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THE CHRONICLES OF FINALGAMER Two Raptors In A City of Zombies

"If you look at history, the great men and women of the world have always been defined...by their enemies." Lex Luthor, Smallville

September 23, 1998, 2:01pm

The smell of fires burning was what awakened him first, before the scream of sirens rang out to his ears. The raptor found himself upon a rooftop in broad daylight, the smoke rising all around him from every single direction. A modern city, 20th-century definitely as he noted a few landmarks in his vision. A grandiose police station to the north the size of a museum, as well as a city hall somewhat behind it and a university to his far east. Various small stores lined up through the entire street, voices calling out faintly beyond the streets themselves. From his position atop a roof, between cars both abandoned and ruined, he could see that some streets had been barricaded off by what appeared to be standard construction road signs. But then he noticed the telltale signs of police weapons and people desperately scrambling over back towards houses and smaller areas. It wasn't until he saw a large horde far on the horizon, that he realised what was the reason for the city's decay and disorder. "...of course. Fucking zombies. What else would it be?" He knew the smell of rotting flesh, but to see an entire army of it shuffling across the main thoroughfare was rather unnerving. Normally he would be horrified, but his life and journey had made him care less about the stranger oddities of that which should not be, even the walking dead. Salivating broken jaws, crippled limbs that bent out from whatever flesh that remained upon them, organs still as death that hung loosely from both men and women, even children shuffling amongst the ranks of the hungry undead. People could be seen fighting off smaller groups, or even just lone occasional creatures trying to grab at their next meal. Some would succeed, beating the rot-festooned corpses with both guns and tools ranging from pistols to baseball bats. Other times they were overwhelmed, the screams of the living rising to a crescendo out of both fear and agony. Dozens were dying all around him, struggling to survive and there was nothing he could do to save all of them. Too many spread out in all directions, too numerous to count being wounded. "...this is it? This is what you meant, Kirie?"

The raptor turned towards the sky above, gazing towards the south as he tried to ponder on what to do in this world. Then he was given a good reminder, in the form of a horrendous stomach-churning pain that tore into the pits of his soul, forcing him to bend over in pain as he almost fell onto his knees. "NNNNGH! Hhhhuuuuuuh! F-fuck...f-forgot about you...you. You fucking prick." FG struggled to stand up, not caring who would hear him in this catastrophe as his tone turned sour with false alacrity. "You just can't let me have ONE MOMENT to myself, can you? Can't have a normal life, even when I try, even when I do everything right to be a good guy, have a job, not get so angry all the time, but no. Nope, not even when I fucking fail at saving one kid, do I ever get what I deserve. Never. ...you know what. Fine. FINE!" He threw down his scissors hard, almost swinging them like a hammer onto the hard rooftop as they clanged and skidded across from him, gesturing towards it angrily like it was a person to argue with. "You wanna go kill, you wanna fucking eat, then GO! Go on, go, like some kinda fucking DOG that can't eat without murdering the shit out of everything! Plenty of people dying all around me and I can't do shit about it! This why I'm here?! Just to prove a point?! That I can't save anyone anymore!!? ...doesn't matter anymore. All I want is to get rid of you, go back home, fix all my shit and fucking leave. So guess what." James opened his arms wide as if inviting himself to be punched, snarling with a curled lip towards the scissors that began to shiver. "Your turn now Scissoraptor. Whatever shit you do, not my problem anymore. Just go ahead and kill. All these people who I'll never be able to save, all these people who nobody is ever gonna save, just do it...and leave me alone. I don't give a fuck about what you do anymore." With that resignation, his heart sank as he gave himself into the darkness. The demon leapt up through his body, tearing through his insides on a deeper level than physical. The pain was so sudden, so intense that James fell to the floor, shrieking as he convulsed with a deep wounding agony. His arms turned numb, his teeth started to turn cold, his very soul started to wilt, fraying at the edges like a burnt parchment as the shadows soon had overcome him. He reached out towards the sky, his eyes closing underneath a new set of eyelids, borne from darkness itself. "I'm sorry Koopin...I'm sorry."

