Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Elena and Olivia could hear the commotion outside. They were just about to begin consuming their blood crystals for the day when they realized that they were under attack. Because of this, the two women nodded at each other.

After all, Zane was in trouble, and was implying by his words that he needed their help. Thus, they grabbed hold of their firearms, and went out the back of the building, where they flanked the soldiers who were surrounding Zane at this very moment, holding him at gunpoint.

When they got into position, Olivia told Elena about the game plan on how things would go down, all while Zane actively stalled for time.

"Alright Elena, when you're ready to cast your skill, I will use mine on the Humvee with the mounted machine gun. The gunner will be the first to kill. Once everyone is slowed down, we should be able to make quick work of them."

Elena nodded her head with a grim look on her face. After shooting Lexi in the gut and leaving her for dead, she had, in a way, overcome her difficulty with harming other people, especially if they intended to do the same to her and her group.

Thus, Elena spoke quietly as she cast her ability, basically freezing the soldiers to a stand still as they approached Zane in an attempt to secure his weapons and arrest him.

"Casting now!"

Zane immediately noticed Elena's skill in affect and rolled out of the line of fire where the soldiers were pointing their weapons. Suddenly a bolt of lightning descended from the sky directly on the machine gunner, turning the man into a burning crisp as it did so.

In the very next moment, Elena and Olivia opened fire on the soldiers with their weapons. As did Zane, sending a torrent of bullets down range, riddling the hostiles with bullets. Who was moving in slow motion?

In an almost comedic fashion, the moment the time reduction ended, the bodies rag dolled to the floor, causing Zane to scoff as he commanded the girls to cease fire.

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"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

The girls fired off a few more shots at their targets before obeying their orders. Immediately, they gazed upon their fresh kills and flinched. They had, after all, acted primarily on instinct, thinking only about saving Zane from doing them harm.

But once the bullets had stopped flying, they realized that they had indeed killed a group of young men. Men who while complete strangers were still, until just minutes ago, living, breathing, human beings.

However, the two women only flinched and thought about this matter for the briefest of moments before their concerns turned elsewhere. At that moment, they did not realize it, but they had truly and genuinely lost their innocence. Embracing this cruel new world for what it was.

They then looked at Zane and inspected him to see if he was hurt. Zane, of course, noticed this and was quick to respond while walking towards the Humvee and looting the bodies.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Let's loot these fuckers. After all, they have some ammo that we desperately need."

And sure enough, the bodies indeed had ammo. But what was curious, is that upon further inspection, Zane found that at least two of the men were not in military uniforms, but rather their own equipment. As Zane feared, civilians were being conscripted to fight for the safe zone.

But what was their loss was his gain, because Zane saw a peculiar rifle strapped to one of the corpses. It was not a standard issue M4 carbine. But rather a high end civilian AR-15 set up in an SPR configuration. Meaning it was designed with longer ranges in mind.

In this specific loadout, one might call it an urban sniper. As it had a 3-18x44 First focal plane optic, with an illuminated DMR reticle. The optic appeared to be set within a premium scop mount that had a red dot mounted in the Piggey back style.

A red dot mind you that could operate with both solar power and battery. This meant that the red dot could function almost indefinitely. Other accessories for the rifle included a quick detach suppressor and bipod. As well as a high-power rifle light, with built in cable routing.

The finally accessory on the rifle was the IR illuminator, which would be useful if Zane had night vision, which he did not. The rifle itself was of exceptional quality, with a sub moa capable match grade barrel, and a fully ambidextrous lower receiver.

The best thing about this rifle was indeed the suppressor, as it made it difficult for hostiles to detect his location when he fired a shot. Which was a godsend when it came to Walkers.

Thus, Zane quickly detached his sling from his current weapon and dropped it to the side, while instead picking up this exceptional SPR. Which the man he just killed had no doubt spent a small fortune on prior to this apocalypse.

Once Zane had the rifle strapped around his chest, he aimed down the optic and saw that it was properly zeroed. With a slight nod of approval, he let it hang by the wayside as he scavenged the magazines and other loot from the men who he and the girls had just killed.

The girls also scavenged what they wanted from the dead soldiers. With Olivia choosing to swap out her pump-action shotgun for a rifle of her own. Though initially she knew very little about shooting, the more she raised her dexterity, the better she became at handling firearms, and thus she was starting to get the hang of it.

Thus, a rifle with a larger magazine capacity, and a longer effective range, was more ideally suited for this new world. And that was the reason why Olivia match the switch. Once the group had looted their supplies, Zane inspected the Humvee.

After all, it was an operational vehicle, with only surface damage to the armor it had surrounding it. Luckily for them, Olivia had been precise with her skill, or the vehicle could have been severely damaged.

There was of course, more supplies in the vehicle's storage space, no doubt scavenged throughout the unit's journey. And when Zane realized that there were several jerry cans' worth of fuel on board, he was quick to give a new order to Elena and Olivia.

"Change of plans. The sound of that firefight is undoubtedly going to attract unwanted attention. Load up the supplies we have inside in this thing, and let's get the fuck out of here…"

By now, the night had begun to descend over the sky, and the trio knew that things were about to become more dangerous. Thus Elena could not help but ask where Zane intended to stay the night.

"Zane… Where are we going to go?"

Zane, of course, responded with the obvious answer.

"Where else? But your place? After all, we have no idea of anywhere else that's safe. So we have no choice but to go back."

Elena was, of course, hesitant to return to her family home, and gaze upon the fresh graves of her family yet again. But Zane was right. They had nowhere else to go, and now that they had an up armored Humvee, the journey back to the suburbs would be much quicker and easier.

Thus they did as Zane said, and once their supplies were stockpiled, the trio drove off back to Elena's family home, where they would spend yet another night.