My body had returned to normal, a sense of relief filling my mind upon the realization.

I didn’t know why I fought so violently in my battle with Sunflower. All I wanted to do was restrain her somehow and find a way to escape the state between release. And yet, all I did was take the feelings of a damaged girl who was in desperate need of help, and toss them in the trash. There was no remorse in my voice, no restraint in my power. It was as though my instincts as a zombie, primal instincts that I had kept locked ever since I became one, finally broke out. The need to crush a human’s will, and to bury them in a hole of despair.

Even though that monster’s last words to Sunflower sounded nice, it only felt like pity rather than the need to show her that she was loved greatly.

However, it wasn’t me as a zombie in that transformation. It was me… as me. A dark version of my being had gripped tightly to my soul and ripped it open, revealing something ugly, letting it roam free. And that ugly thing was standing in front of me—a couple feet away, staring at me with hollow eyes.

I sighed, rubbing my neck. “So you’re the last thing I see before I get out of here, eh?”

I was sitting down on a bench in the middle of a huge white space, aside from the green mark above me shaped like a… badly drawn sun. I didn’t know what it was, though I assumed it had something to do with Sunflower's abilities so I didn’t pay it too much mind.

The zombie chuckled in a way that made it seem like I was in the dark about something. It resembled the form I had when I fought Sunflower, but now that I'm looking at it from another angle, I would be terrified at the sight of me too. “It's like looking in a mirror, right?”, it asked.

“No, ‘cause you're not me,” I denied. “Who are you?”

“I am you.” The zombie stomped towards me, his voice growing angrier. “A you that you abandoned that day you met that stupid bitch in that alleyway.”

The moment I heard that insult, I aggressively placed my head on his forehead, scowling. “Don’t you ever insult my wife ever again, you hear me?”

“You say that like she isn’t already dea-”

I gave his chin a nice punch before he could finish his sentence, causing him to step back a bit.

“Your brother wasn’t wrong,” he said, placing a hand on his chin. “You really do have a weak punch.”

I scoffed. “That reminds me, you actually do remind me of my bro. An immature brat who refuses to grow the hell up.”

“And who was it that made him that way?”, the zombie asked, flashing his smile. “Or has it been so long since you’ve seen him alive that you forgot that you were the older brother?”

“Hey, people change. Usually they’re changing to something worse, but I was different. The day I became a father was the day that things needed to change with me. Change into something better. And if you can’t get with the program, then I’m calling off this whole arrangeme-”

“Hey, you don’t get to do that!”, the zombie shouted, getting up in my face. “You accepted me ‘cause you realized that we are the same. That’s how this whole thing works, you see. You can’t use this power unless you accept I am a part of you. You don’t have to act like me, but you have to accept that I will always be in you. That’s what an identity is. You and I are what Jerome Hunter is defined as, and knowing that is how you use this power of ours.”

I didn’t respond, absorbing all of his words and considering them to a great degree. My past was one I always regretted being a part of, for the simple fact that I was afraid of the idea of my daughter learning about it one day. However, if I was gonna learn from my past mistakes, then I’d have to take on those mistakes head-on now so that I could change my future.

He raised his hand, gesturing for a handshake. “Once a father, always a father. Once a criminal, always a goddamn criminal.”

Sighing in defeat, I shook his hand. Then, the space around me began to crumble, white shards falling from the sky until everything shattered.

Darkness took over my vision.

*****************************

“Jerome, wake up!”

The relieving sound of my daughter’s voice destroyed the darkness, replacing it with the face of my daughter drenched in… water!? Immediately, I stood back up and realized that it had been raining, pouring down heavily.

“Sunshine, how long have you been out here!?”, I asked, shielding her from the rain as best as I could. Her hair was soaked, nearly hanging over her eyes.

“Don't blame me,” she said, holding her hair up with both hands. “You were out cold for like… five minutes. What the hel… heck happened to you?”

“I can explain it in the car.”

I picked her up and rushed for the car, rain pelting my face and invading my eye holes. Once we reached the car, I yanked it open and sat my daughter in the front car seat.

“Alright, you should be good now.” I looked around for her backpack in the car, but I couldn't find it. “Where’s your bag at? I wanted to see if you or Jesus brought any towels.”

“You left it outside in the rain along with my baseball bat,” she said casually, laying her head down on the airbag section while she kicked her feet up.

“Ah! Why didn't you tell me?”

I ran into the rain again, ignoring the “My bad!” from Sunshine as I spotted her bag near the rock she destroyed and bat in the spot I woke up in. Retrieving them both, I went back to the truck and sat in the driver’s seat.

“Alright, let’s see what you got in here,” I said, giving her the bat. I dug through the bag, however, I didn’t see any towels or even paper towels to dry her off. All I saw were a variety of wide-tooth combs, hair creams, food packets, and… wrestling action figure head charms!

My mouth gaped the second I saw them, hand shaking in excitement. “Wh-Where did you find these things!? Do you realize how cool and rare these charms are? I haven’t seen these things since ‘04.”

“Found them in Woodshaven, and I knew you’d like them.” She swiped them from my hand and began to wrap the charms around the bat’s handle. “Buuut, they're all mine. Sorry, you’ll have to find your own,” she laughed confidently.

