Whoops, saved this as a draft and forgot to post it.

TW - Graphic descriptions of violence, gore and injury

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"Do you think he's around here somewhere?"
False paused, turning to look at her companions.

"Honestly, at this point I really doubt it," Wels sighed, walking a bit behind her.

"I'm sure he's somewhere near," Gem told them, forcing optimism into her voice. "C'mon, if we don't find him by 10 you can come to my place and have hot chocolate!" False cracked a grateful smile, Wels didn't.

"Should we just use torches?" She asked, squinting slightly in the ever-fading light. "Or we can drop by Boatem - I'm sure either Grian or Impulse have the villagers to get the ingredients for night vision."

Wels thought for a second, before reaching into his inventory. "Torches are quicker."

Gem shrugged in agreement, lighting hers on before dropping it with a slight squeak. False started sniggering, but Wels had the courtesy of trying to cover it with a cough.

"I didn't know it was going to be that bright!" she defended, flushing slightly. She picked it up, swinging the bright aura around her. Flecks of dust flew through the light, slightly obscuring their vision.

Gem swung it around the trees, pausing when she heard a twig snap.

"That either of you?" she asked cautiously, turning around to glance at them. They both shook their heads. Gem's heart sank, locking eyes with False. A familiar soft groaning could be heard from behind False; instantly she spun around, bow drawn.

A soft thud could be heard as it hit the ground, blood escaping the arrow wound nearly placed slightly to the left of its chest.

"Holy sh-" Wels exclaimed, before getting a pointed glance from False. "-gar," he corrected. "That was incredible!" False shrugged modestly. "I honestly forgot how good you are at pvp."

"Practice," she brushed off.

Gem was about to reply with some awestruck comment, before hearing another half-dead moan, this time sounding even closer.

Gem grabbed a slice of beef, forcing it down her throat, trying to ignore her shaking hand. Whether it was from cold or unease, she didn't know. She hadn't actually fought monsters a ton before, mostly sleeping through the night instead.

Wels' hand clenched tightly on his sword next to Gem, his breathing sped up as well. Gem glanced back at False, who'd automatically taken up a defensive position with her back to them.

"Annoying Zombies." She muttered under her breath, looking around with her torch still in the other hand. She was about to put her sword away, when she glimpsed shining iron in the distance. Her breath caught, pulling her sword as close to her chest as she could.

"There's a whole hoard of them over there!" False exclaimed, a hint of fear creeping into her voice.

"Can you take them?" Wels asked, turning around. He shifted position so that it was more of a triangle than the previous two-facing-one-way-one-facing-the-other formation that they'd adopted.

"Hope so," False answered, elbow poking out from withdrawing the arrow. "If not, then this'll be one hell of a ride." She let go of the arrow, a soft thud following soon after. This process repeated a few more times until the shining iron Gem had earlier glimpsed came fully into view, this time as an armoured zombie. Gem searched her inventory, panic rising as she realised she didn't have a long range weapon.

"Either of you have a spare bow?" She asked, struggling to keep her voice down.

"Bit preoccupied at the moment-" False grunted, firing another arrow.

"Sorry, don't think so," Wels apologised, glancing over at Gem. "Do you think you'll be alright without?"

"Yeah, I can manage." Gem's voice was higher than intended, and overall not very convincing. She wasn't good at fighting, and the prospect of having to physically fight for her life scared her.

By now, the zombie was nearing her. Wels and False had spread out, False having resorted to straight-up stabbing the zombies with the arrows and her sword, while Wels was fighting the zombies with his sword.

Gem stepped forward, trying to filter out the squelching of flesh and the groans of pain. It was then that it struck her - this many zombies wasn't normal. Where had they come from? Admittedly it was dark, but not enough to warrant this many.

It was while Gem was distracted by that train of thought, that the zombie attacked her. She stumbled back, letting out a small cry of pain, before stabbing the sword into the zombie's waist, just above the leggings.

Heart racing, she swung again, this time swinging across the head. To Gem's relief, it didn't come clean off, instead just falling to one side, the zombie collapsing back.

She didn't have much time for relief until she noticed another one ready to strike, groaning as it lunged towards her. The rotting hand punched the side of her stomach, while Gem barely had time to process her reflexual swinging, cutting the arm clean off.

