1. Character List

All of these names are real life names, but they are fake characters

Phuoc: Main character of the story. He is the leader of the group which his friends are in. He leads the group to find other survivors along the way and make an army to obliterate the zombies and save the human race. He carries an assault rifle as his primary firearm. Small and weak, he is determined to do so. If one of his friends shall fall, he will not let them die in vain. He likes Skye a lot, but despite the fact that he has told her, she doesn't like him like that. She only wants to be friends. He knows this, and he respects her thoughts by protecting her and Dalton so that they can make it to the end together. He is a brave, courageous and compassionate character who lives by these words: Never give up no matter what happens!

Kent: one of the group members in Phuoc's group. He is second in command because of his abilities to lead a group. He thinks about his actions before he acts and sometimes acts very heroic. He is a sniper and very dangerous with a sniper rifle. He carries a sniper rifle to provide long range back up. He won't care if his friends fall, but he will do his best to protect all the survivors he finds.

Jack: one of the group members in Phuoc's group. Because he lacks the ability to command, he can't lead if Phuoc and Kent have to go somewhere. Instead he wants what every survivor in a zombie apocalypse wants: to live in peace and happiness. Though that can't happen because zombies disturb the peace. He has the most experience in firearms and carries an SMG. He tries his best to not let any of his comrades die. Though if his teammates get in the way, he will not hesitate to let them go on their own and die.

Dalton: one of the group members in Phuoc's group. He is the boyfriend of Skye and really cares about her. If anything happened to her, he would go berserk and would do absolutely anything to keep her safe, even if it means sacrificing himself to save her. He carries an assault rifle and is very accurate with it. He doesn't care whether the survivors are his group members or not. He'll keep them alive as long as possible. Much like Kent, he will do all that he can to protect the survivors he can find.

Patrick: one of the group members in Phuoc's group. He is the carrier of the group. He carries all the weapons and ammunition for Kent, Dalton, Skye, and Jack. Despite his actions, Kent Dalton and Jack still disrespect him. They treat him like trash. Knowing this, he continues to do so but he gets help from Phuoc, Chris, and Aaron. To them, he is a great ally and a very good friend. He protects Phuoc, Chris and Aaron the most because of their act of kindness. He carries the shotgun and is very skilled, but has almost no accuracy with it. He has just enough accuracy to blow off a zombie's head every 10 kills or so. He is a reckless person in the group, but he knows his limits.

Chris: one of the group members in Phuoc's group. He is one of those kind of people who will do whatever it takes to succeed in his goals. He helps his friends even if they don't ask for it. His act of kindness earns him more than he needs to survive in this group, but he shares his food and water with other group members to be fair. Patrick appreciates his help with the weapons and ammunition. He carries an LMG to provide back up fire in case any of his group members need it.

Aaron: a group member in Phuoc's group. He is indeed an intelligent guy and enjoys listening to music. He is really nice and helpful when others need it. He provides his comrades words of encouragement to keep them fighting. He does have a weak spot for being way too nice to his comrades and can be deceived easily by his comrades into making the wrong choices. He carries an assault rifle and is somewhat average with it. He is also half-deaf, making the moans of zombies really silent and he can barely hear them. His allies have to watch him at all times to make sure he is safe.

Nyquo: a group member in Phuoc's group. He is the black man of the group, though he is treated as a white man. He doesn't really give a shit for what happens. As long as things that happen aren't that serious. He is an "I don't care" kind of guy, but he can provide a lot of back up fire for his teammates. He has knowledge in martial arts, making him a dangerous foe in close combat. He carries an LMG just for the firepower.

Skye: a group member in Phuoc's group. She is the only girl in the group, but not just any girl. She shows the skills of being a leader. When asked to be second in command, she decides to give Kent that position instead. She is the girlfriend of Dalton, and she really loves him. She fights like a true warrior and she will not give in to a fight against zombies. Her true goal is to survive with Dalton. If Dalton dies, she will follow him to be with him at all costs. Phuoc knows this and protects both Dalton and Skye from harm any way he can. Skye carries an assault rifle and is a master at it. She too knows a form of martial arts, making her somewhat a deadly foe in close combat. However, Nyquo has more skill than she does.

Alan (chapter 3): a spartan who wears Mark V armor. He travels with Aden, his best friend. Alan is a sniper and carries a sniper rifle almost all the time, though he does carry a magnum as a secondary. His Mark V suit gives him the ability to punch and zombie and send it flying. He joined Phuoc's group when Phuoc had requested him. He and Phuoc are great friends. When he joins the group, he leads them to his hideout, where there are multiple Mark V armors, and the latest Mark VI and Mark VII. He has some knowledge of someone by the name John, but is dedicated to actually finding him.

Aden (chapter 3): a spartan who wears Mark VI armor. He travels with Alan, his best friend. Aden is a close range combat person, and carries a shotgun. He is deadly with the shotgun and has plently of accuracy to kill zombies. His Mark V armor has the same abilities as Alan's Mark V armor. He joined Phuoc's group because Alan joined the group. Aden knows Phuoc from xbox live and from Alan. He has some some knowledge of someone by the name John, but is dedicated to finding him like Alan.

John (chapter 7): a spartan from the future. He is known as Master Chief, or Spartan-117, or John-117. In the year or 2012-2013, he was devoured by zombies. Apparently, he was reborn by scientists in 2552, and have fought against these zombies in his time. He brings with him a variety of human UNSC weapons from the future for Phuoc and the group. He wears Mark V armor because in the future he already knows that the armor phuoc and the group wears only gives certain abilities but no shields to defend against zombie bites. His main weapon is the assault rifle. Being a master of hand to hand combat, he can knock off a zombie's head with a powerful punch to the face. He is the key to defeating the zombie apocalypse since he has knowledge of it and it has happened before in his time

Dakota (Chapter 10): young boy who is the gaming brother of Phuoc. He and Phuoc met on xbox live while playing Halo Reach. Dakota may look like a harmless kid, but he's more than you think. Though he is small, he does fight like Phuoc. Being Phuoc's gaming brother, he follows Phuoc's motto, never give up. He carries a sniper rifle, and is a better sniper than anyone had thought. He may be small, but he packs a bunch of headshots.

Reese (Chapter 10): young teenager who is the gaming brother of Phuoc and Dakota. He and Phuoc met on xbox live while playing Halo Reach. He's not that bad since he is actually pretty nice. His special harmless ability is making people laugh to death. He carries a shotgun, and follows Phuoc's motto, never give up. He likes Grace, but has no clue whether Grace likes him or not. He's very nice and a pretty amazing character throughout the rest of the story.

Grace (chapter 10): young girl teenager who is the gaming sister of Phuoc, Reese and Dakota. She and Phuoc met on xbox live while playing Halo Reach. She's a terrific sniper, making her the perfect marksman for the team. Her ability to sense zombies in a certain direction and area makes her a human radar, though no one really thinks of her that way. She's a worthy ally and a powerful fighter. She carries a sniper rifle, and deadly with it. She now follows Phuoc as a team member and as a friend in hope of defeating the zombies.

Jackson (Chapter 12): high school graduate who knows many things about weapons. He is Phuoc's friend, but doesn't become part of the team until the zombie war for North American begins. He's been Phuoc's friend since high school, and has learned many thing about how to kill a zombie. He leads the ODST soldiers and protects the living. His objective: survive and protect the humans. He carries AA12 shotguns (wow, that is so overpowered) and plans on blowing the brains out of every single zombie that dares to attack his crew.

Jounard (Chapter 13): high school graduate who is the strategic type. He would rather come up with stragety than just run out and kill. He's a really helpful and useful ODST for his ability to come up with plans for battle. He carries shotgun, and he plans to come up with a stragety to defeat the zombie army. After being Jackson's commander for so long, he now needs to get ready for the battle ahead of him. He and Phuoc are friends since high school, and he plans on doing what he thinks is best for both Phuoc's team and the small fighting force that he and Jackson have control over.

	2. Prologue

Everyone says that the end of the world is near. People say that the planet will be destroyed by a meteor that travels at the speed of light. Well I doubt it. If you've ever seen a zombie in video games, you would know how ugly and stupid they look. Don't underestimate them. The only way the zombie virus can be spread is by the Rats. That's how the zombie apocalypse started in the first place. The rat has the zombie virus, the cat eats the rat and gets the virus. Whoever the cat scratches, that victim will get the zombie virus. What is this zombie virus? Its called the T-Virus (Tyrant Virus). This virus turns people into undead organisms, where their only thoughts is eat and survive. Its almost impossible to take them down since their blood clots and their wounds don't bleed as much. The best way to kill them is by a headshot.

December 21, 2012: The T-Virus breaks out everywhere over the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people are infected. The number slowly grow to millions. Not many people even know how to defend against a horde of zombies. Even if you have a firearm by your side, or you carry one with you, you can never defeat more than 10 zombies with your firearm unless you carry a jacket full of ammunition. Even though many zombies roam the streets day and night, there are still survivors. I am a survivor. My name is Phuoc. I just started my high school year and got towards Christmas Break when the virus broke out. Though most of my friends are infected and became zombies, there are still some that I stay with that are not infected. I make a group and become the leader of the group. A couple of my friends join my group: Jack, Kent, Dalton, Patrick, Aaron, Chris, and Nyquo. Most guys don't fear the zombies, but most girls fear zombies. One girl that doesn't fear zombies is Skye. I know her from playing on Xbox live. I know Jack, Kent, Dalton and Patrick also from playing with them on Xbox Live. We survive together, and we protect those we can protect.

A few days ago, we decided to go to the Police Department to ask them what they are going to do about the zombie outbreak and they said, "We will evacuate everyone from this city. We will make sure that everyone gets out alive. 2 days from now, we will lead them to the freeway, where they will wander with a group of ODST soldiers who will protect them on their way to find a place to hide out until the Zombies have been eliminated. Until they all make it out of our sight, we must hold the zombies back from the survivors. Even if it leads us to our death, we must hold the line and keep them from crossing the barricades. On the very day that the survivors make their way to safety and survival, the Police Departments of Washington State and the SWAT Department will be there to hold the zombies back and help." We took this as an opportunity to help out, but we had no weapons.

On our way back to our other friends, we found a bunker filled with weapons on the wall: Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Handguns, SMG, LMG, Shotgun, Knives. Everything was in there not to mention boxes filled with ammunition for each gun. One box of ammunition for each gun. Since we found these weapons, we all thought that God was trying to help us fulfill our duty. So based on what our firearm capabilities were, I decided to take the Assault Rifles since I can handle those easiest. Aaron also took the Assault Rifle because he thought they were more useful and had a decent range. Skye also took the Assault Rifle because she was not only better than me and Aaron, but she could also use the Assault Rifle as a melee Weapon. Kent, Dalton, and Patrick could work with any weapon, but Jack took an SMG because he can handle lightweight weapons better than any of us can. Kent took a sniper rifle since he kicked ass and was the best sniper in the group. Dalton chose the assault rifle because he was best with the assault rifle. And Patrick took the shotgun because he just enjoyed firing the shotgun. Chris took an LMG because he thought eh firepower for the LMG was just perfect for him. Theo decided to take the Sniper Rifle because he wanted to "show off" his great sniping skills (He actually doesn't have skills in sniping at all). And Nyquo, the last one to choose a weapon, decided to take an LMG because he thought the more firepower he had, the more zombies he could kill. Last but not least, we took a handgun and 4 grenades.

We went back to our survival home, and took our backpacks and came back to that bunker and filled our backpacks with ammunition that was appropriate for our choice of weapons. As for the handguns, we each took 5 clips since we would use our primary weapons more often than the weak handguns. As we traveled back to our survival home, we discussed what we should do in 2 days. Aaron, Kent, Jack and I thought we should help the survivors evacuate and hold the zombies until they were out of sight. So we decided to follow that plan. I went with Aaron, one of my greatest friends, to the other survivors to tell them the plan. 2 days later, we arrived on the freeway, where the Police and Swat were standing. We saw each Officer and Swat member holding a weapon, survivors were being evacuated out of the city and 20 ODST soldiers were leading them. Many people were being evacuated, and the survivors behind me were also leaving the city to get to safety. Finally the last of the civilians had gotten out of the city, and were on their way to a secret location that was unknown to all of us except for the ODST soldiers.

Approximately 10 minutes had passed by and the survivors were still in our sight, and the zombies had started swarming and we could see them. Of course, the snipers of the police department and Kent took position on a tower and started sniping the zombies that they could see through their scope. I saw zombie after zombie going down, yet there was no end to the zombies. Finally, it was time for the ground forces to shoot and for our turn to show our true power to the zombies. "Fire at will! Hold them back until the survivors get out of our sights!" I heard a Police officer yell. Of course, we all listened to his command and shot every zombie and killed the ones we could. Patrick on the other hand was out there with a shotgun, so Kent and Dalton had to watch his back while he was killing zombies. 30 minutes had gone by and the survivors had gone out of our sight, but the SWAT and police department was still fighting. I ran over to the police officer who was commanding, and I told him that we had to retreat. "No, you must get your friends out of here! We will hold them off while you run. If we fall, you will be humanity's last hope for survival!" He told me. So I yelled the names of each and every one of my friends, and together we ran to survive. I turned back and saw that everyone who was there had either been infected and became a zombie or were devoured. As we ran, we loaded our empty guns and continued running. This . . . is where our story begins.

	3. A Place to Camp Out

Running down the freeway to catch up with the other survivors was pretty hard, but there was a problem. As we continued to run down the freeway, I could not find a single survivor or ODST on the freeway. _Looks like we're on our own_, I thought. _If we don't find a safe place to camp out at night, we're zombie food for sure._ By the look of the sky, I could tell that nightfall was approaching fast.

The group was just standing around, watching the other way of the freeway while I was looking ahead of us. "Team, we need to seek out shelter before nightfall arrives!" I announced to my friends. "So our current task right now, is to find shelter in a group of three." "How do we contact you if we find shelter?" Nyquo asked. I answered his question by pulling out 9 earpiece communicators out of my backpack. "These are communicators, specially used by Marines for special missions." I announced, holding one up in front of me to let everyone see it. "Simply attach it to your ear, and you can contact anyone when you find shelter. I took these before we left the bunker since there was only about 20 of them and I thought that we would probably need them sometime." I gave one to everyone, and they attached it to their ears. "How do we use them?" Chris asked while he attached it. When you want to communicate one of us," I explained. "Make sure you press the button on the earpiece to turn on your microphone. There is a microphone on your earpiece that you can't see." Chris tried it, and spoke through the earpiece while it was on his ear. Of course, we all heard his voice through our earpiece, so it was 100% proven to have a microphone. "Alright, time to find shelter!" I announced.

"Team One is Kent, Jack and Patrick!" As I announced each team, one by one, they slowly approached each other. "Team Two is Aaron, Nyquo, and Dalton! And Team Three is Me, Skye and Chris!" Everyone had approached their teammates, ready to start the sub-mission. "On your journey to find shelter," I explained before we departed. "Make sure that its not in the open, no zombies are in it, its clear of any troublesome animals or creatures, and its big enough for all 9 of us! Good luck to one all!"

