The next morning, after spending a night sleeping under the stars on a the hard ground, Ira woke up and yawned while fluttering his eyelashes. He blinked sleepily and looked around the camp, absentmindedly checking the map for any nearby zombies.

Killing zombies was the best way to wake up.

He grumbled when he saw that there was no zombie close by and stretched as he sat up, cracking his neck and back and yawning once more. Ira looked around the camp at the tired soldiers surrounding him, sitting and talking quietly around the fire, their voices low and somber. Turning up the volume, he shamelessly eavesdropped on them.

Apparently, they had lost contact with one of their scouting parties late last night, and now they were being sent after them by their superiors. They were in the middle of arguing over whether it was worth it or not.

Ira stood up from the ground and wandered over to his backpack. He dug through it and smiled when he saw the box of cereal and the cartoon of yoghurt. 

Sitting down on the ground, he grabbed one of the solder's bowls and got his breakfast ready.

The argument was escalating, as more than one of them wanted to abandon their posts to track down their families. Ira watched on like it was a TV show, his boring brown eyes wide with interest and his lips quirked up into a smile. They were being so dramatic and their shouting match was attracting zombies, a horde of them that increased in numbers every time one of them yelled out something. He scooped yoghurt and cereal onto a spoon and bit down on it, chewing while he watched the dots on the map get closer every passing minute.

Eventually, they seemed to reach come sort of accord, where one of the lot snarled in many peoples faces. The female soldier sighed visibly and went over to Ira. She stared down at him and said, "I realized that we haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Amanda-"

Before she could say anything else, another soldier with binoculars called out a sharp warning, "Zombies incoming!"

"Shit!" she swore loudly and barked out, "How many?!"

The soldier responded, "About forty of them!"

The soldiers had already began to pack away their equipment and while Ira watched, they doubled their speed and hurried around like their backsides were on fire.

"How soon?!" Amanda demanded.

"Five minutes!" the soldier answered and gripped his gun tightly.

"Damnit!" Amanda dragged her hand through her hair and kicked the ground while she loaded her gun with more bullets. "There's not enough time to run. Somebody wake up the captain!"

Another soldier flew into a tent and the loud cursing as the captain woke up could be heard even outside of it. Ira continued to calmly eat his breakfast, keeping his attention on the map and making sure to swallow properly. In the past, when he was in a hurry, it happened that he swallowed his food down the wrong pipe, which just was no fun at all.

He finished his meal just as the first zombie broke through the tree-line.

Immediately, they were shot in the head and fell down in a graceless heap on the forest floor. Cracking his neck again, Ira stood up on his feet and patted down his pants to make sure they weren't about to break on him.

It had taken him a good hour to get the blood out of his hair yesterday, and he had gotten a lot of glares from the soldiers as he wasted all of that water. His clothes, though, were a lost cause.

They were still absolutely drenched in dried zombie blood.

More zombies broke through the tree-line, in ever increasing numbers, and soon there were too many for the soldiers to get clear headshots of them all. With the scent of live humans egging them on, they stumbled forwards surpassingly quickly with their hands outstretched in front of them, as if searching for something to grasp.

Their blind eyes were rolling in all directions, a futile attempt to see their prey.

The soldiers cursed and ducked away while they continued to barrage the zombies with bullets, as if they had an unlimited supply of them. Their faces were pale, but the woman — Amanda — was the only one that seemed to have her head on straight, her face harsh with determination and unceasing in her methodical shooting, never wasting a single bullet.

Ira wondered if he was supposed to help. But nobody had told him to do anything, so should he just stand here, waiting for it to end? It wasn't like he cared if they lived or died. But on the other hand... zombies!

Living targets, just a few meters in front of him, stumbling around like fools! Sure, he had killed a whole bunch of them yesterday, but the fun of killing never rally went away, did it?

While thinking about it, he went to a tall tree and wedged his backpack stuck hanging from a branch, so he wouldn't lose it in the chaos. He licked his lips, feeling the urge to shed blood start heating the blood in his veins, and grinned. 

This was a world he never wanted to leave.

Ira rolled up his sleeves in an attempt to spare them from more blood and while the soldiers were screaming in fear as they ran out of bullets one after the other, he threw himself into the bloodbath and laughed. He wrenched himself in between two different zombies, grabbed them and smashed their heads together, laughing at the image of their heads bouncing. Turning, he threw them into different oncoming zombies and grabbed ahold of his knife, stabbing up under the chin, straight into the brain of a zombie and kicking another in the knees to make it fall.

He weaved between the corpses, having the time of his life, as he killed one after the other. By the time all of the zombies were dead, Ira was once more covered in dead blood and smelling like decay. He didn't stop moving until all of the zombies were truly dead, as their dots disappeared from his map.

Finally, he just stood, alone, in the middle of a sea of corpses, his head tilted up to the sky, his eyes half-lidded and a smile twisting his lips.

