When a regular human got bit by a zombie, it would usually take a couple months for them to fully transform into a man-eating monstrosity. While this time limit can vary depending on age and health, you definitely wouldn’t live longer than a year. As for what they’d go through during that time, just expect something like the flu, but ten times worse with a sprinkle of flesh decay and a dash of mental deterioration.

  Radius Ability users were affected differently. While the symptoms that came with being bit weren't any different, there was one problem they had that posed trouble for those around them: hunger. Not for food, but for people. Despite the temporary mental deterioration, it didn’t stop them from using their abilities. It’s kinda like muscle memory. Someone could skip working out for months, get back into it, and immediately remember how to curl a weight.

  That was why these types had to be dealt with swiftly and thoroughly. Especially if the user had already matured their powers enough. In cases such as those, the person only had a couple hours before they turned into a full Type Two Radion.

  It’d be a serious problem to have a teleporter out for blood, and Sunshine was sure Benji knew that. The selfless thing to do was to let the girls do what needed to be done. However, it was obvious from his cries that losing a hand was the last thing he wanted. That was why Lyra and Sunshine had no choice but to pin the man down, taking away his only means of escape.

  His body has to be hosed down with Lyra’s water machine gun to get him down. Moonlight simply watched from a distance with an eerie expression.

  Benji twisted his body from side to side, but he was no match for the girls’ strength. “It’s close to midnight! Something evil’s lurkin’ in the dark… Under the moonlight! You see a sight that almost stops your heart… You try to scream, but terror takes the sound-”

  “Quit singing songs from the Old World and quit squirming so much!” shouted Lyra, a mix of anger and worry in her eyes. “You’re a Corleone Family member, aren’t you? Think of this as your punishment for the lives your organization has taken and enslaved.”

  “I’ve only been a member for a few months! You can’t put everything they’ve done on me, you bitch! Besides, aren’t you a Underground Radius member? You know, the people who literally do business with the Corleones? Maybe we oughta cut your hand off too.”

  Lyra scoffed. “I’m not the one who got bit, so let’s just stick with you, ok?” She turned to Sunshine. “What’s the toughest thing you’ve ever destroyed?”

  “Uuuh, I guess a very small piece of a mountain,” she answered, shrouding her fist with aura. It was hard to stay focused when the teleporter’s cries kept distracting her. “But my body’s pretty tired right now, so it'll take a couple tries if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a clean cut,” replied Lyra. “You just have to get rid of it by any means necessary.”

  Benji’s rapid heartbeat was the loudest in the room, second to his crying. “Oh, come on, guys! There has to be another way. Clapping is quite literally the only way my ability can work. Without that, I’ll be useless!”

  The aura around Sunshine’s fist softened. She was no amateur when it came to experiencing painful attacks. Jesus broke her arm and Moonlight’s rabbit friend slashed her eye, so she knew what they'd be doing would hurt like hell.“His power is pretty cool. Without it, he wouldn’t have saved our lives before. It wouldn’t be right if we paid him back by severing his hand.”

  “Don’t be stupid, kid,” hissed Lyra. “The last thing I wanna deal with is a goddamn zombie running amok here. Killing him would’ve been preferable, but I’m not gonna kill someone who I owe my life to.”

  “Because this is thriller! Thriller night! And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike! You know it's thriller! Thriller night! You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller toniiiight!”

  “Why don’t you just cut his hand off since you’re so eager for it to happen?” asked Sunshine, feeling the sweat building up on Benji’s hand. “You looked strong back in the fight.”

  “Being good at lifting heavy things doesn’t mean your attacks are potent enough to destroy something. You're the only one here who can do it.”

  Sunshine looked at the tearful Benji again, still singing under the pressure. She then turned off her aura and jumped off the man, landing in front of Moonlight. “I'm not gonna do it.”

  Lyra’s eyes widened. “Why the fuck not!?”

  “It's like you said before. He saved our lives, and we can’t just destroy the hand of someone who did that. It’s not cool. He also healed me a few days ago, so I owe him one for that.” Sunshine smiled at Benji who picked his head up and gave him a thumbs up. “I don’t know about Lyra, but anyone who saves my life and fights with me is considered a friend. You don’t have anything to worry about, Benji.”

