but Filas hoped it hadn’t been overrun by zombies. And that was where she’d be headed as soon as she made it down that hill.

Filas had got back her bike and weapons from the guards at the road to the village which she had used the day before. It was maybe 7 a.m., but she didn’t know for sure. She had no watch, phones weren’t working anymore, and even at the Hanse’s there were no functioning clocks. There were more important things to use batteries for than knowing the time these days. The only indicators for knowing the time were the sun and the moon and the stars, and maybe the mist to some degree. And guessing from the density of the mist right now, she could only assume that it was still quite early in the morning. The sun had already risen, but it wasn’t powerful enough yet to create some real warmth and to drive away the mists.

She was very cautious on her way down. As annoying as the way up that hill had been, the way down didn’t allow for any lack of attention. She was glad that the road was in a good condition. Getting down would have been so much more terrible if the road was full of potholes, but it seemed to have been remade not too long ago, so the condition of the road was no problem at all. After a few minutes, Filas was back in Brenschede. Although her view was still very limited, she could make out the zombie she had fought against the day before. This seemed to be how the world was now. The living were eaten up by the zombies, but the dead became zombies way too soon, and as soon as they were killed for good they were just rotting on the roads and fields, since zombies didn’t eat their own kind as soon as they had turned.

She kept as much distance to the dead body as possible and focused on the road ahead of her again. Soon she was out of this village and a few minutes later she arrived at the T-junction she had taken the day before as well. She had come from the right side, but now she was taking the left way, which she had been told led to Sundern. The road here was a bit narrower than the one leading down from Brenschede. On her left side, there was the hill she had just come down from, looming over here with the dark forests. On her right side, there seemed to be a bit of a meadow, where the mist was already dissolving to some degree. There were more bends as well, but the road was more even here, so Filas would be warned soon enough from the zombies’ groaning if they were approaching her. Still, nothing happened on this part of the road, and soon, as the mist was dissolving more and more, Filas got to the next T-junction.

On her left, she could make out some houses of another village. This wasn’t her direction though. She turned right, as directed by Mrs Hanse earlier, heading towards Sundern.

The road led slightly downwards. It was still a weird feeling to Filas how empty the streets had got, with no cars passing her in any direction. She could only hear the whirring of her bicycle’s wheels, the leaves of the trees rustling in the wind, and the crickets chirping. Sounds she probably wouldn’t have been able to perceive if cars were still on the roads and if factories were still working. But there were no cars around anymore, and no one was working in factories anymore, probably. If anything, there might be people hiding in factories maybe. But Filas assumed they wouldn’t be too friendly – her brief visit to Roehrenspring had shown her that she couldn’t expect kindness and acceptance at the same time anymore. She was better off by herself anyway…

On the first few meters of the road, there were woods rising right of her, whereas on her left, a bit off the road, there were two factories. As expected, there didn’t seem to be anything going on in them. No smoke was rising from the chimneys, no noise of machines was to be heard. From Filas’s view, they both appeared abandoned to her. She was gaining speed quickly, and soon had passed the buildings.

After a few minutes of driving past lots of trees, which were still surrounded by the mist lurking around, Filas made it to another village. Mrs Hansen had told her that she’d just have to follow the road to make it through it and to get to Sundern eventually. The problem was, the road through the village, which was called Recklinghausen, according to the traffic sign welcoming Filas, was blocked. Several cars were placed across the road, forming a barrier that was impossible to just pass by. However, it was only one row of cars. Filas stopped. She could make it through the barrier by sliding over the bonnets. She’d have to get her cycle and luggage on the other side first before getting on the other side as well. That would leave her defenceless for a moment and made her feel it could be a trap.

She assumed the main function of the barrier was to keep away zombies and violent intruders. But what if it also served an offensive purpose, making people stop and be without any weapons to defend themselves, so that scavengers on the other side could attack her at her weakest? In this state of the world, she considered that a valid option. She knew that she was probably just paranoid. She had been that before the outbreak already, being a trans woman who had to spend quite a lot of time among other people, and especially foreign people. That was why she avoided masses of people, didn’t go to fairs and used the side entries at university. All of that to avoid that people might identify her as being transgender and harass her after. She hated herself for being so anxious and paranoid, but during a zombie apocalypse this actually came in quite handy in some situations at least.

Filas took off her backpack and slid it over the hoods of the cars. She took the basket with her bow and food off the bike and put it on one hood, before picking up her cycle gruntingly and pushing it over carefully too. She looked around once more, but no one was to be seen, so she decided to go for it, held her spear in front of her chest and slid over as well. Once she’d landed on the other side, she got up again immediately, her spear in a defending position, and looked around quickly, only to see that her worries apparently had been uncalled for, since no one was to be seen. Now she could also take a closer look at the houses along the road, and got alarmed yet again.

The village was abandoned. The houses’ windows were shattered, several doors were hanging loose or laying around in the gardens. No cars in the driveways, but several puddles of blood on the road. Some leftovers were lying on the road, an open bag pack, a black shoe, an old tyre… Nothing Filas could use for herself though. She knew that it would be wise to go into the houses and look for useful things there, but she didn’t want to do that. She was well-provisioned for now and was fairly certain that she wouldn’t just come by her meds in any random house. Apart from that, she felt like doing that now would make her not any better than the scavengers who had apparently been around here earlier. Therefore, she picked up her bike, put on her backpack and put the basket on the carrier and the spear on her cycle, continued her ride, and was quite relieved once she’d made it through the village. After that, the road led a bit downwards and was also without any damages, so she could gain some speed and soon after made it to the city of Sundern, as the traffic signs greeting her announced.

Filas recalled what Mrs Hansen had told her before she had left: go on straight, follow the street until a hotel appears on the right. So Filas just went straight ahead, past stores and houses, which both had shattered windows and doors and seemed to be abandoned as well. On her left, there seemed to be a hill on which many people used to live, from what she could see. A small church tower was to be seen there too. The street was not in the best condition: abandoned cars were standing around, some with their doors open, some were closed, several ones had blood splattered on the windows, both from the inside and outside. Rummage was on Some random stuff was on the street, like clothes, shoes, sheets of paper, glasses... There also were some puddles of blood, but they seemed to be dried, as Filas had a closer look at them. They seemed to be several weeks old already, so maybe no immediate threat by zombies, but she kept her eyes open.

She followed the street further, passed more houses, a bakery, a grocery store, a factory with a large chimney, and crossed a bridge. So far, the scene had not changed too much, with abandoned cars still covering the street, but she could not make out any people, living, dead or undead. She passed some kind of mall though, where she could make out the first signs of life – or un-life. A group of zombies had gathered on the parking lot, cowering over something – or someone – and chewing, apparently. Filas didn’t pay too close attention – they didn’t notice her, and whatever they were eating was already dead for some time anyway, otherwise she would hear screams. But the only things she heard, sickening as they were, were the crunching of bones and the grunting noises of the zombies. She couldn’t do anything about this situation. All she could do was to pass by as quickly as possible and not draw any attention to herself.

