It was a little windier than usual today, the breeze weaving through the trees and filling the air with a rhythmic whisper. There wasn’t a zombie in sight besides me, and the beautiful sun was shining upon us.

It was a good day to transport a human head to a lake filled with nuclear energy.

Dante took a sip of his drink from the metal canteen he kept in his chest pocket. “We’ll make it to that nuclear pool spot in no time if we keep moving without any distractions. Usually, that would’ve happened by now given your track record.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” I asked dryly, slowly chopping the belly of a few radioactive cats who decided to ambush us. Didn’t bring any knives or other sharp tools, so my hand was the only option.

He placed his drink back in his pocket and sat down on a tree stump. That was after he felt the need to place an overly sized handkerchief on top of it. “Well, there was the time you attacked me on our journey to the Underground City when we were literally right at the entrance. Then, there was the time we all got teleported ‘cause of that Afro asswipe. Theeen, when my father attacked us in-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted, stopping what I was doing. “Journey to the Underground City? You remember that shit?”

Dante’s eye widened and he covered his mouth. “Shit. Why the hell did I say that?”

The bloody corpse fell out of my hand as I stormed over to him. “The fuck happened to that amnesia thing, you little prick?”

“Oh, calm the hell down, will ya,” he groaned, gesturing for me to back off. “I actually couldn’t remember anything that happened the first couple weeks, but I started gaining some memories back during that little event with your kid. However, obviously I couldn’t let you know that so I faked it a little. It was for my safety knowing you could berserk at any moment.”

“Screw the first couple weeks,” I growled, pulling him up by his collar. “Not only do you lie about losing your memories, you make my child lie to me about it too? You made me, you made this zombified mind of mine think that I was in the wrong for continuing to antagonize some fucking amnesiac. Turns out I was right all along. You’re still the same cowardly asshole.”

Dante gritted his teeth, glaring at me. “Don’t come to conclusions so easily, Jerome. It was Sunshine who told me to lie in the first place. I can even tell you her exact words if that’ll make you feel better.”

My hands began to twitch. “Don’t put words in her mouth.”

“Putting in and repeating words are not synonymous.” He sighed. “Face it. That girl is quickly learning that lying is the best way to get ahead in this world, and you just became one of her victims.”

I raised a fist, attempting to punch him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know why. “Don’t change the goddamn topic, Dante. Your memories were there, and yet you had the audacity to come up to my face and apologize? Fuck you and that fake ass apology.”

“That apology wasn’t fake,” he replied, sounding offended. “I actually meant it, but your stubborn ass doesn’t want to accept it. I tried to make peace, so why can’t you?”

I gritted my teeth, and the cracks near my mouth felt like they were gonna grow even more. “You piece of… Screw this shit.” I dropped him to the ground and went back to slicing up the animals.

Dante scoffed. “If you’re gonna mess up my damn shirt, at least warn me first so I can get a spare prepared.”

“Don’t test your luck, Dante.” I drank the blood from one of the cats, a rush of energy flowing through my bones. Once I finished, I said, “You’re gonna have a lot more to prepare for if you keep up this friendly banter act.”

The two-face looked like he was gonna say something. Thankfully for him, he got the message and kept his mouth shut. Several minutes passed, each of which was spent cutting open animals, storing energy, and adding onto the awkward silence in the air.

That was until Dante decided to break that moment of peace for me. “I tell ya, Jerome, after an argument like that, what I could use is a nice piece of ass. Especially when you’re doing the most disgusting thing my eyes could ever witness right now. I’m sure you could taste a little bit of honey too. Me and the guys used to go to this nice place called Rosalina’s-”

“We’re not going to some prostitution hangout center where the only girls there are depressed survivors whose only idea to make money is to satisfy guys like you.” I wiped the blood off my mouth with my arm. “We gotta dip that Afro guy’s head in the nuclear pool, and then we go back to the cave. The only reason we stopped here is so I could get some energy.”

I would’ve asked Dante to let me absorb his forcefields, though I didn’t want him running low on energy just in case we ran into something bad.

“It’s not like Jason’s going anywhere,” he chuckled. “Even though Geremiah’s dead, his ability is still active. That means Jason’s stuck at Hallowsville til we all reach there. Nothing wrong with taking a load off for a day, and I think Rosalina’s Palace is a fine place to relax.”

