Jack’s POV

I was in my room looking fondly at the old picture in my hand; his black silky hair is a little long, his black eyes are full of life and his dazzling half-smile can take my breath away in a second, I was caressing his cheek carefully and lovingly when a knock on the door interrupted my staring like an idiot at the photo, I kissed the photo one last time then stored it back into my space-storage and allowed the person to enter “Come in.”

Mark entered the room with a curious look in his eyes and a little frown and said “Hey Jack, why do you always sit in your room alone? How about hanging out with me sometimes?”

I answered him with a fake faint smile on my lips “Just resting, you know how tiring it’s every day, I would rather get some rest in the little free time I can get.”

Mark looked at me, clearly, he didn’t believe a single word I said, he already knew that there was no point in talking about that since we had this kind of conversation hundreds of times already “Tsk tsk, anyhow, your father wants to see you.” He threw the last sentence at me and dragged me out of my room.

Mark and I have been friends since we were 15 years old; we went to the same school and even the same college, though we never had the chance to finish college, he is one of the few friends that I have and the only friend that survived with me until today.

We lost so many people, it has already been thirteen years since the start of the fucking apocalypse, it’s a cruel world we live in, constant fear and hunger, maybe we are still alive, but I doubt anybody is feeling alive, I sure as hell am not, my heart had died on the same day the blue sun has appeared for the first time.

I said goodbye to Mark and knocked on the door of my father’s office before entering the office, there were about thirty men in the room talking to my father; they all stared at me with different looks, I hate how they look at me like I’m some kind of an alien of some sort. I didn’t spare them any glance and made my way to the desk at the end of the room.

Before I even have the chance to open my mouth and greet my father, he glanced at me and started to talk while arranging some papers in his hands “We got some confirmed information that the number of zombies in ‘A’ city has decreased significantly in the last few years, it is still considered a very dangerous zone but we should be able to enter it.”

He glanced at me again then continued “Jack, I need you to go with these men to the city to search for supplies and assess the city’s situation. Since nobody entered the city ever after the start of the apocalypse, it should have many supplies. Two of these men have space ability, so there should be enough space to collect everything. One more thing, try to investigate the reason behind the decrease in the zombies’ numbers. You will be leaving in two hours, don’t forget to make the necessary arrangements to stay there for a few days, dismiss.”

I stood there for a second or two before making my way out of the room. For fuck’s sake, I’m supposed to be his fucking son, not some subordinate to order around, he was and always will treat me like he treats his former subordinates in the military, I think being a general for half of his life made it impossible for him to change. The worst part is, though, there is no military anymore, in fact, there hadn’t even been military factions in years, but for my father, he treats this small survivor base as if it’s a military base.

It took us about six hours by car to reach the outskirts of the city; everyone around me was tensed and nervous. Cities are classified as red zones, and nobody who wants to survive will ever enter them, I still don’t understand why would my father send me to such a dangerous mission with this team, who I can’t even remember seeing any of its members in our base unless these men were the ones watching the city.

It has been a week since we entered the city, we found a lot of food but I doubt that it’s still edible, for the time being, we stored everything in our space-storages, and we will have to check it carefully when we return to the base.

We also managed to find ammo, water bottles, clothes, some kind of seeds and even some guns, we took anything that could be usable and divided them between me and the other two space ability users.

Today will be the last day of our mission, we already lost ten men, it’s true that the number of zombies had decreased but nevertheless, the city is still very dangerous, there are many advanced zombies with abilities, but the worst part was that ever since we entered the city I had this feeling in my gut that we were being watched, which made it nerve breaking since I couldn’t relax or lower my guard down for even a second, especially that I don’t trust any of these men to guard my back.

We decided to raid one last store before heading back to the base, so, two of the men were trying to open the door as quietly as possible, some of the men were talking and arranging themselves to three groups, while I kept watching with some other two men.

A few zombies approached us and we took care of them as soon as possible before they could attract any more zombies. I checked my gun and fixed the silencer to prepare before entering the store, so the others started to check on their weapons too. I looked at the direction of the voice when I heard a grunt coming from the left, and I saw him.

His long silky black hair became messy silver hair, his unnaturally pale skin was covered with dirt and blood, his beautiful black eyes turned to crimson red and his slender body was dressed with dirty and tattered clothes. He was wobbling with his hands stretched in front of him while making his way toward us.

‘Still so beautiful as always’ I thought while pointing my gun to his direction with a shaky hand and tears in my eyes, I pulled my hair with my other hand and tried to control my emotions, I wanted to run to him and embrace him in my arms, I wanted to kiss every part of him and hide him in my heart.

While I was drowning down in these thoughts, it took me a second or two to notice that one of the men was preparing his gun to shot him.

I felt the blood rush into my head and a lone tear streamed down my cheek at the thought of somebody killing him in front of me again, I would rather kill him with my own hands than let anybody hurt him again, so I pulled the trigger, and I could swear that I saw a beautiful faint smile on his lips just before his body dropped to the ground.

I waved my hand at the men while my eyes were fixed on his body which was at that moment lying still in the ground, and told them to enter the store while I will keep watching outside.

Two minutes later, I was sitting on the ground next to his body, tracing his cheeks with my hand while crying my heart out, I took his body in my arms and hugged him next to my heart and shouted “This is not what we agreed upon, you fucker, show yourself, how many fucking times I have to watch him die in front of me? Show yourself or I’m going to kill all your fucking precious humans, this is not what you promised me thirteen years ago.”

Suddenly, time stopped and everything turned gray like in an old movie, and the fucker showed himself with a sick smile on his face.

Seeing his face again opened all my old wounds once more, reminding me of my past life in my original world and all the horrible things I experienced in it. I could see myself again when I was five years old and my parents sold me for a few meals to some rich psycho; I had to work my ass out for a few bites every a few days. It only got worse as I became older, how many times he whipped me and beat me half dead for no reason? He even raped me and watched his men rape me for the fun of it; I spent almost fifteen years in continuous assaults and torture until I lost all hope in life.

When I was in my darkest days, a new slave came to work in the house, he was a year younger than me, but he was like the sun in my life, he made me laugh again, made me feel again, I could ignore all the horrible things that happened during the day when I saw him at night and embraced him in my arms, he gave me the strength to continue on living. We spent eight years in that hell together, taking care and love each other, for the first time in my fucked up life I felt alive, until that night.

We were having sex in the hellhole we called our room, when The master suddenly opened the door with a sick smirk on his lips and motioned to some of his men to take us out of the room and into the yard behind the house, they chained me to a wall and chained Sam to some old bench, the Master laughed like the psycho he was and shouted “Let the fun starts.”

Some of the men went to Sam and raped him, punched him, cut him with knives, while the master was laughing and whipping him from time to time or burning him with some hot metal pole.

I was shouting and crying, cursing and begging, but nothing worked, they kept at it for hours until Sam dropped dead with his body soaked in his blood.

At that point, I was screaming hysterically and blood was dripping from my wrists and ankles as I kept pulling on my restraints for hours.

After the master admired what happened to Sam, he turned his attention to me and the torture started, they kept me chained while torturing me for months but making sure to keep me alive, just to teach me a lesson as the master liked to call it “How dare a slave like you to fall in love, I’ll make sure to teach you a lesson.”

I was hanging between life and death, until one day, same like today this fucker showed himself in front of me with the same sick smile on his face and gave me a deal.