After passing the building, the street got worryingly overcrowded with cars standing around. There was no way for Filas to get past them while riding her cycle, so she got off of it and walked, while dragging it along. Some car doors were open and Filas had to close them carefully, without making any noises. The cars themselves seemed to be empty, but again, some had blood on the windows from both inside and outside. Filas could only imagine what had happened here: this seemed to be the main street or at least a highly frequented street in this town. When people tried to escape, the street got stuck and a massive traffic jam would come into existence. And any incident, whatever it might be, could have been too much for the people who just wanted to get safe. They’d eventually leave their cars, and then… be either attacked and turn into a zombie, or make it to some place safe. Filas was not so sure if there really were any safe places left.

A sudden thump disturbed Filas’s imagination. A hand had beat against a window. Filas noticed where it had come from and approached a silver Ford slowly, ready to defend herself. When she got a glimpse of the inside of that car, she had to swallow hard.

It was a little child inside the car, only that not much of a child was left, apparently unable to unfasten the seatbelt. The skin had turned yellow, and so were the teeth it was showing while growling at Filas. It looked so thin that Filas didn’t need to wonder how the child had died – most likely the parents had left the car, either forgetting their child, or being not able to get it out of the car. Its eyes were bloodshot and there was nothing human about them anymore. It broke Filas’s heart. She wanted to put the child to rest from this undead nightmare, but when she tried to open the door, it was locked. Shattering the window would cause too much noise, and she couldn’t risk being noticed and pursued by any other zombies. As bad as she felt about it, she continued her way, muttering “farewell”.

It didn’t make her feel a lot better that the street was cleared after passing about ten more cars.

Now came the part that Filas was most nervous about, since she was close to that pharmacy now, right in that street on her left, as she had been told. She looked around at the houses around her, but the windows were empty and there was nothing worrisome she could make out there. She investigated that street again and looked for the church Mrs Hanse had described her. Its tower was hard to miss, about 50 meters away from her. Opposite it, there was the pharmacy. It was the largest one in this town. Filas had made the experience that her meds were not on stock in the smaller pharmacies. Therefore, she had asked explicitly for the largest one here – the chances that she could find them there were much higher than in an ordinary small pharmacy.

She entered the street and regretted that once she got a better look at it. The different squares and entries and other streets leading into this one, parking lots, partially pillared pathways, and also the noise of a river crossing below the street – all of this made her way to the pharmacy a potentially high danger. She would not be able to see an ambush soon enough, leave alone hear it. That meant that she had to be extra careful on her way.

Filas took the spear off her bike and moved forward cautiously. She pushed her cycle with her left hand while holding her spear with the right. She kept looking into every direction, checking every corner for zombies or any other threats. There were no cars on this street. Apparently, it had been abandoned soon after the breakout. Many shop windows were smashed-in. Filas listened for any noises apart from the river but couldn’t make out anything. Cautiously, she set foot after foot and closed in to the pharmacy on her left and was very surprised when she stood in front of it without having made any encounter with a zombie or anything else. She put on her backpack, put her bike next to the wall and had a closer look at the door of the pharmacy.

The windows were smashed in here too, as well as the glass on the door, which was standing wide-open. Somebody had already scavenged the pharmacy, that much was clear. All Filas could do now was hope that the meds she needed had not been too interesting for the scavengers.

She entered the pharmacy. The front room wasn’t too interesting for her: some cosmetic products were left in the shelves. She took two tubs of lotion and put them into her backpack. She didn’t have much use for fancy soap and the other stuff that was left though and made it into the back room beyond the counter. There were a few chairs laying on the floor. Many drawers of the cupboards that were put around the walls were opened, and their insides didn’t look as neatly sorted as they probably were until some weeks ago. Small copper letters were coined on the front of the drawers and marked which meds were stored in them, sorted by their names. That should make it easier for Filas to find the meds she needed, if those were actually left.

Filas went strict to the cupboards and scavenged through the drawers. Soon she was lucky with regard to her blockers, of which she found four packages, which would last for half a year. Looking for estrogen pills took a bit though because the packages were scattered around in different drawers. She had to look through all drawers to make sure she really got all of them and ended up with five packages which would last her for four months. Happy with her haul, she put the packages into her backpack and headed for the front room.

Then, a bell started to toll. Loudly.

Filas froze. It had to come from the church opposite the pharmacy. She had figured that all power lines in the cities were inactive now, and without power there was no way those bells would toll. Yet here she was, and the tolling continued – and attracted the attention of the zombies in her environment as the increasing growling noise in between the tolls and the slight scent of decay announced.

She had no idea where they were coming from, maybe from some nearby parking lot, maybe from some houses or other stores in the street, or maybe some other place – most likely all of the above. Anyway, now they were shuffling toward the church and assembling in front of the pharmacy. Dozens of them, maybe even hundreds while the tolling of the bells reached its climax.

“Fuck!”, Filas muttered. Her cycle was still in front of the pharmacy, but there was no way she could get out and leave on it. She ducked and made it to the back room. At least the zombies couldn’t see her there and it would be bad luck indeed if any of them decided to get into the pharmacy without knowing she’d be there. Yet, Filas had to think quickly. How long would those zombies stay in front of the pharmacy? Most of her food was in the box she had left on her bike’s carrier, so she would not survive here too long without any provisions. Could she be sure they’d just return to where they had come from? Zombies were not rational, so chances were that at least some of them would get into her way when she escaped. It might be better to look for another escape route now which might lead her away from those zombies for now.

She looked around the room she was in for a door. And indeed, there was one in the back of the room which she hadn’t noticed when she was looking for the meds. She hurried there, opened the door and found herself in a staircase. There was another door opposite her as well though, and Filas figured it’d lead her out. This door was massively steel and Filas didn’t think twice before heading out into the courtyard. There was a narrow path being lined by small rocks which led past the pharmacy and the courtyard, apparently to a parking lot. Filas couldn’t make out much of that, but she didn’t have much of a choice and got on the path – only to be tackled by a zombie.

She fell to the ground and lost grip on her spear which rolled away some meters. She tried to quickly get to it but was stopped by the zombie grabbing her ankle. She pulled forward but the zombie’s grip on her was very firm and all she could do was to keep it from biting her leg by kicking its head with her other foot. It was not enough to kill it though. Filas looked around hastily while the zombie tried to gnaw through her boots. She got a rock into to her right hand. She grabbed it firmer, turned around and smashed it into the zombie’s skull. It fell to the ground, and before it gained its stand again, Filas was over it and smashed the rock into its head again. And again. And again. Until it was neither moving nor making any noises anymore and laid still.