I shook my head in annoyance. “Why don’t you just fuck yourself and save a little money?”

“The hell’s your problem,” Dante snarled, sitting up from his seat.

I quickly turned around, accidentally crushing the head of a cat I was holding. “Stop tryna bait me, Dante. You know what my problem is.”

“No I don’t, so why don’t you tell me,” he responded, gesturing for me to bring it on.

“You want me to tell you? Fine! I got a problem with you talking to me as if we’re long time buddies. You’ve been doing it since last night, and I’m on my goddamn last straw with that shit.”

“What? I can’t be friendly with an ally now? Whatever happened to let bygones be bygones. You don’t see me getting all angry after you tried to kill me yesterday, do you?”

I stepped forward a few inches, leaning my head towards him. “Tried to kill you? You literally got me killed ‘cause of that big ass bird destroying my cave. I don’t know if you noticed it yet, but I’m a… zombie! Not to mention, you kidnapped and tried to give away my kid to people who wanna do God knows what with her.”

“Jesus Christ, the zombie thing again,” he said in a confused tone. “You should be thanking me for that because if you never gained the power of a Type Two, then you wouldn’t even be here right now. I practically saved your life and made it better.”

“Made it better?” I started to laugh. “You think I should thank you for turning me into this?”

You know he’s right… It’s like you said… as long as you were with Sunshine, you didn’t give two shits if you had to live your life as a zombie.

“No, that isn’t true,” I murmured, grabbing my head.

“Not to mention that I never actually tried to kill your kid. Jason and my father did, but not me. Hell, in those weeks I was trapped in that Mind Break world with her, I never once made an attempt to kill her. In fact, I saved the girl’s life there, so maybe you should thank me for that too.”

“This is rich, Dante. You go from asking for my forgiveness to asking me to thank you?”

His scarred half seemed to grow redder by the second. “It’s because everytime I apologize, you don’t want to accept it. Why do you insist on holding a grudge?”

I walked up to his face. “Your actions from these past three years have consequences, and a half-assed apology doesn’t rid you of those consequences. I thought I already explained that to you, and yet you wanna act like friends messing around with skanks?”

Dante looked me up and down, his eye narrowing when he went back to making eye contact. “Fuck you.”

Energy burst from my body, surrounding my body like a flame. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” muttered Dante, forming a forcefield around himself.

I readied a fighter’s stance, stepping back a couple feet. “I’m telling you, Dante, I don’t give a damn anymore about Sunshine liking you.”

“Go ahead, Jerome! Go for it. The big moment you’ve been waiting for.”

It was at that moment where the argument had finally reached its conclusion, a conclusion that I was sure Dante knew was going to happen.

The first punch thrown was from me, slamming into his forcefield while I placed my left hand on the side of his bubble. The air itself seemed to snap as energy crackled around our bodies like electricity. A deafening crack split through the forest as a shockwave exploded outward, slicing through trees like they were nothing more than blades of grass. The ground beneath us gave way, crumbling into a widening crater as the sheer force of impact rippled through the earth.

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

The cloud of dust settled. Dante’s barrier held, albeit with cracks where my fist struck.

The two-face breathed heavily. “You’re not the only one who’s gotten stronger. You couldn’t even destroy my ability this time.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” I said, my left hand charging up a ball of energy.

I noticed Dante glancing at the hole I created in his bubble with my absorption, so I immediately fired the blast inside to prevent him activating another forcefield. The explosion sent his ass flying in the air, however, the attack didn’t land. The proof was another forcefield crashing into my body, but I absorbed it and regained my footing at the edges of the crater.

Dante stopped in midair and quickly flew back to the ground, standing at the opposite end of my position. “Jerome, I’m not going to lie and say I’m a good person now. I’m for damn sure not going to believe we could ever be the best of friends, and truthfully, I don’t really want that. But I do believe in your cause when it comes to your kid. I don’t want this disease she has to mess up the world I live in, but I don’t want to save it at the expense of her life. I want a cure to be found. A cure that could help everyone this virus affects.”

