“Alright, Jerome! This is…the third time we’re doing this! I think it's been hours and I'd like to stop doing this.”

“Don't worry, Sunshine! The third time’s the charm.”

I aimed my fingers at the three zombies that me and Sunshine had restrained to a tree with some leftover rope and fired three bullets of radioactive energy. Once again, I missed all of my shots, instead implanting three darkened holes in the thick three.

“Well…,” I said, reeling back my arm. “Guess the fourth time’s actually the charm, huh?”

“What!? There’s no way we’re doing this again! It took so long just to get these radions over here.” Sunshine looked at the sky. “And it’s about to get dark out here. Don't you think we should go ho-”

Suddenly, she began to cough, immediately covering her mouth with her hoodie sleeve.

“Hey, you ok!?” I asked, patting her back.

“Ye-Yeah,” she answered, regaining her composure. “Look, I get why we’re doing this. You have to get stronger before more of those guys come and find us, but it feels like we’re getting nowhere with this whole ‘cure’ plan. You’ve been distracted by something lately.”

Sunshine wasn’t wrong unfortunately. It’s been a few days since we left the Underground City and I haven’t made any meaningful progress in finding a cure for her. It’s not like I didn’t want to search. It’s just that there were more cons in doing that now than actual pros. For starters, I couldn’t just walk into any civilization looking like this. I’m a zombie now for crying out loud! And if I remembered correctly, Kofi did imply that the Radius were associated with the Resource Adventurers on the surface.

If they called someone as strong and as demonic as Jason, then I don’t know if I’d be able to beat them. That maniac would’ve destroyed me if it weren’t for Kofi!

“Jerome!” screamed my daughter, pointing at the tree.

The zombies had broken free of their restraints, sluggishly approaching us with rope still hanging around their neck. The knot that held them together had been destroyed by something—my radioactive bullet. I rushed towards them, ignoring my mistake and readying my fist. Then, with ease, I knocked off each of their heads, splattering them across the ground in a pool of green blood.

“Good looking out,” I complimented, walking back to my kid’s side. “I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” she responded, putting on a fearless expression.

This brought up another problem I needed to worry about. Sunshine…couldn’t fight. Obviously, she had all the basic survival skills that I taught her over the years, but actually fighting wasn’t something I ever thought she needed. We kept to ourselves for the most part so she never really needed a reason to throw a punch or kick someone. I never even taught her how to use a gun…

So there were two choices I was faced with: Keep Sunshine somewhere safe while I left to go fix her problem or…take her with me.

I really didn’t know what to do at the moment. Though, I did know I had to do one thing and that was to refine my ability more. Maybe a newfound strength could make up for her weaknesses. Although, there is that mysterious ability she has…

I wonder how we’re gonna get that under control.

“You know,” said my daughter, interrupting my thought process. “You’ve been really off ever since we got back to the surface. Are you good?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, preparing for what she’d say next.

“I don’t remember the time between when we were in the kid’s bedroom to right before that cute guy left. Did something…bad happen?”

“No! Nothing bad!” I said, walking the corpses of the zombies. “I’m perfectly fine. Just a little tired from all this shooting practice we’ve been doing.”

“You’re a zombie. You can’t get tired. You don’t have the right parts for that.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Damn! Why did she have to be such an apocalypse geek!?

“And are you sure nothing’s wrong? You were trying to get headshots on those radions and missed them all completely.”

“They were moving!” I lied, dipping my fingers through the zombie’s ooze.

“No, they weren’t! We tied them to a tree and the only thing you hit was our last rope!”

She approached me, hopping over headless bodies. She then placed a hand on my shoulder and said “I think…maybe I have an idea of what’s wrong.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that big brain of yours thinking?” I chuckled.

“You’re scared about those Radius guys, right? And how strong they are?”

“…Sure. Ye-Yeah! I’m a little worried about that.”

“You don’t have to worry about those losers, alright? You’re a nuclear energy blasting, really terrifying but really cool monster!” She gave me a thumbs up. “Plus, you have me by your side so when those guys come, we’ll-”

“Woah, woah, woah! If you think you’re gonna be fighting, then you’re wrong,” I said bluntly.

“Huh?” she exclaimed, bulging her eyes. “Why not!? I can do it.”

“No…you can’t. It’s too dangerous and you’re just a kid. Just let your strong dad handle everything, ok?”

“But if we’re going to cure my problem, then don’t you think we need to work-”

I playfully noogied her head, cutting off her sentence.

