Floor 31

Chapter 4

Everything was a risk as Dream and Kai gently opened the door. Every move they made, every noise they made, every word they spoke could kill them. This was the reality of an apocalypse. Every door they owned, you never knew what was on the other side. It could be a monster, it could a zombie, it could be multiple zombies and it could even be nothing.

There were no zombies in sight as Dream stepped into hallway. Everything was dead silent. That was wrong. There always had to noise, that was a fact. No noise meant that something or someone was hiding. Very few zombies and monsters were smart, but some, just some knew how to plan an attack.

"Run to the stairs." Dream whispered to Kai. The stairway was just down the hall, but they didn't know lied beyond the stairway door. They didn't know if monsters were hiding in the apartments. They didn't know anything.

Slowly, Dream took her first step. It only made a slight creaking noise but that was enough to send at least one zombie at them, and that zombie could lead hundreds of zombies after them.

The hallway reeked of dead bodies. After 3 months, all the corpses were bound to have decomposed. If the zombies decided to even leave parts of the body. Dream held a gun in her hand, prepared to shoot at anything that blocked their way. Bullets were precious objects, the worst thing to do is waste them.

Kai on the other hand was holding a weapon he had made. It was similar to a spear. It was a long wooden stick that had a knife attached to one end. Wires spiralled down the wooden stick, leading to a battery. This was a smart design for a weapon. The battery was just under the wire, but not connected. The knife on the end was loose, if he ever needed to use it. He would stab the creature, which would force the knife to push back slightly, which would connect the wire to the batter. Electrocuting the creature.

Once they had reached the door without any problems, they knew that something was on the other side. There was no way that they would be able to get to Floor 1 without any interaction with zombies or monsters. Dream took a deep breath as she turned the knob of the stairway door. They were both prepared for the worst. Just as the door opened someone fired a gun at them. Luckily, they both dodged it and it landed straight into the wall.

"What the hell?!" Dream shouted as she saw 4 figures appear.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. It was instincts. I thought you were a zombie." The boy said.

"Yeah, a zombie opened the door. Good thinking sherlock." Dream replied, sarcastically.

"Wait." Kai paused. "Are you guys the people that sent the Morse Code?"

The 4 figures nodded. What saw standing in front of Dream and Kai were 4 teenagers. A small girl with glasses, a tall muscular boy with brown hair and a tall, handsome boy with the blonde hair. The last teen was a girl with brown hair. She was strikingly similar to the boy with brown hair, Dream assumed they were either twins or siblings.

"Yeah, we had 3 people at the time but we found this boy Zayd on our way here." The girl with brown hair explained, pointing at the handsome boy. "I'm Alexandra by the way, but you can call me Alexa. This is my twin brother Alexander, just call him Alex. And this is our coder..." she pointed to the small girl with glasses. "she was the one that coded the message, her name's Clara."

"Probably best not to introduce ourselves in front of the hallway. Is the stairway clear?" Dream asked.

"Yep."

Dream and Kai headed into the stairway. There were bodies of zombies lying all over the floor. They presumed that the 4 teens had killed them on their way up.

"Well I'm Dream, 16, N.I. and this is Kai, 18, N.I. I swear I met him like an hour ago."

"So how old are you guys?" Kai asked.

"Alex and I are both 16. Clara's 15 and Zayd's 17."

"Well nice to meet you all. Why did you send the message?" Dream asked.

Alexa, who was obviously the leader of the group thought for a second. "We... sort of needed to find people. We may have found a way out." Dream and Kai were speechless. "Don't get your hopes up too high. But Clara was able to get a signal to this place. A place that could help us. They said they had very few survivors left, and they were willing to get us out. They said they could bring a helicopter to the top of the hotel to save us. The problem is..."

But Dream interrupted her. "That's impossible. To get to the roof of the hotel is a suicide mission. Most of the zombies and monsters nest there. The roof is the Floor 31. That's 28 floors above us, it'd take us ages."

"We know that, we really do but this is our only option." Alex replied. "Look, we know it's difficult but we're running out of food. We thought about raiding the grocery store but all the food in there is probably rotten by now. We'd have to go outside to get that food, and we all know that going outside is more dangerous than getting to Floor 31."

"We'd die before we get there." Kai repeated. "I barely made it to this floor, there's no way we'd get there. It's just simply impossible. Even with the 6 of us, we would have to face hundreds if not thousands of zombies and monsters, the stairway isn't exactly safe either."

"Would you rather sit here and die then?" Alex asked, no one answered. "So, let's go. We're wasting time."

Zayd was the only one that didn't speak. He was quiet, shy but somehow mysterious. Dream sensed that something was off about him, he definitely wasn't a veteran. He was fit and handsome, he was definitely in shape but not a veteran. He looked too shy, too quiet, too mysterious. Something was wrong about him, he was keeping a secret.

"You got a plan?" Dream asked.

"Sort of, but we better start travelling up. Zombies and monsters are more prone to attack at night. Let's go."

Alexa explained the base of the plan to everyone. There were a lot of risks in the plan, too many loose ends. Dream didn't approve of it, someone was going to get hurt. Someone was going to die, not everyone was going to make it. But this was all they had to get out. This was their only option.