Kay came back with the plants they needed to heal Ali, fairly quickly and Imboz made a kind of compress from them which he put on Ali's bloody stump.
The rest of the plants were used to make the tea. Gala took care of the tea, while Imboz put the compress.
It didn't take long for the color to return to Ali's face and for her general appearance to become slightly better. The healing plants couldn't have an immediate effect, but it was obvious that it was working.
Upon seeing that, both Gala and Kay were able to relax a bit and reevaluate their situation. It turned out that not all the people from their base made it through the portal. Just a dozen of them went through it and no one was sure when and why the portal opened or why it closed.
It seemed that the opening and closing of portals was highly volatile and sometimes extremely short. Although they did wonder and worry about the people that were left behind, the apocalypse taught Kay and his friends one important thing.
You can't focus on the past and things you can't change, instead they started thinking about the future and what they might do. It was clear that the world they ended up in was totally different from theirs, although it did have its zombies as well.
Since portals seemed to be more common in the city of Slim, they realized that they would have to leave that dark little city as soon as Ali was able to move.
Thinking about Slim, Gala remembered the sign they had seen right before leaving the alternate reality they were in, and couldn't help but wonder what it all meant. She even asked Kay for his opinion, and after some discussion, they came to the conclusion that it was the same city but in different realities.
They even played with the notion that somewhere out there, in one of the alternate realities, there might be the one reality where Slim was just a normal city. But upon further consideration, they came to the conclusion that there was probably always something a bit gloomy about the city itself.
It might not always be something as bad as a zombie infestation, but they had a feeling that it was a dark spot in the universe where bad things always found their way sooner or later. It made sense in a way.
If there were places that were considered as beacons of light, there had to be their opposite as well. No matter how different the realities themselves were, the energy that surrounded the places stayed more or less the same. That, in turn, influenced what kind of events would occur there, good or bad.
What also bothered them, because they couldn't understand it, were the zombies in this version of Slim. It was so difficult for them to grasp the mere concept of a nice, half-reasonable zombie.
It posed an even greater challenge for Kay and his friends since they had spent a huge part of their lives fearing and fighting the zombies. They couldn't get used to zombies not attacking them.
In their minds, they were constantly prepared for an attack and when the said attack didn't happen it left them confused. They started questioning everything they thought they knew about life and what it meant to be a zombie.
At one point, they even started to question if their approach of just killing the zombies was a good one. Was it possible for them to save people once they turned?
Soon enough, they realized that those ideas were unfounded, different universes had different rules. If someone tried to kill you, you wouldn't just sit and wait for it to happen you would fight back. That is what they did, they just fought back.
Although it took a while, they finally realized that the zombies in their world and the ones in the new world they entered were very different. It made no sense to compare them or question their own actions.
It seemed that these zombies, although they had to eat human flesh to survive at least felt bad about it.
Finally, Kay and his people started to realize that they were wrong in considering all zombies evil. They were just trying to survive, like everyone else.
It was the same as with people, there were good and bad zombies, but all of them had one thing in common, they wanted to live. It was difficult to adjust to the new notion but since the zombies were actually helping them out, they did their best not to judge which wasn't an easy thing to do, especially considering that human minds were used to seeing anything different as bad.
Since Gala was the one who had the least trouble adjusting, having already met Imboz earlier, a few days later it was decided that she should be the one to go to his house and thank him for all the help he had given them.
Although she knew that no one would hurt her, she still didn't feel comfortable passing by the zombies in a different state of decomposition and some of them with visible wounds and missing body parts.
For some reason, it was even more chilling for her to see them just meandering about without an obvious purpose or goal. What kind of existence was that? She didn't think she would choose that kind of being but on the other hand, people wanted to live forever. They were always afraid of just not being there.
So maybe, if presented with a choice to stop being altogether, or becoming a zombie, many would choose to turn. At least that way, one part of them would go on, for all eternity.
But still, it seemed like a dull and gruesome shape to be in, but who knows? Maybe if faced with the same choice, she might be tempted to just be forever. Never say never.
As she reached Imboz's house, she knocked on the door but entered without waiting for a reply. The reason for that was not rudeness, but the fact that she wasn't sure if zombies did that.
Did they knock on each other's doors or just entered each others houses?
Well, a few moments later she wished she had waited for a reply. She wanted to turn back time, and not come to the house at all.
To her horror, soon after stepping foot in their small house, she realized that it was lunchtime in Imboz's household.
Upon seeing what was set on the table, she turned white and her legs started shaking, threatening to stop obeying her. She had to hold herself up using the door frame for support, so as not to fall down.
If seen from a distance, it would seem like a regular family meal, to someone who didn't know better.
There were four people at the table mother, father and two children. It would have been a nice family picture if it hadn't been for the gruesome food and the lifeless look of the said family. They were having lunch which consisted of a couple of human legs, and they were drinking blood with their horrible meal.
There also seemed to be something that she guessed served as a soup but was in reality filled with human eyeballs floating around in the liquid.
Suddenly, she couldn't handle it anymore. She started throwing up in the middle of Imboz's kitchen while they were having their grisly meal.
Strangely enough, although she was thoroughly disgusted, she also felt embarrassed for ruining their meal. It was such a strange mixture of feelings. Even though they were basically eating her brethren, she felt that she was rude, that she was intruding.
"I am so so...ry." Imboz said seeming ashamed of himself.
"We di...dn't expeeect you. If I kn...ew , we wou..ld sto..p luuunch," he went on apologizing as he led her outside, away from the macabre scene.
"I am sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. We will be leaving soon since Ali is feeling much better. So we just wanted to thank you for helping us out." Gala managed to say while she was trying to take deep breaths in, to calm her nausea.
Imboz still seemed ashamed of what she had seen, but also surprised that she would thank him. No one ever thanked the zombies for anything. They were always considered to be second class citizens, good enough to kill, but not good enough to be thanked if they helped out or even talked with.
He seemed stunned by the whole situation so much so, that Gala managed to defeat her nausea before he said anything.
"Youuu are wel...come. So...rry ag...in fooor fo..od," he couldn't help but say.
"It's okay I understand. Well, I am trying. I understand that you need to eat human flesh to survive it's just... It took me by surprise seeing it all like that. So similar to the meals I usually have, but so strikingly different. Don't worry, I am fine. I have seen far worse things. We all do what we have to do to survive. Please apologize to your family for ruining your meal and your kitchen." Gala said and Imboz nodded his head in acknowledgment.
She also told him that they would be leaving in a day or two and went back to the others firm in her decision not to tell them what she saw. It would only cause trouble, and she wanted to leave Slim without any further incidents.
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