HALF: Dead nor Alive

Archie understood the situation, he thought he would be safe as long as these two Axis Humans were with him. When the woman wanted to help him get up, she suddenly walked back with her eyes wide open. Her whole body went red and she immediately caught on fire and they could hear her scream in agony, her skin melted, and her eyeballs melted.

Her partner looked at her with disbelief, “Archie, we should leave! Now!”

Archie jolted and ran with the woman who couldn’t even balance her body anymore because of the wound on her shoulder. They both left the woman on fire and they both knew that she wouldn’t be able to survive that.

“Well… well… well… it seems that we got a fresh meat…” A soothing woman’s voice came from above them.

They both looked up and see a woman barely naked and glared down at them, “You’re… an Ex-Human…” As the woman looked at the woman who stood on a tree branch above her.

A chuckle came from behind them and there was another woman who approached them as she dragged the burnt body, “We will be having a feast, it seems, sister…”

The woman looked at Archie and pulled the gun and pointed it at Archie’s head, “I’m sorry, kid… you know what will happen to us if we don’t die here…” She whispered with her hand trembling.

Before she could pull the trigger, her head fell off in front of Archie because a twig swung at her in a blink of an eye.

Archie’s eyes were focused on the head of the woman rolling toward him, he couldn’t scream and his whole body suddenly became weak that he couldn’t stand anymore and fell to the ground because of fear.

“Ahh… sister… look at what you have done. The body is stiff now and we can’t enjoy it if the muscle stiff like that…” Archie looked at the woman who stood on the tree branch while she stared at the huge tree.

The woman jumped and landed on the ground, she grabbed the stiff headless body and lifted it up. The blood fell down like a stream from its neck, and then he heard a loud cracking sound and when he looked to his right, the woman was eating the head of the burnt woman as if she was eating a chicken’s head. Archie immediately went sick after he saw it and threw up all over his hands and the ground.

They were ignoring him and thought maybe he had a chance to escape from his death. After he tried to calm himself out, he slowly crawled away from those Ex-Humans while they were busy eating those dead bodies. He couldn’t take his eyes away from those two because he thought if he did that, they might pounce on him and decapitate him.

The moment Archie thought he was safe, he turned around and ran off for his life. The two sisters stopped eating and then they both looked at each other for a moment, “Do you think he will be fine on his own out here?” As the woman ate the burnt neck of the woman. “It gave us a warning to not hurt him, so as long as he’s not dead because of us, it’s none of our business, sister.” As the other woman tried to fold the arm of the headless body.

Archie ran as fast as he could and then he heard an explosion coming from far ahead of him. He ran in that direction because that could be a sign that the rest of the team was there, but when he managed to get close to the commotion, he realized that the muscular guy was on his own while the rest of his teammates had already blown themselves up. His whole body was covered with blood and so many open wounds all over his body that a gentle touch might be enough to make him fall.

The Ex-Axis Human was in a bad condition as well, with so many holes in its body but managed to survive all that. When compared to the muscular guy, it could say that they both were in similar conditions, both of them were dying.

“What’s happening?!” As Archie hid behind the bushes while he stared at the muscular guy fought the six fingers Ex-Axis Human.

Archie looked around and tried to find something that could help the muscular guy fight the Ex-Axis Human. He looked at a gun laying on the ground not far from him, and when he tried to grab it, he jumped back with his eyes wide open. It wasn’t just a gun, but there was a hand still holding the gun, he was too scared to grab it but the more time he wasted, the less chance the muscular guy would be able to survive on his own.

Archie took a deep breath and exhaled deeply then made up his mind, he slowly walked toward the gun and forcefully removed the hand from the gun’s handle. He looked at the magazine and there were still quite a lot of bullets in there, he then went to the safest spot he could find and started aiming at the Ex-Axis Human.

Archie shot all the bullets that were in the magazine and hit all of them on the back. The muscular guy scoffed and smirked as he was happy to see Archie still alive, but then he looked around Archie and didn’t see anyone else with him. He knew that the lesbian couple was already dead but he didn’t care about that at that moment because he thought he could survive with Archie on his side.

The Ex-Axis Human turned around to look at Archie and when it was about to crouch and take a leap, the muscular guy stealthily jumped and stabbed his sword on its back. The Ex-Axis Human screamed so loud that it could be heard from miles away. The muscular guy used the opportunity by grabbing his gun and blowing its head into pieces. The moment the muscular guy removed his sword from its back, something crawled out and tried to escape but then it got slashed in half and burned with a flare by the muscular guy that was enough to kill it.