Each group made their way to looking for shelter. As for my group, we kind of stood around for a few minutes before we went to look for shelter. I looked at the faces of my teammates. Chris was ready to go, his face filled with confidence. Skye, on the other hand, seemed worried. And I knew exactly what she was worried about. "Don't worry, Skye." I tried to comfort her. "I'm sure Aaron and Nyquo will look after him for you. I know you guys are boyfriend and girlfriend and that he is really important to you." Skye turned to face me. "I know," she replied. "But Dalton is just really important to me. He's beyond important to me. So important that I can't even describe how important he is to me." Chris tried to help me comfort her. "Don't worry, Skye. I'm sure Aaron and Nyquo will protect him and he will come back in one piece to be with you." Chris spoke, sounding like a wise old Asian man. I couldn't let one of my friends be worried like that, so I decided to try and communicate with Aaron, Dalton and Nyquo.

"Aaron and Nyquo," I said through the communicator. "Go ahead." I heard them reply through their communicator. "Watch after Dalton, and make sure he doesn't get hurt. Dalton, be careful. This sub-mission has already gotten your girlfriend worried." Dalton knew how important Skye was to him, and he had to face the fact that if he didn't find shelter, their relationship would end in a zombie feast. "Don't worry, Skye." Dalton said through the communicator. "I'll make sure that I don't get hurt." And then everything went silent through the communicators. "Good Luck, Dalton. Be careful." Skye said, looking into the distant plains. And so we began our sub-mission.

Dalton, Aaron and Nyquo were in the plains, alone, searching for shelter. Looking everywhere, they found nothing but rocks and dirt. "If only we had water," Aaron announced. "What if we had water, Aaron?" Dalton questioned. Of course he knew that Aaron didn't have the answer, but Aaron replied anyways. "If we had water, this dirt could be made into shelter." Nyquo looked at the dirt on the ground. "Seems like we could," Nyquo commented. "But it would take a long time to make shelter out of dirt. Not to mention by the time we make shelter out of dirt, we'll be long gone from here." Aaron kicked the dirt in frustration. "GODDAMN IT!" He yelled. "WHY DID THIS STUPID ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE HAVE TO HAPPEN?" Dalton and Nyquo could see him sobbing about it. "We all know how hard it is to see your friends become undead zombies." Dalton tried to calm him down, and help him cope with the situation. "Trust me, Aaron. None of the zombies were made from dust or dirt. They're all people that used to be human. People that used to be like us, and people that used to be our friends."

As Dalton was talking to Aaron, Nyquo looked around, in search of shelter. He finally spotted something that seemed to look like shelter. _Hmm . . . _he thought to himself. _Big place. Looks like a camp. I need to take a better look at it. _He turned around and told Dalton and Aaron, who seemed to only be sniffling after a talk with Dalton. "Hey guys, I think I just found us some shelter. But we need to investigate it. Because it looks like a camp, but I can't really tell for sure." Dalton and Aaron stood up and looked to where Nyquo had pointed. "Good work, Nyquo." Dalton complimented Nyquo on his searching. "Let's go investigate it then." Aaron said. Together the three of them went to investigate the so-called camp.

When they arrived, none of what Nyquo had seen looked like a camp. It looked more like a military base. "Guess I was wrong," Nyquo doubted himself. The group continued to investigate the area, looking inside the tents that were standing up. Right when Aaron had entered a tent, a gust of wind blew on his back. He turned around to find no one and nothing there. "Dalton? Nyquo?" He called out. No answer. And then he felt it. He felt a presence behind him. He slowly raised his assault rifle and turned to face the presence. When he faced the presence, he found out it was Dalton. "OMG!" he exclaimed. "Are you trying to kill me or something? You scared the shit out of me!" Dalton laughed, finding Aaron's reactions to be very hilarious. "I'm sorry, man," he apologized. But Nyquo and I just finished investigating this place. It looks like a base of some sort." Nyquo came in from the other side. Yeah, but we haven't gone inside yet because it looks pretty big on the outside and we may need the others to get here to help us." Nyquo explained. "Good idea, Nyquo." Aaron complimented. He then pushed the button on his communicator. "Team 1 and 3, come in. Over!" Aaron said, as if a professional military officer. "Team 1, go ahead." The 3 of them heard Jack's voice through the communicator. "Team 3, go ahead." They also heard Skye's voice through the communicator. "We've located a military base of some sort. We've investigated the outside, but the inside has yet to be investigated." Aaron explained. "Do you think you can head over and help us investigate the inside? It could be filled with traps." There was a short period of silence. "We're on our way, Team 2." Skye and Jack said at the same time. "Over and out."

"What should we do now?" Nyquo asked. "Well," Dalton started to suggest. "We could throw our knife until they get here." Aaron and Nyquo nodded in agreement. "Then let's do it! Whoever throws it the farthest gets to do the honors of opening the doors later!" Then they started throwing their knife and ran to pick it up and throw it once again.

	4. New Shelter, Team Problems

Jack and my group arrived approximately 15 minutes later, while Dalton Nyquo and Aaron laid in front of the huge military base. "Geez, what took you so long?" Dalton asked. "We were on our way when we saw Jack, Patrick and Kent." I replied. "It looked like Patrick needed some help carrying some stuff. So we decided to help." Nyquo, Aaron and Dalton stood up at the same time, and dusted off their pants. "Well," Nyquo started. "Are we going to investigate this base or are we going to stand around and chit chat all day?" Everyone looked at each other, then back at Nyquo. "I thought so." He added. Dalton, Nyquo and Aaron then led me, Kent, Jack, Skye, Patrick and Chris to the front door of the base. "Get ready guys." I warned, raising his Assault Rifle and ready to fire. "Who knows what could jump out once the door opens? Whenever you're ready, Dalton." Dalton and Nyquo then went to pull open the door while Aaron just stood there, knowing that he couldn't really help in any way to open the door.

When the door was open, lights filled the inside. Everything that was hidden by the darkness was revealed by the light. "Wow," Chris exclaimed. "I didn't know that the lights activate on its own." No one paid attention to his comments, but rather took small steps toward the building, just to be sure that nothing would leap out at them. "Alright," I called out as they neared the entrance. "Lets move in. It seems safe. But be careful, there may be traps anywhere." All 9 of them entered, and looked around. Tables were everywhere, chairs were no where to be seen. There was a couple doors on each wall. "Should we split up into teams to investigate each door, Phuoc?" Patrick asked. "Good question." I replied. "Since we are inside the building, there is pfrobably no need to be in groups." I explained thoroughly. "Everyone go to a door, open it and investigate each room. See if you can find anything on the virus." And everyone scattered. There were 9 doors, for 9 people to investigate. I went to investigate a door, Skye went to investigate a door, and so did everyone else.

Aaron investigated the door closest to the entrance. When he opened it, lights flickered on and off, then stayed on for the rest of the time he was in there. He found nothing interesting, cabinets, a computer, the basic office furniture. But he found a couple of interesting books. One of the books was labeled _The Living Dead_, a book that explained features of the undead. Another book was called _2012_, explaining what would happen in the year 2012. And one more book that he found was called _Supernatural Creatures_, which just talked about mythical animals like the Werewolf, and the Vampire, and of course, the Zombie. Since none of this was helpful, he decided to leave the room, and close the door.

Nyquo took the door next to Aaron's door. He opened it and found Janitor stuff, a mop, broom with dustpan, and of course cleaning products. He left the room and closed the door. For some reason, Patrick, Jack, Kent and Dalton opened separate doors, and found the same thing that was behind Nyquo's door. Behind Skye's door, was just plain empty so she just closed it and walked back to the other guys. Chris also found an empty room, but decided to investigate it a little more. When he walked into the room, the walls inside suddenly flipped, making Chris freak out and spraying his firearm randomly at the walls. Of course, everyone ran to his door and peered inside. They found that he was shooting at walls that had timed explosives attached. Everyone laughed, and Chris panted and walked out of the room and closed the door.

My door was quite surprising though. When I opened it, I looked inside and found a small table with some papers and documents on the table. Looking through each one, I found one that talked about the virus that had made people into zombies. The document stated, "People refer this virus to the T-Virus, from the _Resident Evil _movie, books, and game series. However, it is not called the T-Virus, it's called the _2012 Disease_. Scientists call this virus by that because the virus had occurred in 2012, and by the time they had figured out how to resolve the problem, it was too late. They thought it was going to be the end of the world and so came the name for it, _2012 Disease_." _This is useful information_, I thought to myself. I continued to read. "Much like sci-fi zombies, the best way to kill them is by burning, headshot, or breaking all of their bones, which would cause instant death. Of course, no matter how many you kill, there will always be more to replace that one zombie. If you are reading this paper, know that it is already too late to try and do anything. All you can do is survive. If you must know who I am, I am John. This is the first time I've seen these creatures. I am still alive, but I am hiding out until a group of people find me. If they find me, I can help them on their journey to defeat the undead army. This army is humongous, so do not engage it by yourself."

That was all it said. I was really confused for a moment, and then realized that their only chance was finding John. With John, they could find the other survivors and then fight the undead army. He walked out of the room and closed the door gently, then walked to his friends who were chatting. Once they saw him, they stopped their conversations and looked at him. "I have some good news and some bad news." I announced. "What's the good news?" Jack asked. "And what's the bad news?" Kent asked. I simply replied by saying,

"The good news is that I've found out that this is not actually the T-Virus. Its actually called the _2012 disease_. There is a man out there that is hiding out and if we find him, we can ask for his help to defeat the zombie army that plans to take over the world. He has knowledge in killing these zombies quickly and easily. The bad news is that I don't know where he is, and by the look of outside, nightfall has come. We need to shut the doors immediately and rest for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will continue our journey to find survivors and this man. That is all."

When I finished my speech, Dalton and Nyquo went to shut the doors of the base immediately, and pushed the tables to the door to reinforce it. Since they were going to rest for tomorrow, there had to be 2 people guarding the others and switch off every few hours so that everyone got the same amount of sleep. Before they went to sleep though, the 9 of us were talking about "stuff".

"So . . ." Aaron asked. "Does anyone not enjoy this place?" Chris raised his hand. "I didn't because the walls flipped suddenly and it freaked me out!" Everyone laughed at him, but it soon settled. "Did anyone find anything interesting in the rooms that they investigated?" I asked. "I would say books, but I don't want to be a bookworm," Aaron said. Again, some of them laughed at that but some kept quiet, knowing not to disrespect others. "I found a janitor's room," Jack said. "So did I," Nyquo, Kent, Dalton and Patrick said at the same time. "Well, I found an empty room," Skye said. Everyone looked at her, then just sat there, waiting for someone to talk.

"Man, Patrick. You sure are good at carrying stuff for me and Kent." Jack complimented Patrick on his strength. "Yeah. I think you could grow up to carry things for people." Kent added. Jack and Kent laughed together. Patrick started to look down on the ground, and I was angered by my friend's actions. "Hey, Jack! Hey Kent!" I called out. They stopped laughing and looked at me. "Is this how you treat a teammate? Is this how you treat a friend? You need to get your acts together. You upset Patrick, and you sit there and laugh about it. Do you think that I would sit there and let that happen?" I started to yell. Kent and Jack stood up to face me, but Chris and Dalton stood up to defend me. "He's right, guys." Chris said. "You need to treat people with respect." Dalton added. "Shut the fuck up, you bastard. Chris, you're still an undergraduate." Jack pointed out.

I landed a punch right to his face, sending him back a couple steps. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, JACK?" I was really pissed off now. Never has anyone ever seen me this angry before. "THIS IS ALL A JOKE TO YOU ISN'T IT? YOU TREAT EVERYONE LIKE GARBAGE DON'T YOU? EXCEPT FOR YOUR BUDDY, KENT! WELL GUESS WHAT? IF YOU DO THAT AGAIN, DON'T EVEN LOOK AT ME AS YOUR FRIEND! DON'T EVEN LOOK AT ANY OF US AS YOUR TEAMMATES!"

I stopped yelling, walked away, and cried. Jack stood there, shocked to be yelled at by his friend, when he was stronger than me. Kent understood everything that I had said, and went to comfort him. Skye and Dalton joined Kent to comfort him. Nyquo, Chris, Aaron and Patrick joined them to comfort me. I stopped crying a few minutes later, and felt glad that he had defended a great friend. He was glad that his friends had understood what was right and what was wrong. "Kent, I'm glad that you understand me." I thanked Kent. "I should be sorry," Kent apologized. "Phuoc, I'm sorry I don't know how to treat people. I should know better. Patrick, I'm sorry for treating you like garbage. Can you forgive me for that?" Patrick nodded and gave Kent a hug, earning himself a hug. Jack then walked over. "Phuoc," he called out. "I'm very sorry for not treating people with respect. I promise that I will treat others with respect from now on. Phuoc, Patrick, can you forgive me?" Jack was begging for forgiveness, and we had both given it to him. Patrick and I gave him a hug, and earned themselves a hug.

The team had finally come to it's senses, and has decided to put aside its differences and become one. "It's past 11 PM," I announced. "Let's get some rest. Kent and I will take the first shift of guarding. Sleep tight, we'll call someone else awake in an hour and a half." And so everyone went to sleep, and me and Kent sat there with our firearms in hand and watched over our teammates.

	5. Strange Place

At 7 in the morning, I woke up and found no one guarding us. I was pretty surprised that we were left unguarded while everyone slept. Not one person was missing. Dalton was sleeping while Skye lay on his legs, sleeping. Kent seemed to have rolled a couple feet away from the group. Aaron was sleeping near one of the doors. Jack and Patrick were against the walls, sleeping peacefully. Nyquo was just sleeping on his side, mumbling stuff that I couldn't make out what it was that he was saying. And Chris was sleeping near me, laying on his back. Seeing that I was the only one awake at the time, I decided to go remove the tables and open the doors to bring in the light and go outside for some fresh air.

Removing the tables was hard work and opening the door alone was tough work, but I managed to get it done. I walked outside, a took a few breaths of air. I then walked out of the area, to get some exercise and wake up the rest of my body. I walked out into the rocky plains, where there wasn't really any life in it. I was walking, when I suddenly spotted a long line of figures walking. I ran back inside the base to look for something that could let me see things from a range, and found Kent's sniper rifle. I took it and ran back out and looked through the scope at the line of figures. I couldn't believe my eyes! There were zombies heading right for us. I ran back inside to warn my friends and team members.

