Lost - Chapter Eight
NOTE: I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS IS LATE!
To say that Felix’s heart just about fell out of his backside at the sight of her fainting, would be an understatement.
He reached to catch her, but thankfully Changbin had already jumped into action and had lifted her up into his arms, carefully moving her tail so it wouldn’t be trapped.
“Is she okay?” Hyunjin frowned and his frantic eyes flickered everywhere over the hybrid’s face.
“She…” How on Earth was he supposed to explain what happened in the tunnels? Felix bit his bottom lip in worry as he gently ran his thumbs over her soft ears and followed Changbin as he gently placed her on a desk.
“Felix got caught by a tentacle shit and then she bit through it,” Minho explained bluntly, ignoring Felix’s angry expression.
“She’s infected?” Hyunjin backed up immediately and gripped onto the front of his shirt.
“No!” Felix snapped and quickly apologised at the surprised looks he was getting, “she saved my life Hyung, none of us had our weapons,” he was stuttering over his words, “Minho Hyung was holding onto me and I don’t know where her weapon was but it wasn’t on her person,” he added with a protective stance, arms tenderly resting both under her head and across her stomach.
“How do you know she isn’t infected, Lix?” Changbin asked calmly though his eyes showed his true anxiety about the situation.
“She isn’t,” he pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.
No fever.
“We have seen how quickly people turn,” Felix pointed out and visibly shrunk in on himself at the memory, “it’s quick, super fucking quick,”
~#~
Nothing was more relaxing than sitting in front of his PC and playing some games; after the day he had just had, Felix truly felt as if he deserved this break from life.
He ignored all of his competitive games and made the decision to play a calming nonsense game.
Games where you had a goal but ended up always collecting every single pet that you could.
This was Felix’s bread and butter, and he was thoroughly enjoying making a big animal area when he was disturbed by the front door slamming.
He decided to leave her be, not wanting to sour her clearly irritated mood anymore and turned back to his game.
“Felix?” her voice rang out and he moved one of his headphones to the side, “you home?” she added, and a quiet, timid knock sounded on his door.
“I’m on a game right now,” he replied and paused it when he heard the door open, “you good?” he was now standing, headphones on his desk as he noticed how distressed she was.
“People are fucking horrible,” she clenched her fists and plopped down onto the side of his bed, “I had at least six people approach me in the store and they just started shouting at me and the other customers,” she rubbed at her forehead, ears flat on her head, “for no reason and then on the way home, the same thing happened,” she let out a frustrated grown and fell backwards, full starfish on his bed with a sad pout on her lips.
“Sounds like me and you had a similar day,” he chuckled and flopped down beside her, “I had people screaming down the phone at me though so probably a little easier to deal with than face to face,” he waved his hands around, “we had strange people walking outside the store as well,”
She frowned and turned her head to fully look at him causing him to fluster ever so slightly.
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, I’m at the back of the shop doing the helpline and stuff so I never really see the front of the shop until I’m entering and leaving,” he waffled, “Mark Hyung was at the front of the shop today and he kept making comments about the ‘weirdos out front’, like…he kept saying that they looked like they were either high on something or utterly pissed out of their minds,”
She giggled at his verbiage and briefly smiled at the mention of Mark, another hybrid that she had met when surprising Felix at work with some boba.
Stupidly kind, ridiculously handsome, tall and he was a Harlequinn Rabbit Hybrid, so he was extra sweet.
“Hey, get him out of your head,” Felix grinned and tapped her forehead.
“Sorry, he’s very distracting,” she reached out to move some of Felix’s hair out of his face, “continue,”
“Anyway, Hyung just kept on talking about them for the entire day and by the end of it we actually had to leave out the back exit,”
She sat up on her elbows in slight alarm.
