Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm



I would be the first to admit that I was not the best with a gun. I learned on the fly during the apocalypse and watching way too many action movies when I was younger. I mean, I could kill someone at point-blank range as long as they didn't really move too much, but if we were walking into an actual combat situation, I was going to be next to useless with a 9mm. 

One of the great things about the AK-15 that I had in my space was they were kind of idiot proof. Pull the trigger, and the automatic rifle took care of the rest. Well, I guess I was still responsible for aiming, but other than that, I didn't have to worry too much about where I aimed because I was still going to be able to kill my target.

But one thing that worked so much better than guns? Powers. In my case, flames. Now, I was still recovering from the accidental consumption of human souls, so I was not going to be calling on my purple flame too much right now. I would save that as a last resort unless there were zombies involved.

We came to a shuddering stop, and the men all pulled out their handguns. Unlike me, they were all trained on them for years before the apocalypse came, so they were more than a little confident in their skills.

The men surrounded me in a circle, unsure where the doors were, that would open on this level and not wanting our backs to be exposed to any unnecessary threats. All of their backs were to me, with their guns pointed outward, so they were prepared for when the doors slid open in front of Wang Chao.

"My side," he clipped before the started walking forward. Since no bullets flew the second the doors opened, I guess they thought it was safe enough for us to go through.

While Wang Chao took point, Liu Yu Zeng and Liu Wei took the sides, their guns pointing forward, their steps steady and quiet. In the rear, Chen Zi Han faced outward as he slowly and steadily walked backward.

Me? I walked forward completely protected by my men like the Queen I was, any sign of the panic attack that I had in the elevator long gone.

My hand glowed blue as I held my head high. Only Wang Chao had an idea of where we were going, so I guess it was a good thing that we were taking point. We walked down empty halls; the echo of our footsteps was the only sound.

We had walked about 15 feet when we came across the first door. Entering in a key code that he got from the depths of Deng Jun Hie's brain, Wang Chao opened the door.

It looked like a very standard office, including the wooden desk facing the door and the piles of paperwork all over the place. Even the bookshelves behind the desk were filled with papers and binders. All in all, it looked very much like the typical office of any government worker.

Well, except for the dead body that was slumped over the desk.

I looked around the top of the desk to see if there was an obvious cause of death, but I couldn't see any blood on the paperwork, but the front of the desk was also blocked by a piece of wood, so I wasn't able to see if there were any pools of blood gathered on the floor.

"Any guesses what happened to him?" I asked as I tilted my head toward the dead dude in front of us. 

The four men shook their heads no. "I really hate random dead bodies," I grumbled as I took a step forward into the room to investigate what could be this person's cause of death. There was one thing that you never took for granted in the apocalypse; if there was a dead body in your path, you had better hope that you knew what killed it because otherwise, you could be next to die.

Chen Zi Han put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back into the circle of the men, and strode forward to the desk. Pulling back the chair with the body on it, he looked under the desk. "I am not a doctor, but I think I know what killed him," he said as he cocked his head to the side and continued to study the body.

Well, way to leave a girl hanging.

Grumbling about men and lacking details, I followed Chen Zi Han to the desk. "Yeah, that is probably the cause of death," I said as I blinked a few times. Chen Zi Han put away his gun and put on a pair of gloves. He then pushed the upper body of the dead guy back so that it was resting against the chair and not the desk.

As soon as it was repositioned, it was easy to see that the lower half of the body seemed to have been ripped off by something. I mean, there were still intestines hanging from where the top was separated from the missing half. You could even see the lower spine, including the sacrum, but where it was supposed to be attached to the hips, the two pelvic bones were missing.

I studied the part that was 'sitting' on the chair with my head tilted to the side, trying to figure out how something like that could have happened. I mean, if he had his legs ripped off, the bones would have been disconnected where the femur was connected to the pelvic bone.

It wasn't fused there, so it would have been easy to break them off, similar to breaking off the thighs of a chicken. 

But in this case, the two halves that make up the pelvic bone were ripped where the bones were fused to the sacrum. For that to happen, someone would have had to hold onto one pelvic bone while snapping off the second and vice versa.

But the upper body didn't look like it was in pain or distressed in any way. In fact, the face looked almost peaceful. When we walked in, the man appeared to have fallen asleep at his desk with his head resting on folded arms.