The shingle in her hands stared back up at Lillian grumpily. It didn’t really, being an inanimate object, but she imagined it really didn’t like her, for some reason. It was probably because she was thinking about throwing it to the imaginative wolves, which were actually zombies. She shook her head, personifying a roof shingle was not going to help her survive in this place and it damn sure wasn’t going to help her get some water. She stood up but kept one hand on the lip of the rooftop, she remembered something about always having three points of contact when working on slopes. She couldn’t remember where she had heard it though, probably from her father, he always had little nuggets of wisdom to dole out. The sudden memory of him threatened to knock her on her ass again, she would probably never see him again and it was entirely her fault. She kept her breathing steady though as she really did not need to deal with her emotions right now when she was on top of a roof, above some zombies. She scrambled over to the edge of the building, slightly hunched so one hand could hold onto the roof and the other could carry the shingle, against her chest.
The zombies had started walking towards her, drawn by the sound but they didn’t look up at all, so she concluded they probably were not intelligent. Lillian heaved the shingle up while she quickly scanned the square for a good place to throw it. There was a lane that stretched off to the left. She could also see that the building she was standing on took up the entire block, there was no building beside it. That was probably a good place to throw it, not too far and the building itself would block sight lines.
She held the shingle up higher and braced herself against the roof edge and ended up going with a shotput stance, holding the shingle with one hand near her face and using her full body to throw the shingle into the road. Immediately two things happened at once: the zombies turned towards the sound, betraying a speed that they hadn’t shown before, and Lillian’s foot, slightly raised from the throw itself came down onto the edge of the roof and found no purchase.
A surprised gasp left her mouth just as below her the zombies shambled quickly towards the sound. One of them let out a gasping warble, the sound was very loud and echoed through the dim, dilapidated streets. Immediately Lillian tried to right herself, leaning forward in a desperate gamble but her wild movements connected with nothing, and her foot flew past the edge, her leg following very soon after. Her swing forward did manage to make something connect with the roof, but that was her chest as she smashed down, knocking the wind from her lungs. She started sliding, the one leg that had managed to stay upright betraying her and slipping over. Even more frantic scrambling for any handhold made panic rise in the throat bereft of air. Finally, as her chest was about to pass the edge, she managed to grab something with her left hand. Her right soon followed just as all her weight came off the roof and she dangled from her hands.
Her shoulders hurt and she was really struggling to get her breathe back, whether that was panic, the exertion or just plain being winded from the fall, she couldn’t tell. Her first few breathes scalded with a sharp pain that left her hissing, gods, she hoped her ribs weren’t broken. She decided to set aside the pain for now, even with modern medicine, ribs were not easy to heal. She looked up and realised that the thing that caught her fall was a sign, hanging on a single chain. She couldn’t read the script, but it looked like some kind of official building, better yet she could see a safe way to get down from the sign, a chain hanging from the other side of it. All she would need to do is follow along the edge of the sign and down the chain. It would hurt like a bitch, but it was doable and safe.
Lillian was right about the climb down hurting like a bitch, each movement drew a sharp hiss as her abused shoulders cried for relief. It was agony but she had to keep going, she had no idea how much longer the zombies would be distracted, and she needed water. Finally, after a few moments, she dropped to the ground and immediately rolled her shoulders back to test her range of movement. Even though it was painful, her shoulders were able to complete full rotations which meant nothing was dislocated, her basic training in first aid coming in handy.
Her chest still burned with each breath, so something was definitely wrong, but she was breathing fine besides the pain so she decided that could wait. The important thing now was not to waste the time she had bought herself with that manoeuvre. She sprinted across to the well, and a quick inspection showed that the bucket was already down so all she needed to do was to bring it up. The spinning handle was on the side that faced the building she was standing on top of, so she positioned herself where she had a clear view of the road the zombies went down and started turning the handle. It was relatively easy, with her new strength and she could see the bucket by the time she heard groans heading her way. She grabbed the bucket when it was almost at the top but froze when she heard a footfall to her immediate right. That was not the way the zombies had gone. Just as she was having that thought, her body was thrown to the ground by something tackling her at high speed. The only thing she saw of the creature were huge bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a shrivelled, human looking face and a mouth covered in blood and missing teeth. It gave the creature a very uncanny valley look, and caused the panic to start rising in Lillian again. She tried to struggle out of the hold but couldn’t stop the head from opening its mouth and digging its teeth into her shoulder.
