"Let's get out of here," Dion said.
Once they got their weapons together, packing several water bottles and snacks into the now nearly overloaded backpack, they hustled back into the zombie-littered corridors.
They did not fight most, simply shoving them away.
Soon enough, they reached the staircase, rushing as a feminine yelp echoed directly below the path they were headed. The only other way to get downstairs was to cross through the long hallways again, so they simply decided to fight through here.
They descended to find a small group about to be overwhelmed, but with a quick intervention, they saved them.
One of them was even Kazu's friend, Takuzo.
They hustled down faster to avoid any zombies that were attracted by the noise as they took them down.
Standing down by the passage to the outdoors, right where lines of shoe lockers they hid behind were, they stopped.
Zombies. A dozen zombies blocked the way. And through the glass panels of the door, you could see dozens more.
If they fought here, they would surely attract those outside and with their strength, they would simply shatter through the glass panels.
In no time, they would be overrun by over a hundred zombies.
"There are tons of them..." Takashi mumbled.
"They can't see us, so we don't need to hide," Saya mentioned an observation she had made.
"Then prove it, Sonokawa-san," One of the male students they had saved said, and she flinched, grimacing.
"Even if Sonokawa's theory is right, we can't move quietly with all these people," Rei whispered.
"Somebody has to clear the path..." Saeko mentioned with a marked depth to her hushed voice.
Nearly everyone scowled or turned their gaze away.
"I'll go," Dion said firmly.
He and Saeko were the only ones who did not scowl at Saeko's previous words.
"No, I should go first," Saeko said as she looked towards him, "You are not feeling your best right now,"
He gave her a deep look and shook his head.
"How I'm feeling doesn't matter. I'll do what I have to regardless."
He picked up two shoes from the ground, beneath the lockers, and left the cover of the lockers to stand barely meters away from them - a pair of shoes in one hand and his table leg in the other.
"..."
He watched in a still calmness that unnerved many who watched from behind as a zombie slobbered in its path, hardly a few meters away from him.
'They're blind for sure,' He thought.
He tossed a shoe to hit directly against the farthest locker from the door, a bang reverberated against it, and a thunk resounded as it hit the floor.
The zombies growled and gurgled as they all trod towards it, then he threw the last one farther, down a hall and it thud as it tumbled forth.
They followed.
At the same time, from behind the lockers, nearly everyone waited with batedbreaths. Saeko, Rei, Hirano and Takashi were particularly tensed, seemingly ready to jump in to fight as Dion went to the door, slowly squeaking it open.
They rose. They hustled. A hushed jog carried them forward; one by one, they funnelled to the outside. To those who made it out, there was a brief surprise to find the weather had changed. It wasn't blistering hot anymore, rather it was somewhat chilly and wind,y with the sun still out and clear skies above.
Claaanngg!!!
The student farthest to the back of the pack had accidentally hit his metal pole against the metal frame of the glass panels. They were all stunned to a standstill, while their heads jerked back to glared, wide-eyed, at the culprit as its sound resounding distantly, and then an encore came.
"No!!" Dion roared. Yet, instead of simply frustration, there was mixed within it, was a deep, grating woefulness. His shocked expression, that instant, tormented through a myriad of emotions, from disbelief to ferocity and pain, "Fuck off!!"
"RUN!" Takashi hollered, and they all made a break for it.
Nearly a hundred zombies outside were groaning and trudging to surround them. Followed by the ones they had hoped to leave behind in the school building -easily over a hundred zombies were aiming for their lives.
Dion, Saeko and Takashi led the group while just behind were Shizuka, Saya Rei and Kohta. The new group that they had found was mingled between them and more towards the back with Kazu running beside his friend Takuzo and his girlfriend.
"Why'd you two idiots yell?!" Saya hollered.
"Less talking, more running!!" Takashi shouted back.
"..." Dion had gone mute. The darkness in the pair of his pupils had been strangled to death, glaring with an odd and menacing lack of focus, while his body moved on autopilot.