"Wake up! We got company!" I said loudly, hoping to wake everyone up. Of course, everyone did wake up. Chris sat up and yawned, then he asked, "What's going on?" I ran to gather everyone's weapons, and backpacks and gave it to them. "There's no time!" I rushed. "There's a huge horde of zombies coming this way right now! If we don't move, we're going to be their breakfast!" Kent and Jack stood up in alarm. "WHAT?" They said at the same time. Everyone else stood up in alarm as well. "There's no time!" I repeated. "We have to move now!" We all wore our backpacks and wielded our weapons, then ran out the door and the other way, running from the zombies. For some reason, we stopped running and turned back. Kent looked through his sniper rifle scope. "There's not that many, Phuoc," Kent stated. "We could take them." I was surprised that the amount that the amount of zombies I saw was wrong. "Really?" I questioned. "Well then who wants to warm up their day with some zombie killing?" Everyone raised their hand. Skye was still sleepy, but she raised her hand. "Then lets go." I stated. "Kent, can you snipe them while we're up there?" Kent nodded. "Watch our backs for us." I started to arrange the groups right then. "Jack, Dalton, Patrick, and Skye will go as a group out there first." I assigned. "Me, Chris, Nyquo and Aaron will follow you once we hear gunfire." Jack, Dalton, Patrick and Skye moved out towards the zombies immediately. It wasn't long before the first shots were fired, and I moved in with my group, leaving Kent to snipe and watch our backs for us. As we arrived at the battlefield, I saw a large number of zombies surround Skye. "Help!" I heard her yell. "Dalton, Skye needs our help now!" I called to Dalton. He turned around and saw Skye's position. He sprayed his assault rifle at the zombies, but that didn't do any good to them. I saw them get hit, but they weren't really dying of it because the bullets were barely making them bleed. "Nyquo, Chris! Light them up! Dalton, go get Skye! We got your back!" I ordered. Nyquo and Chris fired their LMGs and I saw zombies starting to fall. Dalton rushed in there and pulled her out, and moved away from the zombies, pulling her along with him. "Are you alright?" Dalton, asked Skye. She nodded, stood back up and continued fighting. This time, Dalton followed her and protected her. We all continued to fight, and I could see each zombie that was being shot down. I saw headless corpses on the ground. Pretty soon, the battle had ended and the zombies were defeated, for the time being. We all cheered, but I was sure of something.

If the zombies had found out that we were here, then soon enough another group will arrive as well. "We need to move out!" I yelled. "This zombie group was a mere distraction for another group of zombies to come for us." We all started running back to Kent, and then we altogether started moving again, this time away from the base. "Wait," Chris called out. We all stopped. "We don't have time to stop, Chris." Jack said. "I know," Chris replied. "But back at the base, when I investigated that room, there was the explosives on the walls. Perhaps we could find some use for those." I understood right then what he was thinking. "Kent, I need you, Jack, Dalton, Patrick and Skye to stay here, and watch out for any zombies," I told them. "Nyquo, Aaron, Chris. Come with me. We're gong to lay out mines, if there are any." The 5 of us sprinted back and went into that room, and found mines, a metal explosive device that would explode when anything came into contact with it. We picked up the mines, probably 10 each person, and ran back out and layer them out in the field, 25 feet from each other. "Ok, let's move," I said when we finished. We then started running.

We didn't stop running until we were sure enough that we were far away from the place we stayed at. When we had finally reached a new terrain, I had stayed in one place to look throughout the terrain. This terrain had grass, fresh and healthy with trees growing here and there. Of course, the whole crew looked around too. I found nothing that seemed to be helpful to us, but the plants we could eat for food. And so my crew and I dined on the grass for lunch. We ate a good amount that filled us up with enough energy to continue traveling. "I can't believe that zombies would actually be able to find us," Nyquo said out of the silence. Everyone agreed. I sat there and listened. "How did they track us?" For one thing, I knew that we must have left something behind that had led them to us. And then I remembered that zombies could sense anything from any distance. "Their senses." I added. Nyquo looked at me funny. "I mean, they can smell anything from a distance, so I guess that's how they found us. And the city is probably overrun by zombies already anyways." Nyquo nodded his head in agreement. "I say we start moving again before they track us again," Kent added. I looked at the faces of my team. Everyone had agreed with him and I knew that I too should agree with Kent.

"Ok, here's the plan," I said, trying to coordinate a plan that wouldn't lead the zombies to us. "We will travel day and night, for 5 days. That way we can increase our distance by a bunch. Zombies are most active at night, so they can't track us during the day. If we're going to survive, we need to move and find survivors to help us fight." And then I heard a voice. "You're right!" It had said. I looked around and saw no one. "Did you guys hear that?" I asked my friends. Everyone shook their heads. Suddenly, a blur of color flashed in front of me, and this time my friends saw it. We became cautious, and readied our weapons. Suddenly, 2 figures stopped and stood in front of us. They were wearing armor. From the looks of the armor, it looked like Mark V armor, the ones from Halo that Master Chief had once worn. They were about 6 or 7 feet tall. "Don't worry, its only us, Phuoc." One of the figures stated. How did this person know my name? "Who are you?" I questioned. They took off their helmets. When I saw the faces of the 2 figures, I was so surprised! It was . . .

	6. New Allies

When the Spartans had taken off their helmets, I realized then who it was. It was one of my high school friends and his best friend. It was Alan and Aden! "Alan! Aden!" I yelled in excitement. "How did you know I was here?" Alan stood there and laughed. "Our base is in this terrain. We monitor all life forms here." Aden explained. I was surprised. "Well, it's a really nice place," Skye commented. "If I lived in a place like this, it would be heaven." Everyone laughed. "Yes, it is a nice place to live," Alan commented. "I've been here ever since I graduated, and Aden ditched school to join me," he explained. Aden nodded, showing that Alan was correct.

"I know who you're looking for, and I know many more things about him." Jack and Kent looked at each other, then back at Alan and Aden. "Where did you get that armor?" Kent asked, curiously. "Can we get that armor too?" Jack asked. Soon the air was filled with questions about the Mark V that Alan was wearing and the Mark VII that Aden was wearing.

Alan raised both of his hands to stop them from asking so many questions. I stood there and chuckled. "First of all." Alan started. This armor, if you should already have recognized it, is the armor that Master Chief wore. Second, I got this from someone you call John." We all stood there with our mouths open.

Suddenly, Kent charged at Alan and grabbed his neck. "Tell me where he is!" Kent threatened. "Tell me where I can get this armor or I'll blow your brains out!" Alan didn't fear Kent's threats one bit. "I would get take my hands off if I were you," Alan warned. "I'm sure you don't want to suffer a tragic death." Kent raised one hand, and clumped it into a fist.

Right then, I ran over and grabbed his fist and stopped him. "Easy there, Kent." I eased him. "Just take your hands off of my friend. He's harmless, and he won't go down without a fight. And do you think that you can win against him while he wears that suit?" Kent took his hand off of Alan's throat, and then lowered his fist. Dalton walked over and put his hand on Kent's shoulder and led him back to the group. Skye walked up to Alan and apologized. "I'm sorry about that. Kent is desperate for survival. He'll do absolutely anything to survive." Alan shook his head. "Its alright. I don't blame him." Alan replied calmly.

"Hey Kent!" Alan called out to him. Kent turned around and looked at him with angry eyes. "If you wanted this kind of armor, why didn't you ask?" Suddenly Kent's eyes widened and then he was jumping for joy. "REALLY?" Alan nodded his head. "In fact, why don't I give everyone here a set of armor. The color is your choice." Suddenly everyone was jumping for joy and cheering. "Oh my god!" and "This guy is awesome!" and "I could rely on this guy for survival!" filled the air. Aden stepped forward and said, "Follow me everyone!" Everyone followed him. He picked up his helmet, and so did Alan, and Aden led them to a different place while Alan stayed back to chat with me for a bit.

"How have you been, Alan?" I asked him. "Fine. How about you?" He asked me the same question, and I gave him the same answer. "Who are all these people that are following you?" He asked me, hoping that I could tell him who they were. The thing was that they were my friends, and 5 of them were my guild members on Xbox live, but 4 of them were just friends. "I'll tell you when we get to your place," I replied. "There, you can get to know them better." Alan looked at the sky. "Have you ever thought of what you were going to do after high school?" I asked Alan in curiosity. I could see in Alan's eyes that he had no clue, and he did give me that answer too. "What are you going to be, Phuoc?" "Video Game creator. It's been my dream ever since I started playing Halo 3 on Xbox live. But, somehow I think that that will be a long time before it actually comes true." I explained to him that the FPS games that I play really convinced me to become a video game creator.

A little later, we arrived at a large building. This building was gray, and there was 5 floors, or that's what I thought. "Here we are," Alan stated, looking at the building. Aden ran to open the door while everyone stood, amazed at how big it looked. "Holy shit! This is big!" Patrick said in amazement. "Wait till you see the inside," Aden hinted. "It's more amazing in there." Aden went through a series of security systems. From what I saw, he went through an pass code, eye scan, hand scan, and voice confirmation. There was however, another side of the door that had the same thing. Alan did his thing over there, the usual pass code, eye scan, hand scan, and voice confirmation. And the doors opened slowly.

"Welcome," a computer voice said. "Come on in, Phuoc. Your friends can too." Alan invited us. For me this was the first time I've actually been in such a large house. It looked so nice! It had the chandeliers, the fancy furniture. I thought this was a good time to introduce Alan and Aden to the crew. "Hey Alan, Aden!" I called out. They came and asked, "What?" I walked them over to the crew. "I want to introduce you to my friends. Guys! Come here, I'll introduce you to Alan and Aden." Skye, was the first to arrive, Kent being the next, and then Dalton, then Patrick, then Chris, then Jack, then Aaron, and then finally Nyquo.

"Alan, Aden. I travel in a group of 8 friends, plus me is the 9th member. I am the leader of the group, and this here is Kent." I pointed at Kent. "Hello," he greeted, and shook hands with Alan and Aden. "He is a professional at sniping, which is why he carries the sniper rifle. This here is Jack. He's only been a nicer guy ever since I gave him a lesson on how to treat people. This girl here is Skye. She's the only girl in the group, and she is the girlfriend of Dalton, this guy right here. He's an easy guy to get along with. Next we have Patrick, the shotgunner of the group. Don't piss him off, he'll blow your head into a million pieces. Hahaha, just kidding. This here is Aaron, which you know. Nyquo is the black guy. No offense, Nyquo. He knows hand to hand combat and he's not that reliable for trust. He can, however, be trusted for cover. Chris is the last one, and he was someone I actually met somewhere. I don't remember where I met him."

Finally! I finished introducing the crew to Alan and Aden. I was so tired, but I had 2 more introductions to make, and it was introducing Alan and Aden to the crew. Of course, Alan and Aden had already shook hands with each and every one of the group members.

"Guys, this is Alan. He is a friend of mines from high school. He's extremely intelligent, but not a nerd." Everyone busted out laughing., but soon the laughter faded. "And this is his best friend, Aden. Aden is also an excellent kid, but watch his temper. He'll tear you into a million pieces of you piss him off, like Patrick." Now I was finished making my introductions.

"Computer, bring out the Halo armor suits and the fitting machine." Aden commanded. "Confirmed: Halo armor suits brought out and fitting machine brought out. Please step into the fitting machine." the computer had said. Kent went first, and stepped into the fitting machine. "Please state color of armor you wish to wear." Kent did as the computer had asked. When he stepped out of the machine, he was wearing a blue halo armor suit. Skye went next, and she came out wearing a purple halo armor suit. Dalton went next and came out wearing a green halo armor suit. Patrick stepped into the machine next, and came out wearing a yellow halo armor suit. Jack came next and stepped out of the machine with a red halo armor suit. Aaron stepped into the machine and came out wearing a black halo armor suit. Nyquo stepped into the machine and came out wearing a blue halo armor suit. Chris stepped in and came out wearing a blue halo armor suit. I, the last person to go, stepped into the machine and came out wearing a black halo armor suit. "Computer, you are dismissed." Aden said, and the computer retreated the armor suits and the fitting machine.

"There is one disability of this suit though," Aden warned. We suddenly looked at him, listening to his warning. "If a zombie touches your suit, you can say goodbye to the world. They can infect you by biting, but with the suit on, they can infect you by biting you or touching the suit." Nyquo suddenly had the look of fear. "You see, if zombie blood gets onto your suit, the suit treats it as H2O and makes it into air for you to breath. If you breath this zombie blood, you will become a zombie." I understood what he said, everyone understood what Aden had said. "In other words," I added. "Don't let the zombies touch you." Everyone nodded their heads.

"Time for a grand tour of the house!" Aden said. Everyone turned their attention towards him. "Follow me, people!" We all followed him, and he led us to a room. "This is the weaponry and ammunition room. We store all of our weapons here so that we can get to it easily as well as ammunition." Kent looked around and was impressed by the number of weapons that were there. "This is the shooting range, which was built for increasing accuracy with your weapons." Jack seemed interested in this. "May I try it real quick?" Jack asked. Aden nodded and said, "Computer, activate shooting range targets!"

Then the computer voice activated. "Confirmed: Targets activated. Please begin shooting in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Go!" Jack fired his SMG without aiming down. He hit each target without fail, but when the end came, his accuracy rating said: 96%. He seemed as if he wasn't proud of his accuracy rating. "You can continue to practice later. For now, we should continue." Aden led us to the next room. This room was filled with chairs, and up front of the room was a screen. "This is the entertainment room, specialized for movies." We moved on, Aaron looking back and looking interested in it. We came to another room. "This is the music room, where you can listen to music." No one seemed interested in the room, but we continued to move on anyways. "This room that we are in right now is the VIDEO GAMING ROOM!" Aden yelled loudly. I could see why it was called the video gaming room. There was big TV screens and multiple Xbox 360, PS3, WII consoles, and computers. We moved onto the final room. "This last room is the room where we rest at night. It's where we all sleep at night. Its pretty big, so it can fit us all. And plus if we all sleep in one room, we can watch over each other rather than being in separate rooms."

Aden then led us back to the main room. "There's one more place I want to show you, but we only use it when there are zombies in sight." Aden explained. He was being serious. I could tell because when someone is serious, they sound a lot different. "The stairs back there, it leads to the balcony where the snipers shoot from. Its safe as long as the non-snipers stay below on ground level and keep the zombies back."

While I was listening to Aden's explanation about the balcony, I started to think about recruiting Alan and Aden to join the group. _If they join the group, then we would have 2 more members and we could find John more easily._ "Hey Alan and Aden. Would you care to join the group?" I asked Alan and Aden. They just nodded their heads and said "yes" without hesitation. "Really?" Everyone asked at the same time. Alan nodded, and so did Aden. We earned two new allies, and now that the group grew to 11 members, we would have slightly more protection.

	7. Kent's Tribute

Ever since the group has met Alan and Aden, they seem to be enjoying themselves and really show that they accept Alan and Aden as a group. I'm proud of my friends to make 2 new friends. A couple days ago, Alan had taken the 9 of us to run through the security scans so that we can also access the building if we went out to somewhere, which I thought that probably wasn't going to happen. We've also been doing some of our own things too.