The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own breathing and his heart thumping in his chest. He smiled up at the sky, his chest heaving from all of the effort, and his blood singing in his veins. He could barely believe what a good time he was having.

This was basically like a vacation!

He got to kill a whole bunch of things and people, nobody could blame him for murdering those already infected and he could burn whole cities down to the ground if he wanted to! 

Ira bent down until he was squatting, dragging the knife over the ground to get rid of some of the blood before he returned it to its sheath. Otherwise, it could very well get stuck in there, and while hilarious, he didn't want to have to find another knife.

He had fond memories with this one.

Call him sentimental, but he was getting attached to it.

Once he returned it to his sheath, he brushed both his hands through his hair, forcing the sticky hair out of his face, giving it a slicked back appearance with a red sheen. 

When he turned back toward the camp, he found all of the soldiers staring dumbfounded at him.

Raising an eyebrow, he tilted his head to the side and asked, "What?"

"Pfft!" for some reason, Amanda immediately started laughing, her whole body shaking with the motions.

Ira looked between the many soldiers, unable to understand what was so funny, and bewildered by their odd reactions. They had already seen him kill a bunch of zombies before, why were they looking so surprised?

The youngest soldier out of the bunch raised a shaky finger and pointed at him, whispering, "Demon."

Ira blinked.

"What?" he furrowed his eyebrows, still confused.

Amanda just laughed more.

Narrowing his eyes, Ira walking directly over the corpses, stepping on them when needed, to get back to where he had left his backpack hanging. While the others stared at him with wide and disbelieving eyes, wariness written all over their faces, Ira snatched the backpack out of the air and checked it over to make sure that it had survived intact.

Breathing more easily now that he knew that he didn't need to worry about it, he took a wet wipe from it and started wiping off his face, getting the blood off before it dried completely to the best of his abilities without a mirror.

When Ira released it to the forest floor, it was completely covered in blood, colored a dark red. He took out another one and dragged it through his hair, trying to get some of it out at least.

He didn't feel like going through what he had yesterday in order to get it out again, so if he missed anything, he would just leave it there. It wasn't like he was bothered by the smell of blood coming from his hair anyway.

Once his hands and knife were clean as well, he turned back to the group of soldiers and asked flatly, "So what do we do now?"

"We get on the road." Amanda — who had apparently recovered from her laughing fit — stated.

Ira nodded in acknowledgement and hummed.

The other soldiers finally woke up from their stupors and hurried over to get all of the equipment that had survived. They walked warily around the pile of zombie corpses, but managed to gather everything in an impressively short amount of time.

Soon, they were trekking through the forest, Amanda bringing up the rear together with Ira. The captain had demanded that he went last, protecting them from attacks from the back and he hadn't seen a reason to disagree so he listened. He wasn't sure why Amanda was hanging back with him, but she wasn't a total loser like the others, so he would deal with it.

"Our transportation isn't far." Amanda reassured him, as if he had been worried about it.

Ira didn't bother with a response.

She smiled at him and asked, "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Around." Ira drawled, fully aware that it was frustrating answer.

She huffed, but she didn't look angry at him. "Is that so?"

"Yes." 

Smiling, she said, "Alright. I'll buy that. Is there anywhere in particular you want to go? Somebody that you want to find?"

Ira stepped over a large root and hummed before he answered, "Well, I suppose there is one person I'm looking for. It would be interesting, to find out if he exists here or not. An experiment, you know?"

"Is he someone you know well?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Don't know." Ira said and continued with, "He keeps telling me he loves me."

"Oh." Amanda sounded like she had just understood something. He wondered what. "Personally, I'm more partial to women, but if you like him, why not?"

Ira furrowed his brows. "I don't like him. I'm just curious if he would really follow me here."

"Did he say he would?"

Ira nodded. "He said he would follow me forever, no matter where I go."

"He sounds sweet. What's his name?" she asked.

Ira blinked and tilted his head. "I don't know."

"You don't know his name?" she sounded shocked and her eyes were staring at him in astonishment. 

For some reason, Ira felt the need to defend himself. "I can't remember it!"

"Why not?" now she just looked amused. "This guy loves you, right? The least you should do is remember his name."

"I only remember people I like." Ira stated and turned his gaze forward.

The other soldiers were very obviously listening to the entire conversation.

They were also giving him really judging looks. Why?

"Just..." Amanda put her hand on his shoulder and kept up with his speed effortlessly. "when you find this guy, ask for his name and remember it this time, okay?"

"Fine." Ira drawled out in order to get her to stop talking about it.

It wasn't like he didn't know who he was looking for. It was Silas' soul, he just didn't know what his name was in this world, if he was even here. 

For some reason, Ira didn't want to think about what his reaction would be if he wasn't.

It wasn't worth considering.