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The day Rekrap meets Minute is a bad day.
It is by no means the worst, stuck solidly in the middle field, perhaps even in the upper half of Rek's life Since.
Most transitions are fluid.
As he looks back, Rek finds that Parrot's apathy wasn't new, though it had felt like it was.
There had been no clear line between adult and child.
Between aqquaintance and friend.
Between hope and delusion.
Rek had spent his life in motion, the currents of time molding the world around him and him inside of it, forming and smoothing, changing it like a thousand waves might change a cliffside.
As all things in life, this rule too holds and exception.
As nothing else in Rek's life managed to, the apocalypse severed his neatly into Before and Since.
The infected had arrived in only a matter of moments.
Nothing had been the same since.
Except, Rek had always thought, for Parrot.
Rek had always been scared of becoming a bad person without even noticing it. To go down that path and to walk that road, to hell or whereever else it might lead. He had been scared to such an extent, that apparently, he had missed his only friend going down that road.
And now he pays for it.
Wheels squeak as Rek takes another step back, brushing against the movable shelving units scattered throughout the entire hospital.
Looking around, the room is windowless. Groaning amd swaying, three infected are moving through the only doorway.
The rusted whittling knive trembles in Rek's grasp.
He feels wide awake and so alert, adrenaline rushing through his veins in a way he never experienced before the world crashed down around him.
What kind of person doe sit make him when he admits he likes the feeling? The feeling of running and hiding, of surviving and flying by the seat of his pants.
He always liked hide and seek.
But he can't escale a closed room. That's only possible in detective novels.
One of the infected gets in striking distance before the other does.
Now or never.
He rushes forward, on hand landing on the infected's shoulder as Rek rips his knive across her throat.
The white of her muddied scrubs bloms red even as her claws dig into Rek's wrist, twisting as she falls.
With a crunch, a single nail breaks of. He feels his flesh pulsing around it.
The second infected tackles Rek onto the ground, landing hard on his left arm.
White spots dance around the room as Rek's head hits the wall. He can't scream, bites his tongue despite the pain shooting up through his shoulder and down into his wrist. The infected would hear.
The hair by his ear grows heavy and warm and wet.
Foul breath enters his nose as the infected lowers himself to bite.
Rek raises his sullied knife and stabs it into the infected's neck.
Warm blood splatters onto his face.
The dying gurle rings out in Rek's ears as the infected dies, choking on his own blood. Rek opens his eyes again.
The corpse lies ontol of Rek, his entire front stained red with blood. His knife, stuck up to the hilt in rotting flesh.
It squelches long and nauseating as Rek fiddles the knife out of the flesh, pushing and pulling, turning it this way and that, mutilating the corpse.
He has to stem his elbow against it as his wrist refuses to cooperate, protesting with a stabbing pain at every movement. Broken, he thinks. Which is bad.
He's alone, without Parrot. All alone.
And he still ahs to get out.
Even now, Rek can hear the infected groaning that he had managed to lose in his escale. Still searching, hunting, chasing him.
He swallows and feels the drying crust of blood pull on his skin.
Carefully, one inch at a time, Rek looks around the corner and into the hallway.
He isn't careful enough.
An infected stares right back at him, three others turning around as it groans loudly and starts moving, starts running towards Rek.
And Rek start running too, into the opposite direction.
His wirst is jostled with every step, and with every step he bites back the scream begging for escape.
The flush of adrenaline numbs the pain, leaves it behind as a second heartbeat, out of sync with the rest of his body.
Rek imagines he can feels the bones grinding ahaisnt each other, shifting out of place as the jumps over a broken IV pole.
He decides to take a left turn, then rushes down the stairs, the infected still on his heels.
He leaves the stairway on the floor below with a right turn, instead of avoiding followers only gaininh to more as he sprints past what used to be a staff room.
The entire place smells of rotten flesh, both of the infected and of the dead.
Rek is forced to take another turn, the hallway opening up ahead of him. Dread. Helplessness. How he hates it.
A blind end.
If only he could fight.
Rek stumbles over his own feet and cathes himself again. He can't give up. Maybe a window somewhere?
"Here!", a voice shouts up ahead.
Up and ahead.
A black-haired man waves at Rek from a vent in the ceiling, one arm stretched out below him.
Rek takes his chance, running faster and jumping—
The stranger's hand wrpas tightly around Rek unbroken wrist, pushing the nail deeper into Rek's flesh. But his grip holds. Rek swings oger the floor as the infected approach, pukled higher and higher, inch by inch as the stranger's face tenses in a grimace of extertion.
Rek scrambles for purchase with his broken hand, ignoring the pain through the gritted teeth and pulling himself up along.
He comes to a rest on his stomach, gasping for air, the stranger in front of him doing the same. Their combined breathing echoes from the mettalic walls. It is loud enough to drown out the infected surely gathering below.
"We gotta go", the stranger says, shotting one last look at Rek. He starts crawling, "Follow me."
Rek does his best to, moving on two knees, one hand and an elbow, but the strnager is sinply faster. "Wait!", he calls. It is so dark he loses sight of the stranger, "Please, my hand, I can't—"
Please don't leave me alone.
"I'm waiting", the stranger answer, not unkindly. Then he keeps talking. "My name is Minute, I'm part of the Foundation. The resistance. How would you like to fight with us?"
It feels weird answering these questions with the stranger's worn sneakers in his face, but Rek thinks about it.
When Rek is honest, he enjoys the win. He enjoys the teickery and the hiding, the adrenaline as he steals something behind the infected's back and stabs them from behind without a sound.
And only ever surviving...
Without Parrot, he wohld be all alone.
What worth is there in always running away?
"I'm, like, I would, yeah— and— I'm Rek. Rekrap. And sounds...good?"
That was probably a bad response. His thoughts are a mess, dragged down by the tons of lead filling his body and making him drag his feet.
Thre stranger helps him down ina system's room of some kind.
Pipes eun along the walls, the door is barred, the window at least three floors up as Rek looks outside.
"Sit down", the stranger says, "I'll patch you up."
Gently, he takes Rek's broken wrist into his own hands, feeling the bones.
Rek bites his tongue again as the pain spikes, winces.
The stranger's dark eyes look at him, he smiles like he doens't often. "It will hurt. You can scream. It's safe now."
And that's what Rek does, as the stranger pushes the bones where they belong.
He passes out.