  The man’s quivering lips turned into a smile, sniffling like a sick child. “Do you… So you really mean that, Sunny?”

  He’s still calling me Sunny…?

  Lyra slammed the teleporter’s head back down to the gray tile floor. “No, she doesn’t because she’s a naive child who doesn’t know the severity of our situation. Sunshine, do I need to throw you out to that zombie pit to remind you of how dangerous those pieces of filth are?”

  “Shut up!” Sunshine spat, tapping her foot. “Benji’s my friend now, so I don’t care.”

  “You could die,” Lyra argued.

  “No, I won’t.”

  Lyra’s eye twitched. “Yes, you will.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  The best thing about being a kid was that you didn’t have to win an argument by being logical or intellectual. All it took was a little stubbornness for the other person to back down. But Sunshine didn’t account for the fact that Lyra’s mindset wasn’t that different as they repeated the same sentences for a minute straight. The kid was only sure of the time since she’d already been counting down how long before Benji turned in the back of her head.

  Lyra sucked her teeth, brushing the blue streak of her hair off her face. “God, I'm not gonna get anywhere competing in a stubborn contest with you of all people. You who lives her carefree life while everyone else dies because of your Sunvirus. No wonder you’re refusing to do what’s best for all of us. You don’t understand anything about what zombies are!”

  “I do understand! Actually, I understand what they are a lot more than you do, and it’s ’cause my own dad became a zombie. He’s never once attacked me, bit me, or tried to kill me since then ‘cause he’s a good man who loves me.” Sunshine was surprised Lyra hadn’t cracked her teeth yet with how hard she was gritting her teeth. But one thing was clear—her words were getting to the woman. “I can sense that same goodness inside of Benji. He easily could’ve looked out for himself before, but he made an effort to save all of us. Even if he does become a zombie, I’m sure he won’t attack us.”

  Yeah… that’s right. I was stupid to even compare Dad to those other zombies. He’s different. He’s my dad…

  Benji wiped the tears off his face as he watched Sunshine in awe. Then, he squinted. “This light… is way too bright for someone like me.”

  Sunshine glanced at the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Was it really that bright?

  The man chuckled. “I wasn’t talking about the lightbulb.”

  Before the girl could ask him to elaborate, Lyra began to cackle. Sunshine wouldn’t have been too worried about the abrupt laughter if it weren’t for the sight of the woman releasing Benji from her grasp.

  “You… You really think your daddy isn’t a mindless animal hungry for human meat? So no one’s ever told you what he did? How he sunk his teeth into your six year old flesh?”

  The question felt like a stab to the heart, ripping a hole into the picture she spent years forging. There’s no way that would ever be true, so Sunshine could only take Lyra’s words as disrespect towards everything she believed in.

  “Take that back,” she said calmly. Though the aura spiking around her body was anything but calm.

  Lyra stood up with a crazed look in her eyes. “Make me.”

  Sunshine obliged, blitzing across the room in a flash of light. Her fist slammed into Lyra’s face—but the woman’s smirk didn’t budge. Pain bloomed in Sunshine’s hand, and she recoiled. Her skin felt hard—maybe five, ten, or even dozens of times tougher than the mountain Jesus had forced the kid to punch.

  This has something… to do with her ability. I’m pretty sure it does,” thought Sunshine, gripping her bloody knuckles.

  “Does it hurt?” Lyra snickered, rubbing her cheek with her thumb. “Do you remember how Ricky’s Godfather failed to control me after I transmuted Dante’s forcefield? Everytime I go past my limit, my body becomes the element I last transformed, meaning my body is now made up of the same energy your daddy made that explosion with. Still hurts like hell though.”

  In other words… Ricky’s ability doesn’t work on inanimate things?

  “I already expected a Underground Radius member like you would be skilled,” Sunshine said, intending for that to be a compliment.

  “And you have a good punch. You might’ve knocked me out under different circumstances.”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Just then, a horrifying scream from Benji filled the room, instantly grabbing the attention of the two girls. It was way too early for the transformation to finish, so Sunshine really didn’t know what the man was fussing about. That was until she noticed the strange action his hand became victim to. Even though Moonlight had the appearance of a zombie, she never acted like one. Perhaps the blood leaking from his hand was the reason she was currently biting down on his hand.