Ever since his dark days in Rogueport, he always said this before he felt it. That cold familiar place within himself, where he always went to once the demon had taken charge. He was never truly aware of it, nor would he ever remember the rest of it. To him it was the closest he could imagine to being in a coma. Sleepless. Restless. Every time he felt that intimate darkness sweep over his mind, before claiming his eyes and heart which soon began to beat still, he always had the same thought in his mind before consciousness was lost from him. Please let me wake up...someday. And you will soon...one day. _ His mind was now another mind entirely, a demon's energy now flowing through his deadened veins. His heart had stopped, his mind no longer functioning as his blood remained frozen in time. To all the senses of the mortal realm, James Campbell was dead. But only for as long as the Scissoraptor allowed himself the pleasure of his host's body, his darkness resonating from the scissors that slowly sheathed back into their scabbard. **"Mmmmmm...ohhhh James, what have we here? A city bereft of life and hope?"** The demon raptor could not resist looking all around him with excitable glee, spinning slowly in a small dance like a child at Christmas. His eyes widened further, black pools with tiny sparks of light faintly glimmering within, the faintest traces of James' consciousness held back by the dark spirit. With his own eyes of demonkind, he saw something even more wondrous than his mortal host could. Dozens of flickering lights, shifting in and out of existence from the brightest star to the dullest whimper. Souls that would never be. **"Hmhmhmha ha ha ha HA! Ohhhhhhhh what a beautiful genocide this world has to offer...and it's not even my birthday. ...that is, whatever WOULD be my birthday...hmhmhm...I suppose my day of being summoned into existence would count as such. Hmmm...I wonder what month it is in this world. Still a human world without wretched half-animals like the ones you have been to before..."** A sniff of the air helped him gather enough information, or what little he could from the chaos rampaging throughout at least half of the city. Some parts he could see were not touched so far, further beyond the city landscape towards the east and the west. But he knew that would soon change. **"Hmmmmm...September. Late...september. The cold autumn winds speak of a cool unspoilt winter...but not for these mortals...hhhhhh. Ohhhhh what a wonderful city. The screams of agony, the groans of putrid carrion come to claim more for their insatiable ranks, the sight of spirits all around me like a festival of lights! ...I should thank you James. Truly, you offer me such a great sacrifice for your efforts as my host. ...perhaps when the time comes, I shall give you one last night with your...precious sodomite, hmhmhmhm ha ha ha...hmm?! What's that?"_** Far from the madding crowd below him, a child's scream rang out across the city. The raptor smiled thinly as he breathed a most dreaded sound of pleasure, hearing his prey far towards the southwest. The sound of his rapture was but a screaming breath, tainted by the souls he had feasted upon before that all mortals nearby felt. Were one within his vicinity, his breath would resonate a shiver through one's very flesh, a cowering of sudden fear and paranoia that crawled deep into one's very soul. The hunt had begun once again.

September 23, 1998, 12:30pm

"No it isn't!" said the boy. "Yes it is!" said the girl. "NO it isn't!" "Yes it iiiiiis Michael!" "How can a ghost be weak to psychics?!" "Cuz it's ALSO poison, dummy, poison's weak to psychics!" "Awwww really?! That sucks, no wonder I can't beat this girl!" It had been a strange day for him. First he had encountered his biggest roadblock while playing Pokemon, struggling to figure out the gym leader Sabrina, and now he was on the bus away from school around lunchtime amongst 20 other students. It was still three hours yet until school was truly over, and there was no field trip planned today or so. Nobody seemed to explain anything, not even the bus driver who simply had a determined scowl on his old features moreso than usual as the kids were all told to leave school for an early day. The girl beside him, of fair skin and long brown wavy hair, had helped him a lot with his virtual journey on his GameBoy, a large weighty grey brick with a screen perpetually monochrome, with the odd instance of mustard-green. Both of them wore rather unusual clothes for American children, styled like Japanese schoolchildren with white blouses and blue skirts for girls, and black button-suits for the boys. Raccoon City had always been unusual that way from the norm of Americana, but that wasn't the boy's concern as he debated with the girl on elementary types and their compositional weaknesses. "Why's poison weak to psychic anyway?!" "Cuz um...um...maybe the psychics like, control the poison inside them, an' like, PUSH it out of 'em!" "So...if I poison 'em, does it not work?" "Maybe!" "How many badges you got?" "Ummmm five," said the girl factually. "Five badges. I jus' beat her, you gotta not use any of yer ghosts." "But that's the POINT of having ghosts, that's so stupid, I hate these psychic pokemon." "Well I got an Abra, and he is the coooolest." "Suuuure...was there like, a big parade on today?" "Um...nooo?" "Cuz all the streets are messy, like way more than yesterday!" "My daddy said the streets weren't safe anymore, that's why we all gotta drive around all the time and not walk anywhere anymore." "But why?" asked the boy. "Are there like gangs, o-or big guys with bats and knives that wanna take yer money?!" "Might be, they jus' don' wanna say anythin' cuz we might get scared." "I'm not scared, I just beat Team Rocket at that Silph Co. place, I can totally take 'em!" At that point, none of them noticed the truck that slammed into the bus from a side street before inertia took hold of them. For the next few seconds, all the children could see was glass, rubber, and bodies amidst screams of sudden fear, followed by the pain of being crushed against the seats and windows. The bus soon rolled onto its side, desperately trying to keep itself up as the truck slalomed through into a store nearby, crushing the storefront into a pile of rubble. The boy had gone unconscious when the bus skidded and hit a nearby apartment building.