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In that moment of sheer pain and frustration, Lillian’s body, mind and soul responded at the same time. Her free hand reached over and touched the zombie, not to push but just to make contact. Her mind was spiralling into panic, flight winning over and her entire being screaming to flee. Her soul, the pit sitting in the base of her stomach, rose up in response to her mind’s plea. It came bubbling out from her stomach and travelled along her arm, sitting atop the zombie’s skull. It was a glowing light, seeming to spread along her veins and when it got to her hand, the zombie on top of her exploded. The light didn’t stop there, it kept on growing, coming out her hand until she was in a sphere of pure golden light and she was in the centre.
The glow and the wave of force had come from her, but she didn’t even know how she did it. When she wanted to turn it off, when her heart had started beating normally again, the sphere exploded into golden spears that rained down around her and disappeared. She looked at her arm, the golden veins were still there, slowly fading. She felt something fall onto her leg and looked down to see the lone leg of a zombie laying on her. There was nothing left of the one who tackled her so this must have been another one. There was no blood, the leg was oozing some sort of green liquid though.
Lillian pushed it off with disgust and stood up. Strewn all around her were more zombies, their bodies riddled with holes, she assumed it was from the spears of golden light. Inspecting one, she realised the holes did not have any markings or any indication about what happened, the flesh was just gone. This worried Lillian as the only thing she knew right now is that she had done it, something within her, her soul, had reacted to a desperate plea. There was no obvious way to control it, and she didn’t want to accidentally hurt someone. In fact, looking around her more thoughtfully now, there had to have been almost 20 zombies, and she had taken them out just like that. It was all she could do not to cry as she felt the weight of the emotions crash down on her, it was too much anger and sorrow.
After a moment, she decided she needed to pull herself together, she needed to finish what she came here to do, and based on the number of dead zombies she may have just cleared the local area of them. She turned back to the big brick building and noticed the big double doors on the side facing the square, she hadn’t been able to see them earlier, but the doors did in fact look intact, so it was probably the best place to get some rest. Upon having that thought, a bone deep weariness fell on her like she had run a marathon. She brought the bucket back up the well and filled up her water flask before heading towards the brick building, picking her way gingerly over bodies and wiping away tears.
The doors looked even more sturdy up close, in fact she could not actually see a way to open them. Luckily, she did spy what looked like a window with shutters on the second floor that looked slightly ajar. The brick was starting to erode so there were plenty of handholds to get up there and she was pretty sure the zombies couldn’t climb so it would be perfect. The climb up was harder than she expected due to shoulders still being sore from the forced pull up, but she managed to make it to the window she saw and confirmed that the shutters were in fact loose and could be opened easily. Behind the shutters it looked like a murky glass had been smashed from the inside, glass debris still smattering the sill. From the window, all she could make out of the room was a large desk in the centre of the room and bookshelves lining the walls. It looked like an office of some kind, not out of place in an administration building that she thought this was.
Lillian used the edge of her tunic to brush the glass away from the windowsill so that she could enter and exit safely. Once she deemed it safe enough, she climbed through the window and jumped lightly to the floor. Getting a good look at the room now she was inside, it was definitely an office like she thought, however, something near the wall she had just come through looked awfully like a shrine to some kind of deity. On top of a small column a statuette of a slender woman stood, with a small bowl in front of her. Lillian was not religious, but it seemed rude to enter without making some kind of offering, just in case. She didn’t have anything except her water so decided to just tip a small amount into the bowl and to make some apologies.
“Hey pretty lady I don’t know the name of, I’m sorry I’m intruding on this place. Please accept this offering of the only thing I have to my name right now.”
It felt weird to talk out loud to a statue but at least she felt better about just entering this place now. Taking more of a look around, Lillian could not see anything that would be out of place in an office, the desk was clear, but it had a stool next to it and she could see some drawers. The bookshelves had some books on them but she couldn’t read any of the spines so she assumed that she wouldn’t be able to read the insides too and dismissed them. By the door there was what looked like a coat rack with cloths hanging up. What was odd was that the whole place was free of dust, she hadn’t noticed before, it looked like it had just been cleaned a minute ago. Everywhere she had gone today since waking up had a thick layer of dust covering it, like no human hand ad touched it in years.
The room did of course have an exit door as well, but that was blocked with a bolt lock. Lillian thought that was weird, but she felt safe here for the first time since she woke up, her gut had led her this far, so she decided to trust it and get this place setup to sleep. The cloths by the door should probably make a warm spot to sleep if not a comfortable one. She started taking them off the hooks and shaking out non existent dust, only to discover that the cloths were robes, the kind that is just a big rectangle and you had to tie closed. Would be useful if she needed to cover up at all, so she kept one aside from the sleeping spot she was making.
Taking a peek outside, it was already evening time and Lillian was exhausted from the day’s excitement, so once she had made the sleeping spot and had a long drink of water she laid down and was out like a light, despite the uncomfortable position.