Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On an average, bright and cloudy sky, boring Wednesday just in the middle of the morning, around 10 A.M, at school, Ranboo Thy Beloved, a high schooler in history class, was just writing on his laptop, pretending to do school work. In actuality they had been writing about an assignment he had been given a while ago that had been finished and turned in but kept on writing. Now they had gotten bored of writing, his eyes were catching everything in the childish room.

He wasn't really paying attention to class ,not that he could , he was physically unable to focus so they were just listening to snippets of what his teacher was saying, the words had been muffled as if he was held underwater, so what he did put his attention to was the window, giving a clear view of a man outside, limping and bloody going through the school gates. Now that caught his focus fully.

Ranboo saw one of the security guards walk over. He knows they spoke to them alot, he had been old friends of his mom apparently party friends. They have nice chocolate brown hair that ends around his shoulders. Ranboo liked when he stopped by, when he was younger the guard let him braid his hair.

When the security with brown hair finally came up to him, to talk to him, to help the random man that was obviously hurt, but instead of the tattered up man conversing with the security, the man had lunged onto the security. It started a loud commotion both inside and outside of the school, people started to notice the mass movement outside, children shouting about what's happening outside or just from the stares from the others.

Kids and teachers started to shift their focus from their work, on what other kids are looking at, and no one could stop them from seeing what would happen, how gut wrenchingly horrible the next few seconds of hearing would be.

The man tackling the security down had gotten his mouth close enough to the security's neck and bit down, hard. There were snaps and crunches from there, the bone and the flesh holding the flesh together being torn into and eaten. It was just quiet, no one uttered a word, nothing was heard besides the sound of light forced breathing and loud wet crunches by the man.

The blood was gushing downwards of the mouth of the intruder. The blood thirsty man— a monster, A Zombie — continues to tear into the security, who is starting to go limp and is losing blood rapidly, his pleas for help go unanswered as he loses consciousness to lady death taking him under his shouts for help quell down to soft murmurs and their limbs go limp. The security was left on the hot concrete of the parking lot of the school.

Ranboo can’t think everything is too much so he tries to calm himself down. It’s now that Ranboo takes in the zombie’s appearance, his shirt and outfit is tattered and ripped with scratch marks and open wounds, with both mostly fresh and flaking dried blood.

And out of fear of Ranboo runs, like the little hero from his story looking for a way out. Ranboo runs with his bag out of the classroom, out into the hallway, out of the school, out to the streets of district L’Manburg. he runs past zombies tearing into the flesh of people he once knew, he ignores their screams and pleas of help, He ignores the loud sirens and car alarms. He had ran from the school back to his home.

———

His home is the same as it had been when he had left for school, though the ajar door of his mother's car and the garage door having bloody and smeared handprints on it was blatantly evident. Ranboo knew what would await him, his mom would be there and waiting for him hopefully alive and unharmed. So, the first thing he did was close the car door making sure there was no way anything could get out of it, besides the window that was half open, when his mother would leave in a car she would always roll down the car window.

He started to walk to his home's front door and kept his back to the door and eyes to the street and grabs his house keys from his bag and braces himself for a zombie in the room or his mom in the living room, her snow white hair and ruby red like eyes that looked at him with nothing but adoration and love, with a smile as nice as running water of a river on a lax day.

He knew his mom was gone not home, from the lack of her listening to various pop songs on her phone, when she was stressed, cutting up fruits or reading, just doing normal things she had always played music, which to not much surprise, bled into Ranboos habits when he himself did something like taking a walk or doing homework. He takes the keys from the unlocked door and braces the keys in between his knuckles for a stab as he punches, though his noodle-like arms wouldn't do much, the keys at least might.

Ranboo gets ready for an attack as he walks into the house; everything in the room seems normal, every room that he went into was the same as when he had left, he had checked behind the doors and closed the windows and made sure his home was safe. It was strange, the last time the house had been empty was when he was sick and his mother was at work and his mom had left to get groceries for a native soup to Endereel, where he and his parents where from before they moved to L’manberg. After checking every room and finding it surprisingly rid of any blood, moved things or-...

Everything was fine, his thoughts mostly came to a halt, his mind once flooding with thoughts of anxiety inducing things has slowed to a trickle, he just needed to check the garage then he would know everything was fine. The walls of off-white made him feel small, as impossible as that is for him at his height, the pictures of him and his parents, two women, one of which is his mother, who had raven hair and emerald eyes, who had many trivial tangents about her clients and how bad of a case she had, though never going far into detail due to the legal side of things, the photos had been the only decor they had for the short hallway.

Then every thought came to him, why was the only car his parents owned still in the driveway if his mother had left for work? Why wasn’t his mom in the house nor was she playing music? Why was there blood on the garage door? He ignored big warning signs and went in, with hope that there was still someone here. His parents could be in the garage, perfectly fine.

He reaches the garage and gets ready for the sight he will see. He knows what happened, but maybe, just maybe, his parents were fine. She isn’t and he knows that, she is dead with her wife in the garage, and he will too, soon join them. He can do this,– could he? He couldn't… he knows that, but he needs to fight, if it comes to it, this is practice… right?...

Ranboo opens the door and his stomach drops with the sight, he couldn’t breathe, everything was so much with what he saw, all he could do was take in the sight. He couldn’t move both of his parents are in the room, his mom is on the floor mangled, her arms and chest full of cuts and bites, coming back to life like a left-out weathered puppet being used again, her white hair is stained in a deep red, that almost compares to her eyes, that starts to dry in a flaky manor, its blood. His mother is standing the only other person in the room, also having blood on her both from wounds and from taking bites out of-...

And Ranboo, Oh, how he tries, he really does! But he couldn't, He can’t .So Ranboo no matter how hard it was for him to back away, to look away from the horrid scene of blood that started to reek of iron, no matter how hard he shook from the scene he had seen and not try to help his parents, the people who are– ...were the closest to him.

Ranboo feels sick, his stomach does lurches and his mouth feels both dry and full of saliva, its nauseating, his skin feels burning hot but is cold to the touch and he's running on his flight or fight instincts, if he tries to move something his body won't respond, the only thing that works is his breathing, but it's ragged and erratic.

His mother notices him, her head turned to him and her mouth full of blood, it sends shivers through his spine. She takes a moment to look at Ranboo and maybe, just maybe, she has gotten a sense of reality and realized what she did.

She lunges toward the doorway and Ranboo slams the door shut, he winces at the thud on the door, his heart beating so much that he feels it and hears it, it’s like a drum pounding in his ears, reality had slammed into him instead in full force, he shakily locked the door behind his back and brokedown, his tears like lava on his face burning his cold skin, his ears burning hot and blacking out any sounds made, He just couldn't help them and couldn’t look at them. His hiccups and sobs are the only things he hears, the screams outside are white noise to him.
———

Ranboo had composed himself at least a half hour later he had looked as if he didn't have a breakdown. Though the puffy pink eyes, tear streaks, his numb jaw from muttering senseless apologies and his ragged breathing calming was an indication that he had cried.