His eyes flickered open as he heard his schoolmates cry out all around him, finding himself nearly crushed underneath one of the seats in the crashed broken school bus, the door's side crushed against a brick wall. The windows had been smashed in, and the sounds of groaning adults came en masse from outside. The boy was confused, his head somewhat bleeding but nothing broken. He looked down at his black leather watch, seeing that it still ticked silently at around 2:00pm, his blue backpack close by thankfully. His GameBoy was nearby, a few feet away but turned off from the sudden impact. His stubby nose was a little bruised as he brushed some glass off from his blood-streaked ginger hair hastily, but other than that he was not harmed. His blue eyes gazed out across the area, trying to look for his friend. "Jennifer?" he called out. "J-jennifer?! You alright?!" No response came, the classmates around him either broken against the windows, or in even worse a state. He thought at first it had just been a terrible accident, like his aunt had once been in. Then he heard one of the children scream. He turned quickly to see one poor boy dragged out of a window by filth-ridden hands, causing his belly to be ripped to shreds on the sharp window glass. The sounds of tearing flesh came from the outside of the bus, the remains of a child's organs hanging limply from the glass shards on the window. Every kid had seen enough monster movies to know what that sounded like. Tearful whimpers struggled to call out, boys and girls trying to help each other up on what limbs they had left. But the hands grabbed at them through the windows, and from the boy's perspective down under an overturned seat, he could see them either being pulled out entirely, or have only their heads pulled out, watching their twitching young bodies spasm in their last moments. The sounds of eating could be heard clearly from every direction, and all the remaining children could do was try to hide, or scream, or cry. But then another sound could be heard, coming from the outside unseen. The sounds of a monstrous growl, followed by the tearing streak of flesh from slicing attacks, swift but deadly as the groans intensified further. Then they began to thin out, death rattles calling out from the windowside of the bus before they soon stopped completely. A deep shuddering voice soon followed after, curious to find something outside the school bus. "Hmmm? Well...hello there." A girl's whimpers could be heard, as Michael crawled softly forwards to see who was outside, peering through a tiny slitted scrape within the metal. His friend was on the ground, laying on her side with blood in her hair as she looked up towards something, just out of view that Michael could not quite see. The voice spoke once more. "You've taken quite a nasty fall...haven't you little girl?" "U-u-uh huh...p-please...don' hurt me." "Now why would you think I would ever do that?" "C-cuz...you...l-look like a monster." "Well, perhaps I am then. But that is no reason to judge. Perhaps we should introduce ourselves first. What is your name, child?" "J-j-...J-jennifer..." Silence came for a few moments, before a rabid snarl came from the beast's throat, deeper than a monster's should truly be. "...Jennifer. Jennifer...JenniFERRRRR!"