“People started trying to get into shops and they were trying to smash windows and door and,” he let out a loud, exhausted whine, rubbing over his face, “it was a shit show; some people just joined in because it’s a riot and ‘whoo free things’ but it was scary,” he admitted, “Mark Hyung drove me home,”
“Thank goodness,” a canine-like whine left her lips, and the smile instantly came back to Felix’s face.
“Did you walk home? Those people didn’t hurt you or anything did they?” Felix rearranged himself so he was now sitting cross-legged on his bed.
“I had Bora and Minji with me, so I felt a little safe,” she would be forever grateful to those two Tigress’s for looking out for her ever since she started to work at the café.
“Moving on to a nicer topic,” Felix laughed a bit and decided that cheering both of them up would be best, “come help me decorate my animal sanctuary,”
The next day wasn’t any better.
Felix was about to rip his work headset off, he was sick and tired of being yelled at for simply being the man on the other side of the phone; sure he worked for the company but it wasn’t his fault that the company was currently messing a lot of things up.
“Hey man, you doing, okay?”
Felix looked up and gave a tired smile at Mark, his headset now dangling from his forefinger as the person on the line continued to scream.
“Got you this,” Mark laid out a couple of crunchie bars, “forever grateful for that international store,” he grinned, and Felix paused for a moment to simply just look at the man; deciding that he couldn’t even be jealous that his friend would sometimes daydream about this man.
It was then that the both of them noticed that the headset had become quiet, just a faint gurgling noise coming from somewhere in the background.
“Miss?” Felix asked and shared a worried look with Mark, who had switched the phone to speaker, “Miss, is everything okay?”
“NO MUM, LEAVE ME ALONE!”
“Sana, get out, get out!”
“OPPA!
“Get out!”
Mark was now leaning over Felix’s chair in a protective manner, hand hovering over the ‘end call’ button as he debated if they should be listening or if they should be calling the police.
The entire room was filled with terrified screaming between a man and a woman; the younger female hadn’t spoken since she was told to get out and Felix hoped she was okay.
The screaming had stopped now, followed by a loud sickening thud, sounds of liquid and then shlick, shlick, shlick.
“What the hell is that noise?” Mark looked down at Felix upon his question and that was when he quickly ended the call; silence falling between them.
“Sir! Please calm down or get out of the store!”
Both men got to their feet and peered out the door.
A man with a dishevelled look, dried blood all down his front and a long string of saliva dangling from his mouth, was currently tearing through the store and aiming straight for the other assistant.
“I’m warning you!” the assistant stammered as he tried to reach for the side room door, but the dishevelled man had launched himself across the desk and his teeth had ripped into the assistant’s neck.
Felix had to hold his mouth to prevent a cry leaving him, his knees shaking as they watched the body of the assistant suddenly start to twitch and convulse.
He then pulled his entire body up using only the strength from his legs, his torso seeming to be heavier now as he stood in an arched form, his open neck wound decorated by baggy ripped skin.
Mark had seen enough and quietly closed the door to not draw attention.
“What do we do, what the fuck do we do?!” Felix whispered as the rabbit hybrid quickly made his way to the other end of the room towards a white door, unlocking it and pulling Felix inside with him.
“Up the ladder, now,” he pushed the younger man towards the red ladder and locked the door once again before following, “the shop above us has a balcony,”
The view from the second floor wasn’t much better as the two men stood and watched the streets slowly fill with people running for their lives with others chasing them, blood all over them and hands outstretched, ready to capture.
Ready to eat.
“This is deafening,” Mark grunted and rubbed at his ears, frustrated that his hearing was much better than Felix’s and therefore he couldn’t tune out the events unfolding before them.
“Can we get to your car?” Felix whispered from his position of kneeling behind the railings of the balcony, a small attempt to stay out of sight.
“We can, but the street is crammed with people, I’d have to try and get around them,” Mark responded as he looked down at the alleyway they were standing above.
“You aren’t going on your own, Hyung,” Felix placed his hands on his hips with stubbornness that was entertaining for Mark to see.