Energy began to travel to my fingertips. “And yet, you still work with our enemies.”

“Well, of course I do. I like both perspectives on the situation, and I want to play on both sides.”

With that said, I fired beams at the prick, tearing through the air until they eventually reached him. Dante didn’t dodge nor did he let the attacks hit his barrier. Instead, they stopped right in front of him as though his extended hands were controlling them completely. Then, he transformed them into three giant arrows and, rather than shooting them at me, he sent them into the air.

I remembered he did the same thing near Barclays Center, but how the hell was he doing that now? I thought he was just a forcefield guy, and yet he’s out here learning new tricks.

“I know I was talking a lot of hot shit earlier, but I don’t actually want to fight you, Jerome,” said Dante, cautiously levitating toward me. “Just in case you forgot, I’m the one holding the head in my mini orb. You blast me to bits, and you might blast that to bits too.”

Shit… I actually did forget about that. It wasn’t like I wanted to though. The mission actually did leave my mind.

I shook my head in confusion and began to walk towards the direction of the goal.

Dante started following me. “I… uh, was able to get some kind of wall built for Woodshaven if that was still on your mind. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”

Woodshaven, huh? Surprisingly, that town hasn’t been on my mind since the day I left. Guess it’d be hard to think about the same place where…

“Saveer,” I said softly, putting an abrupt end to my walk. “I remember his name now. I remember him now.”

I heard Dante stop walking too. “Oh yeah. Saveer. I… really regret what happened to the guy. Guess my new face is karma for all the times I talked shit about his face.”

How the hell could I forget my friend like that? How the hell could I forget that it was Dante who allowed that bitch to pull the trigger?

And why… don’t I still care about it?

A zombie doesn’t sadden themselves over the life of a human.

Saveer was… my buddy.

And yet, you don’t have a semblance of care, sadness, or anger for what happened to him. The only thing you thought about up until this point was fighting the Radius and Sunshine. You will not be sad over a human’s demise. You’re a zombie.

“No,” I roared, flying into Dante with feet blasting energy. He must’ve already known I was about to attack him again as he had already activated his ability. However, his barrier didn’t remain stationary. This time, we were zooming through the air, but rocket feet weren’t the only thing I had in store.

“Nuclear Form: Nature Version!”

My body changed in the blink of an eye, taking on the transformation I used against Jason, the transformation that was given to me in order to save the child of a grieving mother. I wasn’t like Dante. Not in the slightest. Why else would Rosalina trust me to absorb her if that was the case?

“W-What the hell is this!? What the hell are you doing,” screamed Dante, frantically looking around.

“I am sad about Saveer,” I murmured, the vines on my head forming a fist. It struck the top of the forcefield, sending it crashing back down to the ground as the energy on my feet disappeared.

It strangely didn’t take me long to hit the ground hard, a wave of dust washing over the land around me. We weren’t in a large crater this time around—only a field of grass. The man’s forcefield was gone, but the man wasn’t. I stood back up swiftly while he was making a hand gesture aimed at me.

Nothing happened to me.

“Shit… There’s no energy in this area for me to u-”

I didn’t give him a chance to finish his sentence, swiftly drop-kicking him to the ground. I stood over him, forming an energy bullet shaped like a seed at the tip of my finger and aiming it at him. “How about I make the other half of your face just as ugly as I did the other when I blasted you with that beam?”

Dante’s eyes widened in shock, like he hadn’t already figured out I was the one who did that. “That was you? You did this to my face?” His expressions in those seconds ranged from surprise to fear, and finally to anger. What I didn’t expect was for that angry expression to go away after a deep breath. “Man, fuck it! Hurry up and get it over with.”

The bullet rotated, itching to be fired. My hand twitched, begging for me to shoot already. But, I couldn’t do it. No matter how much I wanted to, my body didn’t want me to go through with it.

“Don’t act so high and mighty.” The voice came from my left, though it wasn’t some random survivor pulling up on our battle. It was someone I knew all too well. It was Rosalina’s daughter, slowly forming her body from my arm.

“How many times do I need to tell you that you’re not real,” I asked, staring at her.

Her body dangled as she lifted the hair off of her eyes. “Believe what you want, Jerome, but what you did to me was very real. This rage you have for Dante is just sooo hypocritical.”