Ranboo got up, he wobbled as he stood, his foot almost slipping, but still stood. He wiped his eyes, blinking a few times, his eye lashes were wet from crying, he couldn’t look away from the door, it made him want to vomit, he took a shaky breath and with a few steps backwards he was in the living room.

He had started to look around the house because he had to leave, he couldn’t stay here knowing his parents would be in another room, groaning from dry and decaying flesh on their bodies. He knew he couldn’t live like that, it made him feel horrible just thinking about it.

He stumbled into the kitchen looking for food for his journey, he started to look into the pantry for preserved and canned food and placed it on the table. He dumped the contents of his bag onto the table as well, folders and textbooks alike fell out, he kept what he had needed and wanted in his bag and shoved the food into the small bag. Ranboo realized he needed water, he left his bag in search of a water bottle, he grabbed the first one he could find.

He took the water and started to fill it with water in the sink. The sound of running water was the only thing he wanted to hear, it was the only mundane thing happening now, Ranboo tries to control his breathing while he prepares.

He started to fill his bag with more of the canned food and crammed the water bottle into the bag, he began to search for other things he would need, when something caught his eyes the gleam of light on metal, his Mom’s Rainbow steel kitchen knives that she got for her birthday, from him and his mother, they had both raised money for it, He had taken up a part-time job at a yogurt shop down a few blocks from the school, the gleam of the sun hitting the rainbow knife caught his eyes again, reminding him he's not in the past No matter how much he wanted that... Ranboo didn't want to fight anyone or anything. Yet, plus it was his Mother’s knife set. So he grabbed a normal steak knife.

Ranboo puts on his bag and walks over to his room, He ignores the garage door on his way into the room. He looks through drawers for stuff, he finds an old duffle bag, it's the one his mother gave him, it was hers first when she used to play volleyball back in Endereel, she gave it to him when Ranboo got into volleyball, Ranboo smiles at the memory. A groan rumbles in the room next to Ranboo, it puts him on edge, it's unnerving, inhuman, he gets a pang of guilt when he realizes it was one of his parents.

Ranboo continues to raid his room, would it be raiding if it's his stuff? Ranboo ponders this thought forgetting the situation for a second, I mean it is technically his stuff, It's just him Running going away… there was slow movement outside the window and Ranboo realized the situation he was still in, his new life of fear, A zombie was walking around his window.

He looked in his room for anything he could use, staying out of sight of the windows while doing so, he didn't want the zombie outside to notice him. He grabbed extra clothes, a Flashlight, a speaker, headphones, batteries, anything he could find and use he’d grab it. After ransacking his own room, he sat on the floor, to avoid the window, and started to shove most of the items in his backpack into his duffle bag.

Ranboo then decided it was time to change into a new set of clothes, the uniform was unathletic and would slow him down while running, Ranboo knew this for a fact from when he first moved here some kids had bullied him for his height, which was absolutely dumb! People from Endereel were ‘unnaturally’ tall!, and chased him all over campus until one of the adults told the kids off. Ranboo got the idea to get into cargo pants that had a plethora of pockets, it was unusual but he's not complaining about more room for future items, Ranboo got a black long sleeve shirt, it's not the best protection from bites but it's better than going out with a tank-top.

As he walked out of his room he mindlessly stopped at the garage door in the long-ish hallway, he felt guilty leaving them in there, but if he let them out they would hurt others and get killed by someone else who didn't know them like he did.

Ranboo sat at the door before leaving. He wanted to say his goodbyes and his love for them. He knew he would leave them, but he didn't think it would be like this. The split-haired boy never thought that this is how he would say goodbye or how it could be his last...

He said what he thought he would never tell them until years later, his gratitude to them, how he actually never kinda did, really wanted to put spaghetti in the pie they had started to bake, or how he loved when his mom made neapolitan ice cream sundays when he had his first break-up with his first boyfriend, and had accidentally getting whipped cream on his nose.

After saying his goodbyes and reminiscing on the past, his dual-colored eyes of emerald green and ruby red had landed on one of the pictures in the hallway. It was a few photos taken of him and his mothers a year ago during a picnic. It was a small rectangular photo and he took it after a debate with himself. It was to keep a feel that his parents were actually alive instead of rotting in a dark and cold garage... If someone did try to raid this home and go into the garage, where his mothers resides, he knew what would happen in the end. And with his goodbyes and a keepsake with him, Ranboo fled onto the streets that had corpses and the undead looking for another victim.

———

Ranboo had been living on his own so far for around three months, maybe? Ranboo hasn't been keeping track, he's been more focused on surviving, After running low on food he started to raid stores, there were some close calls with zombies almost biting him but hes fine, he doesn't break into homes, it’s a risk because of its confined space and an alert system that could attract zombies, he learned that after seeing another survivor break into a home and the system went off and alerted every zombie in hearing radius, he hated that he could hear the girls scream over the alarm... he also doesn’t break into homes because, he likes to believe that people also had people they cared about in there he’d feel horrible if he had too…

He started to sleep on the windy roofs of gas stations and stores. It's better than sleeping in alleyways, he learned that the hard way, even if you covered the alleyway with empty dumpsters and trash bags, he remembered when he woke up and was so close to a Zombie.

Ranboo looks at the photo on hard nights, when he's fought Zombies he just feels horrible, he can’t stop thinking about, what if the zombies were his parents, would he fight them then? and would he let them kill him? He knows the answer to that. Rather than letting himself die while fighting, while also not killing the zombie he incapacitates the zombie, even if it ends up in numerous close calls with the jaws of an infected, he knows that they would have been missed if he did kill them, he’d miss his parents too.

Today was a hard day, it's a supply run day, and every store had barely anything, just some expired things and some art supplies, it would be useful if he had somewhere safe to use them, sometimes he’d walk into a store with old or moldy food in which he threw out himself because one of these places might be of refuge for him later so it's best for it to be clean.

This supply run was one of the worst since the first day, at least on the first day food wasn’t expired, spoiled, or moldy and some lights were still working. The power shut off in the first few weeks, and that's when the food had started to spoil and more raids of stores happened. Anyways, this run was the worst, he had stumbled into a store with a room full of zombies and accidentally alerted them when he knocked over the pots and pans that were stacked up behind the door. Whoever did that was really bold and cruel. And of course since they were alerted they had started to groan and shriek in hunger for his flesh and blood which had alerted even more Zombies.

Today was getting worse and worse, Ranboo booked it out of the store backroom, just nearly avoiding some of the Zombies at the store's doors. Running in the street was his best bet on losing the hoard even if it was out in the open, it's a better option than running in district Kinoko, he barely knows the layout of this district so it's better if he stays on open roads and tries to climb up ledges and ladders to apartment buildings.