  “Moonlight, what are you doing!?” shouted Sunshine, rushing to her. Was the sight of human blood really that enticing? However, upon getting a closer look, Moonlight wasn’t biting the wound—she was sucking it.

  What used to be a scream of horror from Benji turned into childish giggling. “Hey, hey, hey, would you… would you stop? Actually, no! Don’t stop. The pain’s going away, I think.”

  Did he just say the pain’s going away? I know Moonlight’s a healer, but I thought her ability was on cooldown mode. Is this something else?

  “What. The. Hell. Am I looking at?” asked Lyra, who looked like she was staring at the most disgusting thing imaginable.

  After some time, Moonlight picked her head up, blood dripping from her green lips. “I’m sorry, guys. Benjamin’s hand just smelled really good, so I wanted to see if it tasted good too. It did, but I just couldn’t stop myself from taking in more and more… and more.”

  Benji sat up and shook his hand around. “Well, whatever you did, I feel a lot better now. Also, my name is Benji!”

  “Holy discovery!” said Sunshine, eyes lighting up. “You cured his zombie bite… by drinking the ooze out of his system. That’s so cool!” She turned back to Lyra with a smug look. “And you thought she was useless. Just wait til you see what her powers are.”

  “Amazing…” That was the last word Sunshine expected her to say. “People have tried the whole suck out poison and spit it out thing with zombie bites before, but that just ended with the person sucking getting infected too.” A huge smile spread across her face, brightening the room a little. “But this absolute cutie-pie was able to heal that brute’s bite in just a couple seconds.”

  I could’ve sworn she called her an ‘ugly creature’ before…

  “B-Brute!? You literally wanted a kid to turn my hand into mush.”

  “I consider any man who calls a woman a ‘bitch’ to be a brute.”

  Sunshine waved her arms in the air, trying to grab the woman’s attention. “Hey, Lyra! Apologize to my friend already. We’re not gonna forget you almost got her killed.”

  Lyra groaned. “Sure, she could save us from getting bit, but what does she have that specifically helps us beat those two?”

  “Lovely Lovely Paradise.”

  The white room changed into the beach from before, shocking both Lyra and Benji to no end. Sunshine didn't blame them, especially when the disgusting smell of the sewer was replaced with the tropical aroma that Moonlight’s ability created. The only thing that surprised her was how fast her friend was able to use it again.

  Sunshine curled her toes into the sand. “So, Moonlight, I thought you could only use this once a day. What happened to recharging?”

  Moonlight laughed with confidence. “I guess human blood replenishes me. That was my first time having it, so I didn’t know beforehand.” She then placed her hands on Sunshine’s cheeks. “Also, ‘Moonlight’ is kinda long. What was that name he called you earlier? Sunny? Call me ‘Moony’ then.”

  A nickname!? I read about this before… Isn't that what people call each other when they like each other? That means… she totally likes me! I’m killing it with this friendship thing.

  “Ok… Moony!” Sunshine didn't mean to shout that out, though her friend didn't seem to care. “I guess we'll wait out those ten hours here until we can use our abilities again.”

  “You actually don't have to,” said Moonlight. “My power doesn’t just heal you. It can also heal your powers too.”

  “Really? Have you tested it out before?” Sunshine asked.

  “It worked for Flash, so it should work for you guys too.”

  So that bunny had a secret ability he never used against me? That feels disheartening.

  Sunshine glanced at the two adults running around on the sand like children, laughing as if the last fifteen minutes never happened. “So how long do we have to wait now?”

  Moonlight held up three fingers. “Three hours.”

  “Woah! That’s a big decrease.” Sunshine turned back to Lyra and Benji. “Lyra, did you hear that? We don't have to wait for-” The sight of Lyra licking the sand stopped Sunshine from finishing her sentence. While it was true the woman probably hasn’t seen a beach in years, lickimg the ground couldn’t have been necessary. “Does that taste good or something?”

  Lyra lifted her head up and burped. “I'm not doing it for the taste. I was just seeing if it was real, and it actually is. The taste is just like I remember it.” She got back on her feet and walked over to the kids. “Sunshine, lemme see your teeth.”

  Sunshine blinked. “Huh?”