“It’s over…” As the muscular guy caught his breath.

“Sir, where are the others? What happened to the other Ex-Axis Human?” As Archie ran toward him and looked around.

“There’s just me, and the other Ex-Axis Human has been defeated but with the cost of our teammates’ lives…” The muscular guy fell to the ground because he was so exhausted and couldn’t believe he managed to defeat not just one but two Ex-Axis Humans.

“Did they die, Archie?” The muscular guy looked at Archie with his eyes barely opened.

Archie looked at the muscular guy and grabbed his hand while he pointed his finger in the direction he came from, “The Ex-Humans! We encountered them!”

Archie thought that the muscular guy would be happy or curious about it, but the muscular guy just smiled while he kept breathing so heavily. It was just silence other than the sound of the muscular’s breathing that fill the silence.

“So you met them… is that why you came back here and on your own?” The muscular guy hid his face by looking at the ground with his left arm resting on top of his left knee and covering his face.

Archie nodded as he gulped his saliva, “Yes, the couple died and are now being eaten by them…”

Archie stood up and reached his hand at the muscular guy, “We have to leave or those Ex-Humans will find us!”

“I think this will be the end of me, Archie, I’m sorry but I can’t move at all. There’s no hope for me anyway…” As the muscular guy shook his head and muttered with a depressed expression.

“No, Sir! We can leave since we have all the time! We can rest for a few days until your wound heal, and with my skill of survival, we can reach back to the station in two days at least!” Archie pressed his chest as he tried to convince the muscular guy to follow his plan.

The muscular guys scoffed, “I Should have listened to you, Archie…” he muttered to himself.

Archie couldn’t hear what he was saying and when he was about to ask him a question, he heard roars coming from all directions. The muscular guy tried to clench his fists but he had no more strength to do so.

“The master of this territory is dead, the new competitors will try to take this territory and you know what that means, right?” The muscular guy kept his head down as he asked that question.

“Yeah, there will be hordes of monsters that will try to conquer this place.” Archie looked around while he was panicking.

“Can you grab something from my back pocket?” As the muscular guy slowly lifted his head and pointed his right thumb on his back.

Archie immediately went to the guy’s back and he opened the velcro, there was a syringe and it was already filled with something.

“You found it?” The muscular guy slowly turned his head and looked at Archie from the corner of his eyes.

Archie showed the syringe at the muscular guy and the muscular guy offered his wrist at Archie, “Inject it here, Archie.”

Archie was hesitant but then he followed the muscular guy’s order then he injected that liquid into the guy’s wrist. In just a few seconds, the muscular guy managed to clench his fists and he stood up as if he regained all of his strength back.

Archie looked so confused but he could see that the muscular guy was smiling and chuckling with excitement and disbelief.

The muscular guy grabbed his black sword and looked at Archie, “This claymore was made of the fragment of the meteorite that strike the earth. This sword could cut everything in half like butter, and the most important thing about this sword, it will get things done. This sword has been passed down from generation to generation and this thing won’t break no matter what happens.”

Archie looked at the muscular guy swinging his sword, “Are we going to fight those monsters?”

The muscular guy smirked, “Not we, just me. You run and find the others and leave this goddamn hell hole. I will catch up with you and I promise you, I will be there because I feel a lot stronger than I have ever been.”

Archie wanted to help and before he could say what was in his mind, the muscular guy glared at him and it made Archie scared, “That’s an order, now leave…”

Without having a second thought, Archie left him alone and ran into the forest and went into the cave.

Archie was so scared that he didn’t dare to look back, and when he ran while panicking something stabbed him in the neck from the right. His whole body was paralyzed because a tongue penetrated through his neck. He slowly looked to his right and realized the one-armed Ex-Axis Human was still alive and not dead. The Ex-Axis Human ripped Archie’s body apart and threw Archie onto the walls.

Archie fell down to the ground and when the one-armed Ex-Axis Human was about to eat him, something black covered the Ex-Axis Human’s face. Although Archie couldn’t do anything, he could hear his surroundings and he heard a very loud cracking sound. He felt sleepy and couldn’t resist but close his eyes.

That was the last memory that he had, the screen went blank as his last memory was being erased.

“So I’m already dead, huh…?” Archie looked at his own hands.

“So that was the last time I would be able to control my own body, huh? All this time, it was thanks to my consciousness that I was still able to try to resist. Now that everything is gone, I think I will be living in this dark empty space…” As he walked into the endless and vast dark space then disappeared into the darkness.