It had been a while since he’d been home. He’d been training for months, out in the forest. No humans around, only relying on himself. He made some breakthroughs, and had ultimately gotten stronger. But after he’d realized just how much time had passed, he figured it was probably time to head back home. Bulma’d get angry at him otherwise, after all. Yell at him for being gone and leaving her all alone. So he packed up what little stuff he did, tried to clean himself best he could in the situation he was in, and headed out in the direction of home.
The strange thing was, as he headed closer to the nearest town, he started stumbling across… People. People who seemed lifeless. They wandered without thinking about it, with rotten, half-eaten flesh. A couple tried to attack him; grab him and bite. They didn’t succeed, and he pounded them across the forest for even trying, but by the time he reached town… He realized that it was a lot more than just a few people here and there. There were entire crowds. He was lucky enough to take a good enough look just from forest lines.
It took him a while to come up with a plan. Eventually he found one and used their guts. He’d seen it in a movie– he covered himself with the guts, and walked with them while pretending to be a zombie. it worked well enough. He managed to get far with that, occasionally stopping to rest in forested areas in the trees. It took him around a week or two before he even managed to reach the Capsule Corporation.
It was boarded up, but he couldn’t help but wonder if anyone was inside. It was at least worth it to try and look and see if someone was inside, right? That was his thought process when he began climbing the building. Nearly as soon as he did it, his unusual behavior got the attention of the lifeless corpses he’d been walking with. But after a bit of climbing up the domed building, holding onto the windows, he was out of reach. And when he was high enough up and at small enough of a slope that he wasn’t scared of falling, he banged on the closest window.
“ANYONE HOME?” He damn sure hoped so, with that swarm gathering to try and get him down below.
Bulma had worked up a routine since then– every morning she would look at the Dragon Radar and then look outside to see if the swarm had moved some. But from the looks of things, they only seemed to grow in number every single day. And she knew she would have to do something– maybe build something out of the spare parts in her lab. Something that would attract them away from the dragonball so she could collect it and then get out of there unscathed.
So she went down to her lab and collected everything that could be useful to her. But then she heard a heavy thud and she stopped at once. She looked up and felt her heart drop right her stomach– her breaths heavy as the realization washed over her.
What if… what if they were trying to get in? What if they climbed up and tried to force themselves in? What if they succeeded?!
Bulma raced to the end of the lab and grabbed her pistol and held it away from her at arms length. Taking slow steps up the stairs and looking both ways– behind her. Those bastards always snuck up on people, and she wasn’t going to let herself get caught.
By the time she reached up the stairs, she heard the loud thud once again. And then– that voice! Tears erupted as she ran to him.
❝YAMCHA! Yamcha is that you!!?❞ She was so elated–! She didn’t think she would ever see him again! She thought he had died out with the rest of them! Oh Gods, it was such a relief! Bulma raced to the window to let him in. ❝YAMCHA, WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU!?❞ She shouted at him. ❝I thought you were dead! Why haven’t you bothered to call me?! I was so scared!❞