A New Virus

Ch: 7 (old)

We were running through the forest, well they were jogging while I had to run to keep up. We had run from somewhere from 15 to 30 minutes, at one pace and not changing the pace. Laura had jogged behind Sarah and I had run behind Laura, I had been just in their peripheral vision. I was getting short of breath and started to slow down from my constant pace. If I didn't haft to run every day, then I probably would have run out of stamina earlier. "Can we...stop a for...a second?" I asked, panting. I put my hand against a nearby tree to steady myself.

Laura turned around to look back at me, she looked confused. "Is she alright?"

"She doesn't have Heartfire," Sarah tells Laura.

I went through my bag and took out a bottle of water and drank about half of it before putting it back in my bag.

"How did you get her to the town then?" Laura asked me.

"About 4 hours of walking and running, she wouldn't let me carry her unless she hurt her leg," Sarah tells her.

"That's why we were jogging?" Laura asked Sarah.

"Yes, although she had to run to keep up," Sarah told Laura.

"If I knew that then I would have slowed down," Laura told her. "I just can't believe that she came all the way out there the first time, you don't have a bike or horse around here?"

"We have horses at the stronghold, but we weren't supposed to go that far out from the stronghold in the first place," Sarah told her. "So, we found you lost in the forest around the stronghold that you were looking for. Which was Riverblossom, so we decided to help you get to it."

"Alright, I'll stick to your cover story," Laura tells us. "Not the first time I've had to stick to one..." I heard her mutter in a voice that I could just barely make out. If I could just barely hear her, then I knew that Sarah had probably clearly heard what she had said.

~

I watched as the sun slowly crept behind the horizon while displaying light pinks and purples across the darkening sky. We have been alternating between running and walking for 3 hours straight and we are about an hour away from the stronghold. My feet are killing me but I would like to not be carried by either Sarah or Laura, always telling them no whenever they ask me.

"How much longer...?" I heard Laura ask, she really doesn't like this 'slow' pace that we are running/walking.

"Not much longer," Sarah tells her. "We should be able to see the palaside walls in about an hour."

I heard Laura sigh as she picked up her pace a little, which put me at a full-blown run while I tried to catch up to her while Sarah ran a little ways behind me. We ran about a quarter of a mile at this pace until I slowed down and when I did, I was heavily panting. I had to put both of my hands on my knees just so that I wouldn't fall down. 'Why did I even follow Sarah to that town, to begin with?' I asked myself as I knew that I had to run back to the stronghold.

"Are you alright?" I heard Sarah ask me as I felt a hand against my back.

"Peachy," I told her. "Just...let me catch...my...breath." I felt droplets of sweat run down my face, I automatically looked up to find that it was sprinkling. The rain was cold and my body was hot from all this exercise, so the rain was refreshing.

"Let's go, I don't want to be soaked before we get there," Laura tells us.

"Alright," I told her. I felt like running again as the rain just cooled me down, which was great.

"Yeah, we don't want Anya catching hypothermia," Sarah tells me. And again, we start to run towards the stronghold.

As we ran, the rain fell harder and harder upon us. The ground is becoming very soaked and muddy, which causes me to fall down to my knees. 'Muddy jeans, just great...' I thought.

I felt hands grip around my arms, I looked up to find that Sarah and Laura were both helping me up. "Thanks," I told them. When I stood up, my stance was wobbly and I felt a twin of pain coursing through my left leg. I looked down to see a patch of blood on my knees. "Don't tell me I skint it," I told myself, but I know that they heard me.

"Are you alright?" Sarah asked me.

"I am fine," I told her. "Just let's go." I then began to run past them, towards the stronghold. They easily caught up to me and I was the one following behind them.

~

As we rounded the bend to the stronghold, I was very tired and we saw 3 zombies near the entrance of the stronghold. One of them had dull red eyes but the other two had bright red eyes that seemed to glow. "N-not again," I told them.

"2 swift's and a norm, you've gotta be kidding me," Laura tells me.

"Anya, get behind me," Sarah tells me.

"Where are the guards this time?" Laura asked right before arrows came flying down at the 3 zombies from atop the palisade wall. The arrows hit the normal zombie in the torso but that didn't stop the zombie. While the 2 shifts were fast and could easily move out of the way of the arrows. Never have I seen zombies this intelligent.

"Climb up a tree," Sarah tells me. I looked around for trees I could climb and situated for one that was close to us but not too close. I would haft to run and climb as quickly as I could. I watched as Sarah drew her sword and Laura pulled out two daggers from her backpack.

I sprinted towards the tree, its branches aren't low to the ground in the slightest. In fact, I knew that I had to jump to grasp the branches and then use my body strength to pull myself up. Just about when I got there, I chanced a glance back and noticed that one of the swifts rushed past Sarah, who just started to fend it off, and come straight to me. I quickened my pace towards the tree, not that I'm going much faster than I was a second ago since I'm tired from running the whole day. My pace slowed as I got to the tree and I jumped up to grab hold of a branch.