Chapter 05

"I'm coming with you." I declared, showing tenacious zeal in my eyes.

"Silly, stubborn woman. And what can you do when everything muck up, huh? Trot and redeem your ass out and leave others behind?!" My eyes arraigned at him.

This rough-hewn!

"I'm coming with you and I don't accept fucking no!"

"Wow. You're ordering me now, huh? Who the fuck are you to decide?"

"Damn it, you jerk! I need to go with you to save my mom!" His eyes doubted me like he's validating the entire circumstances and my bidding.

"Your mom might be dead."

That's it. Everything came dubious and I found myself in front of him as my knuckles hushed up in his damn face! It almost rip him off the ground. That was an arduous punch.

"Fuck you! Fuck you! She's not fucking dead!" He captured my hands and I winced when he tucked my arms behind my back.

"Calm down. I made a mistake. We'll try to find her but you can't go with us."

"Damn you! I will go and no one can stop me, Lieutenant. Not even you." My words came to be a menace and that he should be aware of.

"As if you can, Xiomara."

"Try me, Lieutenant."

"You can't. You just can't." He murmurs near my ear lobe. His voice was like a thunder of fume that rendered my mind into a deafening grave.

His voice became a warning. Just like him, no one can enact me from doing something, however.

"Get off me." I tried to squirm my arms but it was no use to his callous grasp.

"I will if you will just listen to me."

He takes me for a fool and I am not dumb not to catch a glimpse of it. How ignorant this civilization became nowadays.

What game are you pulling on me, Lieutenant? It doesn't come across well but I had got to play along. Whatever his ruse was, it doesn't matter.

"F-fine!" It may be hard on my part to oblige but it's a must for me to fulfill my plan later.

"You're not coming with us, understood?" I gritted my teeth, unwillingly drooping my head.

"Good. Now go back to your cabin, it's getting cold." He veers around the time he releases me.

I can't do anything but lag here standing, being pummeled by the overflowing view and possibilities beyond its normal confines.

A sigh of resentment moved out of my mouth. I craned my neck and unfurled my hand before scarring my hair out of frustration.

I was about to go back inside my cabin when someone pulled me to somewhere dusk. Only to find out it was Belle.

"I heard everything." She murmured.

I glanced at her, calm and still tight-lipped.

"I'm coming with you."

I withered upon hearing that. Vexation was visible in my eyes thereafter.

"No." Scowling, I replied.

"I also have someone dearly to me and she was left in there." Her voice was attempting to clarify the whole details. Just like me earlier, sounded frantic too.

But I don't have time for this. My mind wasn't thorough to understand her viewpoints and comprehend her idea.

"I said no. You're gonna be a burden to me." I declared, intensifying my point.

She looks taken aback by my words but that didn't curtail the stubbornness on her face.

God. This is gonna be hard convincing her to shut up and forget everything.

"Says to a woman who was insulted by that." Her words were a counter-back and I don't have a buffer to defend myself from her raid.

I cleared my throat. I'm not hollow to admit my defeat.

"What can you do against those infected?"

Her lips were coiled. "I can handle any guns and fire them up by myself in a most satisfying way."

Good.

"Made sense. Cool. You're in."

"So, what's the plan?"

I don't have any goal in my sleeves to forge some plan. And that, she didn't know.

"Plan ain't needed. We just compel to buckle up ourselves for the bumpy ride."

"Sounds exciting yet uneven. Aye. Fire it on!" She made a jerky movement, making me jiggle my head a bit.

I'm going to like this girl. For real.

For a while, the two of us persisted silently as we inspect the Lieutenant's team assembling. We hide in the grimy alley but close enough to their spot. They were laborious and that didn't escape from my stub.

I wobbled my head to gesture her to the other military vehicle. At a nod, she scampered and stride forward stagnantly to make a symmetrical ramp in the perimeter.

Glancing to my every side, apparently, the sedate night was devoured by the hush in a jiffy abandoned by the soldiers' presence.

It's just a moment when I huddled around the other military vehicle. After immersing myself beneath this vehicle, I did an even fraction of my weight, enabling myself to prevail upright and steady on holding in diverse rim- portions of this vehicle for me not to drench in the soil full of silt.

She did a niddle-noddle when I give her a hurried look.

I got a glimpse of their footsteps steering towards here. I gobbled. We may be look suicidal but we have our incentives to take the risk with all our might or rather with all the gust left in us just to save someone dearly to us from the peril of this pandemic we're withstanding.

I clasped myself and huddled all my stamina to hold tightly the moment this truck began scrambling. It's just a matter of a second and now we're up to overlook the nuisance howling to swallow us greedily.

Belle was ahead of us. I didn't know that Belle can be this audaciously candid for having the courage on this daring lift.

There's a trivial piece of me that's doubtful over my verdict. I could just hearken to Lieutenant, sit back there, and loosen up until they came back. But it creaked like a dearth of pride and bones to save my mom after everything she did for me.

She always taught me how to be brave but I guess, braveness fled my system the time she departed me without any tinge of her sudden disappearance.

The ride was bumpy. My hair was soggy because of the wetland we're passing through. I can sense the veins banging on each side of my temple and the veins in my hands were conspicuous too.