The girl was picked up hard off her feet by the sudden swipe of claws, before being thrown hard onto the ground once more. The boy could only see her head, her screams piercing the deadened air before a large bladed tip plunged into her eyes, her voice cutting off as the blades began to twist suddenly. Her neck snapped completely in half with one crack, her head coming off from the rest of the body. The blades however would rise up from her pierced skull, only to plunge back down once more with punctuating roars from the creature. "WORTHLESS! WRETCHED! CHILD! NEVER utter that name unto me! NEVER!" The beast panted with frustration, the blade long and metal seeming to scrape against the ground slightly. The boy did not watch any more, struggling not to speak a single word as he clasped his hands over his mouth, breathing only through his nose. The monster sighed as he regained his composure with a small whimsical chuckle, the blades slowly lifting back up into the air as a shudder of bliss came from him, the boy only hearing his words. "Hmph...but that is all in the past now, not something to concern oneself with. Hah...don't worry child, whose name I shall not speak of again...your soul was mine to begin with. Hhhhh...I have not tasted a child's soul in so long...ohhh...I have missed this, like it was mother's milk...hhah...hahahah...I do not even know what that tastes like, how would I know? ...hmmm? ...I sense another." The boy hidden beneath the dead struggled not to gasp, hiding his voice by closing his hands over his mouth, his fearful breaths contained so desperately within his palms. His hands began to sweat as the creature clacked large claws unseen across the gravel outside of the bus. The children that remained all whimpered and pulled back against the opposite side of the bus, one of them beckoning the boy hiding on his own to come over. He shook his head in fear, refusing to do so. "Chillllldreeeeen...I want to play a game with you...oh come now...I apologise for my grievous lack of patience just now, but I am so very tired...and very hungry...and it has been a long...long...existence. Any child out there now who comes forward willingly...I promise that it will be quick...and no pain will come of you. I swear upon my mortal mother...hmmm? No?" The bus suddenly shook with a powerful slam, crushing itself inwards as the children screamed out in fear. A few minutes of desperate silence, using every single ounce of patience borne from fear that he had, the lone boy waited as another slam of brute force came to the side of the bus. The creature from outside chuckled grimly at the sound of the children whimpering, close enough that the boy could even hear the creature breathing. It was a strange noise, not the breaths of a normal living creature. It sounded as if everytime it breathed, something had choked the life from its throat violently short. The sounds of a death rattle cut short. Michael watched the side of the bus become torn open by a huge twin pair of blades, stabbing through before ripping the metal outwards with a screeching groan. The boy scrabbled off in the chaos, using the noise of screaming metal to cover his stumbling half-crawl to grab at his GameBoy, and hide under the driver's seat. He did not realise the driver was already dead until blood dripped through the seat onto his back, shaking with desperation to not speak even a single breath as his fellow classmates screamed in turn, trying to pull back further against the opposite seats. He remembered a movie about dinosaurs he once saw, on how when they started to hunt, they relied on sight and sound. He had no idea what this thing was, not even able to see it. But so long as he stayed still, and perfectly quiet, he believed that he would be safe. As the scraping of steel soon ceased, the demon spoke once more. "Fouuuuund youuuuuu."