Filas was shaky and was taking shallow breaths. She looked along the path into the city and swallowed when she saw some zombies headed into her direction. Of course, that fight hadn’t passed without making any noises or an occasional scream and so it had attracted their attention. Filas quickly grabbed her spear and ran into the opposite direction.

The path led past some trees and then turned into a small bridge which led about a small river. After that, it led into a quite large parking lot, and when Filas made it there, she froze again, knowing that it was over now, as she saw a group of zombies cornering her from there as well. There was no way she could make it out of this situation alive, all ways were overrun by zombies. She tightened her grip around her spear, ready to die fighting at least, while the tolling of the bells was decreasing in the background…

Suddenly, she made out movements in the back of the group that couldn’t possibly be made by zombies. On second glance she made out metal moving and maybe something wooden? Now she could also hear some dull, thumping noises, as well as splashing noises, along the unmistakably grunts of dying zombies. Realizing that she might yet have a chance, Filas committed to the fight as well and pierced a zombie’s head with her spear. Its group members, being more attracted by the noises in the back of their group, turned around and focussed on that direction and gave Filas the chance to eliminate them from behind and also to pay attention to the zombies that had followed her.

With her unexpected help, it was a rather short fight before all the zombies had gone down. Finally, Filas got a good look at her saviours. It was a group of six people. A middle-aged man who was carrying an axe as a weapon addressed her.

“Come quickly, girl, we gotta make it out of this forsaken place.”

Filas didn’t reply though. Her eyes had fixed on a girl with long, black hair, who was carrying a baseball bat. Am I dreaming? She had a lip piercing and shining eyes whose colours Filas had never been able to tell for sure.

“Kim?”

Filas looked Kim in the eyes. Kim looked Filas in the eyes. Then, at the same moment, they approached each other with a few, large steps and embraced each other in a close hug, the first one they’d ever shared. The first time they were physically close. The first time they got to smell each other’s odour. And that in one of the most unlikely places and at the potentially most unlikely time.

“Umm”, the man who had addressed Filas before dragged them back into reality way too soon, “whatever you two are doing there, you should continue once we’re out of here…”

Filas and Kim let go of each other, still holding hands though. “Dad’s probably right”, Kim told her, pointing to her right. “There’s more of those freaks coming.”

Indeed, as Filas looked that way, a new group of zombies were approaching them.

“Follow me”, Kim told Filas as the group of living people departed, holding Filas’s left hand with her right and dragging her with her. Filas didn’t even want to contradict and followed Kim and her group, holding her spear in her right hand.

The parking lot they were on was an utter mess. Cars had crashed into one another, so a straight path into any direction was just not possible. Even so, they had to slide about bonnets to make it through. During their run, Filas didn’t even let go of Kim’s hand for a second. For over a year, since she had chatted with her for the first time, she had dreamed of being close to her. Now that they were finally together, she was just afraid she could lose her again if she let go of her hand.

They got to an underpass leading below the street Filas had passed earlier, where another bunch of cars were blocking each other. The underpass itself was filled with cars as well, but since it was quite narrow, only one car fit on the width of the street there, and it was possible for pedestrians to make it past the row of cars without too much effort if they kept close to the wall. One after the other, the group made it into the underpass, Kim’s dad with his axe leading them.

As soon as they got out of the underpass, it was the same mess as on its other side. Cars, cars, cars. Being spread around like splashes of sauce after having it boil and not taking care of it.

“Could I please all the politicians who were so proud of the car nation Germany?”, Filas whispered.

“Chances are they’re already dead anyway”, Kim responded quietly.

“Keep an eye open for those freaks”, a red-haired woman who was carrying a Katana sword muttered in front of them. “There might be some ahead that we didn’t get on our first run.”

Everyone nodded and held firmer to their respective weapons and followed him once he had started moving forward again.

Forward, forward. Quick glance to the left, then to the right. No zombies to be seen. Over that bonnet. Forward, forward. Past that hotel. Forward. Over another bonnet. Grunting. Kim’s dad put his axe into a zombie’s head, that had appeared behind a blue van. Forward. Another parking lot though not as overrun as the one they’d come from. They turned right. Kept close to the brick stone wall of a factory.

Filas thought she’d heard something. She glanced over her shoulder and was horrified as more and more zombies made it around the corner behind them, from different directions, but clearly following the sound of their steps on the cobblestoned ground and their scent. “Run! RUN!”, she shouted. “ZOMBIES BEHIND US!”

She quickened her pace and so did the others.

“We’re almost there”, Kim tried to calm her. “There!”

They closed in on some vehicles which, unlike the others, were parked neatly behind each other, forming a circle. It consisted of a, white RV, one dark-blue estate car, a black SUV, and a camouflage pickup. A middle-aged woman was standing on the RV and shouted at them, “Hurry, HURRY!”, before she slid through the skylight into the vehicle. An elderly man and a little girl, maybe ten years old, were in front of the estate car, looking at them with a shocked expression, before getting into the car. Seconds later, the back door of the RV on the side the group were approaching from was opened, and few seconds after that, its engine started, like the estate car’s.

As the group got closer and closer to the vehicles, they split up, two or three people focusing on one car each. Kim followed her dad towards the RV, dragging Filas with her. They hopped onto it one after the other. Kim’s dad headed toward the front seats, while Kim shut the door behind them.

“Come with me”, she whispered to Filas, and they followed her dad to the front. He had already taken the passenger’s seat, while the woman Filas had seen was behind the stirring wheel. She was looking at the car in front of them concentratedly.

“We have a fixed formation when hitting the road”, Kim explained. Then, the dark-blue car in front of them started moving. The woman behind the wheel sighed out of relief, and seconds later, Filas could feel the RV moving too. They made it across the parking lot, which had only few cars on it on this part, and none of them really blocked their way, so they had a clear run. Filas glanced at the side-view mirror of the RV and saw the pickup and the SUV following them. Soon, they reached the street and turned left. They made it past the jammed street on their left, and seconds later past the street with the church and the pharmacy. Several zombies were stumbling out of the street, probably attracted by the cars’ noises, but they weren’t fast enough to follow them. The street in front of them seemed to be clear.

“Well, girls, I think we’ve made it”, Kim’s father commented. He threw a glance at Filas over his shoulder. “I’m Herman, by the way. That’s my… ex-wife, Belinda.”

“He couldn’t stand the fact that his wife was a better driver than him”, Belinda remarked.

Filas chuckled. “I’m Filas, nice to meet you”, she replied.