I almost grunt when my forehead crashes the metal above my head. This plan is anomalous, it's pissing me off! But, damn it! What choice do we have if that bastard Lieutenant won't let me come with them!

Troubled, I peeked at the surrounding when we ceased. It's getting dark already and it seems that the night was hounding, deriding us down.

I'm hooked by the gloaming's quietude and this arises that ain't good. I can perceive my heart's battering hastily in my chest and the sharp beats shattered my peace of mind.

"Scout out the area and search for any survivors." The Lieutenant blasted his command with vast authority.

I think that we curtailed remotely from the military base to strive survivors beyond premises.

Time is ticking and now they just disbursed it for this?

For how long will we stay here? Fuck it! They're squandering my time for this foraging!

I almost hop and relinquish my balance when I heard numerous gunshots a few meters from where I am. Besides that, the ruffle hisses that whoop and wrecked the silence of the night are currently slamming my head.

That squeaks ring a bell to me. Like a chant that keeps on coming off inside my mind.

The noise of the undead who craves for raw flesh and the wails of the soldiers that arose to be their prey, forged drops of blood by the spurring of their ripped pieces.

Gunshots. Groans. Cries. And apathetic uproars came from the undead.

I would be lying if I say that everything around me is still intact and remain unscathed. Fuck it! The surrounding was in the mayhem which petrifies me to the fullest.

My limbs were shuddering and my hands forfeited their fuel to hold in the metal that curb me from falling.

In a cinch, everything became murky and stench.

"S-shit!" I uttered profanity when I plummeted with a loud thud, back grating in the soil. Damn! My back maims so bad because of that fucking spur-of-the-moment fall!

"Xiomara!" A cough pullout from my lips. I gave vigilance to the person shouting my name and it served as a wake-up buzz for me.

It was Belle, I thought.

Later on, I whirled my physique to get out beneath this truck. My senses were honed and remarkably, I huddled back my vitality in a buckle.

Exaggerated, but I felt powerful the second I racked.

Bizarre, but I believed it wasn't my concern for now. I speculated that I must keep striding before deeming the odd things I felt within myself.

Furthermore, my gazes searched for Belle. This was a clod inkling to crusade with this undead without some guns to wield. But that's not what I'm aiming for, isn't it?

I need to save my mom. Her life is what I'm skeptical about and not these lineages. Selfish, but they are my nominal precedence currently.

I turned my back and polled the vehicle, let alone those soldiers fight for their lives to survive. It's not my purpose to abandon them behind, but I frequently have a prime choice without druthers.

The Lieutenant was right. Avarice was my foremost broke out when everything's chop down into disarray.

My foot was already rung inside when Belle squealed loudly. Her tone was lousy and affliction.

I crunched my talons, the other traction the door of this vehicle. I had a remorseful conscience for my desire. Pity views me the chances of my litigations together with the doubt I can't abide.

"Xiomara! We have to help them!"

I don't know where did Belle reaped a gun she has presently. She was heavily breathing as she head towards me while shooting the undead that keep hustling on her.

"Soldiers are being outnumbered and now they're fucking besieged by this undead! We can't just leave them behind!" Madness vanquished her other emotions but the fear in her eyes can be detected that hadn't absconded from my awareness.

"You are being unreasonable! You know we can't fight, right?" I exclaimed, disgruntled. She's being outrageous and I can't be like her in this catastrophe we're struggling to stand up against!

"Y-yes," She nibbled her bottom lip. "But at least we should try."

"And die?" I spatted back. "I'm here to save my mother not to be a fucking hero!"

"Why the fuck you are so selfish?!"

"That's not the pertinent route in persuading me to help. If there's any, you know I won't. My mind is made up already and none of these soldiers can change it. Not even you, Belle. Don't flatter yourself."

I swerved my back and clambered inward in this vehicle. I glanced at her and saw her standing there, head meager down while tightly clenching the gun she's clasping.

"I was wrong about you." The last words I heard before I maneuvered this truck and departed from there.

Everyone was wrong about me and they should seek my care about that.

You can be selfish any time you want but not when someone was asking you to be selfless.

That hit me. Hard and profound.

It's just a matter of time when I arrived back because of conscience that I couldn't tolerate. Augmented by the words that my mother mumbled to me when everything was still okay and she was with me.

I almost wheeze when I returned. My eyes saw how soldiers' corpses with bloodstains was dissipated around, along with the undead chewing the raw gist. I'm disgusted with what I witnessed in every saunter I make, but I have to keep moving.

I looked for Belle. My eyes didn't disappoint me because I saw her immediately. She shoots every undead inclining her. My eyes snagged the undead steering in her back. She didn't saw that coming, thus I quickly gallop and headed in the car in her angle. Hence, I leaped on its awning, at the same time blasted a gun at its skull which eroded its head.

"You came back!" Belle proclaimed in shock when I docked next to her. "By the way, nice blow."

Too much for the reunion.

"Let's keep moving and find the others."

Well, what can I say? Nothing satisfies me more than knowing that someone underestimates me, except for the moment they realized they did.

Guess, sometimes people can be dubious about me and I can be a selfless bitch if I want to.