Grasping on a magazine of bullets, it slid into the gun effortlessly as the hammer cocked back.
The gun pointed at the reanimated being, index finger snapping closed on the trigger.
BANG!
Surrounding air shuddered into cold leave as a pale bullet flew from the barrel, distorting everything it touched and was about to touch.
In a matter of milliseconds, the bullet entered the skull and all of its momentum turned to zero as it did so.
A bright flash erupted from the corpse before dying down, a certain cold penetrated within a certain distance of the room, it then condensed, swirling into a single point as the bullet.
Crack!
Cracked, not capable of handling the immense concentration on its own.
Obviously, when even more force is pushed and clamped down on the bullet that already had a crack form, it'd shatter without a second of resistance being handed to it.
Boom!
A large explosion resounded into a fountain of cold, passing by with permission.
"Ha...Ha...."
The cold instantly warped the entirety of the surroundings placed neatly around.
Glowing formations of glacier appeared for but a moment before slowly turning into particles.
Pale particles of blue twinkled like little stars as they dug into Cale's skin.
The chill made Cale jerk, hairs standing on end on the sudden shift of cold entering.
Staring at the magazines of bullets inside the drawer, Cale with hasty moves put them all in his pockets, they were barely able to fit inside.
He left the dark room, finding the moonlight shining down brighter than ever, the windows expanding higher than he remembered.
'It's changed?'
He didn't think much of it, rushing through the corridor to leave the obvious death looming overhead.
Many things rushed to his head as he ran with his lungs burning for fuel.
One in particular being the mixed feelings surging inside him faintly.
The cold gun in his hand heightened a certain worry inside him, a worry he hadn't thought of much since the start of everything.
Strange luck and coincidences, a lot of what had happened to him were solved through luck, not through his own power and intellect.
Of course, luck is a skill, no matter what anyone says, that much would still hold true even if the world turned upside down.
Survival is more important in the end anyway.
But, questioning it is all the more welcome.
Cale thought back to the trial within the afterlife.
He thought of the words of confirmation he had gotten from them, from the blatant acceptance that they tried to rig the whole thing to turning him into a priest like all the resurrected.
The entire ordeal made him nauseous.
His stomach turned upside down, sloshing acid around as a certain sentence caught Cale in a limbo.
"Just...what kind of God did you anger to have this many curses inside you."
Eyes widened slightly at the words that were reenacted in his own voice.
His jaw tightened.
'That son of—!'
Crash!
Wood crumbled and snapped Cale away from his inner thoughts.
Behind a few yards was a reanimated corpse holding itself together by a hair, walking slowly as pieces of its flesh squelched into a mush, its smile stretching unnaturally wide.
Cale's face paled considerably under the curse that haunted his soul directly.
'Those zombies....They aren't part of the storiem.'
They were there because Cale existed, because of the curses that plagued him.
He...Had thrown a boulder at the original flow of the river, changing its direction completely.
Squelch!
Squelch! Squelch!
Behind Cale echoed a sound resembling flesh being pressed and teared apart.
Looking back were numerous reanimated corpses staring with their eyes glowing a tint of red.
Cale then flicked his attention toward the outside, where the snow coated a cold surface.
He saw them, dead animals being reanimated, flesh just barely sticking together.
Gripping onto the Desert Eagle, he pondered whether to just mow them down with the gun at first.
"....."
But he thought against it, fearing the penalty of his body turning permanently colder. Not wanting to turn into a glacier because of the infinitely resurrecting army of dead.
It just wasn't worth wasting.
In case anything happened however, he held onto it. Flashing the warmer steel of the dagger in front of them.
Strangely, holding the dagger made something in his mind click instantly, as if his own blood knew how to use it with perfection ingrained through generations.
The corpses stared once at him, not registering the blade warming up by the second.
One corpse moved, the little girl leapt forward, her bones connected with a few errors spiking at the sides, distorting her original shape.