Jack has been at the shooting range almost every day . . . To increase his accuracy to 100%. "I will continue to go to the shooting range every day until my accuracy is 100%!" He swore the other day. Patrick was also at the shooting range to increase his accuracy with the shotgun. _I have no clue how he can increase his accuracy with a shotgun_, I thought to myself. _I'm thinking that the only way to have high accuracy with a shotgun is by close-range shooting_.

Aaron is always in the music room. He's been trying to write music about the zombie apocalypse. "I have to write about this because one day people will listen to this song and remember what people like the 11 of us have faced." Aaron stated just yesterday. Nyquo, Chris, Aden and Alan were in the entertainment room, watching _Resident Evil Afterlife_. Seems like that one movie series is the only one that actually relates to zombies more than anything else.

Kent, Dalton, Skye and I have been in the video gaming room. Kent, Dalton, and Skye have been playing Call of Duty Black Ops zombies with glitches active while I was on the computer just playing Maplestory. I thought that since the zombie apocalypse had occurred, there wouldn't be anyone playing Maplestory. Turns out to be true because the population of every server was 0, except for Windia. The population for Windia was 1, which was me. Although it got boring as I continued to level without any competition.

We were doing our own stuff one day, when the alarm went off all of a sudden. I fell out of my chair, and landed on my ass. It hurt, but I'm glad it didn't leave any marks. "ZOMBIES SPOTTED!" The computer voice had said. "I REPEAT! ZOMBIES SPOTTED!" I stood up to take action immediately. "Shit!" I said aloud. "We need the snipers up on the balcony now! Kent, go to the balcony! I'll fetch Alan to go up there with you!" Kent, in his Halo armor suit, sprinted out of the room, and disappeared from my sight. "Dalton and Skye! Get outside and get ready to defend! I'll fetch the others just to make sure that they know!" Dalton and Skye also sprinted out of the room and disappeared from my sight. As I sprinted into the other rooms, I noticed that no one was in there, meaning that they had already been alerted and were already out there. I went outside on ground level and joined my friends who were on ground level.

"How's it looking up there, Alan?" I yelled to make sure Alan heard me. "There seems to be a lot of zombies out there! I activated the minefield! So All we have to do is wait for them to come and then we can make our defensive move!" I heard Alan, and I looked out there to see some mines flashing red lights, warning that it was a mine field. "Hey Phuoc, I got an idea," Patrick told me. He was standing next to me the whole time, and I didn't even know. I must have been too busy about the zombies. "What's you plan, Patrick? I think we can use a really good plan right now." I told him. I was waiting for him to tell me his plan so that I could make it happen if possible. "Well, see those mines out there?" He pointed at the mines. I nodded, telling him that I could see them. "If they are active right now, it would kill less zombies if only the front line zombies hit the mines. All explosives have a certain explosion radius of something. If we deactivate the minefield, then we can let the zombies get closer. When they are about 50 feet from us, we can activate it so that the mines can damage all the zombies that it can possibly damage. And possibly kill a couple hundred for us!" I knew right then, after hearing Patrick's idea, that this could work.

_All of us will go out there to try and kill as many zombies as we can without being surrounded._ I thought. _When the time comes for the minefield to be activated, I'll tell Alan to activate it so that we don't have to worry about being overrun_. "Alan! Deactivate the mines!" I said to Alan, who was busy trying to shoot some zombies. I could see that he was nailing some headshots, but Kent was nailing more than Alan could. "Why?" Alan Questioned me. "If I deactivate it, they'll overrun us!" I called out to all my friends, so that they could hear me. I then explained the plan, and said that it was a good idea presented to me by Patrick. Alan turned off the minefield without another question.

As I walked out there, I signaled for a V formation, making Patrick the tip of the V and everyone else the sides of the V. I could hear the sniper shots of Alan and Kent in the distance. When we got far enough from the mansion, we made a different formation, a horizontal line, and stood our ground. While I saw zombie after zombie fall, I could tell that the 9 of us on ground level were ready to put up a fight. When they were 20 feet in front of us, we fired and walked back slowly so that they couldn't touch us one bit. I saw that Jack was nailing headshots now, and he had no trouble at all. It looked like he had finally mastered the SMG. As I fired, I saw that Skye had stumbled on a rock, and fell. Dalton ran over to help her up, but it seemed like she couldn't. All of us ran over and backed them up and she finally got up and we ran all the way back to the doors of the mansion.

"Alan! Activate it now!" I yelled to Alan, who was ahead of me and activated it. I heard multiple explosions out there, and when I looked out there . . . It was raining body parts, mombie body parts. I looked up this time and asked Kent, "How many more zombies are there?" Kent replied, saying "Only 50 left!" Then I heard Alan say, "NO! THIS CAN'T BE!" I looked out there, and I saw some zombies moving incredibly fast. "IT'S ZOMBIE DOGS! WE'RE DONE FOR!" I realized that zombie dogs were harder to take down than regular zombies. Kent came down, and had a vest with a time bomb attached to it. I knew what he was about to do.

"You guys get out of here! I'll stall them and buy you some time!" He said. "No! I won't let you do this Kent!" I tried to reason with him. "You're too good of a teammate to die! You can't sacrifice yourself!" Others were also trying to reason with him, but he refused. "I owe everyone here a deep gratitude for being my friend this past year." He said calmly. I coudl see in his eyes that tears were starting to build up. "We've been through so much together. I can't let my friends die this way, which is why I must do this." Kent walked over to Patrick. Patrick was holding his shotgun when Kent handed him his sniper rifle. "I'm sorry Patrick. I treated you wrong ever since I met you. Please do me a favor: take my sniper rifle, and make sure no one here dies." Patrick was shedding tears, sad to see someone who treated him so badly, sacrifice themselves for him and his friends. Patrick nodded his head, and took the sniper rifle, and handed Kent the shotgun. Kent turned his back to his friends. "I'm a Japanese zombie fighter. I've been fighting alongside them ever since the zombie apocalypse started." He was saying his last words before he went into battle, alone. "Today I sacrifice myself for my friends to continue on with their mission. As a Japanese warrior, I will not go down without a fight!" In Japanese terms, this would be called "Kamikaze". "Phuoc, get them out of here now while I handle the dogs and the remaining zombies!" He yelled, running right at the zombies with the time bomb.

I was crying, but now wasn't the time to be doing that. I had to do what he wanted me to do. If I was in his position, I would request the same thing. "Thank you for everything, guys." We heard him say through his communicator. I led everyone away from the mansion, and he was killing dog after dog with the shotgun, sacrificing himself to save his friends. When we were a mile away from the mansion, I turned around and saw the explosion. My friends turned around t see the explosion. We all saluted him, and said our final words. When we finished, we found ourselves crying.

"We can't cry just because Kent just sacrificed himself for us." I explained. "We have to move on. We can't let his death be in vain! Let us find the mysterious John and survivors who will be willing to help us in our battle against the undead!" I had finally explained it to them in terms that they could understand. Even though we had just lost one of our greatest friends, we have to keep moving because what Kent did for us was something not everyone could do. He sacrificed himself for us, and his death will not be in vain. I will make sure that it will be avenged. Next time, I'll make sure that none of my friends die ever again. I'll protect them, even if it means . . . sacrificing myself for them.

	8. Investigating a Secret

It's been a week since we last saw Kent. We're only here because of him. If he didn't make a suicidal bombing, we would've been dog food. I blame myself every time that comes back into my memory. I find it hard to believe that one of my own friends bombed himself and a large number of zombies just to save his own friends. Of course, I do owe him a great amount for what he has done for me the past year. I've been trying to forget that incident, hoping I don't get affected by it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work because Kent has done so much for me, and I never had the chance to thank him for it.

We've all been having our own thoughts about him. Despite how he has treated Skye, she still remembers him for his bravery to save the group. Jack hasn't been himself lately ever since the incident. He seems like he has lost his best friend, when all he actually does is make fun of other people all the time. Patrick and Dalton have been down, but not totally out from giving up. I've heard them say their words of trust, "We'll fight alongside you till the end." It lifted me, encouraged me to not be affected by Kent's Death. Aaron has been thinking of another song to write for Kent's tribute and sacrifice. Nyquo has just been sitting around thinking of how he met Kent in the first place. Apparently, he doesn't really remember. Alan and Aden don't have much to think about, but they know that what Kent did was very brave of him, and very courageous. And Chris has been thinking about the times that he and Kent had fought as a team.

Ever since the zombies found out our hideout at the mansion, we had to ditch it and keep traveling. The good thing is that the group and I are strong in weapons and numbers. There may be more zombies than the group, but we have the firepower to hold them back. We travel by day, and without risking the safety of our teammates at night, I decided that we rest by night and I will guard them with 2 other people that are willing to join me.

We arrived in a city a few days ago, and found the city to be in a complete mess. As I looked at each building, I noticed that all the glass was broken, and there was cars left all around. I could see plenty of trash out on the streets. "What a mess!" Skye said, disappointed to see the city the way it is. "Must have happened after the zombie apocalypse." Patrick walked ahead of the group, hoping to find something that would help him find what he needed. "What are you looking for?" Aaron asked. Nyquo was looking down the streets. "I'm looking for a place to eat! I'm hungry as fuck!" he replied. We laughed, finding him very hilarious to be hungry at a time like this.

I knew that we needed to investigate this city for any survivors or weapons that we could use. Every building seemed very big, which surprised me because I only saw one small building, which had no name or anything on it. All there was was a door. "We need to investigate and search for survivors. We travel in pairs. " I ordered. Of course, everyone had prepared for this and chose their partners. I expected Skye to choose Dalton as her partner, but she chose me as her partner. "If you find anything interesting or need anything, we can hear you on the communicator. Move out." Everyone moved, and Skye and I went to this really large building. "I forgot to say," I said through the communicator, adding a warning. "Be careful, we don't know where the zombies are in this city."

When Skye and I walked toward the very large building, I asked her, "Why did you choose me as your partner?" She seemed to be concentrated on the building. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. What did you say?" She admitted that she was distracted. "I asked why you chose me as your partner." I rephrased the question. "Well," she started. "I want to be with someone else for a change this time. You're sweet. I like you, just not . . . 'love' like. You're so nice to everyone that I just want to be your partner to see what it's like to hang out with someone like you." I couldn't find the words to reply to her. "I also find you to be a cute boy." I blushed, my face turning bright red. "Well, I find you to be a very cute and beautiful girl." I replied quickly, trying to remove the redness in my face. Unfortunately, it didn't work. But when we opened the doors to the large building and entered, I could feel the heat in my cheeks go away, meaning that my face was back to its normal color.

"Stay near me, Skye." I warned her. She nodded, and stood close, but continuing to investigate. From the looks of it, it looked as if the building had been ransacked. The tables and chairs were destroyed, and papers were everywhere. Skye was still looking around, so I decided to follow her to make sure that she doesn't get hurt. "Let's move to the next floor, Skye." I told her, knowing that there was nothing of importance on the first floor. We turned on our flashlights and continued moving up the stairs to the next floor. When we arrived on the next floor, there was a series of doors. I opened the first door with Skye behind me, ready to shoot whatever was in there and ready to lunge at me or her or maybe both of us. Nothing was there, which relieved me. We opened the next door, and this time Skye and I switched places. We continued to go with the same plan until we finished investigating the building.

However, the first 5 floors were empty of any living creatures, but on the 6th floor, we found a group of zombies, which Skye blew up with a grenade. There wasn't that much zombies, which meant that it was going to be easy to take them down with a grenade. "Good grenade cooking," I complimented Skye. "Thank you, sir," she replied. We continued moving, searching room after room. There was a key card on the 7th floor, which I kept because I thought it would come in use later on. The final floor was the 10th floor. There was only one door at the end though. Skye and I walked to it to find a giant metal door that was built to keep out any robbers and criminals. It required a key card to open, which I had. So I used the key card and opened the door.

Inside, I found nothing but money, which I thought was useless and Skye agreed. We decided to exit the building. When we got to the first floor though, there were somewhat a lot of zombies, which I thought was unusual. When we went back up to avoid the zombies, there was another group of zombies. We were trapped. "All units, do you copy?" Skye said through her communicator, hoping to reach the other team members who were investigating. "This is Jack, go ahead" and "This is Aden, go ahead" and "This is Aaron, go ahead" came through the communicators. "We're surrounded by zombies in the largest building! It's the easiest one to spot! We need back up ASAP!" I was already taking my shots, and Skye was just starting to do so. "Roger that! We're on our way!" I heard everyone say through their communicators.

When they got to us, we had already taken down all the zombies. "Geez what took you so long?" Skye questioned. "Sorry, it was harder than you think to look for this building," Jack said. "Then let's continue searching," I said. Everyone went back to their posts. As everyone went back to their building to search it or continue searching other buildings, Skye ad I were walking with each other. "Hey Phuoc," Skye called my name. I looked at her. "I got a question. Have you ever kissed a girl before or been kissed by a girl before?" I looked at her funny. "Why do you ask?" I asked her because I had to know whether she was curious or she wanted to know. "I'm just curious. So have you been kissed by a girl or kissed a girl before?" I shook my head, which meant no.

"OK. For being my partner today, this is for you. Close your eyes." She was giving me something for being her partner? No way! This is something no one has ever done for me. But I closed my eyes anyways, and waited to see what she was going to give me. As a couple seconds went by, I felt a pair of lips on my left cheek. I knew what she had given me. She gave me a kiss, and I could feel myself blush. I could feel my whole face go red. She backed up and looked at me, seeing the reaction on my face. She giggled, then I tried to respond. "Let's go investigate another building before sunset. We want to investigate as much as we can before sunset gets here." I responded. I knew that that wasn't the way to respond to a girl who just gave me a kiss, but I was blushing from it, and I couldn't find the right words to say.

When sunset had finally come, we were out of the city and in another terrain. We were resting, while I was guarding the sleepers with Aaron and Chris. "Hey I saw what happened between you and Skye." Chris told me. "Don't push it man!" I told him. "It's embarrassing enough for me to feel myself blush! And even if I did ask her out, which I really want to be her boyfriend, she's already going out with Dalton." I pointed out. I looked over to Skye, who was sleeping soundly. "Don't worry, Phuoc." Aaron said, trying to make me feel comfortable. "One day, a girl will find you. And when she does, you'll love her as she will love you." I nodded my head, and then sat there, looking into the dark night. _Wonder what the next couple days or weeks will be like_, I thought to myself. After what happened today, I couldn't wait for the results of the next days to come.