Bile crept up her throat as the hand lay next to her, the greyish substance dripping out of the wrist joining the puddle formed by the previously slain. The zombie managed to gain one more hit, before Gem stabbed it through the stomach.

She fought the urge to scream, because unlike the other zombie, it fell onto her. She pulled the sword out of its stomach, pushing it backwards into the path of yet another zombie. It clambered over the corpses of its previously fallen comrades, slashing its sword across Gem's stomach.

"Gem!"

False's voice cut through the sounds of fighting, an arrow barely skimming the side of Gem's head as it flew into the zombie. It joined the array of fallen zombies strewn across the floor, False's eyes still fixed on Gem.

"You good for now?" She raised her voice, ensuring that she could hear her.

Gem nodded, ignoring the lurching feeling in her stomach and the nausea she was fighting.

"At least until the zombies stop!"

"Yeah," False mumbled. "They'd have to stop soon. Have to."

She carried on warding off zombies, enough to evade major damage, though inexperience led to more blood joining the massacre on the floor than was healthy. It was when the zombies finally were thinning out, that one zombie carrying a sword lurched towards her.

She swung violently towards it, barely skimming the zombie's arm. It lunged towards her, and she let out a silent scream as a sharp pain erupting the right of her chest. Vision beginning to blur, she swung upwards, fully decapitating the zombie.

With barely a grunt of pain, Gem fell to the floor.

Blood pooled around her torso, the smell of rotting flesh filling her lungs with every shallow breath she took. The tang of iron filled her mouth, some form of liquid choking down one of her lungs. False and Wel's voices blurred together, incomprehensible; instead, the thudding of her heartbeat echoed in her ears.

Forcing her head up, she looked down at her chest, to see a sword stabbed halfway through, and a blurry figure leaning over. That explained the heaviness in her chest, she supposed.

She didn't know how long it was until she felt pressure around her chest area, but she knew the throbbing lasted a while longer until she felt someone pulling her head up. She could barely make out the outline of someone, the precise colouring's all blurring into a hazy red.

Voices were speaking: to her, to each other - it was irrelevant. Soft, calm voices were speaking to her. Gently opening her lips.

Instinctually, she swallowed the liquid put past her lips, along with a large quantity of blood. Not that she could really tell the difference.

It was a few minutes after that her vision began to clear, the darkness in her mind beginning to brighten up and allow her to think.

"Oh thank god," someone muttered, once she attempted to sit up.

"Gem! Sh, don't try and sit up. You're alright, you're safe now." Gem blinked, trying to put the voice to a name. It was higher than the other one, that meant probably a girl, right?

"Wha-" she croaked, coughing immediately after. She coughed again, this time crimson spitting out onto the ground next to her. Correction - more crimson, she noted upon looking at the surrounding areas.

"The potion should be kicking in around now, try not to move your chest area if you can," Wels soothed. Gem now recognised the voice as Wels. "We'll pull the sword out once more internal damage has healed." Gem nodded, spitting out more of the blood pooling in her mouth onto the floor.

"They- gone now?" She stuttered, ignoring the two of them and trying to sit up. Surprisingly, they just seemed resigned.

"Yeah, they're gone now," False whispered. "According to Stress's lessons, the sword should be safe to pull out around... now!" On her command, Wels yanked the sword out of Gem's chest, and discared it onto the ground.

Suddenly, Gem heard a buzzing in her pocket. Struggling for her recuperating strength, she pulled out her communicator, and glanced down at it.

< JoeHills > ijhekorge

Wels and False looked at each other.

"Wels, you support Gem," False commanded. "Won't take us long to get there." Gem vaguely remembered protesting that she could walk on her own, but the journey there blurred together, through a mix of potions, pain and nausea.

False arrived at the coordinates first. Gem remembered how both of them froze a tad suddenly. She remembered the way her knees buckled, and how pale she was when she turned around. Gem struggled to see, not immediately noticing at first. But then she did.

Blood.

Blood pooled down the grassy terrain.

Her mouth gaped, meanwhile False started walking forward.

Her eyes were locked on the color of crimson red. She didn't want to look, but she couldn't turn away. Her eyes trailed down, up, and around. Then, she noticed something shiny a bit aside from the pool of blood, it seemed like a tiny shard of glass, and next to it was... oh.

Her eyes widened even more, if that was even possible.

A pair of broken glasses laid on the floor, just next to the bushery.