There were no apartments in Kinoko… just cutesy little mushroom homes and rundown cottage core shops, it reminds him of a bakery in L’manburg, he can’t remember it’s name though, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t run anymore and he doesn’t go to L’manberg often, as much as he loved his new home and liked it there, there wasn’t any grocery stores or pharmacies in there since it was still so new being a district in Essempi.

Ranboo continued to run, there was no stop, there was no chance of finding a store with an easy climbable wall. He was starting to get tired and had begun to panic, Ranboo’s eyes began to flicker to every where he could find, he began to reach the part of the district where there were a plentiful amount of stores and shops, maybe there was a ladder he could climb? He began to run faster in hopes of finding somewhere in which he could get away.

He started to hear footsteps that were increasing in pace. Ranboo hopes to gods that he didn’t attract a sprinter, the last time he barely got away, the scratch on his hand becoming a scar was proof enough that he couldn’t get away, he kept on running, with more urgency and fear for his life.

Maybe Ranboo was a little dumb for thinking there was a survivor running with him, he still hadn’t turned around to look. Then he was yanked into an alleyway behind him, with an unused voice he made a peep and looked towards the person who had pulled him into an alleyway, they had still held onto him.

The person was a man, who had a massive freaking hammer, just a bit taller than half of Ranboo, the hammer was decorated with silver studs, a checkered pattern, some spades on the hammer faces and has blue all over it.

The man, had a likeness of his hammer, he had a black hoodie with a blue spade on the front, it reminded him of a character from game he was going to play but he couldn't place his finger on where he’d seen it, he had a belt of daggers on the front of him and he had a empty holder strapped on his back for where Ranboo guesses is where his hammer goes.

“There's a ladder behind this building, climb it.” The man spoke up, his voice somehow sounded as if it was in both bold and italics it caught Ranboo off guard, The man went back out of the alleyway and that was reason enough for Ranboo to listen to the man.

Ranboo climbed the ladder which had started to creak, making Ranboo start to doubt that the apocalypse was only three months ago. Ranboo pulls himself up to the concrete roof of the store, He shutters as a cold gust of wind hits him, Ranboo scouts out the top of the roof, making sure there was nothing in the area. It was probably a bad idea to listen to a stranger in the apocalypse Ranboo remembers, but hey at least he helped him! Ranboo looks over the edge of the store to look for the man.

He had been swinging his hammer at the undead, and honestly, Ranboo was mesmerized at it, the colors of black, white, and blue, became a blur of pretty colors as it was swung around, with one swing there was two soft thuds, one from the zombie's head being hit by the hammer and the zombie hitting the floor, though it didn’t feel good to watch what was happening to the… Undead… it was nice to watch a nice colorful show, there was another thud that also made a sickening squelch and a drop dead thud, which made Ranboo wince, the zombies dark blood made a deep red stain the head of the hammer, though it did add to the colors that moved around as the man swung at the small horde, most of the zombies are gone which was absolutely fantastic.

Ranboo and the man wince and jump at the sound of a loud crack and groan, the hammer broke... Ranboo starts to fear on seeing another person die, him there not being able to do anything, he's not able to help, he tries to divert the zombies attention to him, so the man could run but nothing comes out, hes helpless, as the man who had helped him is going to die and he has no way of helping, he's too weak and too scared.
In a few moments the man sprints to the store that has the old creaking ladder, Ranboo tries to help him up but his noodle arms do nothing for the older, though the man did not need to be helped up, as they climbed up easily.

The man put the broken and dirty hammer on his back sleeve that was fit perfectly for his hammer, he grabbed Ranboos arm and ran taking the both of them to a place that's a bit more safer. After the small horde of zombies drifted away into the shade where they waited for more survivors with bad luck, the man in blues, blacks and whites, had begun to tell Ranboo who he was.
“I'm SneegSnag.” He says, it’s as if he had talked daily, his voice is used, like he actually talks to people, like he has no worry speaking without alerting the undead, and it's kind of nice, when he finished speaking he placed a hand out to shake with Ranboo’s. This is something normal and something Ranboo had longed for ever since this hell had started.
“I- I'mm R- Ran- Ranbooo.” Ranboo says, his own voice contrasts with Sneegs, it's unused, shaky, stuttery, and raw and he kind of flinches as his voice doesn't sound like what he remembers and knows. He takes Sneegs hand and shakes it . Ranboo takes in his new acquaintance looking at the shirt trying to make small talk with the man he just met, “Wh, What- What's th-e spade on, on your sh, shirt for?” Ranboo asks, pointing at it, trying to start a conversation.
“Lancer.” Sneeg Says with no further explanation, which leaves Ranboo with a few more questions about it, though the name does sound familiar. “Give me a second..” Sneeg then says to Ranboo and walks over to the other side of the roof and starts to have a conversation to what seems like empty air and after a while of back and forth he comes back over to Ranboo and speaks up “You are going to be staying with my group for a little while.” He says casually, and starts to scope out where his base is, and just leaves Ranboo with complete and utter shock.
“What!? W- wait, wait, wait,” Ranboo manages out in his shock which gets the attention of Sneeg, Ranboo winces when he speaks it kind of hurts and feels unnatural, “I- I ha-have m-y o-own th-things! I- And my own…base...” Ranboo hardly utters out, his lack of talking has taken a toll on his vocal cords, and not being able to say the last part being I do not know you, nor do you know me. Sneeg just looks at Ranboo, as if visually saying ‘seriously’.
“Simple,” Sneeg says, “We take a stop at your base, pick up some of your things… and you can stay at my base with my group.”

And after talking again to air, to what Ranboo presumes is the man– Sneeg’s– survivor group and they start going to Ranboo’s ‘Base’, Which Sneeg grimaces at when they reach it, Ranboo doesn’t notice, though it's obvious why Sneeg did, It's just a rooftop that has a little canopy from the exit of the stairwell of a ‘newly’ built building from about 5 months ago, no one moved in so that's a plus, so not many zombies were in it, His base was just a blanket, and two bags of necessities and personal items under the canopy, It was sad...Sneeg and Ranboo had gotten all of Ranboo’s belongings from his ‘base’. Though it wasn’t much, Ranboo didn’t want to leave it and they both set off to the group Sneeg had mentioned earlier.

———

They had stopped their journey at an apartment building, Sneeg had taken Ranboo through the numerous floors and into one of the rooms in which there were two other people, Sneeg had drifted away from Ranboo and walked up to a man with brunette hair, and was dressed in a white tee-shirt, jeans and green accessories that sometimes jingled, Sneeg gave him his damaged and bloody hammer, The man with green easily holds the massive hammer and takes it to a table all the while starting a bubbly and light conversation with Sneeg which has the both of them loudly laughing and making jokes. The other person in the base, a woman who had light bubblegum pink hair and a warm smile, she just had a warm demeanor overall, she had come up to him, she had seemed really familiar, really familiar like they had met before...