“Nice to meet you, too. I suggest you two have a break now, I seem to recall I interrupted to earlier.” Kim and Filas blushed. “We’ll call for you when we need you.”

The two of them turned around, walked past cupboards and one couch on their right and through the kitchen area of the RV before reaching the back. A square wooden table was placed there, with another cupboard over it and a cushioned bench around. Kim dropped her bat on the bench. Filas did the same with her spear and her backpack before they took place on the opposite site of the table.

“Are you ok?”, Kim asked. Her voice sounded like velvet to Filas.

“More than ok”, Filas replied smiling, looking her in the eyes. “How about you?”

“Me too”, Kim responded, smiling back, before hesitating. “Apart from one thing maybe…”, she added.

“Oh, what’s wrong?”, Filas asked riddled.

“Well… Could I have my hand back?”

Filas looked down. Indeed, her hand was still linked with Kim’s and had been so since after their greeting. She released Kim’s hand and smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok”, Kim smiled back at her while massaging her hand, “I just like having my hand back after some time, is all.”

Having her hands free now, she took off her black leather jacket, revealing the dark-grey top she was wearing, and put the jacket next to her.

“I just… wanted to make sure I’d not lose you again”, Filas replied shily while silently admiring how gorgeous Kim looked.

“Awwh, don’t you worry about that, you won’t lose me like that.”

They gave each other a soft hug. Now Filas could focus more on the moment and took in Kim’s smell and enjoyed that and the comfort she got from it and from the feeling of Kim’s hands on her back, while having her own hands softly rubbing her back.

“Tell me though”, Filas started once they had let go of each other again, “how is this… What are you doing here? The chances of meeting you here were like non-existent…”

“Oh”, Kim replied, “I had some relatives in this area and we were looking for them, hoped it’d be safer here, where there aren’t too many people, and that they might have made it.”

Filas noticed the resigned undertone in Kim’s voice. “But they didn’t?”

“I don’t know. Their house was abandoned, but their car was gone, like some things from their household. They probably made it out of here, but we don’t know where they are now…”

“I’m sure we’ll find them eventually”, Filas replied calmingly. “We got to meet by chance, so meeting them is possible as well.”

“Yeah, maybe so”, Kim said, without sounding too convinced. “Anyway, what about you? What are you doing here? I thought you lived more in the north?”

“I was just running through”, Filas shrugged. “I’ve been to a few places in that area, but none of them were safe, so I figured that south might be a good direction to head to.”

“All on your own?”, Kim asked impressed.

“Umm, yeah”, Filas replied. “I was with some people when I was at places, but they were either douches, or died soon. Never really both, unfortunately”, she added.

Kim chuckled. “Poor you”, she remarked and hesitated again. “So, would you like, you know… Stay with us?”, she managed to ask and looked Filas in the eyes.

Filas considered for a second. Sure, so far, she had been better off on her own, but that was for the most part because the people she’d met were quite unaccepting – thinking of the Hanses, who knew what they would have done with her if they had found out that she was trans? – or didn’t manage to keep alive long enough. But so far, this group seemed to be a decent option. After all, Kim was a part of it, so being trans apparently was no issue here. And being on the road as a group was probably safer than staying in one place all the time or traveling on her own. Most importantly though, she was finally with Kim. Filas smiled at her.

“Of course, I will”, she cooed, “I can’t just let you leave me now, can I? That is, if your group are fine with me joining?”, she added hesitantly.

“That should be no problem”, Kim replied. “My parents will be fine with it, and so will the others. They’re good people, we have plenty of food and water and we still have some seats in the cars.”

“Good”, Filas replied and rested her head on Kim’s shoulder. “I might have left my bike and food supplies back there, to be honest…”

“Bike?”, Kim asked in a riddled tone.

“Oh, yeah”, Filas chuckled. “I thought it might be best to travel by bike. You know, don’t need fuel, be more flexible and quieter than a car…”

“And you’ve made it this far like that?”, Kim probed her.

“Umm, yeah”, Filas replied, slightly lifting her head from Kim’s shoulder and looking at her bewildered. “Why, what’s wrong with that?”

“Haven’t you encountered any... herds on your way?”

“Herds? As in: a herd of zombies?”, Filas asked concerned.

“Yeah”, Kim nodded, “we’ve come across a few of them. Those freaks seem to be leaving the large cities and are moving across the country now. Well, probably not all of them”, she admitted, “but the sight of thousands of them is frightening enough, let me tell you.”

“Wow”, Filas remarked, being quite frightened by the thought of that only, “I really haven’t seen anything like that yet.”

“Probably better like that”, Kim replied, “you can’t really get away from a herd on a bike only, Safer and faster to get away by car.”

“Yeah”, Filas nodded before putting her head on Kim’s shoulder again, “now I’m even gladder that we got to meet.”

They were silent for a moment, enjoying each other’s presence, while only the noise of the RV driving along the road was to be heard.
“So”, Filas started again, “might I ask how it all went off for you in the beginning? It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it, but…”

Kim stared into the void for a few seconds, and Filas was afraid she had gone past a boundary before Kim replied.

“It was pretty miserable”, she said in a shaky voice. “The Dutch police and military took over after the first outbreaks, trying to put people into quarantine. They messed up though.” Her voice faded into whispering. “They killed my brother and my sister.”

Filas lifted her head from Kim’s shoulder again and looked at her. She was shocked and out of words from this revelation. Kim’s voice and her eyes mirrored the pain she had endured. A single tear was running down Kim’s cheek.

Eventually she managed to stutter, “oh… oh no, I’m so sorry…”

Kim nodded and continued after wiping away that tear from her face. “Soon after, their lockdown broke down. My dad has got this RV and we managed to get out with it. Met some people and decided that the Netherlands were not safe anymore. The country is… was… too densely populated and soon overrun with freaks. We figured we’d have to find a more rural place. We’re heading for the Alps now since it doesn’t seem to be safe here either and our family has disappeared anyway. And maybe we’ll find some kind of shelter before we even get there.”

“Sounds reasonable”, Filas replied, “that was my plan as well, heh.”

“Good”, Kim remarked and managed to smile, “we’re really headed into the same direction then.”

“Indeed.”

“How was it going for you in the meantime?”

“Oh”, Filas hesitated while thinking what had happened to her in the past months. “I got out of my hometown, hopped from town to town, but all of them were overrun eventually. Last night I was in a village nearby, but they were transphobic conservatives at their worst and I was quite relieved once I got out of there again…”

“Urgh”, Kim replied, “you’re better off with us now. But what were you doing in this town? I take you for smarter than lurking around in a town, where you might expect more freaks than in other places.”

“Usually, yeah”, Filas stuck out her tongue. “But… I had to get some meds, my supplies were running low.”

