Scarlet

I can’t help but feel awkward as I hear the conversation going on in the bunker between Belle, Arthur, Julian, and the kid who knows Julian. Because whoever wants to hear about some kid having a crush on you?

Extremely awkward.

Although at this point, the number of people online who’ve been raining compliments on me is kind of numbing me to it – a rather normal thing for celebrities of any kind, I suppose. So I manage to block it out with the equally displeasing sound of groaning zombies.

“What’s with that face you’re making?” Michael asks as we continue through the train station alongside the train in search of more people.

“Nothing,” I answer while focusing on my hearing to sense for others outside of bunkers. “There are more people up ahead.”

“Gotcha,” he says before we all pick up the pace, running alongside the still train till we find a group of people somehow on top of the train with zombies practically climbing over themselves to try to reach them. Which makes them easy targets for us, and we quickly begin to slaughter a good chunk of them before they manage to gather themselves together well enough to attack us back.

I grimace as I watch my mana go down from my usage of blood claws, but at the same time, it does make for good training for my blood regeneration skill. Since it increases my mana regeneration alongside my physical regeneration.

We continue to kill the zombies off – most of them being relatively low level despite our closer proximity to the core than before – until they’re all dead. Then we all jump up onto the train to check on the people.

“Thank you so much!” one of them – an adult man seemingly in his thirties or so – exclaims while falling to his knees and crying.

I frown in confusion.

Why’s he crying?

“No idea,” Tar answers, suddenly speaking again after quite a while of silence.

Where were you?

“Talking to my brother,” he answers, but my attention is quickly taken back to the two kids with the man who for some reason decide to run up and hug us. One hugging my legs and the other hugging Denise.

Uh…

I look around at the others, my hands held slightly in the air, unsure of what to do with them. But after seeing Denise caressing the back of the girl’s head in a soothing manner, I decide to just mimic her. And it seems to work? I think? The boy hugging me calms down a little at least.

Although throughout the process, I continuously have to fight the urge to push the kid away, as this is very uncomfortable for me. Eventually though, he calms down and disengages himself, making me sigh with relief.

“At this rate, you’re probably just gonna have to get used to physical contact,” Tar says, “considering how many times you force yourself to endure it for whatever circumstances you’re in at the time.”

Ugh. I hate to admit it, but you may be right.

“Why do you hate it anyways?” Tar asks before clarifying, “Physical contact, I mean.”

I glance at the others to find them talking with the three adults, none of which appear to be these kids’ parents at a glance. Meaning their parents are either lost somewhere, or they were infected. Neither of which are good results.

So I turn to watch our surroundings as I focus on Tar’s question.

It started as early as I can remember. Because the first memory I can clearly remember is being pushed around by some of the older kids living nearby the orphanage, telling me how ‘orphans should just find a hole to crawl into and die’ or ‘to get away from them lest I get them sick’ and other stuff like that.

And believe it or not, I took it to heart. I avoided touching others entirely for nearly a year before Allen spoke to me about it.

I glance to the side as I hear the groaning of zombies beginning to approach from a ways down the train, inside of it.

Keep in mind that I was only about four years old at the time. And at that point, Allen didn’t really associate with the orphans very often. So it was a pretty big shock when he pulled me into his office to talk.

I thought I had done something wrong, and it terrified me. The thought of being kicked out of the orphanage...

Tar hums, sounding like he’s not really sure what to say.

Allen wasn’t as warm to me back then as he is now. And he certainly didn’t seem to know that much about kids in general, even though he had a four year old daughter himself back then. So let’s just say the conversation didn’t end very well, and my avoidance of touching people became more of a fear at that point.

Of course, over time I realized how stupid it was to be afraid of something like that. But by that point, I was so unused to physical contact that it became uncomfortable to have any anymore. So I continued avoiding it.

And here we are.

Tar stays silent for several seconds as I just keep an ear pinned to the demons – both zombies and not zombies – letting the others take the job of comforting the people. And as soon as Michael says that we’re gonna head out, I turn back and ask, “We heading across the train’s roof or back on the ground?”

He looks vaguely surprised by that before I add, “There are demons in the train, near one of the entrances. And not just zombies this time.”

His surprised expression turns serious as he considers the options.

If we continue on the ground, there’s more of a chance that these zombies will come out and possibly be a threat to the people we’re gonna be escorting to the nearest bunker. And these demons sound like they have several huntsmen with them. Which will be a problem in regard to protecting the people.

Just a single bolt making it past us…

“Let’s travel on top of the train till we reach the next bunker,” Michael finally decides, and I nod my head, setting off in the direction of said bunker with the others following after me, making a bit of an oval around the civilians.

“Scarlet,” Tar says out of nowhere with something in his voice that I’ve never heard before, “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. If I ever see your parents, I’ll give them a good kick for you, okay?”

I almost stumble from the emotional manner of speaking I just heard the usually robotic fae prince use. And this surprises the others before I raise my hand to motion that I’m okay.

That… was a surprise.

But I can’t hold back the smile that stretches across my face at that. A real, true smile. Not just a grin, but a smile as I whisper so that only Tar can hear, “Thank you.”

A few seconds pass in silence.

Although I doubt your kick will do much.

The tanuki just snorts, making me chuckle.