	9. The Vision

_Today, everyone is awake early. I haven't ever gone to sleep ever since I swore that I would protect my friends no matter what the risk was. "You look terrible," Skye said as she looked at me. "You need some rest." I shook my head. "No, I have to protect you guys. Otherwise someone will die." I argued. "Well, you can't protect us if you don't rest," Dalton added. "Come on, get some rest." I sat there, and thought about it, but my mind was too clouded to be thinking about stuff. "Ok, I'll get some rest. But promise me that no one will be armed while I'm asleep." I told Dalton. "I'll make sure no one does get hurt. I promise." He sealed our deal, which meant that until I was all rested up and well, Dalton was in charge. "Skye, you and Chris stay here with Phuoc, and make sure no harm comes to him. When he awakens, tell me," I heard them say before I fell asleep. _

_Meanwhile, while I was sleeping, Skye and Chris were talking about me. "You know, that was a pretty nice thing to give Phuoc yesterday." he told Skye. "Well, I've never been his partner before." Skye replied. "He's a pretty nice guy now that I was his partner. And that kiss that I gave to him didn't mean anything." Chris suddenly jerked. "What? You mean you gave him a kiss just to make him happy?" Chris asked suddenly. "No. Its not what you think. I asked him if he has ever kissed a girl before or if he has ever been kissed by a girl before and he shook his head, so I decided to surprise him by giving him a kiss." Skye explained what happened yesterday. _

"_I think he likes you, Skye." Chris pointed out. Skye looked disturbed. "I know," she said sadly. "But I'm going out with Dalton, and I don't know him enough yet to go into that process with him. I would give him a chance if I could but . . ." she ran out of words to say, showing that she was speechless. She looked at me, knowing that it was the truth, and she couldn't change that. "I just wish I could give him a chance." She came up with some words to say to Chris. "Don't tell Dalton I gave him a kiss. He would be both embarrassed and very sad if Dalton knew. Dalton takes this stuff very seriously. He would kill Phuoc if he knew about this." Chris nodded. "I won't. But maybe you should continue being his partner, get to know him better." Chris told Skye, who nodded in return. _

_We were traveling as a group, holding our firearms. Me, Jack, Dalton, Alan, Aden, Chris, Nyquo, Skye, and Aaron. We found John, the mysterious person mentioned in the papers. However, he was dead and his corpse lay in the middle of nowhere. When we approached the body, a load of zombies came out of nowhere. We were ambushed. This wasn't going to be how it ended for me, or my friends. We fought together way too much to be ambushed by zombies and be cannibal food. Even though we had already fired at the zombies, there really was no end to it! Zombie after zombie fell and yet there was a bunch more to replace that one fallen zombie. Despite how everyone had fought that final battle, each one of my friends fell . . . one by one. Dalton had fallen and was being devoured by Zombies. Nyquo was using his LMG as a melee weapon, and had fallen to the zombies. Skye was a dangerous foe to the zombies, but she too was taken down by the zombies. Everyone I knew that was in my group, was taken down by the zombies. I couldn't believe it! My friends were taken down by the zombies, and I was sure to be the next victim to fall by the hands of the zombies. I ran and ran and ran, with nowhere to run to. I ran into a dark alley, where the zombies followed me. There was no way to get past the alley. It ended at a wall, where I was trapped, bound to be dead now. I kneeled down, and close my eyes, waiting for it all to be over. Just when I thought it was going to be over . . . _

I woke up with a loud yell, startling everyone who sat there, protecting me. I looked around, making sure none of my friends were devoured by the zombies. "Phuoc, what's wrong?" Aaron asked me. I felt each and every one of them, and found that nothing had happened to them. "I had a nightmare." I said. "We found the body of the mysterious John, and we were ambushed by the zombies. They devoured you guys, and I ran down an alley and found myself trapped. I could feel the end coming near!" Dalton put a hand on my shoulder. "Calm down, Phuoc." He tried to help me forget it all. "Take deep breaths. We're still here. Don't worry, nothing's going to happen to us. As long as you're here to protect us, nothing will happen to you or us." He tried to help me cope with my nightmare. I took deep breaths and slowly calmed down. I looked over at Skye, who was watching me. I knew right then, that it was time for me to tell Dalton.

"Dalton, I have something to tell you." I told him. He told me to go ahead with what I wanted to say. "The truth is . . . Ever since I met you and Jack and everyone else, I felt that you guys were my family. The fact that you guys thought I liked Skye, was true. I did like Skye, but I lied to you because I would be embarrassed by the truth. I really like Skye, but I know that this would affect you badly, which is why I never accepted the truth. Yesterday, after she and I were surrounded by zombies, we took them out on our own. And then we talked after you guys left to continue your investigation. She gave me a kiss, which I didn't really expect. Please don't get mad with her because I owe her for that. She's the first girl to kiss me in my whole life. Just know that I want Skye to be happy, so I will protect both you and her. I won't let anything happen to you or her." I had finally let it all out. I was proud to know that I had let it out and that I was no able to feel peace inside myself.

Dalton patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Phuoc." He told me, trying to resolve my problems. "I've known for a long time, and I know that Skye gave you a kiss because she told me. Don't worry, I'm not mad with you. I'm happy for you because you've finally told me the truth, with Jack and Patrick here to prove it. From now on, if anything happens to me, I will leave Skye to you. You will protect her, and so on." He stood up, and walked away

"I think we should get moving now," I said. "We don't want to stay in one area for too long." And so we all moved together as a group. Me and Dalton were closer than ever as friends, and I was proud to have him as a friend. I was proud to have many friends that support me in my decisions. And now I know, that with the kind of friends I have, I won't fail at anything.

	10. John

A few months have passed by ever since the zombie apocalypse started. I've been traveling with 11 friends, minus Kent since he kamikaze-d into the pile of zombies to try and save us. We haven't worried about it much anymore, but we still keep him in our minds to remember him. I found some human footprints yesterday, and we have been pursuing the footprints ever since. Where ever it came from, I had a feeling that we were getting closer.

"Does it seem like the number of footprints is growing larger?" Jack asked. I shook my head. "Na, I doubt it. It could be made only from 5 or 20 people." We continued to follow the footprints, which led into a cave. "Careful, there could be a horde of zombies in there." Aaron warned us. We slowly approached the cave, and investigated the origin of the footprints. However, we didn't find anything of interest in the cave. "I guess we were led here by someone or something." Nyquo stated. "We need to get out of here ASAP!" I yelled in alarm. We all ran outside, but we were stopped by a strange figure.

"Wait!" the figure said. We stood there, facing the figure. "Who are you?" I asked him. "I am the one you have been looking for. I am John." I wasn't surprised because for all I know, he could be lying to us and trying to get us killed. "Prove to us that you are John." I told him, seeing what his proof was. "Come and I shall show you," he led us outside to the light, where we saw his halo suit. I saw the emblem on his right shoulder. I also saw his code number on the back of his helmet. He didn't take off his helmet, but his armor was enough to prove to us that he was the real thing, John.

"I am from the future," he said. It was kind of hard to believe, but I had to believe it because of his Spartan number, 117. "The John from this time period is a zombie. I am John, from the future. I was brought back to life in the year 2552." _Pretty long time if you ask me_, I thought. "Anyways, I know about the situation here on Earth, and I'm requesting to join your group to help you." _He's actually requesting to join our group?_ I questioned myself. _Master Chief is requesting to join us to help us?_ I couldn't believe what I was hearing! He was offering to help and he was requesting to join us. "I also brought a series of weapons and firearms that you may enjoy more." He added. "I don't see any. Where are the firearms and weapons? I don't see any." Patrick added. "Follow me." John said, and walked into the cave.

As we followed him into the cave, I noticed that John was wearing different armor from the armor we were wearing, probably showing that he could take more zombie hits than we can. All the way inside the cave, to the end of it, he picked up a rock on the ground and pushed a small red button that made the ground rumble and a staircase had descended from the ceiling of the cave. _How unexpected_, I said to myself. He went up the stairs, then I went up the stairs, then everyone else went up the stairs. When I reached the top of the stairs, I noticed that the stairs had led us into a room, where John was standing.

"Welcome to the weapons and firearms bunker," he said. The area of the room was illuminated by light that blinded us for a moment. Everything became clear after a few seconds. When I looked around in the area, what I saw was amazing. He really did bring weapons and firearms along. And I recognized the weapons too. There was the Assault Rifle, the Magnum, the Battle Rifle, the Shotgun, the Gatling gun and the Sniper Rifle. As far as I knew, we just replaced our weapons with the ones that John had brought along. Jack replaced his SMG with the new battle rifle. Dalton, Skye, Aaron and I replaced our assault rifles with the new assault rifle. Patrick and Alan replaced their sniper rifles with the new sniper rifle. Aden replaced his shotgun with the new shotgun. Nyquo and Chris replaced their LMG with the new Gatling gun.

"Feels good to hold a new weapon," Nyquo stated, holding his new Gatling gun expertly. Jack nodded in agreement. "You also might want to replace your ammunition too. Your ammunition won't work with the new weapons." He warned us, and we took that warning as a precaution and replaced our current ammunition with the new ammunition. "So tell me," he told me. "Why are you looking for me?" I was confused at first because I wasn't expecting questions from John. "Because we read in some documents a couple months ago that you had knowledge on killing zombies and obliterate them from the planet." I explained what I had read in the document, including the name of the virus, or in this case, disease.

"Yes, I do know about all of that. After all, I wrote it." He explained. "Where do we go first?" I can tell he was already ready for action. "Before we go, did you by any chance bring any grenades?" I asked him. I knew our grenades were just fragmentation grenades, but maybe he had some new grenades we could use. "I didn't bring any because the fragmentation grenades in the future are the same as the ones in your time." He replied. I took that as an answer, because I didn't expect him to bring any along. "Ok, then." I started.

"First place is California. We know that that state has the highest population, which means that there are probably a lot of zombies." I explained thoroughly. "There may be many survivors there too. We have to go there, investigate and rescue any survivors that may need our help." Everyone readied up for the trip to California. After all, we were only in Oregon. "Everyone ready?" I made sure my teammates and the newest member was ready to go. After I saw the nods, then I started to move toward the direction of California, and my teammates followed. Now that we've found John, we can hope that we will live and defeat the undead army. Hopefully my vision doesn't come true.

	11. Jack's Sacrifice

We arrived in California in 24 hours due to the ability of our halo suits. I estimated our speed to be at least 500 miles per hour. When we arrived in California, we were greeted by 50 zombies, which Master Chief just decided to melee the shit out of them. We moved on, and explored some places that were thought to have any survivors. "OK, teams of two! Do not, and I repeat, do not wander into any building alone!" I announced. Immediately, upon my warning and command, everyone went in teams of 2. The teams I saw were: Jack and Dalton, Nyquo and Aaron, and Patrick and Chris. For some reason, Alan, Aden and John had teamed up to a group of 3, leaving me and Skye. I could tell Skye was looking forward to it. "Let's investigate this state. Contact each other if you need help."

The first building that Skye and I had seen was the casino, which we decided to investigate. "Are you ready?" I asked Skye as we approached the entrance to the casino. She nodded, and I opened the doors and we both walked in. The first thing I saw when we entered was zombies. They were everywhere, which meant I could use my skills to investigate: being a ninja. Being a ninja was the one that I was good at. If anyone could be a ninja, it would be me.

"Can you be a ninja, Skye?" I asked her, hoping that she would say yes. "Yeah, quickly and quietly," _She already mastered it?_ I told myself. _How the hell? I didn't know she could master the ways of a ninja so quick!_ And so the two of us moved like ninjas, making quick and quiet footsteps. "You know what? This is boring." I stated. "You want to go around looking for survivors while I kill zombies? I feel like killing." I was so bored that I decided to fire a whole clip of assault rifle ammo into the air. The zombies turned in the direction of the gunfire, and started walking towards us when they saw me and Skye.

"Since you were so idiotic and bored that you fired gunshots into the air," Skye pointed out, joking around. "How about you handle them while I find the survivors?" I was laughing until the zombies started trying to claw at me. I shot the ones that were closest. "You're on! Go while I distract them! I'll use my ninja skills to kill them!" I agreed. Shooting zombies was fun. But when they're all around you, the party has just begun.

Skye was using her halo armor ability to sprint all around the casino, trying to look for survivors. Suddenly, she saw something the size of a kid run. "Hey!" She yelled, hoping to get the kid to stop running. She ran after what appeared to be a kid. Turns out to be one of her teammates, Jack. "Jack?" she said, confused that he should have been with his partner. "What are you doing here?" Jack turned back to see Skye. "There was a group of zombies chasing after me! Dalton was behind me, and I can hear the gunshots back there!" Jack explained the situation.

"Phuoc, we got a problem!" I heard Skye's voice over the communicator. "Yeah, go ahead." I replied. "Jack was just at the grocery store next to us. Apparently the casino and grocery store are connected." She explained. "And what's more, there's a load of zombies in front of us!" I thought a large group of zombies would appear sometime. Turns out they appeared when Jack had entered the grocery store. "Oh, and we can't handle all of them right now!" Skye said, breathing heavily. "Lead the guy's back to the casino!" I ordered immediately. I can't risk the loss of a teammate at the time since there could be survivors anywhere. "Phuoc, I'm at the mall right and somehow the zombies have smelled us out already!" I heard Nyquo's voice over the communicator. _Unbelievable!_ I thought. _How are they doing this?_ Suddenly, Alan also contacted me. "Phuoc! We got a problem!" I didn't even want to think about what was going to happen. "Don't tell me, huge horde of zombies is trying to devour you?" I guessed that since it's been happening to everyone else. "Yeah, I think we need to back out of this state ASAP!" Aden said, scared to die. "Meet the rest of us at the casino! You know where that is?" I said, hoping that they would come here. "Yeah, we're on our way," Alan replied.

When Alan arrived, I called everyone back to me. "OK, guys. Since the zombies have somehow found us here, I think this mission is baloney." I explained the bad news about our objective. "You guys get out of here, I'm going to stay and fight them!" I demanded. "No, we are not leaving you behind!" Aaron protested. While they were trying to convince me that we all had to get away from California, I was still shooting and killing zombies. "No, I'm the leader of this group, and I say that you guys have to get out of here!" I claimed. "We've been fighting through this for one hell of a long time. And I can't see you guys be turned into food for the zombies. Now get out of here before it's too late! Dalton, you're in charge! Now get going!" I shoved them outside, making John go as well. Tears came out of their eyes, and I could tell they didn't want to leave, but I couldn't see my friends fall before my eyes. I saw them leave, and I finally shut the door and began my work on eliminating the zombies.

"Why did we just leave Phuoc behind?" Aden was still talking about that. They couldn't believe that I had ordered them to leave me and get out of here. "I don't know, but I know it wasn't the right thing to do." Alan said. "He's been fighting for the human race ever since the zombie apocalypse had begun." Aaron said. "He's been fighting on our side, and he's been protecting us." Chris said. "I haven't known him that long, but I know that he's a great warrior, and he can't fight alone in this." John said. Apparently, they were pointing out the facts that showed that I was too great to leave behind. "I say we go back and help him!" Jack protested. "Yeah, I agree. We can't leave him behind!" Dalton agreed. "Yeah, let's do that! We can't lose him now! Not now, not ever!" Skye said in agreement. "Yeah, let's go!" They said at the same time.