“Meds? As in…”, Kim started.

Filas gave her a smug smile. “Hormones, my dear. Hormones and blockers.”

“Awesome”, Kim whispered. “Maybe, do you think we could share?”

“Of course”, Filas replied happily, “we can go and scavenge for them together when need be. That’s the dream.”

“The dream?”

“Well, at least a dream of mine, heh.”

“Hihi, fair enough.”

“So”, Filas went on, “what were you doing in that town? You probably didn’t plan to rescue the damsel in distress…”

“Well, not quite”, Kim chuckled, “although I’m glad we managed to save said damsel. But as a matter of fact, we might have looked just for what you found, apparently…”

“Really?”, Filas was surprised. “Also looking for those meds?”

“Yeah, figured that since we already were in a town, we might just give it a shot, you know? But those freaks around you made that quite impossible…”

“Uh, true”, Filas responded. “By the way, why are you calling them ‘freaks’?”

“Oh, well, that’s just how we called them once it all broke out and it kinda stuck. Why, how are you calling them?”

“I call them ‘zombies’. I don’t know, they’re just like those from movies and games and stuff, you know?”

“Huh, true”, Kim replied. “Good to know, so we will understand each other in the future.”

“Hehe, yeah.”

They fell back into silence for a bit again. Filas softly caressed Kim’s hand while they both listened to the engine’s droning and enjoyed each other’s company.

After a few minutes, Filas raised her voice again. “Tell me a bit about the people in your group.”

“There’s not a lot I could tell, really”, Kim replied. “You know me, I guess. My parents got divorced when I was three, but they’re still friends as you can tell. Otherwise, they’d probably not be around each other right now…”

“Uh huh”, Filas signalled her understanding. “And the others?”

“Phew, that’d be quite a lot to talk about right now… We picked them up along the road. Some are Dutch, some are German, some Belgian, I think… Tell you what though, let’s wait until evening, after we’ve pitched camp. Then you can talk to them in person, that should be easier.”

“Yeah, sounds good”, Filas confirmed. “Do you have some kind of ritual or something for new members of your group?”

“Oh, you have to empty a whole bottle of vodka, get a brand on your butt and walk barefoot through the shards of the bottle you smash after emptying and through some hot coals.”

Filas looked at her flabbergasted. “Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah, I actually am”, Kim giggled.

“Oh you”, Filas snorted and cuddled and tickled Kim. Kim squealed, fell back to the bench and offered Filas a better position to apply tickles, which she took advantage of.

“Stop it. Stop!”, Kim managed to utter in between of her giggles, and Filas generously obliged her, took her hands and pulled her back into a sitting position.

“Is everything ok back there?”, Herman shouted from the front.

“Yes, dad, all is fine”, Kim shouted back, before addressing Filas in a lower volume. “At least now”, she added with a last giggle.

They slowly calmed down. This time it was Kim who took a hold of Filas’s hand, but she did it quite softly. To Filas, it felt like having her hand wrapped in cotton wool.

“So, are there any?”, she asked eventually.

“Any what?”, Kim asked in a riddled tone.

“Any rituals or something or anything I need to do to join your group.”

“Nah, nothing like that. We’re a quite secular group, you know… We’re just going to sit together at the campfire tonight and talk, get to know each other… Or rather, they will get to know you, and you will get to know them.”

“Sounds good to me”, Filas smiled.

The next few hours, they kept talking, caught up on what they had experienced in the past weeks, but also on their previous lives. Filas tried to talk in Dutch a bit, only to realize that she’d really needed a native speaker to talk to because her accent after having learned that language at university with only German natives was quite heavy. All in all, however, they just enjoyed being together, as the RV moved further forward.

“How are you handling the food situation?”, Filas asked as she felt her stomach beginning to rumble.

“Oh, we usually have breakfast and dinner when we’re on the road”, Kim replied and, in response to Filas’s stomach giving a disappointed rumble, apologetically added, “we don’t have many snacks or stuff for in between, unfortunately.”

“Eh, that’s a shame”, Filas remarked. “I’ve only had a slice of bread today and escaping from a zombie attack doesn’t exactly help against being hungry.”

“True”, Kim replied, stood up and gestured Filas to do the same and they got to the kitchen area. “But, you know, specific situations, specific measures.” She opened a door and took out an energy bar which she handed to Filas.

“Oh my gosh”, Filas exclaimed as she took the bar. “Thank you so, so much!”

She opened the packaging of the bar and hesitated after.

“Aren’t you hungry too? We could share it if you’d like…”

Kim refused, “I had some decent breakfast, so I’m fine. You need it much more than I do.”

Filas’s stomach rumbled again, louder than before now. “I think you’re both right”, she replied to Kim and to her stomach, causing Kim to let out a soft giggle.

“Kim, come over for a minute”, Herman demanded from the front.

“Well, you heard him”, Kim said to Filas. “Why don’t you take a seat again? I’ll be right back at you.”

“Ok”, Filas replied and watched Kim getting to the front seats. She turned around to head to the back of the RV again. In the motion, she noticed a door opposite the cupboards in the kitchen area. She had never been in an RV before and therefore she had no idea how it was constructed. So, she wondered what might be beyond that door. Curiously, she opened it and found herself at the entrance to a small restroom. Makes sense, she figured with a little chuckle, closed the door again and went back to the benches where she took the energy bar out of its packaging after sitting down and started to eat it.

She had never really liked energy bars in vast contradiction to chocolate bars. However, after the events of the day – cycling into Sundern, the physical and mental exhaustion from the zombie attack, and the overwhelming joy of having met Kim – and all of that after having only one slice of bread for breakfast, the energy bar, which had peanut flavour, was a feast for her. Potentially a trophy for her having made it through the mess that was called her life so far. She enjoyed each and every little crunchy bite she took until Kim returned. Filas had just taken the final bite of the bar and swallowed it down before speaking.

“What’s wrong?”, she asked.

“Apparently there is a bridge which has collapsed”, Kim replied in a worried tone. “We are at a lake right now, and according to the maps, all the other ways around it are leading through smaller cities. Dad and the others want to avoid going through them, but that would require a massive detour. For now, they are looking for a place where we can pitch camp for the rest of today and for the night, and we will continue our way tomorrow.”

“Oh, ok”, Filas replied. “Doesn’t sound too bad.” A thought hit her. “How are they all communicating with each other?”

“They’re using walkie-talkies”, Kim replied. “Phones and stuff are of no use anymore, but those are still doing the trick”, she added.

“Oh, cool”, Filas remarked.

“Yeah, we were lucky we got a hold on them.”

