Chapter 10

The knight took charge leading Lili and himself down 1st Avenue and the further they walked the more zombies they were starting to encounter. Each of them being taken care of swiftly by The knight as Lili hid in silence. The two soon reached the area nearby to time square and decided to rest for a few minutes as there weren't any zombies on this side of the city. The sound of hundreds of footsteps and a scream rang in the distant dropping a chill down Lili's spine.

"Did you hear that?" Lili asked The knight.

"Uhh yea why? It was pretty loud." The knight said nonchalantly.

"Well do you wanna go check it out? Maybe we can help whoever screamed." Lili said.

"I'm good." The knight responded simply.

"Wait what? You're good?" Lili asked confused by his response.

"Yep, I'm good. I really don't feel like running straight into another battle, after all I did just finish one with stray zombies and a creepy old man last night. Also aren't you suppose to be the more careful of us two?" The knight said while yawning.

"Yea uhh I just wanted to show that I'm not scared, like I'm not a coward or anything." Lili said looking down.

"Who said you were a coward?" The knight asked her.

"Oh well uhh I just well I always thought that uhh oh nvm." Lili said unable to think of exactly what she wanted to say and how she wanted to say it.

"Like I said earlier, you're the more careful one out of the two of us. Which if I'm going to be honest is necessary especially with my impulsive ass being in this duo." The knight said giggling at his small little quip about himself.

"Heh! You are pretty impulsive. I mean why do you always get into every possible fight you can with stray zombies when we can just sneak past them without any problem whatsoever." Lili said.

"Lili have you seen me? Do you really think I can sneak past anything wearing this loud ass armor?" The knight said gesturing to all the armor covering him.

Kipoah! Kipoah! Two gunshots were heard coming from time square followed by a few more screams. The sounds of hundreds of footsteps getting a tiny bit louder by the second woke up the two to potential dangers heading toward them. With that in mind the two started moving away from the noise to try and escape doom while reaching The knight's old apartment. The knight saw ten zombies turn a corner and started to run faster than before grabbing hold of Lili's hand to drag her along. Seeing that Lili wasn't running fast enough The knight decided to suddenly pick her up and carry her on his shoulder.

"Woah!" Lili said shocked by being off her feet.

"Don't worry I've got you!" The knight said starting to run even faster than before putting a tiny bit more distance between them and the ten zombies trailing from behind.

Lili had a smile on her face as she gave The knight a slight nod before turning her head back to the zombies. One of the zombies caught Lili's eye as a symbol was shown on its shirt painted on and slightly covered by dried blood, but she would never forget it. A blood red circle with six squiggly lines coming down from the center and two white triangles depicting eyes right above the lines. The smile dropped when she saw the symbol while she froze in place on The knight's shoulder.

"Yo what's wrong?" The knight said while running when he sensed the atmosphere change slightly.

"Uhh nothing, just keep running!" Lili said breaking out of the slump she was in.

The knight continued to run till they reached 14th street when another scream was heard in the distance drawing the attention of the zombies chasing after them. This gave them a great opportunity to rest before continuing on in their journey. The knight was huffing and puffing after setting Lili down who had begun to feel nauseous from being carried by him. Hands on his knees, The knight tried to get his breath back before collapsing to the ground in exhaustion. Grrrraaaughhuuuu! The loud sound startled Lili, but The knight laid there undisturbed as he began to whine.

"Uhhhhhghhhhh, I'm so hungry! Lili do you have food? I need to eat to regain my energy from carrying you all this way." The knight said only slightly moving his head in her direction.

"What! Are you trying to say that I'm fat! And why are you asking me for food? I thought you were the one who had food since you were the one who spontaneously decided to leave." Lili said in anger.

"Huh? Do I look like a man who's carrying food on him? I'm wearing a full set of metal armor and I'm not holding a single bag, where the fuck did you think I would be hiding food, up my ass?" The knight said in annoyance as the pain in his stomach started to grow from his hunger.

"Forget about it! We'll just grab food from a supermarket or something." Lili said with a tiny bit of embarrassment.

After their whole debacle about food and running away from the zombies chasing them Lili grabbed The knight's hand to attempt helping him back up to his feet, but the weight of the armor made it so she was only able to drag him about a foot away without lifting him. This prompted more whining from The knight as he slowly turned himself over onto his stomach before getting up. With the two of them now ready, but hungry to the point of constantly arguing with one another they set out to find a nearby bodega or supermarket. Since they were in New York City there was a bodega on virtually every corner and street, unfortunately for them, the first three bodegas were empty, completely devoid of any sort of edible food which annoyed Lili and angered The knight.