  Lyra crouched in front of her, tilting her head with an odd sort of curiosity. “Just do it.”

  Still confused, the girl opened her mouth slowly, baring her teeth. Did Lyra want to see their color? Count the chips in them? Smell her breath? Weirdly enough, it was none of those.

  All she did... was lick them.

  The sheer violation—of her teeth, no less—left her frozen for a few stunned seconds.

  Lyra wiped the sand off her tongue. “If I want to transmute something, I first gotta taste the thing I wanna turn the object into. Having a hard material like bone in my arsenal will be useful.”

  Sunshine was too focused on spitting the sand out her mouth than listening to what the woman just said.

  “I get licking bones, but why sand? Sand is pretty useless in our situation,” said Moonlight, rubbing the spitting girl’s back.

  Lyra smiled and ran her fingers through Moonlight’s hair. “Ricky’s eyes-”

  “Apologize,” Sunshine interrupted, stepping between the two. She didn’t care about Lyra’s abrupt personality shift, even if it meant she’d be a little nicer now. She still chucked Moonlight to what could’ve been a gruesome demise. “You don’t get to talk to her until you apologize.”

  Lyra pinched her forehead and sighed. “God, your stubbornness reminds me of that freak you call a father.” She looked at a pair of beach chairs that were meters away from them. “Fine, I’m sorry. Anyways, can I go back to explaining the key to winning this fight? Or do you wanna keep defending your little ‘friend’ here like a white knight ‘cause she’s the only person besides your father who doesn’t want you to jump off a cliff and let life take its course?”

  Sunshine’s eye twitched, the image of a bloodied and beaten Lyra filling her mind. Making that happen would be satisfying, but she had grown fond of Dante lately. A brutally beaten sister was definitely not something he’d want to see.

  “Awww, did I strike a nerve there? Don’t worry. All girls start off with their first friend, but those never last. You'll get over it,” the woman asked in a mocking tone, running her hand down Sunshine’s braids. “Geez, who braided your hair? This is way too tight for your hair type.”

  Now I know how Dad felt all those years with Dante messing with him. This feels very annoying. Does this mean Lyra is like… my Dante!? Holy discovery! That changes everything.

  Sunshine’s eyes glowed in excitement while she grabbed Lyra’s legs. “I totally misjudged you, Lyra. Our dynamic is finally clear to me now, and I share the same sentiment. I also wanna go on a life changing, character changing journey with you that brings us closer in the long run.”

  “What are you even talking about, you stupid brat?”

  “Ooo, that’s a good start. So Dante’s thing was ‘pathetic loser’ and your thing is ‘stupid brat’? I feel like one is more ruthless than the other though…”

  Lyra raised her eyebrows and stepped back, as if the child she was facing was some terrifying monster. “What the hell is this? This is really not the outcome that I wished for.”

  Sunshine embraced Lyra’s legs and giggled creepily. “This is the start of our new life.”

  “Get the hell off of me,” the woman screamed in utter horror, hopping around the beach in an attempt to shake the girl off.

  Benji clapped his hands, though that didn’t stop the two girls. “Would you two stop acting like children? We are in a very serious situation, and goofing around isn’t gonna get us anywhere.”

  Lyra turned to Benji for only a moment. “Quiet, Beaver! Weren’t you crying like a baby like five minutes ago?”

  “Alright, that’s not even a name! You’re just calling me an animal that’s in the B category!”

  *******

  Trust was one of the most expensive things to buy in a post-apocalyptic world, and Jerome had always told Sunshine to never sell it for cheap. However, how would someone get paid if you never sold at all? Maybe it wasn’t just about others gaining your trust. You had to gain the trust of others too, and that’s exactly what the girl did with Lyra in the three hours they spent in Moonlight’s paradise.

  Sure, Lyra was a key member of a group whose sole purpose seemed to capture Sunshine and her dad to do who knows what. Yeah, she could be pretty mean. Of course she definitely wanted the girl dead.

  These were all very valid reasons to keep Lyra in a cage and swallow the key, but Sunshine couldn’t do that. Partially ‘cause cages weren’t in beaches, which would’ve been useful when she spent thirty minutes lickimg everything in sight. It was mostly ‘cause of what the kid went through with Dante.