"Helloo!" Her soft, high-pitched, calming voice cuts through the room, getting his attention, as she says her greeting she placed a hand in front of him, she also sounds familiar, way too familiar... “You are Ranboo, Yes?” the woman asks, shaking their hands, her grip was firm for her small frame, it was obvious this group had it much better than him.
"Hello." Ranboo said kindly, his voice still shaky, unused and hoarse, “I- Im- uhmm, yeah...” Is all he can muster out, he gives the woman a shy smile to show he understands, Niki notices and takes the lead in the conversation.
“I’m Niki, Niki Nihachu, I do the cooking or baking and I used to be a personal trainer!” Niki introduces herself and what she does, “So if you need Some training or just need anything to eat, I just come to me!” She had a genuine tone and smile as she said this, it's nice, much nicer than the sneers he had been given when he met any other survivors and survivor groups.
“That is Charlie, you can call him Charlie or Slime, he does the medical side of things, some tech stuff and repairs tools, he also does some security work for the group.”
“H- how? I- Erm, how d- does he do so- so much?” Ranboo manages out and breaks Niki out of her introductions, does... Does she do this often?
“Oh, Charlie is a special person! You’ll need to get to know him a bit better to know, I can give you a little hint,” Niki whispers to the boy, “’Slime’” Niki smiles as she sees Ranboo is left with more questions than answers, she continues with the introductions as if nothing had happened.

“You know Sneeg’s name. I believe he introduced himself to you, he usually does supply runs and cooks as well, he also is our main guy for supply runs,” Niki says as quickly as she takes Ranboo to a fake skeleton that you would find put up in stores during September. “This! Is Frank! When we are feeling a bit alone we talk about our feelings to him!” There is something in the joints of the skeleton. It's a glop of green gunk ‘Frank’ is sitting in “From what we know Frank can’t feel or hear.” And while Niki finishes saying that, Frank has stood up and walked away while Ranboo is just absolutely confused on what is happening. “And that is everyone!” Niki says and takes Ranboo back into the living room of the apartment. “You have to sleep on the sofa by the way...” Niki says somewhat sadly and Ranboo understands this even without her own explanation he knows what it implies, they don’t trust him.
“Th- thank you for the-, uhm... intro- introduc-t-ion.” Ranboo manages out the words a bit off sounding but understandable. He places his things on the floor, out of the way, he feels wrong for not doing anything, and just being let into a group, maybe it's a trap? No, it’d be cruel and a waste of time to save someone just to kill them, but there is a chance...
“No problem!” She brightens from the change of topic and just stands in the room which was awkward, after a few minutes she motions to a doorway and waves an awkward goodbye, Ranboo waves back and Niki walks towards the door. “I hope we can get you back on your feet, We... We will check up on you in the morning, check if you have any bites or, or if you are injured, for right now everyone is busy… We, We will see you in the morning Ranboo.” And with that Niki Nihachu leaves, her bright bubblegum pink colored hair was gone, it left the room a dim and dull color, Ranboo hated that, ever since the apocalypse started it left the world feeling empty and dull. He liked Nikis hair color, it was a nice change he hopes it’ll stay in his life for a bit longer.

Chapter Text

———

Adjusting to the light after a realm of darkness is hard.

Especially when you've known both of them before.

It's the same... with kindness, love, and knowledge–– betrayal, hate, and mystery.

Many in this world have experienced it before

 though not many are welcomed back to the other side…

———

             Just like Niki had said, The group checked up on him in the morning when everyone had woken up and finished up their chores.

“Have you been bitten? If so, how long ago?” Niki asked as she walked into the living room with a cup of water and a few baby carrots.

“I have not been bitten,” Ranboo smiles shyly, “I- If you need to, uhm make sure i'm not lying I- I’m fine with you checking, I get that you can’t really trust anyone, especially now...” When Ranboo finishes speaking he takes a bite out of one of the carrots that Niki had brought him.

“Thank you Ranboo, I’m sure we wouldn’t need to check you, for now.” Niki smiles reassuringly at Ranboo she writes something down on a notepad, “People who have been bitten with an infected Zombie usually act off within around five to twelve hours of the bite, so I thank you for your honesty.” Niki continues on to write in the notebook, “Is it fine if I called you Ran?” Niki asks right after as if not revealing something majorly important as that, making Ranboo have to take the information right after the other.

“I- Uhmm, yeah that's fine, that's what my pare- “ Ranboo visibly changes, which makes Niki stiffen, Ranboo’s tone changes to a much more somber tone, “... what my friends... my friends used to call me that.” Niki realizes that its a subject for another time and not something to discuss now,

“Alright Ran,” Niki sighs and stands “Are you fine with me making sure you aren't injured.” Niki places the notebook to the side and grabs a medkit, just in case, “I'm just going to ask right now, do you have any open wounds or serious injuries?” Niki opens the kit and grabs out bandages and gauze and places it on the coffee table.

“I don't think I have any fractures, and i'm pretty sure I don't have any cuts” Ranboo mindlessly runs a hand over a scar on his arm, which Niki notices and grimaces,

“Are you sure you're not infected with anything that's not related to zombies?” Niki lighty jokes, though her words do have meaning, making Ranboo realize what Niki is asking about as he follows her gaze to his scar. 

“Oh! Uhm… I'm pretty sure I’m fine” Ranboo smiles, it has no confidence behind it, which Niki notices, she frowns and takes a few notes down.

“Alright Ran, then I'm pretty sure after a check in with Charlie you’ll be good.” Niki politely smiles and leaves, giving Ranboo a bit of time to finish the quick snack.

“Niki, we need to go out for supplies soon.” Sneeg says, breaking Niki and Charlies conversation about Ranboo, “we are running out and with a new survivor I don't think we can survive on what we have right now.” Sneegs eyes go towards the storage room. Niki winces and nods, she gives the notebook to Charlie.

“Alright, we have to decide who goes out” Niki sighs and gets her hand ready, “Not it!” Niki instantly places her finger on her nose, after her exclamation both Charlie and Sneeg have exclaimed the same two words with their fingers on their noses. 

“Well shit…” Sneeg deadpans to both of the other group members, “who was last?” Sneeg looks over to Charlie and Niki, the two of them still have their fingers on their noses look at eachother and shrug, after that Charlie gives that smile

“Well… we do have someone who didn’t do it.” Charlie softly giggles and motions towards the living room door, to which both Niki and Sneeg look at eachother and back at Charlie, their looks giving him a warning. “I wasn’t actually going to be voting that… well, maybe.” Charlie smiles and laughs which makes Niki roll her eyes playfully.

