As the hazy light filtered through the trees I heard the distant sound of bombs whistling through the air and the rattling of bullets leaving guns.

I sit up, clutching my chest. I look around wildly for the enemy, but I see none.

Staggering up I grip a tree branch to stay on my feet and I begin heading towards the sound of war, ready to rejoin my squadron.

Then a voice speaks from behind me.

“You’re not in shape to go back.”

I snap around, seeing a little ways from me in the narrow river a small boat with a figure whose back is turned to me.

I grit my teeth, “Maybe not, but I still have to help them.”

I stand there, waiting for a response.

Finally I get one as I’m about to turn away, “You should rest first. No point in getting there to help when you’ll not be able to make it back in your current state.”

My legs give out and I fall back to the ground, gripping my chest and panting hard as the stranger’s boat slowly floats towards the tree line.

“What do they fight? People? Monsters?”

I suck in some air and give the back of their head a grim smile, “Something like that.” I lean against the thin tree behind me and try to breath, “What’s your name?”

“悠輝 (Yūki), and yours?”

The question catches me off guard and I narrow my eyes at the hazy sun, “I... can’t seem to remember. I’m sorry.”

“That is quite alright. We don’t need names.”

I sit up, “I should get back to them, they need me to help.”

I strain my legs but I cannot get them to move.

悠輝 (Yūki) offers a hand to me, and I see their face. There’s a long scar running from their mouth and through their eye. “You should come with me, you need to rest.”

I hang my head and focus on moving my legs, “I can’t. My friends need me, they can’t do this alone.”

悠輝‘s (Yūki’s) voice begins to strain itself, “If you wish to keep them safe you will come with me.”

Their words leave a spark of anger in me, and I kick out at their boat, “I don’t need your help!” their boat rocks in the water and they grip the side, their eye wide in wild in fear. The newfound adrenaline in me gets me to stand up again, “Obviously you have no idea what we’re fighting, but I’m not going to let a hermit tell me when to rest!”

My legs begin moving and I find myself having no time to say anything more to 悠輝 (Yūki).

As I’m running towards the battlefield I hear 悠輝 (Yūki) call after me, “Wait! You’re not meant to go back, you’re going to become the very thing you’re fighting!”

And then it dawned on me, and my adrenaline is replaced with terror.

This war was unlike anything humanity had seen before. It was a fight against our ancestors that lived again in decaying bodies, the living dead, the undead, the walking corpses. Zombies.

And I died.

—————————

The dead man runs, looking at me over his shoulder in wild fear as he hurtles towards his friends turned enemies.

Humanities’ anger and denial in light of death was not new, but most of the time they became ghosts capable of very little. This was new, and we all knew it. Too many ran from us, too many came back more than once.

I sigh, and finally I decide enough is enough, and I begin making my way to The Up Side to speak with the higher ups about this matter. Perhaps Hades would help, or Osiris or Anubis. Or maybe one of them caused this.

Either way, it needs to be fixed, and whatever brat, human or god, caused this needs to pay.