2.10

Ignoring the two dumbfounded teenagers, I scrubbed thoroughly at my skin in the frozen cold river. Too lost in thought at how of all the places Ivy's brother would turn up, it was here, miles from his boarding school. He even had a little female friend joining him in witnessing my insanity.

"Why aren't you at school?" I asked whilst scrubbing my hair, feeling the question nagging me worse than System.

Leo's hand held his companions tightly, trembling as their worn-out and terrified selves tried to adjust to the situation and their surroundings. By their state, I could only imagine what they'd endured so far.

"I-I snuck out," he replied eventually, "it was Holly's little sister's birthday party." He couldn't continue as Holly burst into tears at his words. I remembered how tiny the zombies in party hats had been.

"Fuck," I cursed, jumping back up onto the river bank to swiftly dry myself up and dress in new clothes from my bag. Leo gentlemanly turned away to give me the privacy I noticed. Maybe this little brother wouldn't be too bad to take care of.

After furiously brushing my tangled auburn curls for too long I took scissors out of the system, cutting it just above the shoulder, just long enough to tie up.

Noticing their wary eyes were watching my every move, I made a note to be more careful about using my bag as a 'portal' to my dimension. Was only a matter of time before they'd figure out I was treating it like a Marry Poppins bag.

"Leo, Holly," I beckoned them over as I made calculations on what I could coincidentally gift them from my dimensions without them noticing my bag was only so big.

Holly was wearing a boyish-looking coat whilst Leo was shivering, so I fished out a spare coat for Holly. Then pulled out two water bottles and protein bars.

"Drink and eat whilst we move, stay behind me and stay on guard," I ordered them both, heading back along the riverbank to where the carpark should be.

The kids behaved, doing exactly as told without so much as a word. It was weird trying to grasp the concept that I was technically only two years their senior, compared to my previous twenty-two-year-old self and lord knows how old my soul had been around.

"Around six hundred human years," System interjected, making me choke on my water.

"Are you okay?" Leo asked, hesitant to get close.

"Yeah," I coughed, "I just suddenly feel old. Very old."

Holly's sudden squeak of terror drew my attention behind us. At least six zombies were tailing us. I'd taken too long, I should have moved upwind and then bathed and changed. Next time I needed to think more clearly. Next time.

As I drew my swords to deal with those tailing us Leo cursed behind me, "shit, hey sis there's more that way too." He raised his blood-stained wooden baseball bat in a defensive stance, Holly trembled with a very clean kitchen knife behind him.

"Can you both swim?" I asked, decapitating an obese man lunging towards me. Kicking its body back to trip up two more who had followed behind him.

Both teens nodded, glancing at the relatively calm river flowing by.

"Stay close to the river bank, if I say Go, jump and swim to the other side. If I can't follow, you need to keep heading North or to the roads, look for road signs for the local camping site, Will will meet you there."

I wasn't sure they'd digested all that information, but I had no choice but to focus back on the dead slowly surrounding us from all sides.

After he bashed in the skull of a zombie at my rear he called out, "is Ivy with them?" I noticed there was no mention of his parents. Just like Hannah, Leo had a rocky relationship with his parents.

At the thought of the Clark family, the images of Hannah's last few memories flashed in my mind, causing me to miss the neck of the closest zombie, lodging my blade halfway through its jaw, that still tried to bite at me.

Scrunching my face in disgust, I lifted the Ivory sword to enter via its eye socket, then kicked the blades loose, aiming the body at the others like before.

It was beginning to slowly become too much for me to deal with the ever-growing crowd, even with System boosting my strength and speed.

Holly squealed as she nearly slipped into the river evading a lunging grip. Leo angrily roared kicking it in its shins and then bashing the bat down on top of its skull crushing it in one blow.

The benefit of fighting these infected, decaying bodies was that they were much more fragile than the average human. Unlike that exceptional supermarket employee.

Next time Holly might not be so lucky. The guilt of Hannah not reaching his sister in time, crushed my chest, filling my head with fear of watching her fall to the same fate. We needed to retreat and fast.

"Go," I called out, then continued to loudly and verbally abuse the zombies as I continued my system of using the dead zombies to knock the living back to create somewhat of a wall of corpses around us.

Neither teen needed to be told twice. They quickly jumped into the water, Holly crying out at the cold as they made their way across the river.

Once the sound of splashing water stopped, I sighed with relief expecting the teens to have crossed over. Now it was my turn. Just as I turned to face the water a rock flew centimeters from my cheek impaling the skull of the zombie stumbling forwards right behind me.

Wary that I could have been the target, I maneuvered away from the river edge, positioning my blades to shield me from any future projectile.

Across the river, a group of six young men stood, five of which were packed to the high heavens with bags and supplies and were surrounding the teens. The other young man stood right by the water, rocks rotating around him mid-air as if he had an orbit, just like he was fucking Saturn. I miss ghosts.

In an instant, all of the stones surrounding him flew across at such a speed I wasn't sure if I could have evaded even if I'd wanted to. They all impaled the zombie skulls that were in sight. A few hit their targets more than once.

Though the instant danger around me was gone, the sounds of shuffling feet and groans let me know that there were many more in the treeline unseen.

"What are you waiting for?" Saturn beckoned me over with his hand, new rocks lifting around him to orbit.

Seeing the teens still trapped between the other five I sheathed both swords and ensured everything important in my hopefully waterproof backpack returned to the dimensional space.

Grateful for System generating heat inside me, I quickly swam across, barely breathing air. At the other end, Saturn knelt on the ground the rocks still hovering but holding still. His right hand was outstretched ready to pull me out.

Only after a brief moment of hesitation, I reached my hand out, clutching his hand tight, allowing him to drag me out with minimum effort. I was very certain this brick-built young man could have lifted me completely with that one hand. It was both comforting and scary.

I gulped, eyeing the teens chatting to the other guys, introducing themselves. I overheard the names, Ethan, Oliver, Matt, Luke, and Aiden.

"Hi, I'm Alex, we were just on a supply run and noticed you needed help, I hope you don't mind," why did he blush as if embarrassed he had helped us? Who on Earth could be angry at someone saving their damn life?

"Hannah," I replied, trying to hold back my nerves at his unpredictable personality, I focused on the shivering teens, "you guys okay?"

Both nodded their heads, despite their lips almost turning blue. They would not last long exposed out here like this.

Turning back to our saviours, I also noticed the zombies I'd heard before were now within my line of sight and there were many. Damn that fucking asshole to hell. Even if hell didn't exist, I willed he'd somehow still find his way there.

"Actually, hell is just apocalyptic worlds inside a dimension that some humans have been unfortunate enough to see and spread stories of. So technically, we're already in a form of hell." System interrupted my thoughts seemingly nagging me, but I could tell it was just trying to bring my thoughts back on track, directing my irritation at it, not at the dead.

"Alex," I rudely butted into their conversation, but time was running short.

"Don't worry, we're all in agreement to bring you along," he took off his coat, draping it over my shoulders, pulling it tightly over my chest. I noticed two of them also passed blankets from a supplies bag to the other two. Why was I getting his coat?

"Wear that, it'll be easier to fight in compared to a blanket," he coughed, nervously explaining.

Though it was the end of the world as we knew it, it appeared chivalry wasn't completely dead. Should I start calling him White knight instead of Saturn?