“We still need someone to go out.” Sneeg says again, trying to keep Charlie out of joke mode for now.

“I can’t go on the run because of the new person and mr needing to repair your broken tool so that leaves, Niki.” Charlie says, sighing at himself not being able to joke around right now, “Niki you up for it?” Charlie looks at Niki, he reads over the notes Niki took earlier, it's obvious that he is being genuine about caring about her and what she wants, “Your battle axe and spear are clean and fully repaired if you wanna go out, though they do need a new paint job.” Charlie adds on.

“I haven’t gone in a while, it’ll be fun.” Niki smiles, “I’ll leave at lunch, the weapons are in the same room as always, right?” She walks over to a vest with holders for the various weapons and starts to place a water bottle in it.

“Yep, they should be in the same room as always!” Charlie knocks on the living room door, alerting Ranboo, “knock knock!” Charlie smiles, softly giggling.

“Oh! Uhm, hey?” Ranboo shouts a bit for Charlie to hear him, it kinda hurts, it's something that isn’t normal for his vocal cords, even if it's something he's supposed to know, it's unnatural.

“Wrong answer… Knock, Knock…” Charlie answers, this was going to be a long day with Charlie's jokes.

“What?” Ranboo confusedly says and sighs, “oh... who’s there?”

“The glumburger”

“Wha?”

“Heyyyy!'' Charlie walks into the room, “I'm going to make sure that you are healthy enough to leave! and live'' Charlie smiles,  it's scarily serious but also somehow joking, it's almost abnormal hearing his voice go from lively and joking to deathly serious, it sends a shiver down Ranboos spine, Charlie laughs and looks over Ranboo. “If you’d like to leave, that is!” Charlie walks over to one of the couches in the room and sits down, Ranboo is processing the words.

“I- what?” 

“Alright let's get started! Have you ever been severely hurt in the past?” Charlie says, “of course I mean it in the sense of during the apocalypse.” Charlie smiles, getting more comfortable in his seat.

“I mean not from a zombie no…” Ranboo frowns, he hates that this whole thing even started, hates that his parents were one of the first to die–

“Ranboo?” Charlie's voice cuts through “You okay, man?’ Charlie was much closer than Ranboo remembers, wasn’t he on the couch on the other side of the room? Charlie sighs in relief, “dude you weren’t responding for like 10 minutes.”

“Oh…uhm  sorry…” Ranboo hunches into himself, Charlie feels a slight pang of guilt.

“Erm… fuck… god… it’s chill! Just making sure your good” Charlie weakly smiles to at least comfort the stranger. Ender, that’s exactly what he is isn’t he, Ranboo is a stranger they let into their survivor group.

“Al-...” he hesitates, for whatever reason, Ranboo hesitates. “Alright… uh, sorry. Fo-for worrying you.”

Charlie again reassures Ranboo about the unusual space out Ranboo had. Ranboo continues to have these moments where he spaces out and when he's brought back to reality he isn’t in a life or death situation. He’s just reassured, told jokes and then taken back to being questioned. There's another knock on the door.

“Charlie, Niki left for the run.” Sneeg spoke from behind the door, “I’ll be on communications until you're done.”

“Alright! Just so you know I’m almost finished!” Charlie called out to Sneeg. He turns to Ranboo. “Now I just have around-” he takes a second to look through his notes, muttering under his breath and putting things together in his head, “we have around three questions left!” Ranboo sat up a bit straighter than his earlier slouch. “This might be more personal though.” Charlie looks up over his notes, making sure Ranboo is fine with that.

“O-oh, uhm… yeah that's- uh, fine I guess.” Ranboo slightly nods and lets Charlie continue his questions.

“Alright! Are you in a survivor group of any kind?” This question was asked in a bit more of a serious tone than Charlie’s earlier bubbly or empathetic tone. 

“I’m not.” He simply says, Charlie looks a little pained and sighs. 

“Alright, Thank you Ran.” He writes down in his notes and continues on, “what district are you from.” It's a personal question of course but it's well needed for other religions, cultures and a lot of the time, their anatomy and body structure. For example, a person whos from district Endereel are usually; taller, their blood is sometimes a more purple or blue– which most of the time is safe for them– from what Ranboo remembers the discoloration of their blood is from the chorus fruit grown there, Endereelians are more lanky with their skin being much more sensitive to air and water.

“Im native to Endereel, b-but I- erm… I moved to L’manburg with my m-.. parents.” Ranboos' throat hurts– probably from speaking after not for so long and from him not drinking much water. Charlie looks surprised at Ranboos response; he pauses with his pen in hand.

“Like The Endereel? Like the one with the missing queens, Endereel?” Charlie tries to think of any other place that's named Endereel but comes up empty handed except for the Endereel, that no other person besides Endereelians and government officials have been to, the Endereel that has still air that's both boiling hot and freezing cold, Ranboo nods.

“I’m pretty sure there's no other…” Ranboo confirms Charlie is still. the man purses and unpurses his lips.

“...Well I think it is best that you weren’t hurt, I don’t think I could patch you up without anything causing you an allergic reaction.” Charlie smiles and jokes, “I think I’ll need some information about what you can eat and what medical equipment I'll need to use.” he mutters and continues to write down things. “Alright Ranboo! last question!” Charlie gives Ranboo a smile when he looks up from his paper, “when were you born? from month, day and year!”

“I was born on November 2nd,” Ranboo waits for Charlie to finish writing. There's a slight sound of pots and pans moving in the other room, most likely from Sneeg making food– didn’t he say he was going to be communicating with Niki? Maybe she’s making her way back now. Charlie nods his head giving Ranboo the sign to continue speaking, “20-” 

There is a loud, loud compared to what Ranboo is used to… guttural screech, it’s a zombie. Charlie sighs and gets up, “I’ll go check on what that was. Just… stay here” he leaves the room, he– like Niki– had locked the door when he left the room.

———

After a minute or two there was a muffled crash in the other room, most likely a piece of furniture from how loud and big it sounded– probably a couch from how deafened the noise was. There's a slight yelp from Charlie followed by a sickly crack, crunch and squelch. Ranboo shudders at the way too familiar sound, he knows it all too well. Someone killed a zombie hitting the ligament causing the crunch and squelch as the blade is forced through the body.

Ranboo started to eat the rest of the food Niki had given him prior and had started pacing around the room after he’d finished his food. He felt cramped in the room, the ceiling was just a brush away from the top of his head if he stood up fully, of course it's big for an apartment but it's extremely small to Ranboos height. After a few seconds there was talking, it was muffled from the few rooms that Ranboo was away. 

He doesn’t really know what to think, he was taken into a survivor group, questioned and now kept relatively safe in an apartment complex. He occasionally hears a groan or growl from an apartment close to the one they all currently reside in.