“Do you want me to make you disappear like I did yesterday?”

“Like you did with my mother? You’re angry at that man for allowing your little pal to be killed, and yet you directly killed my mother. Doesn’t that make you worse than him?”

My mouth gaped at the realization, the energy bullet growing smaller. “That-That was different! I was trying to save you.”

“From who exactly? Oh, when I was killed? That wouldn’t have happened if you had just let her save me from my masters. You killed a grief stricken mother who didn’t need to die. All because you were too stuck in your own head to learn the full story.” Sunflower glanced at Dante. “Sure, you were trying to be righteous and save a kid. But, wasn’t Dante trying to save multiple kids by attempting what he did to Sunshine?”

“That…”

“That what? That isn’t the same? It is the same as what you did. Both of you went about it the wrong way, but your intentions were to save the life of another. Both of you have gotten people killed because of your selfish desires. In his case, it was Saveer. In your case, it wasn't just my mom. It was also that kid from the Underground City.”

I remained silent, gritting my teeth.

“You and Dante are two sides of the same coin. Two shitty people who’ll do anything to get what they want.”

A zombie… I am a… zombie.

As the girl granted me my arm back and vanished completely, I stood there for a while. Her words echoed in my mind, relentless, like a metal bat slamming into me over and over. Not just Sunflower’s words. It was that dark voice too. I heard it before. It sounded like me.

It was me.

I accept that Saveer is dead.

I couldn’t help but laugh, collapsing next to Dante as ooze seeped out of my eyes like tears.

“Man, there’s something wrong with me,” I laughed somberly, grasping my skull. “Did you hear any of that?”

“Hear what? You just stood there in silence… Are you ok?” He wanted for me to answer, but decided to check his pocket when I didn’t. He pulled out a small orb from his pocket and sighed in relief. “I was going to double up on my personal forcefield, but decided to place one around this instead. Had to trust you wouldn’t kill me there.”

“You thought I was gonna kill you?”

He placed a hand over his left chest. “Of course I did, but I trusted my brain over my instincts. Good to know I was right. Even if you did shoot me there, at least that Afro asswipe’s head would be intact.”

I looked at Dante for a moment and then looked back at the blue sky. “I’m… sorry about fighting you earlier. I thought it’d be easy having an unlikely ally and former enemy on the team, but I was wrong. Even now, I can’t say I dislike you any less than I did before.”

“Eh, you don’t have to be sorry. I deserved that. I don’t think I should be apologizing to you any more. Not because I don’t feel sorry for what I did. It’s just that as a guy who’s barely apologized to people these past ten years, I never actually knew a simple two words wouldn’t absolve me of all the things I did to you.”

I wiped the ooze off my face and chuckled. “I gotta be honest with you. I forgot about Saveer’s existence for a while. It wasn’t until you said his name that I remembered that he died. The funny thing about it is… I can’t even remember what he looked like. Pretty crazy, right? I get angry about it, and yet I can’t even care enough to remember my own friend’s face.”

“If you think that’s bad, I can’t even remember my own mother’s face. She’d probably despise me for that shit.” He sat up, still holding his chest. “Well, I can't do anything about it now.”

“Is it true what your dad said in the bar? About you killing your mom?”

He nodded, narrowing his eye. “Got bit by a goddamn zombie when I was a dumb teen trying to be brave. Took a bite out of her a few days after. Probably was karma for going out during the fucking night that day.”

I remained on the ground, absorbing what he just told me. “You know, it’s not just Saveer. I can’t remember my wife’s face either. I think I started forgetting the day after I infiltrated the Underground City. It really… really sucks.”

“Hmm. Well, at least you haven’t forgotten your kid’s face, right? That should be what matters to you the most now. I’m sure that’s what your wife would want.” He paused for a bit, scratching his neck. “Look, I don’t expect you to forgive me. I accept that. But for this temporary team we got going, I’m gonna try my best to be the best to your family that I can.”

I sat up. “Hey, Dante, you remember that thing you do with my energy beams where you stopped them and then transformed them?”

“Yeah,” he answered, his eye softening.

“Show me how to do that. I think I’ll be able to do the same thing."