  Using Mind Trick: Obedience on him transported the two into a mindscape-like dimension that thrusted Sunshine into the scarred man’s past. Not only did she learn a lot about him, but a good bit about Lyra as well. In fact, Sunshine suspected she was able to ‘transform’ into Dante so easily and for so long ‘cause of that mind-altering experience. She saw through his facade, burned the mask he always wore, and tore through his psyche like a bullet train. When it came to Moonlight, more training was necessary.

  Telling Lyra that actually softened her to the girl. Not enough to stop the insults, but at least they were tame and not something like “your life is worthless! You should kill yourself now!”

  As the last thirty minutes approached, Sunshine felt it was time to ask a question that had been clawing at the back of her mind. “I’ve been wondering, Lyra… why were you so worried about Dante before? I thought you hated the guy, but then you say you never wanted him to risk his life for any reason ever again.”

  The two were sitting on beach chairs while Moonlight and Benji decided to play beach volleyball. You could hardly call it a competition since the man just used his teleportation cheat the whole time.

  Lyra took out the lensless sunglasses out of her mouth and went back to wearing it. Sunshine always thought a woman well built enough to fill out a bikini would be more refined, but Lyra heavily contradicted that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never hated my brother. No, that’s not right. I did hate him, but I knew deep down… that I didn’t?” She tapped her chin, thinking of her next words carefully. “Um, you know that complicated feeling where you wanna hate someone and you’d be totally justified in doing so, but you can’t bring yourself to actually hate them?”

  “Nine years of experience with that one,” sighed Sunshine, sinking back into her chair. “I got over it though. How about you?”

  “You know, it’s funny. A part of me thinks I got over it when I was younger. I would explain it, but you should already know it, right?”

  Of course I knew. I literally experienced it as you. “I’m assuming it was the day Dante first discovered his Radius Ability? When that zombie was about to bite your little neck off, and he summoned a forcefield to protect you.”

  Lyra looked confused, as if the answer was wrong. “That is… not what happened at all. Well, you’re right about the Radius Ability part. What attacked me wasn’t a zombie though. We still don’t know what it was, but this giant beam came flying from out of nowhere and nearly killed us. Father said it could’ve been a leftover bomb from underground, but what bomb explodes that way?”

  A giant beam? Was she confused? Sunshine’s memories of that event were so vivid that she almost believed that was a personal experience. I mean, there was something like that in there, but that felt more metaphorical than anything.

  “Anyways, ever since that day, I came to realize how… important I am to Dante, and how willing he is to protect me. Vice versa, obviously. That's why I can't let anything bad happen to him. I already lost my mother, and my father is… I don't know what I’d do without my dumb brother.” She paused. “That’s why… I wanna get rid of every zombie, people-eating scum in the world so that other kids don’t have to go through what I did. I know you and your father think of the Underground Radius as the big bad guys, but we truly do care about humanity… And in order to preserve humanity, your life will have to-”

  “End?” Sunshine rose up from her chair and gave Lyra a serious look. “It doesn’t have to end though. My dad and I know there’s a cure out there, and you can help us find it. Dante’s already on board, and you’re his twin so…”

  “Twins don’t always agree on everything, Sunshine. Besides, whatever you put my brother through changed him in a way that wouldn’t normally happen. If you never used that ‘Mind Trick: Obedience’ on him, he’d still be on my side.”

  “Lyra, why can the privilege to live be given to everyone else but me? You yourself said you didn’t want any other kid to go through what you went through.”

  She didn’t respond to that question. Guess that was a sign not to dig any deeper.

  “You know, I think I understand your relationship with your brother now,” said Sunshine. “Dante is like your bag of Doritos! Something you can’t live without no matter how hard you try.”

  Lyra gagged. “I can definitely live without Doritos. Now Fritos are where it’s at!”

  “Blasfemy!” Sunshine shouted, cowering in fear. “How could you have such a disgusting and wrong opinion?”

  “Spell blasphemy,” the woman said cheekily.

  “B-L-A-S-F-E-M-Y!”

  Lyra pointed at the girl and laughed. “That’s not how you spell it, dummy. It’s B-L-A-S-T-F-E-M-I!”