All he would hear next was shrieking death. Flesh torn asunder, steel shredded and ripped apart in the chaos within the back of the bus, the inside of which shook and rattled from the force of the demon assault. His friends were being eaten, eviscerated and violated, or perhaps even worse but he dared not to look. All he knew was that they were alive to the very end, their screams crackling out to their final moments as tears flowed from his eyes. It took every ounce of his self-preservation not to utter a sob of fear, cheeks turning red with hands clasped shut over his mouth, clutching his backpack underneath his belly. The sound of the creature turned into something else. A sound of a most horrifying digestion, far beyond that of a simple beast preying upon flesh. The sounds of devouring came after another sound, one that the boy had only ever heard in his nightmares. It was as if the screams of banshees that would come to his face off, were now screaming their own fears before the gulping groans of an unearthly abomination would come. What terrified the boy even more, was the sound of the creature's voice. It sounded happy. Almost blissful with relief. "Ohhhhhhhhh...hhhhhh...hhhhhyeeeeeessss...just...like mother's milk. Aaaaaah...ohhh I have longed for this taste for so long...hhaha...James...if only I could show you what you have done...but...it's rather difficult to show one's handiwork amongst the wretched undead...sickening. Hmm?!" One boy had managed to run from the terror somehow, his footsteps pounding towards the front of the bus which only made the one hiding even more fearful. Then he heard a scream, just to his right as he saw a boy's face, suddenly falling onto his side right in front of him. Brown-skinned with black hair, one he somewhat recognised from his class. The two locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity, before he was dragged away as the monster's voice spoke directly next to the boy who hid. "Now that wasn't very nice my young friend, running away from all your friends over there. But you seem like quite the fast runner...hmmm...why don't you show me how fast you can run? Hmm? Go that way, there are no monsters beyond that way. Now run...for ten seconds straight. One...two...three..." Footsteps pounded blindly away from the bus, tearful whimpers calling out from afar as the creature chuckled darkly. Ten seconds later, the boy still hiding heard a strange sound, a blur of darkness appear from around the corner before he suddenly heard a scream, faintly from the direction the other boy had run. Minutes soon passed. His watch ticking towards 2:30pm. Not a single sound had come in the past 25 minutes since the creature had disappeared. He hoped that he would not come back as he slowly crawled out from underneath the bus. The reddened corner of the bus he dared not look at, festooned with the remains of his former classmates as strips of flesh laid draped upon windows and seats. He remembered which way the other boy ran, before running in the opposite direction. He never stopped running, his GameBoy in hand with backpack on his back, stumbling through the torn and broken streets. He had only one place he knew he would be able to find peace within this madness. All around him the world had changed so suddenly. It was as if he had just woken up from a mundane dream into a horrid nightmare, twisting his home city into a decrepit, beast-ridden wasteland. The groans he had heard before now came from one direction, as he headed the other way to try and put as much distance between himself and the school bus as possible. As soon as he found a place of quiet, the back of a furniture delivery truck that had been left half-opened, he sat at the very back behind a dresser, and weeped. Exhaustion soon had overcome him.

By the time he opened his eyes again, night time had fallen. He hadn't realised that he had fallen asleep, his eyes stinging red with tears as he softly got up and looked outside of the truck. Not a single sound could be heard nearby, which he took to be a good thing as he hunched down back behind the dresser and began to eat from his lunchbox, putting his GameBoy into his backpack as he did so. Luckily he had not eaten anything from it before riding on the bus, finishing up a banana first and saving the sandwich for later. He would have eaten more, but his stomach had turned rather dull with a lesser hunger from what had happened before. Every time he even tried to think back, his mind would flash blinding images of blood and screams to rip through his vision. His breaths turned shaky, his eyes turned tight and wired with paranoia as he slowly began to step out of the van. His watch showed that it was around 8:30pm. But he was more focused on the sight of two men hunched over a body in the street nearby, ragged-clothed as the sounds of tearing flesh came all too clearly to the boy's ears. He would have been able to make a clean getaway, until he kicked a rock by accident. The men started to turn their heads, the sight of a fresh young boy bathed within the city lights. He ran as fast as he could. His footsteps pounded hard, the barest of puddles being splashed underfoot as the boy's shadow tore through the alley. It flitted and jumped from step to step, turning one alleway blindly before trying desperately to climb up against the dead-end wall at the end of it. Trapped between two buildings on Park Street, with one fire escape far too high for him to reach, the small shape turned back towards the harsh street lighting. He panted hard from fear, whimpering at the sight of the two lumbering shadows that came closer before him. Strange guttural groans came from the larger adults, their clothes ragged and unsalvaged with blood and saliva. Slathering broken-teethed men with deadened eyes of glass white. The boy scraped his hands against the wall, whimpering all the more, closing his eyes and waiting for the inevitable. There was no other way out. He struggled to imagine the horrifying agony that would soon be upon him. He heard the stuttering moans come closer, the faces of his pursuers now revealed to have unsightly pale skin, tight in rigor, eyes deadened to a whitened glaze. As they came close enough for the smell of rotting corpse-flesh to become apparent, the boy screamed with all his might, hoping in the tiniest of hope that someone would come.

Someone did.

