"You should eat. He's gonna wake up soon."
Nae served me dinner, seemingly hoping I would be able to devour it without any serious food poisoning.
"It doesn't smell like it's edible." I say and smell the piece of roasted meat again.
She bites a big piece out of her portion and gives me an unsettling look. A ‘rotbag’, as I understand it, is what the locals call anything that's been infected for a long time. Dead animals brought back alive, killed again and roasted. If that doesn't sound delicious, this job is not for you.
And as the law of survival commands, I too chew on the next worst thing you can eat after an infected human, I’d imagine.
I can barely speak through the disgust and gag reflex "So… This one was a dog?" I asked. The piece of meat I’m holding has quite a bit of fur still attached on it, including pieces and fractures of bone. It could be anything from a leg to a piece of neck, or even a tail.
But I get any response from Nae.
“Don't you get infected when you eat this?” I ask.
Nae scoffs “You can always just starve. See what kills you first.”
“That’s… cynical.” I say, nevertheless accepting the reality of this situation. That’s really what it is. Take a chance or sit there and hope you survive. The room got silent. She sits next to the fire, facing the heat. Showing me her back while I sit still in the corner. I feel better but can hardly move. Ribs smashed in, definitely internal bleeding, concussion probably. Hard, cold wooden floor and walls support my weak body.
I somehow thought I'd last longer than this in Morelia. If Nae didn't hit Hega in the head when he was about to shoot me, it would already be over. Why'd she do that?It feels like I cheated death.
"What's the plan?" I keep trying to spark up a conversation.
She slowly stands up from the fire, crosses her hands and thinks. 
"I'm so stupid. Without thinking I’d- Why would you help us? Heg had you right at the start I bet." She exhales, and finally shows me her face.
She looks tired, and angry. Her dirty face is covered with bad smelling, more dirty hair.
"I've never met a Nitro before. You're pretty much the bogeyman around here. Never had the chance to talk to one, either. You saved us. You’re a shitty boogeyman."
"I was sent--" I stop, to take a deep breath, "We are all sent down here to help. That's the idea, at least. I take it everyone has a bit... different approach. People of my rank are getting a lifetime of prison in military trials for that, if they live long enough. Most of them don't.” the room falls silent, before I continue.
“Honestly, I didn't think all that much why, I just did it. You seem like good people, and you needed help."
"But why do you keep coming here? What's your... your mission I guess." she says, frustrated, pacing back and forth.
"To clean up the infection. It's not just this place. All around the world, cities, even continents are infected. We are a division of neutral agents, cleaners. We get sent to rebuild, to set the foundation for the new population. To do the thing official channels are not allowed to do."
"You mean to murder sick people? Or, just kill anyone?"
"It's not what we are. Not what I do. Bioterrorism is as alive as ever, and the USF is just not equipped to handle the scale of this virus. If we encounter any obstacle to our mission, we are authorized to eliminate it. Yeah, we got the green light to kill anything. It’s what keeps the 67% still alive!"
She scoffs, disgusted.
"When I’m done here, they pick me up. So don't worry about me settling in." I say.
"Pick you up? To go... where?"
"Another city? Another country? Where we are needed. I- where I am needed."
She turns away again, staring at the fire. Thinking.
"Heg’ll kill you. Anyone in Morelia would. Nitro is like Fuerza. Except Fuerza has rules… an… uhm... an agenda.”, she says with an accent, “You can talk to them. They always want something. Nitro just wipes a village, slaughters families, and vanishes."
"’Fuerza’? There's a faction called Force?"
Pause follows, then silence again, broken by occasional fire crackling.
"They weren't alone. When the sickness started, it was crazy in the streets. Mad. People become savage, robbed and stabbed, and murdered people on sight. By the time you Nitros came, this place was like wildlands. Actually soon after you started interfering, Fuerza took over most of Morelia. Rest of us could join them - for a price - or die. Lucky ones were enslaved. Like Sarina.”
"Who?"
"The raiders? In the building. They were there to get us back to their campamento. Sarina is one of their girls. She got out.” She makes a pause, “ We had plan, we all get out in that big truck. But we needed to get her out of the… stronghold? Then get keys. It was a mess and didn't exactly work out. We managed to steal the keys and get Sarina out, but things happened and me and Heg ended up on the run while Sarina made it out in the car. At least we were free. Except Fuerza didn't stop looking for Sarina. So they started a hunt for the three of us."
"That takes a lot of courage, and desperation. What was in it for the two of you anyway?"
"Me? I have been with Heg pretty much since the pandemic started. We were surviving together for a long time. We knew we could trust each other, and I figured soon that's worth pretty much more than anything else in Morelia. We were a team, and I followed him. Anywhere. Now I'm just helping the old man get his daughter back." 