“Okay, okay, we will get around them,”
~#~
“I don’t even remember his name,” Felix mumbled, referring to the shop assistant and shared a guilty gaze with Hyunjin, who just offered a comforting smile.
“I think she’s alright, she did bite through dead-flesh so I’m not surprised she’s feeling unwell,” Changbin gently tipped her head back so he could look down her mouth, trying to see if anything had become infected.
“How can you make such a statement?” Minho exclaimed in disbelief, “she was stupid and careless and could’ve gotten Felix killed if she had turned,”
“But she didn’t turn did she,” Felix argued and moved to stand in front of him, “I would have died without her doing anything, I was about to die, she saved me,” he now had his small hands on Minho’s shoulders, trying to calm him down as the older man looked ready to pounce and strangle the hybrid.
“If she turns,” Minho spat through gritted teeth, “I hold the right to kill her,” his voice lost confidence near the end of his sentence and Felix felt his heart fall into his stomach at the threat.
“Hyung,”
“This isn’t up for discussion,”
When she opened her eyes, her vision was blurry, her tail felt like lead and her head was aching.
She let out a small whimper as she managed to get up and noticed that she was still in the gym, all of the boys, apart from Minho, were sleeping around her table on gym mats.
The fact that Felix was still beside her made her smile through her pain.
She instinctively reached out, gently brushing his hair from his face, slowly sliding down from the table and onto the same mat.
“Chris…” she smiled sadly as he whispered his friend's name, clearly missing him the most.
Ignoring how dizzy she felt, she leaned downwards and gently nuzzled the side of his head in an attempt to comfort him, her soft ears falling across his face.
It was then that she felt something pressed against the back of her head and she froze.
“Jesus fucking Christ, I thought you were eating him,” Minho’s shaky voice broke through the quiet, and the pressure on her head was removed.
She looked up to the side and saw him standing there, still gripping his baseball bat tightly, a look of panic and horror all over his face as he tried to calm himself down.
“I’m not a zombie,” she whispered and sat up on her knees, hand coming to the back of her head protectively, “you were going to kill me without even looking at my face? Don’t you think he would have screamed if I had bit into him?!” she got to her feet, tail now stood to attention and her canines were on show, a rare move from her.
“You cannot blame me for thinking such a thing,” Minho hissed and put his bat up against the door, “your utter stupidity might get us killed,” he went to turn away from her but her hand came into contact with his face instead; the sound waking the other men up.
“I am so sick of your fucking attitude!” she snapped and pushed him so that he was now up against the door, her hands buried in the front of his shirt, “I have tried to be nice, I have tried to make it up to you by staying out of your way but you are just so fucking spiteful,” she could feel her eyes watering. Still, at this point, she didn’t care.
“I regret finding you, I regret it!” she pulled the man away from the door and pushed him backwards, making him stumble into Hyunjin who quickly stabilised him, “I’ve had enough of this, I hate this, I hate this fucking journey you put me on,” her mind felt on fire with rage, she wanted to stop but it was like her words were simply fighting her mouth to get out; she didn’t even mean what she was saying.
“Find your own fucking friends!” she screamed and then she was out the door before anybody could stop her.
“What the hell did you do?!” Felix looked to Minho, who was still in a stunned state.
“I didn’t…” Minho stopped and shook his head, “It’s not my fault,” his stubbornness making Felix’s eyebrow twitch.
“She pins you against the door, ready to rip your throat out and you aren’t at fault?” Felix snorted in disbelief, “yeah right,” he grabbed his bag and the baton that she had left.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Changbin asked and grabbed his friend tightly.
“After her, she’s on her own in a fucking apocalypse and she’s clearly not in the right mind,” he tried to escape but Changbin still held onto him with ease, “please, she’s not like this,” he attempted to move once more but again, Changbin didn’t budge.
“Two people out on their own is stupid,” Changbin sighed and grabbed one of the spare chains for the machines, “at least let me help you,”