A terrifying roar came from above, the boy keeping his eyes closed as he heard the sounds of brutal slaughter. Something was torn from limb to limb, blood spattered onto gravel by the loud, gurgling noise soon dying off into a sleep eternal. Yet the boy did not feel any pain. No bites, no tearing, no claw-like fingers digging into his flesh. He remained completely intact. He opened his eyes once more. A creature now stood with his back before him, standing above two eviscerated human corpses beneath him. The beast was somehow familiar, yet so very off at the same time. Brown in scale with purple marks horizontally down his back, snaking off to the tail. Cold eyes that blinked softly when his head soon turned, his snout also accented with two purple stripes. He wore blue jeans like any other human would, despite the clear hole in the rear that was needed for his tail. Blood and bite marks covered his dark-shaded body. He didn't even notice the strange scabbard on his back for where a sword would be, which was soon occupied by a giant pair of scissors, bizarrely so, until the sound of steel slithered into its sheath. As the beast turned towards the boy, he cowered in fear as a voice broke through towards his ears. He knew the end had come for him. "You alright?" Or perhaps not. The creature spoke with an older English voice, the shock not setting in for the young boy who replied: "H-...h-huh?" "I said, you alright kid?" "...y-yeah...but...you can talk?" "Well, yeah, I just did." "Yer not...one of those monsters?" "No way, my flesh is still intact right?" "Bu-...what ARE you?" "...I'm a dinosaur. Velociraptor if you wanna be precise. What, they didn't teach you that in school yet?" "Y-yeah they did, but...dinosaurs died out a long time ago." "And zombies don't exist," said the raptor flippantly, "but I think we're past that already, right?" "U-um...r-right." "You sure you're alright? You look pretty freaked out, you didn't get bitten or anything right?" "N-no, no way, none of 'em touched me, th-th-those things were about to though! I...I-i...I was the only one to make it out...nobody else could...g-get out." "Nobody else? Where?" "A-at the school bus...s-somewhere over there. I...I couldn' do anything...they all got...e-eaten...even my friend...m-m-monsters..." The boy sat down against the wall as his legs slumped with the resurgence of sorrow, his tears awakening in him as he wept into his hands. Everything he knew had been turned upside down, things that should not be now appearing before his eyes, and those he knew were real such as his friends were now dead within the ruins of the streets. The raptor's head bowed in silent mourning, before he asked: "What's your name?" "M-michael...what's yers?" "...FG." "Huh?" "Just call me FG."

The raptor smiled, not showing his teeth in order to not scare the boy. He listened for the sounds of the city in ruin around him, moans of an unearthly nature faint beyond his hearing along with the faded screams and sirens of those still amongst the living. He kneeled down slightly to let the boy look at him more carefully, their eyes met beneath the harsh street light. "You know your way around here?" asked FG. "Um...y-yeah, I do...but I got lost, I was tryin' to run away and...I got the wrong alley, everything looks so different, I got all confused, I-" "Hey hey, it's okay, don't worry. I just arrived here, what the hell happened to this city?" "Um...I dunno...they said in the news that...s-stuff started happening a few days ago...my mom an' dad said that people started going crazy, there were all these stories of people biting each other, then they got sick, like some kinda flu was goin' around. I heard all the other kids talk about it too, but nobody knows what's happenin'!" "Alright...where are your parents?" "I-i dunno...maybe they're back home, m-maybe might still be working up at that big place Umbrella." "Wait, Umbrella? What's that?" "This BIG company that like does EVERYTHING here, they do all sorts of...um...chemical stuff, like making medicines an' stuff! That's what my mom an' dad said anyways, I dunno..." "Yeah? What do your parents do?" "They um...they work at reception for Umbrella. Like, answerin' phones an' stuff." "Ah huh...well, why don't we find them then? It's not safe out here." "Okay...but...mom told me not to talk to strangers." "Then don't talk to me if you don't want to, at least I can talk unlike those zombies back there." "Zombies? ...they...they really are zombies aren't they?" "No other word for them I guess...listen, it's dangerous for you to go alone, so I'll protect you alright?" "What?" "I'll protect you. I can help you get back home, if that's all you need then I can handle those things no problem." "But...why? Wh-why do you wanna help me?" "...because I don't want to see a kid like you get hurt." Michael could say nothing more at such an odd statement from a dinosaur of all people. And with no one else to offer him any form of protection in such a transformed darkened city, he eventually resigned himself into FG's care. The raptor however saw that he was uncertain, and bent down to offer his smallest finger. Even then it had a rather intimidating claw upon it "Lemme promise on it then. Come on, pinky promise." "P-pinky promise? Heheh, th-that stuff's for kids." "Well, I'm kinda like a kid sometimes, a dino kid maybe...come on. I promise I'll protect you, no matter what. Pinky swear." "You...you promise?" "Cross my heart and hope to die." He crossed his chest with his other hand, his eyes serious yet trying to be playful which Michael slowly started to realise. He gently grabbed at the base of the finger, avoiding the claw as they locked pinkies together. With a nervous chuckle from each other, the raptor stood up and asked: "Which way is it to your house?" "That way," said Michael pointing towards the northwest, "it's past the zoo an' the tram station over at Gough Street." "Alright, you lead me but stay close. If anything comes at us, you do exactly as I say, and we'll be fine." "O-okay." "But if you're not certain, or you know a better path, then don't hesitate to speak up. You know this city better than I do." "Okay...th-thank you mister FG." "Hah, hey, I'm not a mister, just call me FG." "Okay...FG." The boy was feeling somewhat better now to have a rather strange companion, but his nerves were still frought with tension as he walked out of the alleyway with the raptor alongside him. The roads at night appeared to be long and treacherous, moreso than they had become during the daytime. Michael knew exactly which way was home as he guided FG north through long alleyways stretching across city blocks.