In the following minutes, it became clear that the RV had left the proper roads which back then were highly frequented, and which had therefore received a lot of maintenance. The journey so far had been rather smooth, but now Filas could feel that they were going through quite a number of potholes which made it a rough ride now and could also make out the curses from Belinda and Herman in the front.

“Should we worry?”, Filas managed to ask Kim.

“More than usual, you mean?”

“I mean, what if zombies are attacking the cars right now?”

“No”, Kim calmed her. “If that were the case, dad would be silent, and mom would be cursing worse than right now.”

Filas nodded. She almost regretted the energy bar she’d eaten, and which now was moving up and down in her stomach. She was relieved when the RV slowed down and eventually halted. She let out a deep breath.

“Ok, let’s have a look around”, Kim said and gestured Filas to stand up again.

She obliged and took a step away from the bench, allowing Kim to get away from there as well. The black-haired girl reached to the bench again first, handed Filas her spear and picked up her bat. “Just in case”, she remarked with a rather serious facial expression.

Filas nodded in understanding and followed Kim to the door, where Belinda and Herman were already waiting for them.

“Ok, girls”, Herman welcomed them, “this place looks safe, but let’s have a look around and make sure that it is.”

Everyone nodded, he pulled open the door and jumped out, followed by the others.

The were on a crossroad, surrounded by mixed forest in every direction. The road itself was made of gravel only. They seemed to be on the top of a hill, but the trees around them made it hard to tell – and would also make it hard for anyone or anything to discover a campfire they might light.

The other cars from their convoy had stopped as well. The vehicles were forming a block, with the blue car in front of the RV, the pickup on its left and the SUV on its right, where one road was leading off. The other people of the group were getting out of their cars as well, each of them carrying anything that could be used as a weapon – Filas made out a shovel, a metal bar, knives, a screwdriver and the like. They all gathered at the RV.

“Ok, guys and girls”, Belinda addressed them. “You know how this works. Let’s make sure this place is secure. We form pairs and check out each direction. Herman and Rhea, you go down there” – she pointed into the direction opposite the RV. “Mara and Johannes, you check out the direction where we had come from. Maybe some freaks have followed us. Make sure they don’t anymore. Kim and – Filas?” Filas nodded. “You go there” – she pointed left where the road split up in two paths – “and take the left path. Michael and I are taking the right, and Benjamin and Mia will stay here and hold the fort. All clear?” Affirmative nodding and murmuring all around, although Filas noticed that the little girl who was standing next to the elderly man looked quite disappointed. She figured she was Mia, and indeed, as the group parted, she stayed back and followed the man, apparently Benjamin, into the RV. Before they lost visual contact, Filas looked back again and saw him unfold a camp-chair on the RV’s roof and taking a seat on it while Mia was looking around with some binoculars. Then Kim and Filas rounded a bend and lost visual contact.

Cautiously, with their weapons ready to strike, Kim and Filas moved through the forest. This could be quite a romantic walk without zombies existing, Filas figured. Now that they were walking next to each other, she noticed that Kim was a bit taller than she was with 170cms (5’9”). They didn’t talk too much though, but focused on any noises around them, trying to ignore their own stepping noises and the wind making the leaves rustle. They also stopped every once in a while, to have a closer look into the woods, but they couldn’t make out anything else than trees and undergrowth and shadows. Filas also noticed that their camping space in fact wasn’t on top of the hill: the forest rose further on their right-hand side, while there was a slight slope on their left. Due to the dense forest though, they couldn’t make out a lot on either side.

After some hundred meters, however, the trees on their left were growing less densely. There was a line of them directly next to their path, but beyond that, Kim and Filas had an astonishing view on the environment. They sighed happily and took each other’s hands. Birds and insects were chirping around them and contributed to the peaceful moment they had.

In the afternoon sun, they saw that there really was a lot of forest around them. There were barely any fields or meadows nearby, and only some populated area to the lake which was shimmering in a bright blue beyond the forests. There seemed to be a camping area on the lakeshore, but it appeared abandoned from their point of view.

“It would be amazing to jump into the lake and swim around a little”, Filas whispered dreamingly. She had seen a number of places in the past weeks, but barely ever had had a view as beautiful as this.

“Yeah”, Kim agreed and squeezed her hand. “Would be quite lovely.”

They just stayed there for a few minutes, enjoying the view and forgetting the overall situation for a moment, which was made possible by the fact that they also didn’t make out any zombies from up there. Then, a sudden breeze caused the leaves to rustle louder than usual, which ripped the two girls out of their dreams. They stared into the forest rising over them but realized that it hadn’t been zombies that had caused that noise. Reality had caught them now though. They sighed deeply and simultaneously and continued their patrol.

After some more minutes, they reached a junction. From there, they had a view on the direction into which their path was leading, only this time it wasn’t too pleasing. Only about 100 meters away there were the outer districts of a small town which was embedded in the valley between the hills. Although it was only a small town, both of them knew that they’d have to be extra careful now, even back in their camp. Towns these days always came with a higher risk of zombies lurking around.

“Don’t get a fright!”, a voice on their right demanded.

Filas startled and looked into that direction from which another path was leading to them. Belinda and Michael were approaching them, the former one with a slight smirk.

“I told you not to get a fright”, she chuckled, halted next to them, looked at the town and frowned. “I don’t like this too much”, she mumbled more to herself than to the others, “but I think our position is safe. No visual contact. Should be ok for the night.” She looked at Kim and Filas. “Did you have any incidents?” They shook their hands. “Good, we neither”, she replied. “I think we should be fine up here. Let’s get back and see what the others say.”

“You should come with us, mom, there is a place with a really amazing view”, Kim told her enthusiastically.

“Really?”, she replied and smiled. “We should do that then, I could use a nice view for a change.”

“I said ‘amazing’, not ‘nice’”, Kim remarked, rolling her eyes and they got back on their way.

On their way, they had a break at said place and Belinda and Michael had to agree that it was indeed an ‘amazing’ view. After enjoying it for a few minutes again, they walked on and got back to the vehicles after some more minutes.

As they got back to the junction, Benjamin, who was still on guard on the RV’s roof, greeted them by waving his hand. Belinda responded by doing the same, and once they reached the vehicles, she asked, “were there any incidents?”

“No”, he replied with a raspy voice and shook his head. “Have you found anything out of the order?”

“No”, Belinda replied and shook her head as well. “Are the others not back yet?”

“No, you are the first ones.”

“Let’s wait and see what they have to report then.”

“Oh, I have to show you something”, Kim said to Filas. “Come with me.”

She grabbed Filas’s hand and led her to the pickup which was parked between the RV and the edge of the woods. She led her to the loading space which was covered with a tarpaulin.