Within the depths of his purple eyes, a malevolent crimson swirled.
Meanwhile, everyone who had a weapon of some form was bashing back a zombie as they ran. Their weapons were slathered with more blood and their hearts thumped rapidly as adrenaline propelled them forward.
"Almost there!" Takashi yelled.
Takuzo bashed at a zombie that was getting too close, yet he failed to mind the three others that were near as well.
"Gyaah!" He was clutched by his arm and back, breaking him off balance into a fall.
"Takuzo!!" Kazu's eyes jolted wide, and his body reacted instantly, 'Not again!'
He bashed a zombie that was moments away from eating his friend.
However, the other one sent Takuzo into a blood-curdling holler, eating into the side of his face. Then the other ate into his neck.
"Takuzo!!" His girlfriend, who was nearer to the front, whirred back.
"Leave him! There's no chance he survives!!" Saya yelled as she tried to hold the girl back, yet she was stunned with confusion as the girl simply yanked her arm away moments later.
Saya watched in bewildered fear as she stared at her back. Watching as the girl three herself towards the encicrlment of zombies around Takuzo and Kazu.
Despite their continued sprint, everyone but Dion briefly turned back to see; a variety of looks on their expression, yet none were good.
Dion had been gritting his teeth so hard his gums bled into his mouth.
"I don't believe it! Why'd she go back!?" Saya yelled as they all focused back ahead, running for their lives.
"If this is what the world's turned into...it's just easier to die," Shizuka's expression was somberly still and overcast as she continued:
"It's too much torment for anyone to bear normally without some kind of support. Losing hers, she's decided to fall with him."
"You're a teacher!" Saya hollered, her visage plastered with a livid colour. "How can you say something like that!?"
"It's just the truth..." Shizuka's visage fell dreary.
"Get in!" Dion growled almost viciously as he thundered the door to the blue minibus open.
Yet he did not linger by the door while the others raced in.
"I'll fire from the window!" Kouta, who had gotten into the bus, yelled from a window.
Dion stepped forward, meeting several incoming zombies.
"Sil-kun! Come back!" Saeko yelled, yet he did not listen.
He smashed the head of a zombie with the thick of his chair leg, sending it tumbling back - dead with its head deeply deformed. He slipped a zombie's grasp, swiping its leg to make it thud on the floor as he shattered its skull with his makeshift weapon. His table leg broke here.
Yet he did not let it go, grabbing the leg of the zombie he had just killed, he flung it against a small group of three to his other side, knocking them down.
Without sparing any attention to them, he whirled in his footing, dodging around another zombie's lunge; he backhanded the broken table leg into the back of its head.
Dion let his weapon go and with his other hand, as the zombie was falling forward he grabbed its arm, pulling it to his front as he used it as cover from another zombie's grab, then he shoved it, knocking and tumbling them away.
He moved with a precision that surprised everyone.
"Someone stop that idiot!!" Saya hollered from the window.
Saeko had already run forward as soon as he stabbed the back of the zombie's head; she yanked him back by the hand.
"Stop, Sil-kun!" Her sharp demand jolted him out of what seemed to be a calm, malicious trance as he pulled his hand.
He didn't seem angered or distressed at all. It was a sharply eerie calm. But as he heard Saeko's agitated voice and she pulled him towards the bus, his eyes faintly widened back to awareness.
Everyone got into the bus and the engine was already roaring after Shizuka had to spend a little time figuring it out. Saeko took him to the double seat with him to her side.
Dion leaned forward where he sat, pressing his elbows into his thighs and holding his face behind his palms, then wiped repeatedly. He then sat upright, looking towards Saeko with mangled strain to his visage.
"..." He meant to speak - his mouth half opening - but no words came, only a sound somewhere between a whimper and a choke.
There, she noticed the whites of his eyes had reddened with enlarged veins.
A singular, lonely tear fell, without the accompaniment of an audible sob.
Saeko's pupils were noosed as she traced the tear spilling down his cheek, then dripped to splatter over his pants.
"They're dead, Saeko." He choked.