I was fighting the zombies. No matter how many I took out, there was always more to replace that one. It didn't matter, but I had to do whatever it took for my friends to get out of here. I still had plenty of ammunition, but was I going to survive? _This is outrageous,_ I thought. _How many zombies are there in this state?_ Suddenly, I saw a zombie that was bigger than all the zombies that I was fighting. This zombie was different. It was holding a hatchet in one hand, and a fire axe in the other. Along its waist, I saw many other axes.

As I continued to kill zombies, the axe-wielding zombie was staring at me, watching me kill zombies. It then threw the hatchet at me, its throw strong and wide. I dodged the axe, almost being struck by it. It grabbed another axe from its waist, getting ready to throw the fire axe. When it raised the fire axe to throw it, I heard a gunshot. The axe fell out of its hand, and it held its hand in pain. I turned to look, but didn't see anyone. The zombies were starting to overrun me, and I was still fighting. I can't believe how long I had lasted alone. Suddenly, I heard anther gunshot. This time I turned around.

When I turned around to see where the gunshot came from, I saw Alan. "ALAN? What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked. I thought I had told the group to go. "I'm not leaving you here alone!" he protested. "Neither am I!" I heard 9 other voices say that. As I continued to look, 9 figures stepped out from behind Alan. I recognized them right away. Skye, Aden, Dalton, Patrick, Jack, Nyquo, Aaron, Chris and John. "I thought I told you guys to get out of here!" I said. I couldn't believe they had come back! Dalton walked up to me. "We're not leaving you behind!" He told me. "If you're staying, so are we! If we leave, we leave together!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Are you positive?" Everyone nodded their heads. "Then help me kill these zombies! We still have to find some survivors!" I demanded.

Everyone fired their firearms, and I saw more zombies drop than I could drop in a second. Turns out teamwork works better than going solo. "Help!" I heard someone yell from behind. When I turned back, I saw a group of civilians running. From behind them, I saw a large group of zombies chase after them. "Hey Guys we got a problem!" I called out. "John I need you to come with me! We need to rescue those civilians!" I demanded. "Everyone else! Stay and continue fighting!"

John and I ran as fast as we could to rescue those civilians. We got to the freeway, where it was clear of zombies. We ran back to get the civilians, and lead them to the freeway, where we would make sure they are safe and sound out of the state. "Hurry up!" I yelled as they ran. John and I were taking down the zombies that were closest to them. They finally reached the freeway, and ran. "Finally!" John exclaimed. "Now let's get back to the group and lead them back to the other horde of zombies." We led them back to the other horde of zombies, and then rejoined the group.

"How are things holding up guys?" I asked when I got there. "Not good, it seems that these zombies are advancing as long as there are move zombies." Dalton replied. I realized that what he said was true, but there was something I remembered that I had to do. It was the axe zombie. It was the most dangerous zombie that I knew about. I saw it, but by the time I saw it, it had already thrown an axe. I couldn't move. I was stunned to see that I had finally met my end of the line. "Phuoc watch out!" Jack yelled. He jumped in front of me, and took the blow.

"JACK!" I yelled in shock, moving to catch him. Skye and Chris and Aden backed me up while I moved towards him. "Why did you do that? Why did you act so stupid?" Jack opened his eyes, and spoke. "You have to stay alive, no matter what!" he strained to talk. "I owe you for giving me a lesson on treating people. And now that I've paid it, I can finally rest in peace." He started to cough up blood. "Don't die on me now, man!" I said. I tried to get him out of the area, but the zombies were starting to get closer to me. "Leave me. Get out of here," Jack said, knowing that if I continued to try and get him out, I would become one of the zombies. "Jack," I said. My voice started to crack, and I could feel tears coming out of my eyes. Jack coughed up some more blood, and then passed away.

I couldn't believe it. Another friend gone! "You son of a bitch," I said, looking at the axe zombie. "You killed a friend of mine, and now you're next on my list!" I yelled in anger. "Guys, make a path for me to get to that zombie with the axe!" I said, knowing that I had to get revenge for Jack. As I sprinted for him, every zombie in front of me was being taken down. Sniper shots took out huge lines of zombies while Gatling guns and assault rifles took out the zombies that ran after me. When I arrived at the axe zombie, it gave a fearful yell that didn't make me budge one bit. "Eat this, you son of a bastard!" I yelled, and stuffed a pulled grenade into its open mouth. I ran all the way back and the zombie's head exploded into pieces, its body falling to the ground with a thump.

"Ok, let's take out the rest of the zombies!" I said. "I got an idea, Phuoc." John said, and he pulled out a time bomb from his back. "The farther we get the better. Get Jack and then we'll be on our way. I'll set up this bomb." John said. I ran to get Jack and then I ran out onto the freeway. Skye and Dalton and Patrick and everyone except John followed. Once John had set up the bomb, he too ran to follow me. The bomb exploded 30 seconds later, and the sound of growling zombies was no more.

We arrived out of the state, and I buried Jack. We gave him a proper burial, speeches and all that. We were all crying because Jack was now gone. "Jack was a great friend," I started. "Rest in peace, old friend." We stepped forward, and saluted him and said our goodbyes. First Kent, now Jack. I hope that no one would be next. From what I saw earlier, the zombies are getting stronger. _We have to keep moving,_ I thought. _If we stay in one area too long, we're going to get tracked down_. "Let's go guys. We don't want to be tracked down by mindless zombies." I said. And so we continued to move on, leaving Jack's grave behind. I know where he went. He went to the afterlife, to live a peaceful life. At least we're going to meet him sooner or later.

	12. The ODST

Jack died 3 days ago, and I can't believe that he's gone already. I made a promise to myself that I would protect my group members, and I failed it, yet I continue to try and do so. No matter what happens, I have to protect my team, even if it means sacrifice. We left California on foot the day that Jack had died. We traveled to Arizona 2 days ago, and found some survivors. We told them to follow us and that we would lead them to the other survivors. Yesterday, we arrived in New Mexico and there were some survivors. We tried to tell them that we would protect them. Unfortunately, they were so stubborn that they got themselves eaten by zombies and turned into zombies. Today, we're in Texas. Same mission as always: search for survivors, protect the survivors, and move right when all the survivors are found.

"Well, Texas seems to be more of a desert resort than a state," John said. "Duh, it's practically a desert!" Chris said this. "I feel like we need to get something to eat. Do you think that the animals would be infected? I mean, if they were then we probably can't eat them." _These guys are really that stupid, eh_? I thought. "If we do find food, you better hope that it doesn't have any injuries or covered in blood. Otherwise, we can't eat it." I stated. "And there are plants that we can eat," Skye added. "Scientists never said that plants weren't healthy for us.

There was a bush next to us, which had some fruit that I was unfamiliar with. I had no clue what it was, but I was sure that it was edible. Then the bush shook, and I was rooted to the sand, fearing that there was a zombie in the bush, waiting to attack me or one of my friends. "Shhhh . . ." I told my friends who were busy talking about food products. "There's something in that bush over there." I pointed at the bush that continuously shook. We all stared at the bush, rooted to the sand, readying our weapons in case a zombie came out. When the bush stopped shaking, we were relieved.

Right when we turned our backs on the bush, a lion came out from behind the bush. I immediately turned to look at the lion that came out of the bush, but was knocked down to the ground and pinned. "Fuck!" I yelled in anger. "Son of a bitch! You better get off me!" I yelled at the lion, proving useless to curse at an animal that didn't understand what the heck you were saying. Fighting against a lion that was much stronger than you was pointless. I could struggle, but I wasn't going to be able to get away. Then I heard a loud boom. I turned to see Aden with his finger on the trigger of his shotgun, aiming at the head of the lion. I immediately pushed the lion off of me, and I backed off from the dead body. "Hey John," I said. He turned to look at me. "Can you take a look at the lion? Make sure it's dead and that there are no other injuries on it besides the headshot." John did a close examination on the lion.

"Anyone want to feast on a lion?" John called out, meaning that the lion was safe to eat. We all raised our hands. "How did this lion get out here? I thought lions only lived in Africa." Nyquo questioned, looking disturbed that a lion was out here when it should have been in Africa. "Could be a petting zoo," Skye pointed out. "Yeah, the only place where there would actually be a lion would be a petting zoo. And I bet that this lion has devoured zombies for its meals ever since it escaped." Dalton agreed. But John was doing a closer inspection on the lion. He stuck something into the lion's flesh and waited. A constant beep occurred a minute later. "Alright, I got it now!" John yelled in accomplishment. "Based on my indicator about this animal, it has only eaten live deer, which I have no clue where it has been traveling." Funny that John should say this, because I find it very awkward for a Lion to be this far away from whichever petting zoo that it came from.

"Does anyone find it disturbing?" Chris asked. "First we arrived here, and there was no one and nothing around. Then there was this bush and then the lion, and the now its way to quiet right now." I was starting to think the same thing that Chris had thought. _It is a bit too quiet out here_, I thought. _We'll have to be careful if we play on continuing_. We left the dead lion and went a couple feet to go discuss the matter. As we were discussing the matter, a zombie came and started feasting on our meal. Alan turned around to see the zombie who was already eating the dead lion for a meal.

"Shit! Our food is being eaten by a mindless zombie!" Alan yelled. He shot the zombie, but it was too late to save the fresh lion from infection. "Great, now what do we go?" Aden exclaimed. Suddenly, there were more zombies coming towards the dead lion. And then a horde of zombies appeared at the dead lion. Soon there were a countless number of zombies at the area. And then a group of zombies saw me, and my group. They started to rush toward us. I pulled my assault rifle up and started shooting at the zombie closest to us, and dropped him to the ground. "Run!" I yelled in alarm. We all ran, and we were shooting while running backwards. "Don't shoot, just run!" I ordered. When we thought we were far enough, we turned back to look at our so-called meal. "There goes lunch," Nyquo complained. "I think we can survive a couple more days without food," Dalton said. "I agree," Patrick said. "The sun is going down fast, let's get moving and find shelter" I said, but it wasn't long before we found a cave that we decided to camp in for the night. Same plan as usual: 2 watchers, the rest are sleepers. Shift ever hour or 2.

When morning came, we moved to the state next to Texas: Louisiana. It took a couple hours since Texas was so huge and we had to watch over the survivors, which they turned into zombies an hour later. I have no clue how, but we had to eliminate them before we were eliminated by them. We then sprinted towards Louisiana, a state in the shape of an L. When we arrived, we started to search for survivors. There turned out to be none, and I was disappointed to find that all the survivors have probably gone out on hiding already. And then I saw one of them. I saw . . . an ODST. He was injured, and he was on the verge of collapsing. I ran over to help him while everyone else came with me and protected me while I helped this helpless ODST.

"What happened?" I asked. There was an ODST, but no survivor around. "Where are the survivors?" He tried to talk. "We were ambushed," he started. "Zombies with axes along their waist and in their hands. They threw it at us. I told everyone to go while I distracted the zombies." He explained the situation to me, and I understood very well that if we didn't make it to the survivors and the rest of the ODSTs, they're going to be done for sure.

"Are the other ODSTs still alive?" I asked. The ODST nodded, and then spoke. "These zombies are strong! They will take out the remaining human race! You must . . ." he died before he could finish his sentence, but he didn't have to. I already knew what he wanted us to do. So I laid him down on the ground to rest in peace, and saluted him. My friends did the same.

"OK, guys!" I announced. "Ever since Kent died, there never really was a second in command. As of right now I am appointing one of you to be second in command. This person that I choose has the ability to take my place if I am currently not around. They're the only one in this group who is different from the others, and that's Skye!" I pointed at her, and everyone applauded. "We don't have time to lose!" I pointed out. "Dalton will also be by her side to help her in her role as second in command." And I pointed at Dalton, and everyone applauded once again. "OK, guys! Let's move. We've got some zombie brains to spill and some survivors and soldiers to save!"

And so Skye and Dalton were appointed second in command. They walked beside me, and together the 9 of us : me, Skye, Dalton, Alan, Aden, Nyquo, Aaron, Chris, and Patrick, walked forward towards our destination, and our new mission: SAVE THE SURVIVORS AND SOLDIERS, ELIMINATE ALL the ZOMBIES WHO STAND IN OUR WAY.

	13. 1 for 3

Having seen what happened to the ODST we found a few days ago, we vowed to avenge the ODST and anyone else who were ambushed by the axe-holding zombies. With only 9 members in the team, including myself, we may not be able to make it in time. As of right now, we are in Florida. Florida is a popular state for vacations and Disney World. I thought that it might have some survivors, and maybe there would be leads to the ODST and the remaining survivors being led to safety.

"Do we have some kind of radar?" I heard Nyquo ask. "No, we don't," Patrick replied. "If we had a radar or motion sensors, we would be much safer." I had to agree with Patrick because there was no way to tell whether a zombie was near us or our own teammate was around us. "I might have some of those," John popped in. "And I just might have enough for all of you guys. I already have one." He opened a big chest, and looked through it. "I found it!" He said in victory. He took out 8 of them, and handed one to each of us. We put it in our pockets.

"When you enter a dark area, it is required that you use the motion sensor to track down the moving dot on your motion tracker." I said. "It's easy to tell the difference between a red dot, AKA the zombie, and a yellow dot, AKA human/team member. The dot in the middle that occurs every time you move is you. That way, you can tell whether a zombie is near you or not. Now let's go search for survivors." Everyone was about to move, but I stopped them.

"Before we go, split into 3 teams. Skye, you take Aaron and Nyquo," I assigned teammates. "Dalton, you take Patrick and Chris. John, you take Alan and Aden. I'm going to go alone." As they assembled their assigned teams, Skye walked over to me. "Hey, be careful out there okay?" she warned me. I nodded, and walked off to the first place I saw . . . Disney World.

I arrived in Disney World, looking around at the deserted place. _Geez this place is a ghost town now,_ I thought. _Wonder if there are any kid zombies here. _Kid zombies were the worst zombies among the other zombies. They were only kids, and they became a zombie. It's a sad sight to see, but the only way to let them rest in peace is kill their destroyed body. I saw a roller coaster, and I went to it. I found nothing, and moved on. I saw many more rides, and investigated each and every one carefully and found nothing of interest, and moved on to investigate any stores that might be in the land of Disney World.

I found a gift shop and went inside. I found a zombie cashier walking around near the merchandise, and it saw me. It walked toward me and I held up my assault rifle and pointed it at its face. Went it got closer, I pulled the trigger and bullets sprayed into the zombie's head. I explored the store a little more and left because I didn't find any survivors. If there were any survivors, then they probably weren't here. I left eh store, left Disney World, and went to join another group: Dalton's group.