"Oh." I said and looked at Hega, sleeping next to me.
After a few minutes with Nae, a good and clear picture of the relationship dynamic is starting to paint in front of me.
"I'm guessing that goal is not gonna change after sleeping beauty wakes up."
She laughs, "I don't think he will drop the grand rescue mission. Probably gonna put a bullet in you first."
"Yeah about that."
We both look at each other. She takes a glance at Hega.
"Looks like we will have to deal with that, won't we."
She stands up and walks closer to unconscious Hega. Slaps him, barely moving his eyelids. She continues slapping. "Don't worry about him, I will handle that."
Hega does move but isn't waking up.
"He needs a little more time. Listen-" she gives me time to say my name.
"Red."
"That your real name?"
"What do you think?"
"Alright, Red. Here's the plan. I can convince Heg to make use of you as long as you bargain with him."
"Bargain with... what exactly?"
She points at my helmet, which I lent her a few hours ago to scavenge some supplies. Piece of technology that, by all means, equals incredible advantage against anything in the zone. Yet, it is just one part of my gear.
"You can take down whole camps, turn enemies into bags of dead flesh with things like that. They would never expect a Nitro working alongside a... la carne."
"That's what they call you?"
"Not just me. Have you seen it out there? Only two things you will ever find in Moralia - Fuerza and rotbags."
"Meat."
She nods in silence "That's all you are out there. There's no surviving anymore. We’re just cattle. But with you on our side, on our disposal, it might just be doable. He won't stop, y'know? He'd kill you, get better and after a few days he'd just get back out there. Looking for Sarina. A suicide mission. Maybe-" she stops, takes a deep breath. "Maybe you are the ‘almost good luck’ that I needed."
I chuckle, "Got called a lot of things, 'almost good luck'... that’s a new one."
She breaks a smile, only barely.  Then look back at me, "Are you?"
I turn my head, sizing up Hega. Touching my stomach, and trying to push on my ribs.
"I'm afraid your good luck is out of luck. Even if I was willing to help you, I will bleed out in the next day or two. If not, internal bleeding will have me dead in a week."
Nae gets up and kills the fire with her leg. Kicking little pieces of hot coal around the house.
"There's someone who could get you fixed up. It's not gonna be for free, but I bet Heg's gonna get some deal out of them."
She rounds up all the supplies we got into one backpack. Then she lays down.
"Sleep, we're gonna get you better tomorrow."
"Hopefully he’s going to be less homicidal tomorrow."
"Would not count on that." she says with closed eyes, smiling. Lying next to me, between me and Hega. 

After that I had little will to keep myself up. The pain was getting to me as I dozed off the adrenaline, and so my body gave up.
This time it was Hega who woke me up. My eyes slowly opened, I noticed my cheeks hurting, probably from some slapping job he did to me. Can only imagine it wasn't as gentle as Nae did to him at night.
First thing my blurry vision makes clear is the tip of his gun, which he refuses to stop aiming at my face.
"I'm really getting tired of this view, you got anything else?" I say with my morning sore throat.
He's crouching in front of me the way that his face and gun have perfect level with my eyes.
"Don't worry princess, I will make this one the last."
That's when I know he's gonna pull the trigger. Out of nowhere, Nae yells out at him, tackling him on the floor. It's the second time a bullet missed me in this city. This time the bullet made it clean through the wooden wall, and landed outside in sand somewhere.Hega quickly throws her off of himself and aims the gun at her this time.
"You know I have to do this. You better give it a rest, I don't wanna explain your corpse to Sarina, but I fuckin' will if you make me."
"You have to listen to me! He's gonna help us, we have to just get him better and--"
He laughs "No. No, no, no. No! You, and your fuckin'... he... you both die in this house, or you're gonna kill him yourself. I'm not gonna count to five, I'm not gonna count at all." he points the gun at her head.
Nae puts her hands up, not moving. Hega points his gun at my head, and she pulls out her gun. It's the first time I've seen her with one, I didn't know she had it. Hega looks noticeably confused and surprised his friend is betraying him. At least from his angle. 
He doesn't shoot, she doesn't shoot. 
"F-fuck! Fuck Nae! Y'know what, fine! You both die out there, I don’t fuckin' need to waste my bullets." he walks backwards to the door.
Nae doesn't lower her gun until he shuts the door closed. 
"Fuck." She heavily exhales and finally puts the gun away. "Can you walk?"
"I'm not sure." I say.
"Well, we need to move out quickly. He took our supplies too, we are screwed here. Try to get up, I will give you a shoulder."