———

When Niki left, she left quietly, but seemingly forgetting to harshly pull the door closed,   the door didn’t shut properly and was left ajar and a zombie had wandered in while shoving its body against the apartment complex's hallways walls. The zombie collapsed into the room as it leaned its body weight onto the door, falling to the carpeted flooring. It had crawled and shuffled to stand back up, it continued to walk, light-footed and limping. It had reached the living room, Its decaying and ripped open throat’s skin is wobbly with the weight of its head as it looks around the slightly lit up room, its eyes spot movement. It screeches a guttural and dry noise from its pulverized vocal cords, alerting every other infected that can hear it.

Sneeg jumps at the noise, instantly turning his heel, away from the stove and to where the noise originated from. It's a zombie that's very top heavy with its flesh, there are holes in a leg as well as a huge chunk of flesh missing from its stomach and organs missing or spilled out of its stomach, some old blood that hadn’t dried spills out of its body as it charges at Sneeg, ruining the carpeted and tiled floor. 

Sneeg instantly goes onto defense as he turns, shoving his hands into a push once he feels dirty cloth and completely cold and stiff skin. His arm gets scratched as the zombie claws with, what can barely be even called, a hand anymore with how mangled it is. Sneeg’s arm drips blood as the skin is ripped, Sneeg hisses in pain, he kicks the zombie down so he has time to turn off the stove and prevent their current base from burning down.

Sneeg dashes into the living room of the apartment to grab a weapon Charlie was going to fix up or sharpen. He grabs one of Niki’s fucked up spears, the tip of the blade is bent form when Niki and him had a supply run and threw her spear to make way for her and him as they were out on a bright night for a supply run. They had to go out the next day to recover the item that made way for their survival that night.

The Zombie groans as it stands, there is a visceral snap from its spine as the rows of bones struggle to hold up the zombie's unevenly balanced weight and way of getting up. Its body lurches forward, the snapping of the spine makes a more obvious sight of the jutting and twisted bones of its back into its muscleless and skin coated, hollow body.

The neck snaps to look at Sneeg, it struggles to have a stance as it attempts to crawl over the counter that is an easy way into the living room. It again uses its ‘hand’ to attempt to scratch and grab at Sneeg. Its leg finds leverage and jumps its stiff yet limp body onto Sneeg. 

Charlie runs into the room and looks for something to grab and help Sneeg out. Sneeg kicks the Zombies stomach, the part that doesn't have organs spilling out. The zombie is knocked over a couch, the weight, though is light, is enough to knock the chair down with the zombie laid over it, Charlie narrowly dodging the kicked back zombie, letting out a slight shriek at almost being hit down with it.

Charlie goes to grab one of the chipped and dull battle axe and brutally slams the blade down on its throat and down its spine, there is a sickening squelch and crack. The body finally went as it was supposed to, limp and fully dead. Charlie sighs in relief and slumps against the wall. 

“You okay Sneeg?” Charlie peers over to Sneeg who is attempting to push his wound back together and shut off the all too well known scent of iron.

“I’m good, no bite, only a scratch.” Sneeg answers looking over his arm as he comes down from his adrenaline high. Charlie drags the heavy axe as he walks over to the front door. He sighs in relief as there isn't a hoard walking down the hallway, he fully shuts the door and walks over, he places the axe to the weapon stand and opens a cabinet and pulls out a small medkit that's pretty much ransacked and gone through already. Charlie grabs out a roll of gauze and starts to wrap it around Sneeg’s arm.

“We need to tell Niki to head home now, there is a high chance a hoard will form after that zombie scream” Sneeg says as Charlie finishes off bandaging the wound. He nods and starts to go to the communication room. Sneeg starts to help out with the sharpening of their weapons. Though, they may be too late to inform Niki as more groans of the undead become more noticeable from other floors as well as the same floor they are on.

———

“GAHH!” Niki Yelps as a zombie ambushes her from behind, she twirls her spear and stabs, it's weak, sure but she needed time to get away from it, it's useless trying to kill them all, way too many infected that would hear it. She starts to sprint through the mall, through a candy store that seemingly was a recreation of that scene in Willy Wonka. She stumbles a bit as she hides behind a stall, why were there stalls in a candy store?... 

“Hey Niki? An infected person got into the base, you need to get back now or set up camp somewhere safe,” Charlie whispers in the radio, “I recommend going to Kinoko and going to your hideout there. From what I know, your shelter is still hidden in the terrain.”

“Wh- What?!” She almost shouts into the compact and simply designed radio. “How did that happen?! Ar-'' there's a growl of a zombie outside the store, she can see it in front of the display window. “Are you guys alright? Is Ranboo fine?” 

There is a moment of silence from the radio, then there is static. 

“From what I think happened, you hadn’t remembered that the door needs to be pulled to fully close it,” damn, that stupid broken door…  Niki softly groans.

“Ah, shit. Sorry Charlie.” She apologizes. Mentally she curses herself for forgetting something that important, especially with her friends lives on the line with a stranger who literally looks on the precipice of starving or collapsing.

“It's Chill Niki, really, All that happened was Sneeg getting scratched. There's some blood staining a lot of the living room and kitchen though. I'm pretty sure its blood is infected so if you have any injuries when you get back be careful of where you step” Charlie retells the events, briefly.

“Mh… i'm at that abandoned mall around of Pogtopia.”

“The newly abandoned one?” 

“Yeah, it seems pretty well maintained though, it's really creepy. The stores I'm in still have stuff in them. Well. some of them.” Niki responds and crawls to a hide behind a counter attempting to get to the door again. “I’ll call in when I get back. I should be there in an hour.”

“You really need to hurry, the Zombie screeched and alerted a lot of zombies in the complex.” Charlie nervously says. 

“Alright, I'll get going now, see you soon Charlie.” Niki says and presses the small button on the radio pin on her hoodie that mutes her radio.

———

Niki begins to sprint out of the mall. She already has some things they could probably make for a few more nights of meals… probaby, they will most likely need someone else to go on another supply run. There is some canned corn beef, some canned olives and other canned meats. It's the only thing she could find in the abandoned mall she's in, as well as sweets. There are a few appliances that could be useful for their time in the apocalypse in a few of the shops in the mall. There's an appliance shop on this floor and a gardening shop on the first floor, though they might be expired, set off alarms or the item would be too big to lug around. She starts to run out, making a note to have a group supply run sometime later. Though it’d be a pain to get to base with their stuff raided since they all went out, leaving the base unprotected.

———

There is a soft click which starts a soft static coming from Niki’s communicator as she turns it back on as she rounds the corner to the apartment building they live in. the small radio in the shape of a chocolate chip cookie, the chips on the pin looking radio are buttons and a speaker, truely a complexly made item that's extremely valuable to the survivor group.

