The Mutant King In Apocalypse

Chapter 4

Rufus clenched to his mother's ring as his life gradually slipped away from him.

The zombies were still tearing into his flesh, but somehow the pain was becoming distant now, like it was happening to someone else in another room. His blood was everywhere, warm and sticky, pooling beneath his broken body on the cold hotel tiles.

But all he could focus on was the ring pressed into his palm.

He thought that he sensed something then, something that did not belong in this room of death and betrayal. 

A warmth that had nothing to do with his blood loss started from the ring and spread up his arm. It crawled through his veins like liquid fire, moving through his chest and wrapping around his torn flesh.

The warm glow engulfed his body from the ring, fighting against the cold that was creeping up from his toes. For the first time since the Apocalypse began, Rufus felt something that was not fear or pain or hunger.

Just right there, with the ring still clutched in his fingers, he passed out.

When Rufus opened his eyes again, everything was different.

He was lying on his back in a clear plain that stretched forever in every direction. The ground beneath him was solid but he could not tell what it was made of. There were no buildings, no zombies, no blood, no screams.

Above him, the sky was neither day nor night, just something soft and silver without any edges.

He pushed himself up slowly, confusion running deep into his bones.

This had to be death. He had been bitten all over his body, felt his own blood leave him like a river. There was no way a human could survive what had just happened to him.

So this was the afterlife. This quiet place with no noise and no pain.

"Welcome, Mutant King."

The voice came from his right and Rufus turned to see a beautiful lady standing a few feet away. She was watching him with calm eyes, like she had been waiting for him to arrive.

Rufus looked behind himself, expecting to find someone else standing there.

There was nobody.

He turned back to her with confusion written all over his face.

"You have the wrong person," he said flatly. "I am not a king of anything. I am Rufus and I just died while zombies ate me alive on what was supposed to be my wedding day."

The lady smiled like he had said something wrong but adorable.

"You are not dead, Rufus," she said simply.

Rufus stared at her.

"What do you mean I am not dead?" he demanded. "The walkers bit me multiple times. I was bleeding from everywhere. A mutant ordered them to kill me and they were doing a very good job of it. So with all respect, I am definitely dead."

"You are not dead," she said again with the same calm certainty.

"Then what am I?"

"You are awakened," she explained. "You had always been different, Rufus, but because of the dangers involved, this special power of yours had become dormant. It buried itself deep inside you to protect you. Your near death experience has now re-awakened it."

Rufus felt his head spinning with confusion.

"What power?" he demanded, his voice getting louder. "How am I someone powerful? I just got beaten with my own rod by a man who was sleeping with my girlfriend. I spent three years being used like a shield by a woman who murdered my sister. That is not the story of a powerful person. That is the story of the world's biggest fool."

The lady's eyes held something that looked like sympathy.

"I know everything that happened to you, Rufus," she said quietly. "Everything that was taken from you. Your mother, your sister, all of it."

Hearing about his family made something twist in his chest.

Rufus was confused and he threw numerous questions all at the same time. 

He asked what the lady was talking about, how he could be someone powerful when he had lost everything. 

He asked why his mother and sister had to die if he had this power. He asked what this place was, what mutant king meant, and what was supposed to happen to him now.

He asked a bunch of other questions, all flowing out at once because nothing made sense anymore.

The lady listened to all his questions without interrupting.

"The thread of fate will guide you," she said when he finished. "Everything will be made known in the course of your journey. I cannot answer all your questions here, but you did not survive today by accident."

Rufus opened his mouth to tell her that the thread of fate was not good enough, that he deserved real answers after everything he had been through.

Everything went white and his eyes snapped open.

The hotel ceiling was staring back at him, cracked and dusty and very real.

Rufus lay still for a moment, trying to understand what had just happened.

Normally, he was supposed to turn into a brainless zombie after being bitten like that. Or in very rare cases, those that were called the mutant walkers, the half-human ones that had the ability to mind control other zombies to do their biddings once they had established control.

But his mind was clear. He could think. He could remember every word the lady had said.

Then he noticed something weird.

All his wounds were gone.

His hands moved quickly over his body, checking his arms, his chest, his neck. Every place he remembered being bitten. Every place that had been torn and bleeding.

There was nothing. No wounds, no scars, not even dried blood.

He was not just fine. It was like he had been given a massage and he was brand new. His body felt stronger than it had ever felt before.

He stood up slowly and the attention of the mutant and the zombies turned to him.

They had been busy destroying what was left in the room, but now every dead eye turned in his direction at the same time.

The Zom mutant stared at him with its one cloudy eye and its one living eye. The rotting side of its face twitched, like it was trying to understand something that did not make sense.

"Huh, the pathetic human is still alive?" The mutant muttered, a little bit startled by what it was seeing.

Rufus looked at the creature that had ordered his death. Then he looked at the zombies that had torn him apart. Then he looked down at his hands, which were completely healed and somehow felt different.

For the first time since the Apocalypse began, Rufus did not feel afraid; instead, he felt alive.