She lifts me up as much as she can. The wound didn't get any better but I do feel rested enough to at least walk. Walking out of the crooked house struck me as, somewhat, a new chapter. Well-over-the-line fucked up version of what I imagined.
Not exactly a disaster though. I managed in one day to do something I was instructed to be highly dangerous. Something that is potentially going to slow my mission down. A gamble that honestly nobody in my position, with my abilities, should ever take.
I made an ally.
Dark road builds in front of my eyes, laminated by destroyed buildings and cars as we slowly walk out of one of the corners. First sunlight burns through behind the tallest buildings, stroking an illusion of fog, as the beams of light pronounce every sand particle flying around in the streets. The more the buildings shake, the more sand keeps falling from their rooftops and torsos of every building, making the subnormal activity underground and above so much more noticeable. We are in the red zone now, the contaminated area. I can't see us going back from this, gotta push through now.
"Are we still going in the right direction?" I can't help but ask.
Nae is supporting me patiently, as I can barely walk with my injury. 
"There’s no right direction in the streets. C'mon, it's gonna be just a few more blocks."
We keep on walking on the sand-covered road. For some reason the air seems pleasant. Far more than air full of sand. Somewhat damp, river-like smell. In the middle of a desert city. Structures in here are a constant hazard to even look at. Uninviting windows missing glass leave gaping gates to nowhere. Even in daylight, shadows seem to be stalking our steps. Seems like every time I look into one of the empty windows, a shadow moves. I wouldn't believe it until I turned my head behind us.
A roach crawling on a wall. Nae instinctively pulls out her gun. I stop her from aiming.
"Don't. We are exactly one fired bullet away from a swarm. Who knows how many tiers are hiding in those buildings.”
"We can't just let this thing jump on our heads!" She protests but ultimately leaves it alone and we resume walking.“
“What were you saying, tiers?” she asks. 
"Our… in our training program. We separate subnormal infection categories, for easier approaches. Or at least that's why we have it. Honestly these days no one gives a shit what tier a subnormal thing is. It’s hostile - you shoot it. Time’s changed, I suppose."
“Heg taught me the same. Shoot it before it shoots you.”
“I’d never pegged him for that kind of a guy!” I sarcastically pointed out. We both had a little laugh. I was skeptical if she’d warm up to me at all, but it seems to make her feel more at ease.
We kept moving through the damp street.
"It's gonna be close now, are you ok?" Nea asks as we approach one of many corners along the road. This one looks like a corner store of sorts. Maybe a coffee shop, with broken windows and doors, it looks just like a giant torso on the edge of a set of buildings.
"I'm alright." I look around us, "You do know where the place is, right?"
She looks back "Place?"
"Nae..."
"It is here. I know it is." she says.
We spend a few seconds pacing back and forth, looking for the entrance.
"You see this?" She points at a store wreckage at the other side of the road. There is a wooden piece painted red that blocks the entrance to another shop. The sign reads 'Fine Wine'. 
"Nae." I relieved an exhausted moan.
"No, Red, that's it. It must be." She runs towards the red plank. Start examining it. "This must be the place, why is it sealed?"
I lean on a nearby street lamp. "This is not good."
“We're fine! Just, help me get this open."
"Nae, listen to me."
She turns her head "What?!"
"Just... listen."

The entire block went completely silent.
"Is that-"
I nod, looking at the tall buildings covering the sky, and I answer "Yeah."
Didn't take another minute until all the buildings around us and the ground under my feet started shaking. At first just mild vibrations, but after only a few seconds glass started falling off of broken windows down on the street. Long time dust-covered cars gained their colors back as the ashes and sand started falling off.
Nae tossed me one of her guns, just in time before they came rushing down. Most of the bugs look the size of a baseball. They walk on ground, on walls and some of them even fly up to my face. I grabbed a pipe that happened to be next to my feet to get those off of me, but some of the bigger ones I started shooting right away.
That's when everything escalated. First it was just me, soon after Nae fired her first shot too and that drew in double the bugs. It didn't take another five minutes, and we both started shooting bigger roaches, sometimes even infected dogs. The little bugs stopped worrying me, since they even walked all over us but did very little. All of the roaches soon made a swarm of sorts that flew in consistent waves through both of us. Nae was fine but in my condition I couldn’t keep up. Eventually I fell down and that made us both vulnerable, since Nae started immediately helping me up.
"I- I don't..." she tried to talk through the extremely loud swarm. The only advantage of it is that all the other subnormals started fighting it as well. Leaving us completely alone.
"It's supposed to be here!" She yells, "I'm sorry...".