Dalton, Chris and Patrick were inside a mall when I found them. Apparently, they were in there just killing time while moving from store to store as a group. "Why would you be killing zombies right now?" I asked Dalton, who was in charge of his 3-man group. "Sorry, when I get bored I have to kill some zombies since there's nothing else to do." He apologized. "It's ok. Did you guys find any survivors yet?" Patrick shook his head. "Alright, let's get to work then." I said, and the four of us made our way through the mall, from shop to shop. When I walked into GameStop, I noticed a person walking around, looking at the games on the shelves. They were covered in blood, but I could barely see the titles of the games. "Hey, are you ok?" I called out to the person. The person turned to face me, and I saw that their face was covered in dried blood, and it was a male. He ran right to me, arms in front and ready to grab me. I backed up and shot him, sending his to the floor in a bloody bath. _Hmm . . . wonder what he was doing here._ "Hey Phuoc! Can you hear me?" I heard Aaron's over the communicator. "Yeah, go ahead." I replied. "I'm here at Radio Shack, and I just heard someone through a walkie-talkie say that they and 2 other people were with them and is in California right now!" _Wow,_ I thought. _ How come there couldn't be any last survivors in California before we left? Well, back to California_. "How bad is it?" I asked. "They say they need help ASAP!" Aaron replied. I could tell that we needed everyone we could find. At this moment in our journey, we do need more people to help us and we have to protect every survivor possible. "Alright. We need to meet up first. All units listen up! Meet up at the entrance to Disney World! We got an urgent radio broadcast and we need to act immediately." I said. Dalton's group and I sprinted to the entrance of Disney World, where we met the other members.

"Ok, here's the situation." I started. "It seems that while we were in California, we didn't find all the survivors. As of 30 minutes ago, Aaron received a radio broadcast while in Radio Shack and this is what the survivors said: Calling any survivors or soldiers out there! (Static) We need back up ASAP! We're in California and surrounded by (Static). If you can hear us right now, there are 3 of us, me my brother and my sister! We don't have much time before we get devoured! We need (static) ASAP! Goddamn it man don't let the zombie touch you! Grace watch out! (Gunfire) We need back up immediately! If you hear this, please come and help us as soon as possible!" We listened carefully to the broadcast, and we heard the sound of gunfire and moaning zombies in the background. "Anyone up for a rescue mission?" I asked. I could see the words in the eyes of my teammates, and I could tell what they were thinking. "Let's go. I feel like I know these guys. Who knows? We might get some new teammates.

The 9 of us sprinted to California, where we didn't hear any gunfire. _Wonder where they are_, I thought. As we cautiously walked into California, there was a sudden explosion. I looked around our area, hoping that it wasn't near us. I then looked at Patrick. "It wasn't me," he said. And then there was another explosion, this time smoke filled the air a couple miles away from us. I sprinted towards it, and my teammates followed. When we arrived, I saw where the explosion came from, and I could see corpses on the ground, and 3 people still fighting zombies. They were surrounded, and they needed help ASAP! "Everyone, move out! Help them get out of there! Chris, follow me!" I commanded, and we moved immediately without hesitation.

Chris and I jumped into the center of the large group of zombies, and met the 3 survivors. "I heard you guys needed help," I said, facing one of the team members. "Yeah, we do." One of them said. "I'm Reese. This is Dakota and this is Grace." I was stunned. Was it really my brothers and sister from Xbox Live? "I'm Phuoc, leader of the group that is backing you up this very minute." Dakota stopped shooting. "Really?" he said, surprised to know that his own brother had come to save him. "Now isn't the time for this! We have to get you out of here!" I said, spraying at the zombies. And then there was another explosion. I saw this one; it exploded with a blue mist for an aftereffect. I saw a load of zombies fall, body parts missing from the explosion. I even saw one get vaporized by the explosion, but I couldn't stop shooting because the zombies were everywhere.

"Phuoc, get them out of here! I'll distract them!" I heard Nyquo say. I saw a path that was carved open for us, and all 5 of us ran out. I heard Gatling gun fire, and I saw Nyquo standing there, shooting them down on his own. He ran out of ammunition, and we backed him up so that he could get out of here. He ran towards me, and these were his words: "You have to get them out of here now! If you stay here any longer, we'll all die without completing our mission! I can distract them long enough for you to get out of here, and once you get out of here, I'll rest in peace." I knew what he was trying to do, and I couldn't argue with him because if I did, it was going to be a suicide anyways. "I . . ." I didn't know what to say. "Ok, thank you very much Nyquo. If you go down, make it a big bang. Eliminate the zombies in this area, and make sure you pass on with no regrets," I said, tears coming out of my eyes. He handed me his communicator, and his motion tracker. He walked towards the zombies, alone and everyone tried to call him back. "No, he wants this. He wants us to continue our journey," I explained. "Everyone move out! We can't stay here any longer!" Now there were 11 of us, with the three new members of the team and Nyquo gone out of the team.

We ran for 30 minutes straight, nonstop. And then there was the next and final explosion. This one was humongous, and I knew what had happened there. Nyquo, after fulfilling his request, had passed onto the afterlife with no regrets. "Thank you Nyquo," I said in depression. "It was great having you as a teammate, and a friend. Rest in peace . . . my friend. I hope we meet again." I stood there, staring into California. My teammates and my new teammates saluted him goodbye, and we moved on.

	14. You Can't Bring Them Back

After the incident in California, the rescue mission, we haven't been really active. I've been traveling around with the rest of my group and my 3 new members of the group, Dakota Reese and Grace. Right now we are in New York, one of the most crowded states in the country. We've been hiding out in a huge building with windows, but barely visible, for 3 months. Everyone has been doing their own thing: some of us sleeping, some of us are chatting, and some of us just sniping zombies. Good thing they can't tell where we are at.

"Dakota, Grace and Reese. Can you guys come over here for a moment?" I called out to them from the middle of the room we were hiding out in. "Stand next to me. Can everyone else gather around?" I gathered the rest of my group to introduce them to my 3 friends who asked for help. "Guys, this is Reese, Grace, and Dakota. I met them on Xbox live from a halo reach game a long time ago. It's been a while since I last talked to them. I didn't expect to see them in real life, but based on their voice tone I could tell who they were when we arrived in California for the rescue mission." The 3 of them shook hands with the 8 of the group members. I could hear each member introducing themselves to Reese, Grace and Dakota.

"So are you brothers and sister?" Patrick asked Dakota. "No, we just made it up for the hell of it." Dakota replied. "Reese is my brother, and Grace is my sister. Phuoc, on the other hand, is my older brother." He explained to Patrick the family relation. "There was one other guy who was also our brother, but I don't know whether he is alive or dead right now." Alan was sniping zombies when Reese came by to chat. "You snipe zombies a lot?" He asked. Alan didn't answer. "I see you're very good at it. Could you possibly teach me to snipe like that sometime?" Reese asked again. This time, Alan shoved him back.

"It's your fault that Nyquo died!" He yelled in anger. We all rushed over, including Grace and Dakota. "If it wasn't for your stupid broadcast, he would still be here!" Reese looked over at me, then back at Alan. "Well, sorry. It wasn't my fault. I had to try and send out a broadcast sometime to see if anyone was out there." Reese explained. "I couldn't let my brother and sister die by the hands of zombies. We needed help." Alan aimed his sniper rifle at Reese. "Shut up right now! I don't care who you are, but you have no right to make one of us die like that!" Alan yelled. Judging by how loud he was, I was starting to think that the zombies were already headed for this building that we were on.

I stepped in front of Alan's sniper rifle, and he looked at me. "You really want to shoot my gaming brother?" I said. I wasn't about to lose my gaming brother. "You can shoot me first if you want to do that. Our objective is to rescue everyone we can. It doesn't matter who we are. We have to complete our objective even if it means death! Nyquo sacrificed himself for us to get out of the area, so don't blame Reese or any of them for this!" If I got it through Alan's head, he probably understood. He lowered his sniper rifle, and walked away to a wall and sat down there.

"I'm sorry, Reese." I apologized. "We've been losing people for quite a while now. I hope you don't take this offensive." Reese shook his head. "I know how hard it is to lose a friend. I don't blame him, and I certainly don't blame you. You lead this group, you protect them and they repay you by sacrificing themselves to keep you and others alive." Reese explained. Suddenly, Patrick ran up and told me, "The zombies are coming! They're come to this building right now!" I was alarmed, and everyone looked out the windows and down to the ground. The zombies were walking into the building, and I could hear their moaning and footsteps. "There's a roof above us. If we hurry, we can make it up there and jump to the next building and escape the swarm."

We all rushed to the roof, and the building closest to us was 20 feet away. There was a platform that was pointing in the direction of the building. One by one, we jumped. The zombies managed to get onto the roof before we all made it over. The only ones left on the building with the zombies were me, Reese, Grace, Dakota, Alan, and Aden. Grace jumped next, then Reese, then Dakota. Now me, Alan and Aden were left. I jumped over, and I could hear gunfire. I turned back to see Alan start making the jump. However, Aden got dragged in by a zombie and he was being devoured. Alan was held back by a zombie who had been grabbed by a zombie right before the jump.

"Alan!" I yelled, fearing that I was going to lose him and Aden to the zombies. I was shocked, and I could see that Alan and Aden had already been surrounded by zombies, and if we jumped over to help them then we would become a meal for the zombies too. I heard Alan yell and say that a zombie had bitten him, and I heard Aden yell. Soon there was no more yelling other than the sound of the zombies munching on their meal. They still came for us though. They fell down to the ground and landed with a huge splat. I looked down and saw a bloodbath down on the ground. Everyone ran to leave the building and run away before we were the next target. Grace stood in one place and looked at me. "Come on, brother!" She called. I was still looking at the corpse of my dead friends when she came over and pulled me away from the sight.

As we ran down the stairs, tears strolled down my face. I couldn't believe what had just happened. It happened so fast that I didn't even have the time to react. I just lost 2 of my friends to an unexpected attack. Unlike the other attacks, 2 of my friends died without even thinking about suicide. They were taken in by the horde and eaten for lunch. In the other attacks, someone committed suicide to save the group. When we reached ground level, the zombies were roaming around. We sprinted out of the area, and continued sprinting for 5 days. In 5 days, we landed in Illinois.

I sat down on the ground and started to hit myself for what had happened earlier. Punch after punch after punch, I felt I didn't learn anything from it. I continued to do so until Skye came over and grabbed by arm to stop me from hitting myself. "You have to stop doing this to yourself," she said. "Phuoc, it's not your fault that they died unexpectedly. No one saw it coming." I blocked out everything she said, and pulled my arm back. I continued to hit myself. "Phuoc . . ." she tried once more. "Please. Please stop. Don't do this to yourself. It won't bring them back." I didn't listen, and continued to hit myself.

Dalton came over and tried to make me stop. "Doing this won't bring anyone back. Just stop and we'll avenge them." I stopped hitting myself and thought for a moment. "Could it really be?" I said to myself. "They died because of me. I didn't do anything while the attack had happened. I'm a horrible leader." I pulled out my handgun and looked at it. I held it up to my head, but Dalton knocked it out of my hands. "Is this what you really want?" He yelled. "We're trying to help you and this is what you do? Suicide isn't the answer! No matter what you do, you can't bring back the dead! Face the facts man!" I looked at him as he was talking to me. "Don't do this man. You have 2 brothers and a sister to take care of. Don't do it man. We need you here to lead us, to help us, to protect us. Your objective isn't over yet."

I had finally taken something from a teammate. I calmed down, stopped hitting myself and stood up. I faced Dalton, and then looked at Skye. Then back to Dalton. "Dalton, Skye, thank you." I thanked them. Everyone was just resting on the ground while Dalton and Skye had talked to me. They woke up a couple minutes later, and stood up. I walked to them and said, "Let's move on guys. Let's move on." Before we even moved, there were some cars and tanks that had come out of nowhere. A truck came by and a door opened. We looked into the truck and a man came out.

	15. Return of the Warriors

The man we saw was someone none of us knew. "Who are you?" I asked him, but he didn't reply. Instead, he raised his hand in the air, and a group of men came out from the other vehicles and formed a circle around us, aiming their guns at us. We pointed our guns at them cautiously. "Lower your firearms!" I heard someone yell. A huge man came out from one of the vehicles, and everyone around us lowered their firearms. We didn't lower our firearms. Rather, we kept aiming cautiously.

He approached me, and said "Sorry about that. We've been through hell the past few months." I knew then that these people were survivors. "I am Jackson, leader of the people who you think are dangerous. These people are actually ODST soldiers." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Jackson Anderson?" I asked. He nodded. "How the fuck did you come to leading these guys? I'm Phuoc, your high school friend!" I saw the excitement in Jackson's eyes. "Let me introduce you to my team members that I lead. This is Dalton, Skye, Patrick, Chris, Aaron, John, Dakota, Grace and Reese. We've been through as much hell as you, but Dakota, Grace and Reese are new to the team." Jackson shook the hands of each of my team members.

"Come on, we must get into the vehicles. Zombies could be anywhere right now." He led us to a big hummer, and we got into it and sat down. He sat in the driver seat. "Sir, we got contacts dead ahead! And they're coming right for us!" An ODST yelled through the communicator that we were all wearing, which for some reason we heard. "Everyone get in the cars and turn on your engines! I need gunners on the machine guns mounted on the hummers and tanks!" Jackson commanded. Looking out the window of the door, I could see that everyone was getting ready to hit and run. I noticed that Patrick had gotten to the machine gun and was ready to shoot. Jackson turned on the engine. "When I start going, start shooting!" Jackson stepped on the gas pedal and sped through the zombies. I heard gunfire, and I saw zombies being run over, arms and legs laying everywhere.

An hour later, we arrived at a base. When we entered the base, Jackson and the ODST drivers parked the vehicles and we exited the vehicles. Outside inside the base, I could see hundreds of thousands of survivors. "Welcome to our survival base at Virginia." An ODST told me. "Follow me, if you will. Phuoc, Jackson would like to talk to you." I went with an ODST to talk to Jackson while another ODST led my team members to some other place. I arrived to see Jackson standing and staring beyond a fence. The ODST left me and I walked toward Jackson. "You wanted to see me?" I told Jackson.

"Yeah, there is something that disturbs me." He started. "Look beyond the gate and tell me what you see." I looked beyond the gate. At first, I didn't see anything. But then something came into sight. I thought I saw an elephant, and a bunch of zombies. But what I saw wasn't actually an elephant. It was an enormous wave of zombies. "That's our enemy. This is now a war waged against a small population of 5,000 soldiers and survivors combined. There are more survivors than soldiers. If we don't find a place to go to, we're done for. These zombies seem to grow stronger and stronger every day. The only thing that is holding them back is the fact that I have to release wild animals into the area so that they can be distracted and buy us some time to train some of the survivors to fight."

"Well, I could help out, but I lost 5 of my team members. I don't think I can help out." I explained to Jackson what happened to each person. "I may be able to bring them back to life." Jackson said. "All I need is your memory of them. By having an image of them in your memory, I can bring back the last image of them you saw. Then they can fight with us." Jackson said. "Come, there is one place that we can do this, and it's in this survival camp. But we must hurry because the zombies may bust in anytime." Jackson led me to a huge building where it was filled with technology.