“Dang… Those things are so rare though,” I said, bowing my head in defeat. “But I’ll find more of them some day.”

“I’m sure you will. Nevermind that!” She crawled towards my lap and shook her hair around, splashing my body with water droplets.

“Hey!”, I shouted, covering my face. “I may be a zombie, but I can still feel cold.”

“Braid my hair,” she said, her eyes brightening in child-like anticipation. “I don’t know how to do it myself, and having my hair out like this feels heavy.”

“Oooh, that sounds fun.” I took out a comb and the hair cream from the backpack. “I haven’t done your hair in a while. It’s grown a lot since the last time, you know. Reminds me of what your mom had.”

Sunshine wiped her wet face with her even wetter hoodie. “Wasn’t my mom Colombian?”

“Yeah, but she had the same curls as you,” I chuckled, tying rubber bands around different parts of her hair. “Thick, fun to mess around with, and beautiful.”

My daughter sat on my lap. “Speaking of mom, her birthday’s coming up, right?”

“February eleventh,” I answered, combing her hair out. “What day is it right now?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Last I checked, February ninth. Two more days, but it’s too bad we won’t be able to celebrate it. We’ll be too focused on this race to do some kind of birthday thing.”

“Well, that’s dumb.” I put some cream on her hair and smoothed it out. “We have three days max we can use as rest days. We’ll just use some time on the eleventh for it. If that loser Dante is smart, he'll use three days to rest too.”

“Yeah, and that G.O.D guy can be a little lazy, so we should be fine…” She tapped her chin repeatedly, like she was thinking hard about something. “I think I have a good theme for her birthday. Apocalyptic style!”

“Huh?” I exclaimed, beginning to twist her hair around. “How would that work?”

“You know… we can have zombies all around us and train them to groan out ‘happy birthday’, abandoned bombs from the ground on the verge of exploding, and, and-”

“Woah, now. You trying to get people killed out there?“

“Well, what do you think we should do?”, she asked disappointedly.

“Hmm… your mom always did like Christmas. Her eyes would always brighten looking at all the colorful lights in the city. And she’d always do her best to give anyone she was close with the best gifts ever. And I mean… the best gifts. Rarely flawed in my opinion.”

“Christmas might be hard to do considering no one celebrates it anymore. Everyone’s so focused on surviving that no one really has any time to have some fun.”

“Oh yeah? And who said we have to follow that logic?”, I asked, choosing my next words carefully. “I'm a guy who became a zombie, and you're a kid whose dad’s a zombie. We can do whatever we want, Sunshine. That’s what we did in the Underground, and we’re gonna keep doing it.”

“Yeah…”, she muttered. I saw the corner of her mouth rise, a smile covering up the subtle sadness in the conversation. “I think she’d like that.”

For a while, we sat there, reveling in the peacefulness of the moment—a quiet serenity we hadn’t felt since the day I became a zombie. I had my problems with this whole game at first, but having the ability to spend time with my kid like this felt nice. However, that feeling of happiness would slowly fade away once she took off her wet hoodie, revealing the large scar on her arm and shoulder—shaped like an animal bite. It would’ve been nice if she wore a shirt instead of a white tank top underneath, though wishing for that would just be me shielding Sunflower’s words from my mind.

I was doing it again… Distracting myself when I should’ve been fixing my wrongs. It was time to change that.

“Sunshine…”, I said hesitantly, continuing to braid. “I should tell you about what happened when I was out cold.”

“Hmm? You sure? I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it.”

“Why would that be?”, I asked, sensing the concern in her voice.

“I mean… you did that thing where you forget something important ‘cause something else happened. Like you said you would tell me what happened in the car, but then you started talking about towels.”

That’s something I do? When have I ever done that…? Well, I guess I did forget Jesus’ status board in that house. Although, it feels like I’m forgetting something else important…

“Don’t worry. This time I won’t do that,” I assured.

“Are you gonna talk about the voices coming out of your body? I heard your voice and someone else’s. It sounded like a girl.”

“Did you hear… everything?”

“Some things. Like I heard you say something about being a father, screaming…”

“Ok, I’ll tell you everything this time.”

I proceeded to give my daughter the whole story on what happened in the state between release. She already knew that I had absorbed someone, but I never told her why I did it or the damage it would cause to the person I wanted to help. I told Sunshine about the different environments I was in, the orbs of aura within me, and the transformation I gained. The things Sunflower said to me, and the conversation I had with myself—I told her about those too… even though I didn’t want to.

I expected her to be more shocked with my story. Maybe a little scared by what I had to do. However, she looked as though she had already known everything before I even said it. In fact, the only part of my story she seemed to be surprised by was the green sun mark in that white void I was in. I asked her why she was so jumpy at that part, and she told me it was nothing.

Although, as my attention switched back to the scar on her shoulder and the scar on her cheek, I knew there was one other thing I needed to tell her.

“Sunshine…” I took a deep breath in my mind, preparing for the worst. “I’m sorry.”