Cale reacted, hand in an arc, patiently awaiting for the thread holding it to be cut.
As the girl reached out, fingers snapping into a jab, Cale's hand brought itself down in a chain, body recoiling further away from the girl as the blade flickered a shine.
———!
The girl exclaimed in surprise, the last bit of her flesh twisting into a small gape, her hand thudded against the cold floor that was once warm and full of life.
'She's sentient?!'
Observing that, Cale's heart pounded for a moment.
Guilt surfaced, spilling into his expression.
But that was it, despite his mind lagging, his body only hesitated for a mere moment.
Slash!
Cale's body moved before any hesitation manifested further, closing in and chopping the head of the corpse in an instant.
She still moved.
Reaching to stab Cale in the chest with her last hand.
Slash!
The last hand fell with a flick of the blade steaming with heat.
Before she could do anything else, a kick sent itself ushering toward the ribcage, knocking the corpse that once treasured vitality back a few paces away.
The next set of corpses walked in, one woman and two men, probably the rest of the family of the girl.
The woman rushed in first first, opening her jaw for a massive bite.
Cale, taking a swift step back arched his blade diagonally upwards, cutting half of the wrist and striking the open chin of the jaw, it didn't stop the woman, but right before she moved.
The edge of the blade yellowed with heat expanded.
Boom!
An explosion rang, Cale's ears rang a million calls, his heart raced through them all.
Despite this, Cale's face didn't take a single burn as a present.
Drip!
Blood dripped from his nose as his eyes took in the next victim a head away from him.
His hand, charred from the explosion erupted with pain. At this point, Cale would be in the red mentally.
However, something within him stopped caring for the pain, wanting to erase it entirely, erase a weakness.
And despite it not being erased, his heart and adrenaline shot miles away from it, making it ultimately irrelevant.
His hand whipped with a lash.
Thud!
With a thud. Steel met squarely at bone, barely cutting through, but before the edge of the blade expanded.
Cale's head jerked back at the torn fist of the man cleaving through, body twisting into an uncomfortable curve.
Rolling his wrist, the dagger and the only intact part of the neck jousted in an arena of their own.
Spurt!
Blood sprayed forth in a slow flow that suggested the heart didn't beat, heat rose in the blade as Cale's confidence broke through the ceiling.
"Ha haha! Guess I'm better than credit stated huh?!"
A laughter full of something he didn't know he even had crashed out of his lips like a waterfall.
It felt as if he were changing even now—No, it felt like the change were being accelerated through the act of stress.
Cale strangely didn't care for that realization, only chuckling at his stupidity for not being confident in himself.
Szzzzzz!
Flesh sizzled as the heat of the blade expanded outwards.
The edge of the blade bulged in an instant.
The face of the man stretched into something unknown to the both.
Boom!
With the wash of the explosion rippling once more. Fragments of bone and flesh sprayed everywhere.
Cale's eyes scanned for the last one, he couldn't find him.
Ba.. thump! Ba.. thump!
His heart crashed into his ribs, fear settling through his mind to the once known to him turning into the unknown.
Cerulean eyes with a desperate flick, scanned up.
There, a corpse of a man with seemingly no injuries except for the burn on his neck dangled on the ceiling.
It let go of the mahogany wood, dropping downwards with momentum that breeds panic.
Cale's feet retreated back, lungs wanting a fresh breath of air.
However, some moves had the possibility of failing.
That possibility being brought upon by luck of course.
"Ah"
His right foot wouldn't move, not from fear, but from the dragging weight of bone clamping at him.
He saw for a moment, taking in the girl healing, face stretching into a smile that cracked the flesh.
Due to the sudden shift in weight and movements, Cale toppled down.
Most would give up at this point, calling it 'I tried my best,' but Cale didn't want it to end here.
Not when someone paid the price for resurrecting him.
Even as his head struck the floor, even as the corpse opened its maw wide.
His eyes remained unshaken, full of a certain spirit that yearned for survival.