"How did you find this building?" I asked curiously. "IDK, we stumbled upon this building while trying to find a safe place for the survivors to hide out." he replied. I saw multiple capsules, enough for all the ones that died to be brought back to life. I also saw operating machine technology. "Well then, let's get started." He said, leading me to one of the capsules closest to the operating machinery. "This is where you will do your part of the work while we run the system. All you have to do is lay in there, close your eyes, and remember your friends that fell due to zombie attacks. Its that easy. Ready?" I nodded. "OK, let's start this thing up! Good Luck Phuoc." I laid down, closed my eyes and started to think and try and remember.

Everyone that died, was a friend of mine. Kent died due to kamikaze, Jack died of an flying ax, Nyquo died by sacrifice, and Alan and Aden died of an unexpected zombie attack. I thought of them in that order, and I remember what I went through with each and every one of them. A giant flash of light filled the zone within the building, and I could feel that something was happening. When the flash of light had gone, I opened my eyes, and the lid of the capsule opened. I sat up and got out. Jackson was still standing there, looking at the other capsules. I went to each one. _Hey, it's Kent. He's been brought back to life!_ I thought. I went to the other capsules. _Jack . . . and Nyquo . . . and Alan and Aden too! This machine actually works!_

The lids to those capsules opened up and the 5 of them sat up. "Where am I?" They asked as one person. "You have been resurrected, my friends." I said. "Thanks to the technology founded by my friend Jackson, you've been brought back from the afterlife." They got out, and I gave each one a hug (no homo) to show how much I cared for each one of them. "Kent, Jack, Nyquo, Alan and Aden," I called their names. They looked at me. "Come with me. This ODST here shall lead us to our other comrades. Care to join us, Jackson?" Jackson nodded. The ODST led us to the other 9 members in the team, where the 5 of them hugged and shook hands with the other 9 members.

"Jackson, you should get your soldiers ready for the battle in a week. We're going to get ready for this battle." I told Jackson. He left the area along with the ODST. "OK, listen up!" I yelled. All 14 team members turned to face me. "As of what Jackson here has told me, the zombies are waging war against the last of the North American race! They may not have any weapons, but their crappy teeth and arms and numbers are good enough to take the rest of us down! The only way we'll take them down is by our own tactics. We have the help of Jackson and the ODST soldiers, but that will not be enough. In 1 week, we will fight the zombies and save our country. I know what all of us have been through, but this war is just the beginning. Prepare yourself for next week when we fight them." I could see that all my teammates were ready for battle. "Let's go and train ourselves for it." I asked an ODST to lead us to the shooting range, and he led us there. Dalton and Skye stayed back to talk about something.

"Dalton, I'm afraid we have to break up." Skye said. "Why?" He asked. "Because after this war, things won't be the same anymore. I feel that this zombie war hasn't given us any time to show our true feelings to each other. I know that this is harsh, but I'm sorry Dalton. I don't want to be your girlfriend anymore. We can still be friends." Dalton looked down on the ground, tears dropping to the ground. "OK," he said calmly. "Then we can be friends. I'll still protect you till this war is over." He said. Skye and Dalton shook hands, and ran after Phuoc to catch up to get to the shooting range.

	16. Training

A few days have passed by since Nyquo, Alan, Aden, Jack and Kent were resurrected. We've been training hard since the first sight of the large wave of zombies beyond the gate. The 5 resurrected have been training the hardest, trying to take down every target as fast as possible as well as raising their accuracy. I've been talking to Jackson while at the shooting range with the ODST soldiers to give them some headers on accuracy. To tell the truth, they do suck at shooting. Their accuracy is below 50%, but some or slowly learning and increasing in accuracy.

"So what do you think of my team members?" I asked Jackson, who was standing next to me and practicing. "Pretty good actually. In fact, they're better than me." Jackson said. I laughed. "That's because you're using overpowered AA12 shotgun! Didn't you know that automatic weapons have high recoil unless you have complete control over them?" Jackson looked at me shooting my assault rifle. I had complete control over my assault rifle. I lessened the recoil on my assault rifle, which allowed me to increase my accuracy. "No way man!" Jackson said surprisingly. "How the hell did you hit all those targets with one clip? I can't even do that!" I showed Jackson how to control the recoil on his weapon. It was hard to do that because his and my weapons were completely different. "You need more practice, Jackson. You shoot like the ODST soldiers here." I teased him. He laughed. "There is one other guy I want you to meet." He told me. "Come with me." Jackson led me to a group of ODST soldiers, where they talked and played games.

"Hey so you know about the zombies right?" I heard someone say. "So if there are black zombies, how come there aren't white zombies?" a burst of laughter exploded. From how this guy told the joke, it was a zombie racist joke. "Hey Jounard!" Jackson said. "Remember Phuoc from high school?" A tall man looked at Jackson and nodded. "Yeah, I do. Why do you ask?" Jackson pointed at me, and said, "This is Phuoc." Jounard was rooted to the ground. He stared at me, his lower jaw dropped. "PHUOC!" he said in excitement. "What the fuck are you doing here? How did you get here?" I knew he was going to ask all those questions. "Yeah . . . it's a long story. But I want you to meet 14 people. Come with me, Jounard." I dragged Jounard to the shooting range, where my teammates and friends were shooting moving/stationary targets.

"Jounard, this is my team." I introduced. Everyone turned around to look at me and Jounard. One by one I introduced each one to him, and then I introduced him to them. "So . . . how long have you been here?" I asked Jounard. "Roughly half a year," he said. "It's been a long time, so I can't really remember very well." I understood him. "I've been traveling around since the start of this apocalypse. From Washington to California to Texas to Florida to New York and now we're here." I explained. "I found most of these guys along the way. I've connected with them a lot ever since this happened. We've been a real team after each attack and fight." _I sound like a freaking idiot trying to explain stuff to him that I've been through. _

"Well, I gotta get back to training. We're going to be killing them pretty soon. Keep training," I told Jounard. I shook his hand and left and came back to my part of the shooting range. On my way back, I noticed a group of sniper trainees. It seems as if they were in the middle of sniping zombies for practice, which they were actually doing that. When I had arrived back, I saw a fight breaking out between 2 people. "You got him killed!" One of them said. "No I didn't! It's his fault!" the other one said. I saw punches being thrown, the 2 people rolling around on the ground while everyone else stood around to watch. "Jack, Kent! I need you over here near the barracks immediately!" I saw through my communicator. "We're on our way!" They responded.

When they got there, I told them to help me settle this fight. "Who the fuck is you?" One of them asked. "I'm one of Jackson's friends, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to see his own people fight." I explained. "People die in this situation, man. Zombies are everywhere. If they die, it's not their fault." I was giving one of the guys a lesson on life while everyone else and my teammates were standing and watching. "You should know that people could die anytime. It's no one's fault, and we got a war coming for us soon. So ready up and stop bickering and fighting!" I yelled. "What happened?" Jackson ran over. "2 of your asshole people were fighting and one of them was blaming the other because someone died." I explained. Jackson nodded. "These guys are losing their morale. We need to train them quickly." From what Jackson had said, they were going to need hard training and fast before the war. So I volunteered to help him train them, and asked my teammates to help me train them. They agreed in unison, and we made our way to train the men in the area.

2 days later, they had all the skills they needed to kill the zombies. They were ready for this zombie war, and I know that they were not going to hold back. We gathered for a ceremony the day before the war was going to begin. "Tomorrow is the day that we fight them." Jackson started. "All your training will come into use starting tomorrow. Don't hold anything back; give them everything that you learned. Teach them to not mess with the living!" Everyone gave a victorious yell. "Even if you lose a friend, you must avenge them by killing their enemy and make sure that you don't die as well. Let's get some rest for tomorrow." Everyone left the area and went to get some rest for tomorrow. Jackson turned to face me and my teammates. "I'll see you tomorrow on the battlefield mates." He told us.

"Let's get some rest guys. We got a big day tomorrow," I said. "Some of us sniping, some of us out on the battlefield. But for sure, I won't let anyone die in this last battle. All of us will live for this one because we have many things to do after this war, such as going to another place to eliminate the zombies there." I finished my last sentence, and left the area. Everyone else left the area and went to rest. _We will be ready tomorrow, and I will protect everyone. _I told myself.

	17. The Beginning of the End

We rested for tomorrow's big battle. The day came, and we were trained. The Snipers have been at it since last night. They've been sniping zombies since last night for practice and to try and lessen the number of zombies as much as they can. Kent, Dakota, Alan and Grace have been sniping zombies since last night, and they don't seem to show a sign of exhaustion. I met Jackson at the frontline. "You ready for this battle?" I asked him. He nodded. "This will be our last effort to save all of mankind. Let's hope we can do this." He said.

A medium-sized person came up to me and talked to me. "Hey Phuoc, I'm one of the civilians." He told me. "Nice to meet you, but we're about to go into the fight. So get ready." I prepared him. "Ok, but I am a battle mage, so I can cast a couple fire spells and whatnot to help out." He explained. "I'll see you on the battlefield." I thought to myself. _A battle mage? I didn't know that there was actual battle mages in today's world. Well . . . let's hope that he can help us take these zombies down quick before we get devoured for breakfast, lunch or dinner_.

A citizen, who was ready to fight, came by and gave me an RPG. "Get ready!" I yelled. I looked to the left and the right of me, and saw who I expected to see at the frontlines: Dakota, Alan, Grace, Skye, Aaron, Nyquo, Jack, Chris, Reese, Jackson, Jounard, Patrick, Kent, Dalton, Aden and John. We were ready for the battle and ready to fight till death or till victory. I fired the RPG at the gate, and dropped the empty rocket launcher. I armed myself with my assault rifle, and I heard the explosion. The zombies started pouring in, and they started to spread. "This is it guys," I said. "I'll see you guys at the finish line." I looked ahead of us as the zombies got closer. "FOR EARTH!" I yelled, and I heard every one of my friends along with the civilians and soldiers yell the same thing. We rushed to them, and made our attack.

Gunfire filled the air, bodies falling down to the ground with a thump. I looked back and forth as I fought the zombies, seeing whether my teammates were being devoured or if they were still fighting. A zombie came up to me, but it was quickly put to rest by Aden, who looked as if he was super pro with his shotgun. "Thanks Aden!" I yelled. Before Aden could reply, a zombie came up from behind and was about to bite him. I eliminated that zombie quickly, and saved my friend from infection. I ran around instead of standing in one area to kill zombies. If you stay in one place to kill zombies, they will surround you and you will be a goner.

Jackson and Jounard were out there killing zombies, Jackson with his AA12 and Jounard with his shotgun. I saw zombie brains flying everywhere across the battlefield. It looked so gruesome that I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I saw what the battle mage could do. He was casting spells to fight the zombies. Though there was a couple civilians around him, making sure he didn't get bit. _Seems like he can actually do something that is helpful_, I thought. As I fought the zombies around me, what I didn't see was an axe zombie that was holding an axe and ready to behead me. Gunfire came from behind me and I turned around to see that Skye had shot an axe zombie that was about to cut my head off. "Thanks, Skye!" I told her. She nodded, and went back to killing the zombies.

3 hours passed by since the zombie war started, and most of the ODST troops had been devoured or were infected and became zombies. I felt sad for them, yet I couldn't bring them back. The battle mage was bit, but he managed to kill a couple hundred thousand zombies with the last of his magic that exploded in a giant wave that killed a couple hundred thousand zombies instantly. We lost so many people in such little time.

The 17 of us continued to fight even though our small-sized army was going down slowly. As far as I know, we weren't going down without a fight. 3 more hours passed by and the whole army had been devoured or turned into zombies. I knew for sure that the rest of us were gone. "This is it, guys." I told everyone. Though we were still fighting as a group, we saw the end of our path had come. "I think we're done for." Aden said. "No, we're not" I said. I pulled out a remote from my pocket and pushed the big red button. Several explosions were set off, and I saw hundreds of thousands of zombies being blown up. Though many of the zombies had been taken out, we were still in a tight situation. Even though we still had our primary weapons, we were still dead.

I kept fighting. I didn't lose hope. I didn't have anything to lose, except my friends and my life. Even if my friends went down, I'll never forget what they've done for me and what I've done for them. We kind of stalled for a while we were fighting, and that led to the death of Aaron. "Goodbye, Aaron." I said. "We'll see you on the other side." The zombies were still there, and there was no end to them. Reese, Dakota and I were still fighting. Everyone else wanted to give up, but still fought with barely any effort.

Out of nowhere, there was gunfire. I thought everyone was dead. I thought that the army was dead. The only ones left were me and my group. I turned back to see that another wave of allies had come to help. "Save the survivors! Kill the zombies!" I heard someone yell. We stood up in relief, knowing that our end was nowhere near us now. I fought once more to end this. Grenades and explosions were everywhere around us. I saw zombies being blown to pieces, and brains flying everywhere. "Are you alright?" someone asked me. "Yeah, but we have to finish off these zombies now or we're going to end up being zombies!" I explained. "Ok," he replied. "Let's finish this, guys! For Earth and for all of mankind!" he yelled. Together the rest of my friends and his army took out the zombies, and the war for the United States of America was over.

It took a whole 5 months to finish this war, but we finished it. The dead were buried, and those who fought in the war were saluted in the end. I buried the dead friends of mine who had fought in the war on my side. "Rest, Aaron. We'll see you around." I'm surprised that Skye, Dalton, Kent, Alan, Aden, Grace, Reese, Dakota, Nyquo, Chris, Patrick, Jack, Jackson, Jounard, and John had survived the war. I couldn't believe how great of a leader I was. I kept them alive, but I couldn't keep Aaron alive. I cried at the funeral of everyone who fought in the zombie war. I knew that even though this war was over, we still have more to finish. Other countries needed help as much as we do.

"This is just the beginning of our war," I said. Skye and everyone else agreed. She came over and held my hand, standing next to me. "If we're going to end this war, we'll do it together." She said, energy filling her with strength. "Guys, we will do this together. Is anyone up for another zombie battle?" I said. I heard everyone say yes, and we trained in Montana, where we got ready for the battles ahead of us. 5 years later, we managed to recruit about 500,000 people to fight with us against the zombies. "I think we're ready. What about you guys?" I asked my teammates. They nodded, and together we moved to the next destination: Africa.

"You're not leaving without me!" a voice called out from behind us. I turned to look, and saw Aaron alive. "Aaron! You're alive!" I said excitedly. "Well what are we waiting for? Let's get this show on the road!" he told me. Now our team was complete. The 17 of us lead the US army to our next destination: Africa. We boarded a US Army Battleship for our destination. Who are we? We are a group, a team, a family. Our journey continues, and we will survive until the end.

TILL THE END!

Sneak Peek on my next book:

We got into Africa, and the soldiers were still on the ship. I stepped foot on the land, and so did my team of 17. We explored the land, looking around to see if anything was strange. Suddenly, something ran with great speed, and tackled me. I landed on the ground, the creature being on top of me. I thought it was the end of me, until it was shot in the head by a shotgun wielded by Reese. "Thanks Reese." I told him. "Looks like this whole place is infected, not just people."

End file.

Zombie Survival Story by ZombieObliteration