Chapter 93: You’ve Caught Me, But You Don’t Seem To Understand What You Are

"Unconscious," Anton said. "Madeline stopped the bleeding, and that woman got a proper tourniquet onto him. Beyond that..."

He didn’t finish what he was saying then, giving a bit of a sigh.

’Even with the prana seemingly helping his body, he definitely still needs a hospital, a surgeon, and maybe about two litres of somebody else’s blood, and there isn’t one of the three within six blocks of this building.’

A silence lingered between everyone then, wherein the rain beat against the window and they heard the coughing from somewhere down the corridor, and then Anton spoke again.

"The zombies have been getting stronger. We’d noticed it before any of this happened, out on the runs. The ones nearer the edge of the district were faster than the ones round here."

He looked down at his hands.

"Then... with everything that had been happening since the rain, I don’t know if there is any way to know where the ceiling on any of this is, or whether there even is one."

"There isn’t," Irvin said from his wall.

Yara looked over at him, and then at Dion.

"... We heard about the birds that came here. Thank you for helping save everyone."

Dion only shook his head a little, then said, "Don’t worry about it, I only did what I had to."

Anton’s attention came onto Dion.

"You... knew about the rain before there was a cloud in the sky. So this time I want to make sure I take whatever you say seriously, and am asking you: What do you think is happening out there? What comes next?"

Dion had glanced over to him, crossing his arms a little. Then he shook his head and shrugged.

"I’m not a soothsayer, Anton. I don’t know what comes next any more than the rest of you do. The best that I have for you is the same thing you’re all thinking. The world is and will be continuing to change, almost certainly at a rapid pace, and we all need to find some way to keep up, otherwise we’re dead."

Nobody said anything for a moment, varying degrees of frustration or understanding on their expressions.

Then Dion sighed a little. This conversation had to be had immediately.

"I’ll be straight with all of you," Dion began, looking towards Anton. "I’m staying for now, but I don’t want you to mistake that for something that you can count on long term.

I have to get to Novamed Hospital as soon as it is possible for me to get there, and past that—where the lot of us should have been on the same page and the reason I thought to stay—is that I also need to get to Horizon Park Mall.

If the wind from this rain calm down and the group isn’t ready to start moving, then I only wanted to let you all know this is where we will be parting ways."

"...Isn’t that asking too much?"

Madeline’s voice came from beside him, quieter than anybody else’s in the room had been and holding its ground all the same.

"They walked in here a few hours ago with Marcus half dead between them and the rest of them barely able to stand up. And you want to talk about moving already?"

Dion glanced over to her briefly, then he shook his head.

"I wasn’t asking anything of you all." Dion shrugged as he said, "I was just telling you what I’m going to be doing. Whether you decide you will be postponing your plans and staying, or leaving with me, isn’t a decision I am here trying to influence. I don’t want you to think of it like I am asking you all to come with me. This is just a pre-emptive goodbye as thanks for your hospitality."

"...You say that like the two are the same thing."

Madeline had turned to face him properly by then.

"You’re the one who killed the birds, Dion. Everyone out there knows you’re the only reason many of us are still breathing right now.

So you can call it telling us if you like, but the moment you walk out of that door, every single person in this room is going to be asking themselves whether they should be going with you, what happened, and so much more that would only cause unrest. And you know that."

Dion looked at her for a moment, then he smiled a little.

’Ah... she caught me.’

He laughed a little then, low in his chest, and his arms came down off his chest.

’Although, as much as she is right in part, at the end of the day, I would have still left regardless. It just didn’t feel right in me to not at least try.’

"Then I’ll put it the other way," he said, shrugging faintly as he gestured to Anton, Yara, and Irvin. "Am I really asking too much? Because look at them."

"You guys came back in a state that should have put any normal person into a hospital, and within only about an hour to two or so you are sitting in this room having this conversation looking far better than you did then.

I am not asking any of you to be something that you’re not. I’m asking you all to understand what you are now, and that hesitation is what will keep this group and its survivors holed up inside this building until there is nothing in here worth protecting alive anymore.

It is idealistic to believe that we can always be in our best condition to survive in a world like this. Hell, you’ve seen the blood on me; I’m definitely not after fighting the birds that attacked, and I’m the one that is pushing to leave.

The people upstairs that you chose to look after are already fighting each other over packets of crackers, and a growing number of them are too sick to stand up. Every hour that we spend in here without acting makes the next move harder, not easier."

Dion, finishing what he had to say, then looked at Madeline, his brows a little furrowed, asking, "Now do you understand?"