"Are you fucking kidding me! How in the holy fucking hell is there not a single piece of food in these bodegas. Seriously not even a single can of preserved food, just dust, guts, and rats." The knight said while leaving the third bodega they searched.

"At least try and remain positive, maybe there will be food in the next one." Lili said reluctantly not believing her own words.

They walked to the next bodega with The knight continuously complaining about the lack of food that they've found and how hungry he was much to her annoyance. In their hunger both of them disregarded the slow and stealthy approach they had before and instead just walked quickly to their destination hoping that they find something to satisfy them. When they reached the next bodega they saw it was infested with a small group of zombies, but that's not the only thing that caught their eye, the place was filled to the brim with food. It seemed that the group of zombies acted as a deterrent to the average straggler that was trying to find a quick grab of something to eat.

"Gehehehehahaha! This is perfect! Look at all the food there." The knight said licking his lips while rubbing his armored hands together.

"See what did I tell you? You should have more faith that we will..." Lili said before getting interrupted by The knight running towards the store and breaking in through the windows sending shards of broken glass everywhere.

The knight wasted no time at all in rushing into the store to secure the treasure inside. Instead of reacting to The knight the zombies decided to walk towards the noise and aim for Lili. The zombies reaction surprised her, but due to them hitting what used to be the bottom portion of the window she was able to take quick shots at them with her knife by stabbed them in the head whenever they tripped out of the store. After a few minutes she cleared out the zombies and entered the store to see The knight sitting with alot of food scraps around him on the floor with his helmet on. Seeing how he finished his food and fell asleep quickly she decided to do the same next to him. They took a short nap of about an hour or two before Lili woke up and slapped The knight awake.

"Wait wha- uhhh what the fuck is going on?" The knight said muttering as he had just woken up.

"Why would you just leave me with those zombies earlier? And why did those zombies just completely ignore you?" Lili screamed at him.

"I don't know." The knight hummed while shrugging his shoulders.

The response only served to anger her more as she slapped him again in the back of his head. He just looked at her in shock while rubbing his hurt head which made no sense to Lili seeing as to how he was wearing armor and could barely feel a thing.

"So are we going to stay here for the night and leave in the morning or?" Lili asked her words trailing off.

"Uhhhhh sure I guess so. I mean this place does have food and the nap I took wasn't bad so sure." The knight said to himself outloud while debating it in his head.

"Okay great, this means you're gonna have to board up that broken windows hole that you made so that new zombies can't come in while we're asleep." She said.

"Wait don't you mean WE have to board up the window?" He said beginning to feel a slight fear in his heart by her evil smile and soft shake of her head giving him his answer.

The knight quickly got to work as Lili relaxed while watching him struggle. After the work was done they both just sat there relashing in the moment with no zombie, no hunger, and little care in the world as they were safe for now.

"Hey do you wanna talk about why we left the group?" Lili asked The knight somberly.

"Sure ask away." The knight said.

"Well I know we were all pretty sad and angry after Dion's passing, but you're normally more level headed than to just attack someone like that. You've almost become a little too aggressive since then too." She said.

"I'm not level headed and that pathetic excuse of a man insulted Dion and his death, I wasn't going to just let him say whatever he wanted about my friend without being punished for it. I don't regret my actions either, I'm still pretty pissed off and if I see his smug, arrogant, pretty boy face again I'm going to beat his ass again." He said.

"I get that him insulting Dion very shortly after his death pissed you off, but what exactly was it that he said cause you almost took his head off and turned it into mince meat." She said.

"I don't remember, I kind of blanked out at that moment. Everything just went dark for a few, I don't know everything that happened I just know that I was extremely angry and I think instincts took over. It was similar to what happened with that homeless park guy." He said quietly with his head angled lower than usual.

"That's okay we just have to make sure you aim that anger towards the zombies instead so you can tone it down on the remaining humans that are still alive." She said jokingly trying to lighten up the tense atmosphere that was created.

"Well I'm getting kind of tired now after this talk so yea ima sleep." The knight said awkwardly.

"Oh yea sure I guess I will too, so goodnight I guess." She said laying down to sleep.

"Yea goodnight." The knight said doing the same.

Although the two of them agreed to go to sleep in a desperate attempt to end what became an awkward talk about the past, The knight stayed up for an hour after he said he was going to sleep just thinking about his actions and how angry he became as a person. The morning sun came quick with The knight not noticing when he fell asleep during his reflection of his thoughts and state of mind.