“Charlie? I'm around the corner of the building.” Niki whispers as she sneaks into the apartment's lobby. She pulls out her spear out of her weapon holder from around her torso, she gets into a stance that will keep her from falling over if she's charged by an undead she won't be knocked over, though it mostly won't help her when she's walking it’ll help her get her into position if she is in danger.

“Alright! There's a small amount of zombies on our floor and hallway. Me and Sneeg will try and take most of them as you get close.” Charlie reminds Niki of their usual plan of when their base floor is hoarded. 

“Kay, I'm on the second floor right now,” Niki whispers into the mic of her radio, as she peaks around the corner of an open door. “Do you have any eyes on the stairwell?” She rushes a Zombie, quickly shoving it down with the handle of her spear and digging the metal into its neck, ripping off the connection of the zombie's spine to its head. It goes limp and Niki rushes to the next set of stairs. She starts to continue climbing to the fourth floor. “Charlie? Ready?” She whispers into the communicator.

“O- oh shit you're here already?” Charlie speaks up, surprised as it had only been 2 minutes since Niki was on the second floor and has reached the fourth.

“Yeah?” Niki blatantly says and shifts to peer over the corner “you do remember im a personal trainer? I can be agile when I need to?” She states a fact to Charlie.

There is a soft chime coming from the communicators to indicate someone joined the radio line.“Used to!” Sneed friendly chimes in on the communicator.

“Hey! Using the communicators takes energy from your batteries! Get off the line!” Charlie yelps into the hallway of the apartment, he himself doing what he's chastising Sneeg about by accidentally leaving his mic on, leaving a slight echo on the coms.

“Looks like someone is a poopy head” Sneeg blows a raspberry and laughs at his immature humor. 

Niki herself giggles but reminds her group mates about her situation. “Ahem? Guys, I'm approaching our base! Need help on this hoard?!" She's sassy and strict on her word.

“Sorry Niki!” Charlie chimes in. there is a soft click on the communicator indicating Charlie has hopped off the radio line.

“Coming out to help!” Sneeg says into the mic with the background voice of Charlie yelping for Sneeg to stop using the mic for battery saving. There's another click to tell Niki Sneeg had also hopped off of the line.

Niki rounds the corner and comes face to face with the hoard. Just Remember Niki, just think of talking to your friends! She thinks to herself as she approaches with her spear in hand, prepared in a fighting stance. She takes a breath in and prepares herself mentally.

The door slams open Sneeg barrels through and pushes down the undead closest to the door with Charlie throwing Niki’s other makeshift spears, back when no one knew what happened, when wounds were fresh… Niki charges into the hoard, taking out the ones that are in her way from safety. Gods how Niki hated fighting, oh how it reminded her of the first few days, fighting to try and find her younger brother. She continues into the hoard, taking down Zombies in ones or twos, depending on their proximity to her and themselves.

Soon the hallway is covered in splatters of blood, dirt and what is left of the undead's clothes scattered around on the floor. Charlie and Niki pant as their bodies ache after not supplying running in a while, being unathletic while fighting isn't the best, but at least you won! Right ?

Niki slouches against the wall, disgusting? Yes… But ! It's more relaxing than fully standing up as well as not sitting on the floor.

“Gah!” Charlie squeaks out as one of the undead attempts to continue to attack as someone, Ahem… Charlie himself, forgot to fully decapitate it. In his reflexes he stomps on the zombies neck, separating its head and torso, via its neck.

“Well, that's a new way to kill them” Sneeg simply says, as he walks over to their base door. “Anyways get inside, I don't want to risk a screecher coming here.”

Niki and Charlie nod and follow into the base. It's semi-quiet now, of course there are still growls of undead from around but it's less loud than earlier when a hoard was banging at the door to get to the screecher.

Charlie had conducted and apparently seen some of the research done on zombies. From What he has told the group screechers– as said in the name, screams and screeches when it sees movement of a ‘food source’ or a thing others might be able to infect. Some zombies, when infected, their vocal cords are exposed or ruined, will decrease its chance to be a screecher, though its percentage is never zero… 

———

“...you guys didn't even throw the body out?” Niki sighs, she pulls out her spear to poke at the corpse

“Well… we focused on getting you back at base, so we focused on cleaning some blood.” Charlie simply says and starts to cut up the arms “help me throw this out the window?” he wheezes out as he picks up a heavy part. Sneeg laughs as he cleans up the blood in the kitchen.

———

Ranboo jumps at the loud thuds and groans of zombies close by. It reminds him of when he saw someone get caught up in a raid and was unable to help them… oh Ender… he hopes everyone in the group is alright…

He steps to look at the window, it's turning night soon… he looks over the skyline as the sun dips below the buildings. He notices how close the apartment building is to the store across the street.

Thud!

Ranboo is wide eyed and horrified as he watches an undead's torso be thrown out of the window next to the room he is in as it hits the building next to him. He is still as he watches as more of the body parts are thrown out of the building.

“Shit!” Ranboo can hear Charlie shout. “Erm… Niki! A Lot of blood dripped out onto the sofa!” 

This is going to be a whole world of adjustment…

———

“Seriously Charlie?!” Niki and Sneeg shouts aloud. Niki throws out the head of the zombie out the window. “Ugh… that will take forever to get outttt!”

“Just flip the cushions!” He recommends as he throws out a calf. “Or just throw this out and get a new couch from another room!” He goes grab another body part.

They throw out the rest of the body parts, leaving the floor and some of the couch covered in blood. Sneeg sighs from the kitchen. “Well atleast the blood didn’t get all over anything else besides a few plates and forks.” 

Niki softly groans. “Do we have any more soap? Charlie? You were in charge of inventory last week, what are we at right now?” She begins to unpack what she had picked up, the canned goods and a few candy snacks she had stolen as she was making her escape from the mall.

“I'll check!” He calls out and walks into one of the rooms.

“Sneeg? Think we can make something with this?” she tosses a few of the cans to him, the man catches them and sets them down on the counter. “If we do more raids at the mall I'm sure that we would be set!” She smiles and tosses the bag she used to the side and as she starts to take off the sumi bulky clothes she puts on to avoid being bitten.

“Hm… maybe? We just need to clean a bit better at the counters and living room” he looks over the cans. “Huh… that's really weird…” 

“Huh? What is it?” Niki semi climbs the counter to try and get a glace at the can.

“Its expiration date is like a few years ahead of ours, which isn’t abnormal but it’s more as if the food had been recently produced” 

“Huh??” Niki looks surprised and looks at Sneeg as if he's lying “do you think the government is trying to start civilization again?!” she smiles brightly “Holy shit Sneeg! W- we hah! We might actually make it out alive!” her voice quivers almost as if she was going to cry.