“Hey!” yelled Sunshine, trying to pull my hand off. “We were just having a serious convo here!”

I freed her from my fatherly grasp. “Sunshine, you have to trust me on this. Kids your age shouldn’t be holding any guns or trying to kill anybody. There are people in this world who have no problem killing girls your age. You saw that with Dante and all his guys.”

“Then just save me. Like you did with that little boy.” She massaged her hair. “What was his name again…oh yeah. Johnny! If I get in trouble during a fight, just punch the enemy really hard like you said you did with that mask guy.”

“…Save?”

“Yeah, duh! You said you saved him, right?”

I went silent for a bit, staring at her confident smile. Her face slowly shifted to a confused expression once she saw how quiet I was.

“Jerome, you did save him, right?” Her tone had a bit of worry in it.

I hesitated with my answer, debating on whether I should tell her what actually happened or not. Eventually, I decided to tell her…something.

“Sunshine, I-”

At that moment, a loud boom echoed across the area, shaking the trees around us as we were showered by leaves. We both turned our hands and were surprised to see a huge emerald explosion bubbling upwards. A second shockwave emerged from the blast, the strong wind nearly toppling Sunshine to the ground.

My daughter’s eyes lit up at the chaotic sight. “Woah! What do you think caused that!?”

“I‘ve got no idea but we needa get out of here. Now!” I thought my “dad voice” would get her to listen to me, but she was too amazed by it all to move.

“Jerome, we gotta see what’s going on over there! What if one of those leftover bombs from the war detonated over there. We have to go see it. C’mon!”

“And get yourself killed out there? No! Let's go!” I demanded, reaching for her arm.

“Wait!” she yelled, sticking her hand up at me. “You said you wanted to do more training, right? Well, that explosion is green and if it’s green that probably means it's something you can absorb. Don’t you think it’d be easier to go over there instead of walking for another hour back to capture a few radions?”

Hmm. She was right that I needed to absorb some more energy to train more. And if the bomb had already detonated, then it wouldn’t be too bad to take her there.

“Ok, alright,” I said in a defeated tone. “But if something goes wrong, we’re leaving immediately, understand?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Thank you!”

*****

We crouched low, my arm instinctively wrapped around my daughter as we peered through the thick leaves of a bush. There was a relentless horde of zombies down the hill, ganging on and clawing at some poor soul we couldn’t see out in the field. There was a bunch of radioactive ooze staining the grass so clearly the fighter fought extra hard to survive. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t enough.

At least, that was what I believed until the sight of a man wearing the head of…a horse leaped out of the crowd. The only other things he wore were black shoes and tighty whities, letting the air wash over his clothless body.

“How is he moving like that with that thing on his head?” my daughter whispered to

my ear.

“I told you there were a bunch of crazies out there,” I whispered back.

The horse man descended back down to the group and, to my surprise, was able to slash through an entire section of zombies—even slicing apart the ones that were nowhere near his sword. Then, something even more surprising came into my vision.

Mere seconds after he had swung his blade, a giant green flash erupted in the area, disintegrating every zombie in the man’s vicinity. I swiftly shielded Sunshine from the incoming shockwave, the force slamming against my back until it finally weakened and dispersed.

A couple moments had passed and I decided it was finally safe for us to look back.

“So he was the one who made that explosion. But doesn't that mean that he's a-”

“A Radius,” I quickly answered. “That's it. We're getting out of here.”

However, the moment I attempted to sprint out of there, the horse man was already right behind us, aiming his sword at me whilst wiping off some leftover zombie blood on his chest. His horse head wasn't actually from a horse's corpse. It was just one of those funny Halloween masks the youngins would wear.

“Well, this is new,” he said, his voice deeper than I thought it’d be. “A Type 2 Radion kidnapping kids instead of eating them on the spot. You know, that really pisses me off.”

Huh? Does he not know who we are or is he just messing with me?

“You got it all wrong, mister! He’s my-”

“Don't worry, little lady! I'll save you nice and quickly. Neeeeigh!”

I opened my mouth, ready to say something, but before a single word escaped, the guy’s katana was already a few inches from my face. Instincts kicked in and my hand shot up just in time to catch the blade between my palms.

The weight was heavy, as if the horse man put all of his strength into this one attack. All this power from a guy who just made a horse noise at my daughter…

“I should've expected this wouldn't end in one swing,” he said, his body somehow suspended in the air.

“Well, you're stronger than Dante. I'll give you that.”

“Who the hell is Da….Wait!? Y-Y-You can talk!?”