"Goodmorning! So is today the day we finally reach your old abode or is another crazy event going to happen that pushes it back for one more day." Lili said teasing The knight who had just woken up as well.

"Hmph. Too early, too bright." The knight said as he slowly crawled up onto his feet using the wall as a support.

Lili waited for him to get ready for the day as they would hopefully finally be reaching The knight's old apartment which should still be a safe house for the two of them until they figure out what they're going to be doing next. It took him almost two hours to fully get ready, Lili just watched him in disbelief and anger as he continued to waste more and more of her precious time.

"Are you finally ready to leave princess!" Lili shouted in annoyance trying to mock The knight into hurrying up.

"Hold up, I'm almost ready okay." The knight said from some corner of the bodega.

"You said the same thing, an hour ago!" Lili screamed again getting louder as her anger couldn't be contained.

Lili began to search for him in the bodega and found him back turned to her in a corner. The sound of crunching could be heard and when The knight turned around Lili found out why. The knight had been munching on multiple bags of chips and only just finished when Lili came from behind him, fortunately when he turned around his helmet fell right back down covering his face in the process. It did nothing to hide his guilty presence however which just made Lili rage by grabbing him by the foot and dragging him towards the door with a surprising amount of strength that was never displayed before.

"Welp such is the power of an angry woman." The knight thought surprised by the show of strength.

"Stop laying there and get ready to leave! I've been waiting more than an hour!" She said prepping her fist in a threatening manner.

"Uuehhhhhh!" The knight yells out quickly scrambling up to his feet.

Once the two were done with the banter and officially ready they opened the door to the bodega and left to continue their adventure. They walked silently down the streets trying to avoid the groups of zombies in their way by being as stealthy as they can be, despite The knight's armor making a lot of noise, and cutting corners whenever they needed to. By constantly switching streets with the tactics they've developed, they successfully managed to avoid all the zombies in the area and arrived near Chinatown.

"Huuuuffff" The knight sighed getting Lili's attention.

"What? What's wrong aren't we getting close?" Lili asked assuming the sigh meant they were still far away from their destination and that he was beginning to get tired.

"No no we are, it's just this place looks a lot different than when I was living here and even more different than when I left this place." The knight said looking around at the torn buildings and turnt over cars.

"Well how long ago did you leave your apartment?" Lili asked interested and showing concern for her friend.

"I think it might've been maybe half a year ago give or take a month." The knight said.

"Well yea, in that amount of time anything can change especially an area that doesn't really have people taking care of it anymore." Lili said continuing the walk deeper into Chinatown.

The knight followed behind Lili for a while before they both realized their mistakes as Lili had led them in a circle back to the spot they were just at. With The knight now leading the two of them towards his old apartment they finally began to get somewhere. The nostalgia of the chinese characters everywhere and the long walk on Allan Street filled The knight's mind. Drunken on this feeling he ignored stealth for a nice crisp walk through his old neighborhood, except he was seeing it as it once was with people walking past him and cars driving by. Reality hit him shortly, the dream cracking and crashing into the ground like a stray piece of concrete breaking apart from one of the buildings forcing him to dodge to the side where he bumped into an overturned car with blood stains and another dead body laying inside of it. Lili watched on behind him with concern, she reached out to him before quickly retracting her hand and continued to follow him. They walked for a few more minutes before The knight suddenly stopped in front of a rusted door that was opened a tiny crack.

"Well this is it, this is my place, or at least this is the building leading to my place. We're gonna have to walk up some stairs I live on the third floor." The knight said, his mind in a daze of nostalgia and memories.

"Looks homey I guess." Lili said looking at the dried up blood stains on the door and walls before she followed The knight into the building.

The knight led her slowly up the stairs, but didn't have a single bit of worry or care. He was simply taking his time while trapped in his mind once again bothered by thoughts that should've stayed at the back of his mind behind closed doors. Once they reached the third floor The knight moved almost on instinct towards his apartment door and reached for a nearby light pulling out a key from the inside of it. He went to unlock his door, but found it to be already unlocked, thus put him on guard quickly which also scared Lili.

"What? What is it?" She asked whispering to him softly and swiftly.

"I think there might be someone inside, it's either that or someone's been here since I left. The doors unlocked which should be impossible cause I left it locked when I went on my original journey, of course that is unless someone got in here since then." The knight said preparing himself for an attack.

Mustering up some courage The knight opened the door and quickly barged in to find nobody there. He searched the rooms thoroughly and found that everything had indeed been stolen, but the person or group who did it wasn't here any longer. He walked back to the first room to see Lili frozen there shocked with wide eyes and jaw on the ground staring at the wall behind him.