“The other cars are all carrying some food supplies and all that important stuff”, Kim explained while loosening the eyelets. “But Rhea is quite adamant when it comes to the cargo on her pickup. But I think you will love it…” She loosened the last eyelet and took off the tarpaulin.

“That’s so awesome”, Filas expressed her delight as a heavy, black motorcycle was uncovered.

Kim chuckled. “I knew you’d like it.”

Filas herself had never learnt how to ride a motorcycle, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t find them cool and admired people – especially women – who were able to ride them.

She rounded the loading space to get a better look at the bike and inspected it a bit further.

“That woman has got some good taste”, she remarked after finishing the investigation. “Why does she have the pickup too instead of driving only the bike?”, she wondered.

“It’s safer this way”, a voice replied from behind her. Filas turned around quickly and saw the red-haired woman with the Katana sword approach her with a smirk. “Having some metal between me and those freaks when we meet on the street is better than being on the bike without too much protection at all. And I can have a few supplies with me in the pickup, next to the bike. But I can’t just part from my baby. Who knows, maybe she’ll come in handy at some point.”

She reached Filas and held out her hand. “I’m Rhea, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you”, Filas replied and shook hands with her smilingly. “I’m Filas.”

Rhea looked quite butch to Filas. She was wearing a plaid shirt and had blistered hands and a very firm grip. She was a little bit taller than Filas, but not more so than Kim. From the short distance she saw that her dark-red hair was fading to brunette at the hairline.

“Nice to meet you. I hope you haven’t touched my baby?”

“No, only admired it from a safe distance”, Filas smiled.

“Good”, Rhea replied. “I take it you’ve known Kim somehow?”

“How do you know?”

“Your reaction when you met on that parking lot was quite telling.”

“Oh”, Filas blushed, “yeah, we, we met online and got to know each other there.”

“Did you meet each other in real life before today?”

“Umm, actually not, no.”

“So, you just met by coincidence in a freaking zombie apocalypse?”, Rhea probed with a surprised voice.

Filas nodded.

“Wow, what luck”, Rhea remarked while opening a door of the pickup and looking for things inside. “Anyway, it seems like we are pitching camp here for tonight. We’re all back and haven’t found anything out of the ordinary. Better go to the others and see how you can help.”

“Yeah, I will”, Filas replied and headed back to the RV, where people had begun to unload the things they needed for a camp: camp-chairs, tents, a sunshade, sleeping bags, some tools… Filas made out Kim, who had already got there while she had been talking to Rhea. She was getting some cooking gear out of the RV and approached her.

“Any way I can help?”, she asked as Kim put down her load.

“Umm, yeah”, Kim replied after catching some breath. “Could you help pitch the tents? They should be behind the SUV.”

“Sure will”, Filas replied. She had some experience pitching tents from her LARPing in earlier days, and so rounded the RV and saw that the others were already busy there. Mia was there, trying her best to help, along with Mara and Michael.

“Oh, yeah”, Mara replied. “Could you and Mia stake out the tents?”

Filas looked at the little girl. “What do you think, can we do that?”

“I… I think so”, she replied shyly.

Filas got to her, kneeled before her to meet her at eye-level and held out her hand. “I’m Filas, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Mia”, she replied.

“That’s a pretty name”, Filas remarked with a smile which was returned by the brunette girl.

“Thank you.”

“Do you know where we can find the hooks and a hammer?”, Filas asked.

“I already have a hammer”, and indeed, Mia was holding one in her left hand. It had cloth at the head in order to mute the noises it’d made without it. Smart, Filas thought.

“Oh, cool”, Filas smiled in response. “Do you also know where the hooks are?”

“They are in a bag at the rear end of the car.” Mia pointed toward the SUV and indeed, Filas saw a bag lying there on the road.

“Ok, wait for me here, will you? I’ll just go and fetch them.”

Mia nodded and Filas got to the SUV and picked up the bag. She looked inside and found many hooks in it. She returned to Mia.

“Ok, we can get started”, she told her, and they went to the one tent that was already up.

Filas kneeled again, took a hook out of the bag and put it through an eyelet. Then she looked at Mia.

“I will hold the hook here”, she explained, “and you drill them into the ground with the hammer. And… try not to hit my fingers, ok?”

“I will try”, Mia replied insecurely and kneeled as well.

She took a big swing…

“Wait”, Filas stopped her, worried about her fingers. “Better do some lighter blows. You don’t need to swing so much, and the chances are better that you will hit the hook.”

“Oh, ok, sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

Mia followed Filas’s instructions, and although her fingers did hurt a bit after they’d finished the tent, it could have been worse.

“Well done”, Filas praised Mia as they made their way to the next tent that had been erected in the meantime. “Also, might I ask how you know Benjamin?”, she asked the little girl as they kneeled.

“He’s my grandfather”, Mia replied and looked quite sad. “I was visiting him when…”

“Oh, I see”, Filas replied. She was wondering what could have happened to her parents after the breakout, but the look on Mia’s face told her not to ask any further questions. “Well, let’s get this tent done”, she said encouragingly instead and the two of them got back to work.

In the following minutes, Filas and Mia staked out the remaining four tents once they’d been pitched. Filas found that Mia was a quick learner who hit the hooks quite accurately soon. She was sad though that the two of them might have something in common: not having the childhood that each of them should have. Once they were finished, they took a few steps away from the tents and had a good look at them.

“Good job, you two”, Mara praised them. She had dark-blonde hair and was a bit smaller than Filas. Filas estimated her to be in her thirties.

“Thanks”, Filas and Mia replied simultaneously.

“Have you got used to building places to sleep in yet instead of designing them?”, Michael asked Mara chuckling.

“I guess I never will”, she sighed. “I used to be an architect”, she explained to Filas.

“Oh, that’s cool”, Filas replied. She knew that to become an architect, Mara had had to study, and she admired people who took the effort successfully.

“Yeah, it was.” Mara sighed again. “I’m afraid I won’t design any new buildings though…”

“Well, who knows”, Filas remarked. “Maybe things will change at some point, and then people will need new houses.”

“Yeah, maybe”, Mara replied without sounding too convinced as they headed back to the RV, where the others had already gathered.

“Might I ask how you met the others?”, Filas asked curiously.

“Umm, which others do you mean?”

“Well, Kim and her family, basically…”

“Ah, ok”, Mara chuckled. “Well, I had escaped with Rhea from Belgium and had made it to Germany. We were at a gas station, re-fuelling our cars and ourselves when they showed up there. And instead of killing each other, we decided to cooperate and to become a group.”

“I’m glad you chose that option”, Filas remarked. She realized how lucky she really was to have met Kim against all odds.