  “Both of you are wrong!” Benji had pulled up on the two, holding Moonlight by her frail arms. “Why are we trying to figure out how to spell blasphemy, when we should be coming up with a battle plan to defeat our enemies.”

  Lyra splashed Benji’s face with sand using an unnecessary amount of aggression, causing Moonlight to jump off his shoulder. “Shut it, Bear! You spent hours fooling around on the beach while we already came up with a plan during the first hour.”

  “Oh, God! My eyes!” Benji cried, rubbing his eyes profusely. “This is supposed to be… a temporary team. Why didn’t you… just call us to talk!? Besides, Moonlight was fooling around too.”

  She glanced at the blue haired girl and her eyes began to water. “She’s an adorable little creature who’s probably never even seen a beach before.” A blink later, the tears vanished. She spun on Benji with fire. “While you’re just a stupid grown man who’s had plenty of time at beaches! In fact, you Corleone members make bank by enslaving entire families. You don’t deserve to have any kind of ‘fun’.”

  Moonlight put up a shaky hand, as though asking for permission to speak. With the two adults arguing nonsensically, she just decided to speak anyway. “Hey, Lyra, I don't know if you heard this, but Benjamin did say ‘our enemies’. Whatever bad things this Corleone family has done, he clearly doesn't want to be affiliated with that anymore.”

  “Yeah, he’s like a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos,” Sunshine added, trying to cool the tension down with a snack she knew everyone would love. “It tastes really bad at first, but the more you eat it, the more you appreciate its unique flavor. Like a hamburger where the meat is zombie flesh and the cheese is ooze. And before y’all ask, yes, I have eaten that before.”

  Her confession was met with grimaces by the three, including Moonlight who worryingly stared at her own arm.

  Lyra shivered. “That’s genuinely disgusting…”

  “Don’t knock it till you try it! Maybe one day I’ll have a shop that specifically sells zombie burgers,” Sunshine said, sliding her hands together. “I can use my Dad’s body and store his body parts somewhere.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking about that. You lost me at ‘Cool Ranch Doritos.’ Absolutely disgusting.”

  “Blasfemy!”

  Benji opened his red eyes. “It’s ‘Blasphemy’.”

  “That’s enough out of you three!”

  With how loud that command was, Sunshine immediately thought that Lyra had spoken. You’d think someone with such an intimidating voice would be standing over us confidently and securely, and yet she was on her butt, visibly spooked at the girl in front of her.

  Moonlight had taken center stage, arms behind her back like an army sergeant. “Lyra! Benjamin! You two are going to start acting like our lives are in danger, and learn how to coexist without arguing. I’ve had enough of your shouting!”

  Lyra’s jaw tightened. “But he started it… by being… stupid!”

  Moonlight’s cheeks puffed. “And you continued it because you were too stupid! Now apologize to our new ally.”

  “Ok, ok! Sorry, Bread.”

  Lyra Williams—a twenty-four year old getting disciplined by a thirteen year old. Sunshine made sure to keep the amusement of it in her head.

  Benji scratched his patchy beard. “I would prefer if she apologized using my actual na-”

  “Your name doesn’t matter, Bobby!” Moonlight roared. “The things a man does and the help he gives to the people who need it matter way more than the name that’s attached to that man. Now apologize to yourself for thinking you need a name to be remembered!”

  “Ok, ok. I’m sorry to myself.”

  Benji… whatever his last name was—a… forty year old looking man getting disciplined by a thirteen year old. A small smirk should be ok for this one.

  Moonlight smiled, the commanding aura around her deflating as quickly as it appeared. “Ok, good.” The softness in her voice returned.

  Now that Sunshine thought about it, Moonlight’s parental attitude made a lot of sense considering she takes care of a bunch of small animals every day—animals that she considers her actual family. That talking rabbit made it seem like they were taking care of her, and yet now it seemed like the other way around.

  “Since that’s settled…” Sunshine picked up a pool noodle under the chair and then jumped into the middle of the group. “I’d say it’s time we beat these dudes and save my dad!”

  ? Power system based on story and myth progression!

  ? Gods, mysteries, super hype fights, unique characters, and twists for days!

  ? Slow Burn → Fast Arc Progression

  ? Weak to Strongest!

  ? Completed story will cover Amir’s entire life

  ? Follow now and witness a story rewritten from nothing