All around them they could see apartments and storefronts now ruined, savaged by fire and chaos. Blood streaked upon back walls, windows empty with glass both inside and out, bodies occasionally seen in dark corners of the earth. The smell was always the same, rotting wounds and charred smoke offering a rather sickeningly familiar scent. On the back streets the scene of carnage was not as great, more isolated incidents of small families or lone survivors meeting their untimely end. Occasionally they found someone who was alive, struggling to hide inside what remained of their homes and desperately screaming at all newcomers to go away. Michael was even more scared, but James beckoned him to move on. Some of them he could tell were rather sick with something, coughing and moaning with bloodshot eyes and pale skin. Some even pleaded for help, or at least to be put out of their misery. In the midst of their anguish, none of them even questioned the raptor's existence, of which he was thankful for. James ignored them, or at least tried to as he let Michael walk on with him, their whimpering bitter tears fading away into the darkness behind them. Night had turned the city into a veil of black, only the fires and the odd streetlight were still on, untouched from the violence within the streets. His claws clacked on empty gravel alongside Michael's hard school shoes, before the boy asked shamefully: "C-can we stop? I have to...go." "Hmmm...there's a car park over there, maybe there's a bathroom." Walking over towards a small five-spaced car park on Euston Street, empty of any vehicles except one voided warranty slapped on a brown Buick, a blue side door offered relief beneath a glowing bright light. No zombies were about on this quiet street corner, but they were not going to take any chances as the raptor cautiously opened the public toilet door, blades out and ready to fight. It was surprisingly devoid of any bodies, but it wasn't exactly in the best condition. It had urinals at least with one unbroken toilet. "Looks safe," he said, "you head in and do your business while I keep watch." "Okay." With a bashful walk the boy went in, closing the door as he went to relieve himself. FG stood guard outside, looking out across the small car park which to him was the size of a basketball street court. The car intrigued him, wondering if it worked as he checked to see that the engine was on its last legs. No way was it ever leaving this small place of clarity. James was already feeling rather out of sorts for the fact that six hours had seamlessly passed upon his visit here, after the demon had had his fill. He tried to calm himself within this small sanctum of urban design, a lone street light and one car offering all he could want to take a deep breath and look down at his hands. A few new wounds freshly healed up, his hands a little more crusted with blood as well as the odd reddened fingerprint or two faintly seen within his scales. At the very least he hoped that he had thinned out the horde of the undead when his demon side had taken over, wondering if the Scissoraptor even enjoyed such empty victims. But even James would not find peace in such a place. A shadow loomed high above unseen from the corner of the rooftops, staring down at FG. Claws slowly gripped around a large wooden handle, a sneer coming to its owner's black snout. "Finally...ah fuckin' caught up wit' you bitch."