Sneeg smiles and nods, he looks to his ring, the name engraved on the silver band ‘Hannah’...  he hopes he makes it out for them… for their memory…

———

“Subject R-015 has been a failed experiment and is ready to be used for-” Ranboo reads whatever he has in the room he's occupying right now. The page?- no, document would that be right?)… He is reading is kind of describing people as subjects, it's… so inhumane… He hates it…  it's describing a person, testing their blood and what their body can do, less so of what they could do normally but… what their body is able to do after running experiments and injecting them with… something, a lot of the text is blacked out, redacted, but for what purpose?

It's horrible and makes Ranboo’s skin crawl, it's absolutely one of the group members. Why would they leave it here? Did they forget? He doesn’t think they would forget about something this important, it even has a printed logo on it, the document is hand written, the person’s name who wrote the report is redacted, though not enough due to the last part of the name being shown as ‘2’. How sad, your name being reduced to a few numbers… perhaps it's just code… 

“Substance… oh- wh” its a picture of a plant, sticky with blood, its fucking disgusting, almost the entire document is redacted except for the ‘in case of contact’ which has nothing written there that isn’t redacted. The picture’s focus is in motion meaning its pulsing, there are veins in it. How vial, creating something like this..

There is a soft click at the door, announcing that the group is ready to continue to interview. Ranboo tosses the papers to the side and looks at the door.

“Heyyyo!” Charlie walks in “have you seen any soap in here?” he shoots the enderian a smile as he looks over the room, at Ranboo’s head shake no, he sighs. “Also, Ran?” 

“Hm? Y-yeah?” He looks at the green coded man, mindlessly fidgeting with his fingernails and boney hands.

“I know it's boring in here but don't go through those papers there… it's a bit of a privacy matter, this room is currently the cleanest we have, and couldn’t get anything out of here before we found you,” Charlie speaks with a harsh glare, “this room will be cleaned soon… anywayyyss! bye!”  he switches up, he does a small wave and closes the door, with a soft click announcing the door is locked to both parties.

———

Ranboo seems familiar… 

Don’t get her wrong, she’s seen a lot of people… but… she knows she has seen someone with split hair color the same as Ranboo’s… 

She has herself had a split hair dye. Ran’s hair doesn’t have any natural hair growing out, meaning his split colored hair is natural, an uncommon occurrence but nothing shocking to say the least, there was a politician, an older gentleman who ran a cult who has the exact same hair as him.

Ranboo of course (as far as Niki knows, which isn't much), isn’t at all that man, they both might have split hair and heterochromia, though the eye colors are different, the cult leader having purple and yellow and Ran having red and green.

Perhaps Ranboo could be related to the man? They both look extremely similar… Though, she highly doubts Ranboo would be related closely to R. bob… maybe…last she heard about him was that he had been thrown out of his cult-like survival group for acting as if he was more than the gods the cult worshiped, XD worshippers are complete dumbasses… A cult full of  worshippers of different gods would surely go wrong with disputes, XD followers are always full of themselves… 

The cult ran decently, from what She had heard from other survivalists, they have a semi-decent way of getting food and water, and also have a good relationship with the trading group up in the mountains. When Sneeg had found Ran, he was living in and on scraps on a roof, literally, a short description of the place was as follows,

• A makeshift shirt-tent that had burn marks and tears on it

• A bag that looks like its been very obviously used with its own wear and tear 

• A little fire starter that's made up of q few twigs

It would be highly unlikely for that to be real though– Ranboo and R. Bob being closely related that is… 

“NIKI?” Charlie runs over and tackles the woman into a hug “you okay? You're not answering Sneeg? And that plate looks like a mirror! Wow!” he smiles and grabs at the porcelain plate Niki was mindlessly cleaning as she thought about their semi-forceful guest.

“O-oh! Sorry Sneeg! I think i got more focus on other things right now… i'm thinking about Ran” She speaks up, her tone a bit more serious rather than her usual saccharine voice. She continues after a second feeling too long, as she does so she rinses the plate, “it’s just… he looks really familiar… too familiar… like I know him from somewhere”

“Probably from a survival group? It was normal to be wandering with people from other small groups? Like joining in on a wandering camp, traveling to another town?” Charlie speaks up, having already let go of Niki for their platonic embrace and choosing to sit at the counter and working on fixing up Sneegs hammer.

“True, that’s how we learned that this building wasn’t occupied by people,” Sneeg speaks up as he starts to make their dinner. “Though I do hate that group, they have a lot of information about other survivalists… for a price of course…” 

“No, it's not from… the apocalypse, I remember him from before that…” Niki sighs and rinses another plate, “I think it's from the bakery days” she reminisces about actually having pastries and other baked goods, made from scratch, that she got to share with her brother. 

Sneeg and Charlie are quiet while they let Niki think more about their mysteriously familiar guest. 

“Know, he's familiar to me… I haven't seen him in person of course but… well… i… well i don’t really remember the contents of what i saw but he was listed on a file at… nevermind…” Charlie speaks up but, quiets down after a moment, seemingly a sensitive topic, he himself didn’t was one. 

“...that's very strange” Sneeg pops a can of corned beef open, “Niki? Aren't you from Kinoko? And Charlie is from… well…” Sneeg motions for Charlie to get out of his thought process and answer Sneeg

“Well, when I last remember, I was left in Las Nevadas! I have a few memories of the past but that's when my memories resumed!” He smiles and continues to fix the hammer, cleaning it of the grime before fixing it. 

“That's a decent distance away, considering that Niki had moved from Kinoko Kingdom to L’Manburg, that's still a huge distance…” Sneeg thinks aloud about the absurdity of their mysterious guest being known from around the continent, from the south west to the north east of the whole continent… 

“hm… well… charlie is a person who knows a lot yet not much about people so it's usually normal for him to know a few people…” Niki chimes in washing a fork. 

“But Charlie usually knows the basic knowledge of a person, he doesn’t really know much about Ranboo…” Sneeg reminds as he starts to turn on the stove.

“I know a little bit about him…” Charlie mumbles, “he was used for something,” 

“Perhaps the cult for R. Bob?” Niki suggests, it's a hard theory to believe but, it's a start on getting information on our guest.

“Perhaps? I… he was used for…” Charlie takes a moment to think about where he read about Ranboo, but comes up empty. “I don’t know…”

It's truly an unnerving mystery, as much as Charlie already knows about other people, it's unlike him to have little to no information about a person, especially if he knows them. It's…shocking to say the least. Charlie having information about people that’d make him seem as if he was a stalker, not having the littlest information of Ranboo, it's not unheard of, but it's not at all common… 

This is certainly a change of pace… perhaps this change will be a chance.

One that might be destructive or beneficial…

Certainly a jump into both the light and dark, from both parties of the apartment….

Hopefully… its not for the worst

———

It's nice to get to know you and being let in…