Such a picturesque moment doesn't last forever though, as they are woken up by the leader who seems to be in a bad mood. He sends out his men from the room and sits at his desk silently.

Malah still lacks the strength to stand up, so she stays quiet for now, but Mia seems to ignore the threats directed at them yesterday and walks up right before Meka.

“Don’t think I will let you get away with it.” Mia

“Pardon?” Meka

“You broke your word.” Mia

“Watch your tone.” Meka snaps out furiously.

“You promised that no harm will come to us and you broke your world. My friend died while under your care, after we agreed you protecting us. All because you didn’t bother to let a parched girl drink, with plenty of water to go around. Right after this, you beat up my friend for protesting you for this. Not only you broke your word, but you also blamed us for it and hurt us.”

“So?” His anger is replaced with a cold chill in his voice, but the fact that he doesn't stand up and break Mia’s neck means whether pride or honor, something holds him back.

“You want us to trust you so you can trust us. Dead cannot be brought back, but recognize your goddamn mistake and make up for it. If you promise to protect my friend with your life, I will forgive you and follow your word to death.”

His face, frozen over like ice sheets, never twitch or move at all. This man, there is only one person who can make him do anything- 

-his wife.

“Zuhoi knows that I arrived with two friends that I wound through in hell with. Now I only have one left. Do you choose the right path, or do you run away from your responsibilities?”

Mia and Meka stare each other in the eye for long seconds, yet soon the man breaks into laughter.

“Hahah! Good! I felt you are something. Sure, we can make such a contract. Your friend’s life in exchange for yours. Sounds good. You can be personal my little soldier. Make sure not to die!”

His hand reaches down and he puts his own pistol, the one he murdered her other friend with on the desk.

“This is yours. You can get some practice later, for now, you two can get the side office as your own personal home.”

Mia reaches for the gun and tries to take it, but Meka grabs her arm and pulls her closer to him, whispering a few more words only for her to hear.

“Don’t think you can get away with it. Make a mistake and both of you will be tortured until you will beg to be the big boss's plaything.”

The man stands up and happily hands the keys over to her with a big smile. Right after he starts to explain all the facilities in the garage, where they grow food, how they clean the water, and where they can join teams heading out to gather stuff. Most of these jobs are assigned and they will have to do them or they can have someone else to do it for them but have to do a certain amount every month. If they do more they also get paid, which they can then spend on themselves.

When the man finally leaves them alone, Malah can only stare at her friend in wonder. Is it even worth it when they are likely going to die? But if they do survive and become playthings, that would be worse.

Seeing her clueless friend, Mia finally decides to explain the rules first explained to her which she should have done much sooner. Malah listens to her eagerly, but still not understanding the situation fully.

Only a slight tease does come out of her.

“You two really fell in love at first sight, huh? What a strange pair. Criminal and victim. There was a saying about this, but I can’t remember...”

Of course, Mia doesn't even bother to respond. Such an evil and vicious man is not someone she can tolerate. She would rather see him six-foot deep, but currently, he is the key to their wellbeing. She is already hatching a plan, just to do that.

A few hours later, the leader comes back into the office. He calls Mia to her again.

“It seems I will have to train you with using that soon. Soon you will need it.” He says while pointing at the gun hidden under the side-skirt of her wife’s dress she wore again.

“Why?”

“You see, the big boss is strong, but his head isn’t the best. He has been getting paranoid, thinking the leaders want to get rid of him. Of course, this is true, but this made the other leaders wary of him, which only made him even more paranoid.”

“Point is?”

“The leaders decided to change him. If I can get the chair it's great, but next is not the most important thing. How we get rid of him is. I want you to assassinate when he leaves the leaders meeting. Everything will be set up, but we all have to be there, so I need someone disposable. You just have to pull the trigger and shoot.”

The man stands up and holds out his hand, then Mia gives the gun to him.

“Here is the magazine release, here how you change it. Here is how you arm it. It’s a simple model, pull back the slide to load a bullet and get the hammer back, then point and shoot. Three close to the chest is how you kill. If you are at arm's length, it's easy, just don’t mess up.”

Mia watches his hands move and repeats his movements carefully.

“Good girl. Remember, shoot him multiple times. Shoot the big boss and the lanky guy that's always with him. He is not important, but just in case. If anything goes bad, well it better not be, but if it does just shoot as many leaders as you can. Asshole will be happy and think we saved him and cleaned his garden. A stupid fella. Anyway, put that away and follow me, we are going there now. When we enter, just stand behind me next to the wall and don’t ever speak. Don’t even respond unless asked to. It’s easier to avoid problems than to fix ‘em”

It is a little bit too much for the girl at once, but she follows her newfound ally through the underground parking lot. They enter the same big room with the strange chair setup, but this time six other leaders also sit along the table beside leader Meka. He sits in the same place he sat last time, while Mia moves behind him. This also gives her a chance to see the faces of the other leaders in the room. The big boss also sits at his throne, taking a good long log at Mia’s legs and bosom, but ignoring her after having his fill.

They do begin the meeting after talking about normal subjects such as resources and manpower in the gang, but soon an unexpected new question is raised.

“It seems everyone is here.” Tobi, the big boss on the throne says. “Although it is regretful to say, it appears some of you have planned on breaking the rules.” 