It takes a couple more seconds, we both are settling on the street. Accepting our death, as soon as the swarm gets defeated  by even more subnormals, even higher tiers. That's when we become next in line.
And, while I never believed in the light at the end of a tunnel, the most exact one just flashed in my eyes. The light turned out to be not at the end of a tunnel, but a long distance in front of us, on the road, across two different blocks. A car light. But, how?
Only now, after the swarm's focus switched to the car lights, we could hear the car's horn, too. Everything around us, the bugs, the dogs, every subnormal on the street lost interest in us completely. I could swear I even heard bare feet running away from us but I didn't get the chance to look, plus it's extremely dark.
Nae manages to mumble, "W-what's happening...", but the horn very soon loses its rhythm. Almost as if its battery started dying, the sound started characteristically degrading, until the subnormals surrounded the entire car including its lights.
There was but a second of absolute silence, before a huge explosion emerged from the darkness where the car got lost into.
Temperature from fire and explosion reached even us, over two hundred feet away. Flying pieces of just about everything, but mostly rotten flesh from subnormals, is everywhere.
But that's not where it ended.
Explosion was followed by strong streams of fire coming out of sources originating outside our field of view. There's someone, two people at least, shooting from fire throwers.
Anything that flies now even burns, and dying squeals started being the main theme song of the street. Strange figures slowly appeared in front of us. First I only saw a single person, in heavy armor. But then at least four more walked out of the shadows.
Ground started shaking even heavier now, and I could feel something big and bad getting drawn to us. That's when I started hearing the screams of actual people, those fighters out there, saving our lives. They're trying to communicate something. Waving their hand at us, but it's almost impossible to make up words in the chaos.
I manage to get on my feet but pain shuts me back down, until Nae lifts me up. Together we make it across the street, walking slowly to the group. The only lightsource we have to walk with is the fire and the blasts from their weapons.
The day went for the worst, but we made it. After our small encounter, the group of fighters turned out to be Fuerza, or the remains of it, surviving in the Dark Zone.
"You guys just pick people up around here?" Nae asks as soon as we get inside of what looks like a very cozy bunker. Underground bunker, with food. And a doctor. Skilled one, too. 
She said that my wound will get better once I get some sleep and food, but surgery might be necessary. Which brings me back to Nae's conversation.
One of the heavily armed men replies to her "We were told you might be crossing. In fact, we were promised-"
"Wait, who... promised you anything?!" Nae exclaims.
I add another one "Who told you we were even coming?"
When I say it in my head though, it was quite obvious. The only person that knew where we will go.
"Heg. He sold us out to Fuerza. And put us in their debt. Nicely done." Nae concludes.
The room gets awkwardly silent.
"We were promised help. After we help you. Both of you." the doctor speaks up.
She has shorter hair, with a visible scar across the left side from the top to the back of her head. Other than that, you'd never guess she is the nurse around here by her clothes. Everyone is dressed to fight.
She looks at the group of soldiers that brought us inside, "He’s not looking good. He's gonna need medication."
"We got plenty, don't we?" Asks the big man.
"The other medication."
The room got silent again, this time Nae was fast to respond, looking as confused as me "What’s that mean?" 
"No." A short man with a thick Russian accent said.. 
Everyone is on the edge, you can sense it easily.
I carefully eyeball everyone in the room and turn to the doctor, "Can we talk, me and Nae?"
We walk about five feet away, in a corner. That's about as private as this place will get.
"How do you feel about this?" I start.
"It's Fuerza, it's... crazy. I mean, how do we stay here? They're gonna probably chain us to the floor the first second we fall asleep."
"We don't chain people up in here." a voice in a reasonable distance says.
Nae starts whispering, "I don't know them, but they sure don't look like the people I've seen when we met before."
"There's nothing we can do once we stay."
"What makes you think we can leave now?"
Once again a voice interrupts, "You can go when our deal is done. Speaking of which, we can really use the girl out there."
She looks at the man, then back at me "See? They're separating us."
"You're overreacting. I really think we can trust them, ok? I can't move anyway." I reassure her.
"Yeah, fine. Have fun with them here, then. While I'm out there, getting stabbed in the back!"
She yells and storms away towards the exit.
The woman with a scar walks a little closer to me. "She'll get over it.", says the doctor. 
"So you know her. What's your name?" I ask.
She injects me with something in my shoulder "I'm Reina. Yes, I’ve met the girl before, she wasn’t exactly conscious. Good night."
"Wait...", I tried to speak but the sedative started taking over fast.
She lays me on a bed near me.
“I really… hope you’re not gonna… eat me.” I say, slurring every other word and fading into sleep.
My last words, possibly. But, I never had such a taste for a nap before.