My daughter sat there, seemingly hesitating to respond. The silence was unnerving, and the rain outside hitting our truck just made it worse.

She sighed and said, “Jerome… I don’t forgive you.”

I stopped braiding, my fingers gripping her hair tightly. I didn’t know why I was shocked. I shouldn’t have been considering all that had happened in our lives. Rosalina’s kid was right. If I was her, I wouldn’t forgive me ei-

“Nah, I’m just playing with you!”, she laughed, playfully punching my face. “I can’t believe you took that so seriously, Jerome.” She gave me a smug smile. “Don’t tell me you were gonna be all depressed?”

“Wh-Wh-Huh!?”

My shock only made her laugh even more. “Now you know how Dante felt when you said the same thing.”

“Dante’s a jerk who doesn’t deserve-Wait, forget Dante! Do you forgive me or not?”

“Hmm?” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Forgive you for what?”

“You know, all the bad things I did to you.” I threw up my fingers and began listing. “Making your disease worse, stalling on finding a cure, putting you in danger, getting your body all cut up-”

“Oooh, those things?” She sounded like she genuinely forgot about those events. “I was never mad about those things. You don’t need to keep track of all the bad things you’ve done. The past is like a box of various chips. All the good things you’ve done in your life are in every bag of chips besides the Fritos. All the bad things you’ve done are in the bag of Fritos. But people like to put the nasty Fritos at the top to get you to eat them, and that ruins the experience so you stuff them all down into the bottom where they belong.”

I didn’t have any idea where this was going…

“But then you finish all the other chips…”, she continued, resting her head on my chest. “And you realize that the only ones left are the Fritos. So you eat them. Then, you realize that… they weren’t as bad as you thought they were. ‘Cause at the end of the day, when no other bag is left, those Fritos will do just as good as the others. The box has good and bad chips, but you still have to eat every single one.”

“Soooo, the Fritos are good?”

“No, I already told you they’re nasty and should’ve never been made. But, they’re always gonna be made, and they’re always gonna be packaged in that box. So you just have to accept that and keep chowing down.”

Maybe the Fritos weren’t that bad…

“Sunshine, thank you,” I said in a relaxed manner. “I guess keeping track of my… Track… Tracker… I remember now! It was your tracker.” I checked her back frantically. “Whatever happened to that? Don’t tell me that’s still-”

At that moment, my daughter began to violently cough, plummeting to the car’s floor. Without a second thought, I picked her up and placed her on the seat next to mine. I looked to see if there was any blood in her hand or mouth, but there wasn’t.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “I think that training earlier took a toll on my body. I don’t usually move that fast for just anything.”

“Did you take any of the medicine before we went outside tonight?” I asked, trying to find the bag of marijuana we stole. I knew weed wasn’t exactly the most kid-friendly option for my daughter, though according to that Elias prick, it was a much better option for her disease than what I was giving her before.

“Uuuuh, did you find it?”, my daughter asked, strangely sounding fine after such a violent cough. Usually, her voice would’ve been pretty raspy.

“Nope, I thought Jesus put it in the back like he said he did.”

“Maybe it’s outside in the truck bed? Check over there,” she suggested.

I was annoyed at the thought of that horse head weirdo placing our most prized possession in a spot where it could easily fall out of, but I decided to look over there anyway.

Once I reached the bed, I was immediately greeted with a gunshot to the head, the only sound louder than the heavy rain outside. Obviously, it didn’t cause any damage, and the bullet simply fell down to my palm. That’s when I realized that the shooter was… Elias? I didn’t know how he survived that attack from Jason and got a ride from our car. This guy was like a damn roach.

He was hiding our bag inside of his camo jacket, and his shaky hand was aiming the gun at me.

“How the hell did you survive that!?”, he screamed, inching away from me. “Zombies always die from a headshot.”

“Well, I’m not just any zombie.”

I charged towards him, his bullets proving useless against my body. I grabbed his neck and began to squeeze, watching him struggle to break free while the bag dropped on the truck. To my dismay, he stuck the gun in one of my eyeholes and fired, the bullet getting trapped inside there. He shot multiple times inside my other eyehole, effectively blinding me.

Reluctantly, I released the man and started to take out all the bullets. A loud “Eat that, bitch!” came out of Elias’ mouth as I heard one of the truck doors opening and footsteps out of the truck bed.

“Jerome, you good?” It was Sunshine. “Who was that just now?”

“Sunshine, catch that guy! I can’t see right now.”

“On it!”

The moment I was able to see again in one eye, a loud, robotic beep echoed throughout the area, causing both my daughter and Elias to stop in their tracks. One of the referees Geremiah created appeared out of thin air—the word “Punishment” on its screen.

“Rule Number One Violated! An extra player has stepped foot on the field. Your punishment will be… Separation of All Players!”

Huh!? What kind of stupid rule is that! That asshole didn’t even know about the game…

“Rule Number Two Violated! Having a cute father-daughter moment in the presence of I, who cannot have any children. Your punishment will be… the Teleportation of Three Random Radius Ability Users to one of your locations!”

“You wouldn’t dare, you damn robot!”

“In the words of G.O.D, good luck and have fun!”

“Damn it, st-”