As he says this, a man with an automatic rifle steps up from behind him, pointing it at the leaders. 

“How regretful. It seems I will have to do a little cleanup. Anyone who broke the rules and brought their gun into my room without permission, stand up.”

No one stands up at his order, even though at least three people are visibly wearing a weapon. Mia notes, maybe this Tobi guy isn’t that stupid as the leader says. The man with the rifle nervously looks over the crowd, watching for any sort of movement, but not aiming towards Mia.

“Well, I do not have any weapons on me, you may check it. Good and bad.”

Meka says this firmly while looking at the big boss. He raises his hands in the air and stands up slowly, then takes a step back. His thin clothes cannot hide a weapon, his only pistol is with Mia.

“So boss, am I clear?”

The man frowns displeased with the current events. It appears he planned to catch him early on this before it was too late, but his plan was foiled by an unknown factor. Tobi's eyes suddenly turn to Mia, who is already holding out her pistol from the side, aiming at the man with the gun. She shoots seven times, missing most but manages to take him down while the rifle shots several times, injuring multiple people still sitting. Her gun then aims at the big boss, and shoots twice more, emptying the magazine.

One of them luckily hits him in the chest, incapacitating him completely.

When she heard the order, she wasn’t sure if it was meant for her, the leader was way too unsubtle for her to understand what he wanted, but when the big boss turned towards her, her hands grabbed the gun out of reflex and she emptied it into the two targets. 

Lacking another magazine she throws the gun away. There is a short silence, nothing seems to have gone as planned. 

“I guess this didn’t go as expected, but we have successfully stopped Tobi from trying to take over all the teams for himself. I suppose we begin a vote for the next leader. “ Meka speaks out.

The other leaders also recover quickly from their stupor, some holding their injuries or lying dead. It seems when a plan goes stupidly bad, even hardened criminals get flustered. Mia watches Meka’s back, who seems disappointed that most other leaders are alive. Although all these people are scum, it's not like Mia can just go and murder all of them one by one.

Rather, Mia steps outside of the room without even looking at Meka, but doesn't even get as far as a corner before puking over the floor. She pulls herself up quickly and wipes the pinkish remains off her face, sighing tiredly.

From the distance, from the other side of the parking lot, the sounds of screams reach her ears.

Only one person from forty-five.

Soon to be zero.

Mia stops in her tracks, thinking whether it was all worth it. Surviving and suffering this long for absolutely no reason. No, even worse, destroying this tiny semblance of civilization, however, fucked up this is, without any knowledge or a chance to change anything. Did murdering that guy in cold blood even change anything? Didn’t she already kill him when she kept their infection secret? These people should know about the infection more than she does, yet they don’t.

Is it even worth thinking about all this?

Isn’t this all just a waste of time?

In a few seconds, the sounds of gunshots blow up from all over the place, deafening most listeners underground. Mia’s ears also begin to bleed, but she doesn't panic. She knows it is too late. When they get a good bite and start eating people as normal, it is less than a minute to turn into a monster yourself. With so many juicy and fleshy humans around, it's normal to want to go after them and not bother with each other's dead, untasty meat. A few people run past her, but she only notices them after they are already past her. Her eyes are already cloudy, it's getting harder to see and concentrate for her.

“It seems I’m weaker than you, Malah.”

Her hand reaches down towards the ground as she picks up a gun dropped by someone. They won’t need it anyway. 

Mia slowly begins walking back where she came from. Her eyes don’t help much in this matter anymore and she is completely deaf by now. The vague shapes are enough to walk back into the room by memory, where Meka awaits her with a strange happiness she never saw before.

“Finally, I was wondering if you got shot in the mess outside, I’m glad you are fine. I finished this, thanks for protecting the door.”

As she stepped closer, however, Meka took a step back and lost his smile.

“You know, somehow... ” 

Mia opens her mouth, but failing to hear even her voice, she doesn't know how it comes out.

“...I think I really did fall in love with you when you blew my dear friend’s grey matter on my face...”

“...but I’m glad I can be the person who ends your miserable life.”

Losing her last speck of vision, Mia pulls the trigger over and over and over repeating even after the gun stops working, even when she completely loses all feeling of touch.

Even after losing all of herself and any connection to reality.

Life is unfair.

Life is cruel.

It cannot be wasted.

To Be Continued...

 

 

 

Author's note:

Thanks for reading chapter one, please tell me your thoughts.
I was rejected from RoyalRoad for "having a heavy theme", even though that platform is full of way worse gore and porn xD
I guess If you actually write a tragedy and mark it is one it not good enough for them.

Here is a useful copypasta from me, feel free to reuse it, but use it wisely.

I understand your goals and I think they are good and noble, however you operate on false premises which lead you to means which not only will never help our cause, but will also have disastrous consequences in other fields you ignore.

This is not because your goals are misguided or that you are unable to comprehend these other fields, but because you are driven to one and only goal, narrow and restrict your own thinking, believing this way you may achieve greater results in that field.

Ignoring other fields, however, will only ever lead to disaster and division, as you are the one who is unconsciously pushing away those who raise their concerns, thinking they are hurting your cause by dividing your attention.

-a little feather of kindness