They reached the RV, and the smell of cooking rose to Filas’s nose. Although she’d only had cooked food the evening before, she was used to its absence and was happy to make it out again. Also, she had been quite insecure at the Hansel’s house. She was feeling better now, feeling a sense of community, especially after bonding with the others one by one. Feeling like that, the smell of properly prepared food was much better than back then.

They got to the spot where Belinda and Kim were preparing the food. They had set up a campfire site with a grill attached to a tripod. Two pots and a pan were placed on the grill, while mother and daughter were around it, stirring the contents of the bowels and checking on the meat in the pan. A fire extinguisher was placed next to the RV in case the fire was getting out of control or in case they’d have to leave quickly. A few metres away from the fire, camp- chairs were positioned as a circle.

When looking around, Filas noticed that Rhea, Herman and the one guy whose name she hadn’t memorized yet seemed to be vanished. She couldn’t make them out around their camping site at least.

“Where are Rhea and…”, she waved around with her left hand, hoping the name would come to her, but it didn’t.

“You mean Johannes?”, Mara tried to help.

“I guess”, Filas shrugged.

“They’re looking for some wood we can stock”, Mara replied as they headed to the chair-circle. “Our stock is reducing a bit too quickly.”

“I see”, Filas nodded in understanding as they sat down together with Michael, while Mia got to the RV to talk to Benjamin, who was still keeping watch from its roof.

Filas got lost in talking to Mara and Michael in the following time. After telling her story, she learned that Michael, who was quite huge and had black hair, used to be a farmer before the outbreak. He used to live on the German side of the border to the Netherlands, where the area was totally flat and provided good farmland.

“After the outbreak, I was going to stay at the farm”, he told them. “Basically in the middle of nothing, what could have gone wrong? But more and more people were looking for barely populated areas, and after them came those… things. My farm got overrun eventually and I barely escaped with my SUV. I just wanted to get away from there and didn’t really pay attention to the direction to be honest… Eventually, I met up with Benjamin and Mia, and only a little later, we met these people here and were happy to join them”, he concluded his narrative.

“Wow, I’m glad you made it out of there”, Filas commented.

Heavy steps were approaching the junction. Alarmed, Filas turned into the direction where she made them out and was relieved to see that it was only Rhea, Herman and Johannes who were returning from chopping wood. They were carrying one box each filled with material for fires, which they brought to the SUV. Michael hurried toward them to help them place the boxes in the trunk before they got to the circle and sat down as well.

“We will need some more wood before too long”, Rhea remarked. “Winter will be coming eventually, and it’s better to gain some stock when as long as it’s reasonably dry.”

“You’re right”, Mara agreed with her before adding, “but before we can put op a stock of wood, we have to find some proper shelter, a place where we can stay in winter. I can’t see that happening before we get further away from here.”

“That’d better be some good shelter”, Herman chimed in. “It needs to be defendable, have enough space to grow our own food – we can’t get vegetables and meat from cans for the rest of our days – access to fresh water…”

“Maybe we should think about it after dinner”, Belinda’s voice reached them. “It’s ready now, by the way…”

Immediately, everyone was up on their feet and headed toward the cooking place where Kim and Belinda were distributing the food on paper plates. Even Benjamin and Mia were coming down from the RV to join them. The very smell of the food already made Filas’s mouth water, but she got in the line patiently. She couldn’t really tell what kind of food they’d have from the smell alone though.

Herman was the first one to get some food. After receiving it, he walked straight to the RV. Filas was confused for a moment, but as he showed up on the vehicle’s roof and sat down on the camp-chair there, she understood that he’d keep watch while the rest of the group were eating and talking together.

One after the other, they got their food and it was Filas’s turn soon. She was distracted by Kim’s looks for a moment though. She had put up her hair while her forehead was still covered by her fringe. A few strands were loose though and were framing her face quite perfectly. Filas smiled at her gayly, until Mara started to moan behind her. Kim, who smiled back at Filas, put some potatoes and carrots on her plate, whereas Belinda added some salted meat and tomato sauce to it and handed her a plastic fork and knife. She got back to the chair circle and picked herself a seat with an empty chair next to it in order to be able to have Kim sitting next to her once she got there. Johannes was sitting on the other side of Filas’s place, but he was already eating, so she didn’t bother to start a conversation with him. Instead, she smiled at Kim as she was approaching her and took the vacant seat next to her.

“Enjoy your meal!”, she told Filas while getting into the right position to handle her plate and cutlery.

“Eet smakelijk!”, Filas fished out of her Dutch skills, causing Kim to chuckle. Soon they were both eating, and Filas had no problem following Kim’s order to enjoy her meal. It was basically the best food she’d had in a long, long time, maybe even the best ever. In fact, Kim looked up several times and had to chuckle whenever Filas moaned in satisfaction.

She finished far too soon for her taste, although her stomach told her that she was in fact stuffed. She sighed with satisfaction one last time while getting into a more comfortable sitting position, putting the plate and cutlery on the ground next to her.

“I take it you liked it?”, Kim asked playfully. She had already finished her meal as well.

“It was awesome”, Filas remarked. “In fact, I almost cried because it was soooo good”, she added truthfully.

“Awwh, I’m glad you liked it”, Kim replied with a large smile. She had a look around the circle. Everyone had finished eating. “I’ll be right back”, she told Filas. “I gotta take care of the rubbish.”

“Oh, I could help you with that”, Filas offered.

“Thanks, but it’s really not necessary. I’ll be back in, like, a minute.”

“Ok, fair enough”, Filas replied. I will miss you every second though, she added in her thoughts, took her rubbish up from the ground and handed it to Kim, who thanked her and continued to collect the rubbish from the other people from the group.

Filas watched her for a few seconds before stretching in her seat. She then looked around. The others were engaging more and more in talking to each other. Filas felt good about being in a real group again for the first time in weeks, and she was eager to talk more to Kim, but she had to wait for that a bit. She looked to her left, where Johannes was sitting. He was not engaging in any conversation with anyone yet but seemed to be thinking about something. She realized that she hadn’t talked to him yet at all and decided to change that.

“Hey, I think we haven’t talked to each other yet”, she addressed him. He slowly turned toward her. He was in his middle-ages, she guessed, with short, blonde hair and rather on the huge side as well. A pair of glasses through which he was looking at her were sitting on his nose.

Filas was confused. His eyes appeared dead to her. There was no light in them, unlike Kim’s which were just sparkling on their own. A dead man's eyes, she thought.
“I’m Filas”, she added, becoming quite nervous.

“I’m Johannes”, he told her without wasting any time on saying “hello”. He had a deep voice. “Johannes Schmitz”, he added before staring into the void for a bit, until Filas thought he had passed out. But before she could ask any of the others for help, he started to talk again. Quietly, so she had to try hard to make out his words.

“I’m the one who developed the virus that’s created undead life.”