We needed to leave.


    “Change of plans.” I motioned for the Humans to follow me. “We need to go. NOW!”


    I shoved the door open and had the headless body of a Zombie fall onto me. I shoved it to the side as its slayer smiled at me.


    “That’s where you were hiding!” Val glared at me before turning back towards the cloud and cutting a Zombie in half as it rushed her.


    “I wasn’t hiding!” I turned to the left to look around the door. A Zombie barreled into me, pinning me against the side of the house.


    It opened its mouth wide and went for my throat. I shoved my left thumb up its nose to keep its teeth away from me as I wrestled my right arm free.


    “Eat this.” I slid the blade against its throat and grabbed the end with my left hand and pushed.


    The Zombie was pushing forward to try to bite me, which resulted in it doing most of the work to decapitate itself.


    “What is that thing?” Val pointed her purple sword at the looking cloud that was crawling through the streets toward us.


    “No clue.” I pushed the headless body off of me. “I’ve got Humans in there.” I pointed inside the house with my thumb. “We need to get them out of here.” I looked around, but all I saw were Zombies. I couldn’t tell if there were more still alive than dead. Val had cut a very destructive path towards me.


    “Where are the others?” I ran across the street to the nearest Zombie. It tried to grab me, but I ducked under its arms, sliced its ankles and as it fell, I stood up and sliced through its neck. It wasn’t the cleaned cut and the head didn’t come all the way off the body, but it got the job done.


    But I could tell that I was slowing down.


    Physical conditioning was a big part of an apprentice’s training. I could walk for miles without ever getting tired, but this had been a lot of physical activity in a very short time. The adrenaline was starting to flow through my system again, dulling the pain and the aches, but my body was feeling heavy. I wasn’t going to be able to keep up this pace for long.


    “They’re at the docks, trying to get people out of the city.” Val glanced at me as she killed another Zombie on her way to the house I’d just left. “I’d still be with them if I hadn’t seen your sign.” She kicked the headless body out of her way.


    “What sign?” I was confused, but we’d thinned the Zombies down to where it might be manageable. It didn’t matter if it was manageable or not. The cloud was beginning to consume the house next door. We were out of time.


    “IF YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE, GET OUT HERE!!!” Val threw the door all the way open and pointed at the street with her sword. I saw her face soften as she watched the kids run out, trying to avoid the mess that we were making.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    I thought about picking one of them up so we could move faster, but I was covered in purple Zombie blood. There was no way that I wouldn’t infect a kid if I held them.


    “The beacon.” Val waved her hand up at the dark sky.


    “The what?” I scrunched my brow.


    “That purple light that you shot up into the sky.” Val raised an eyebrow. “That was you, right? Trying to tell us that you needed help?”


    “That?” I had no clue what she was talking about, but I had an idea of what had happened. My mysterious pointed eared man that was watching me. I knew he had magic, so it must have been him. He’d said he didn’t want to be seen, so I adjusted the story. “With everything that’s happened, I honestly didn’t think anyone saw it.”


    “It’s a good idea.” She cut off a Zombie that ran out of the mist. Her sword slid against its chest and the tip went right up its body and lodged under its throat, piercing up inside. She held him prone like that for a moment, then yanked her sword out. As the Zombie fell forward, she met it with her blade and cleanly took off its head.


    “Speaking of good ideas.” She pointed at the growing horde that we could see just inside the standing mist. “Can you light that up?”


    I looked down at my hand. I was covered in Zombie blood, which meant that if I tried to make fire right now, I’d set myself on fire.


    There were also enough dead Zombies scattered on the street that I’d be lighting the whole city on fire. I was kind of impressed that no one had tried using fire on them, but maybe everyone was too focused on learning that they weren’t fighting.


    The cloud had already consumed the Human’s house that I’d fought in. We needed to do something and the Zombies had pulled back, but their numbers were growing, almost like they were waiting to swarm us.


    “Switch with me!” I moved behind the Humans while Val came around in front. If the cloud was made of the same stuff as Zombie blood, then maybe it would be flammable and we could take the whole thing out.


    I pointed at an alley between houses. “Let’s go in there!”


    Val scrunched her brows. “Why?”


    “That thing could go up like a hundred more Zombies.” I shook my head. “We need cover and that’s the closest place.”


    Val nodded and ran into the alley. I could already feel that there weren’t any Zombies in the alley, though there were ones on the other side of the alley.


    As soon as she moved, the Zombies surged on both ends. There was no way that I could hold back that many even with Val’s help.


    “GET IN!!!” I almost shoved one of the kids, but remembered what I was covered in. I hunched behind him to take the blow of the first Zombie that got to us. Before I could swing my sword, I got hit again. Then another one jumped on top of me.


    I was pushed face down into the muddy street. The Zombies were going to be able to run over me and there was no way I could push them off of me. The way I was, it was only a question of how long before I was killed. How long until one of those sets of teeth found a place to bite that I couldn’t heal from.


    I called fire into my hand and as soon as it lit, my entire body was covered in flames. The Zombies on top of me shrieked and tried to get up, but we were in a dogpile. No one was going anywhere and in a second the whole pile was on fire.


    I managed to lift my head just enough to look into the alley. The kid that I’d shielded was twenty feet away from me and staring right at me, tears streaming over the horror on his young face. I tried to smile as I pointed my finger of my left hand down the street at the mist.


    “Watch this.” I doubted he could hear me. Before I could see his reaction, my face was shoved into the mud.


    I let the fireball go.


    I couldn’t hear the explosion, but I remembered flying before everything went black.