Seraphina's Revenge: A Rebirth In The Apocalypse Novel-Chapter 66: You Should Have Walked Away

Sera didn’t fall.

The blow to the back of her skull sent white sparks shooting across her vision, but she didn’t crumple like Jodie had probably expected. She staggered once—just once—before catching herself on the door to the closet, blinking through the wave of nausea that hit next.

Behind her, Jodie’s voice wavered. "What the fuck..."

There was a metal pipe in her hand. Shiny and new. In fact, it still had the tags on from the hardware store where someone had bought it at.

Sera didn’t turn around.

She stood slowly, blood trickling down the back of her neck. It wasn’t red, it hadn’t been red for a very long time. Instead, it was a light purple color that quickly changed to a dark purple as it started to dry.

Either way, it wasn’t the kind of color that belonged inside the human body.

Someone gasped. Another girl—maybe one of Jodie’s new best friends—let out a quiet scream and backed away.

Sera glanced sideways into the mirror above her dresser. The blood had soaked into her hairline and begun to drip down her shoulder, staining her hoodie.

It was a good thing that she had picked the black one for today. Otherwise it would have been too stained to try and save.

Jodie lowered the pipe like it was burning her fingers. "Sera... your blood—"

"Wrong color?" Sera asked softly, still not turning. "That’s what you noticed?"

"What are you?" another girl whispered.

A new voice, further back in the hall. More footsteps behind her now. At least five. Maybe more.

Sera closed her eyes and drew in a slow, steadying breath.

She wasn’t angry.

Not yet.

But the creature inside of her was already sliding into the space behind her ribs, peeling itself forward like a second skin. It wanted out. It wanted to tear and chew and taste.

And Sera?

She was just tired of it all.

What was the point of trying to bash in her head? Just because she said that she wouldn’t save them? Was that really what had started all this?

Because that was bullshit.

It was clear that they were more than capable of protecting themselves.

"I told you that I wasn’t going to save you," she murmured, opening her eyes. "That was it. That I wasn’t responsible for your lives. And this was how you reacted to that?"

She turned, facing the crowd that had grown out in the hallway.

"Are you so entitled that you think I need to risk my life for yours? That your life is worth more than mine? You could have just walked out the back door of the cafeteria. It was really that simple. Instead, you decided to go through the halls that you refused to do before in order to try and kill me."

Her eyes had gone black behind the contacts. Not dark. Not dilated. Black. Pupil to lid, an endless void of pitch that swallowed the hallway light like it was hungry.

A shudder passed through the girls clustered around Jodie.

"You all could’ve lived," Sera continued. Her voice had changed, deeper now. Feral. Like something with fangs was speaking through her. "You could’ve stayed here and cried in your pastel notebooks and starved slowly in peace, or you could have left through the back door and never looked back."

Jodie backed up a step. Then another. "I didn’t mean— I just—"

"You hit me," Sera said, walking forward. "You followed me. You tried to stop me. You attacked me."

"We thought—" the blonde from earlier started, but Sera raised a hand and the girl shut up instantly.

"You thought I was something you could control," she said, still advancing. But the creature was pushing forward, and Sera wasn’t in the mood to try and leash it. Not now. Not with these people.

The girls were herding backward now, down the hallway. Some were crying. Others were frozen. A few were reaching for weapons—a bat, a curtain rod, a broken mop.

One girl was whispering a prayer.

The creature inside Sera snarled.

"Run," Sera said, calm as ice. "Or stay. It doesn’t really matter. You’re all dead anyway."

Then she smiled. It wasn’t human.

"They locked the front doors," said a small voice from the stairwell. "We’re trapped in here."

Sera tilted her head. "You poor, stupid things."

Then she stepped forward—and the emergency doors at the end of the hall burst open.

They didn’t slam. They didn’t crash.

They creaked.

And through that thin opening, the scent of the dead rolled in.

Dozens of them.

Maybe hundreds.

Drawn by the scent of blood. By the sound of fear.

Or maybe—

Sera grinned, her face split down the middle with something that couldn’t be mistaken for kindness.

—maybe they came because she was here.

The first zombie crawled in low, hunched on knuckles and bent legs like an animal. It sniffed the air once, then shuddered and straightened. Behind it, others began to crowd the hallway.

And not a single one touched her.

They spread around her like a current against a stone.

The girls screamed.

One tried to push past her. Sera let her.

The girl made it two steps before one of the zombies leapt and drove her down by the throat.

The others tried to scatter.

Tried.

Sera watched the chaos for a moment, watched the panic bloom like fire across dry grass. Watched as Jodie ran back toward the cafeteria doors—only to find them barred shut from the inside.

The horde wasn’t tearing through flesh in a frenzy.

It was organized. Intentional. Targeted.

Like a pack.

Like a command.

Jodie turned back toward her, sobbing.

"You don’t have to—"

"I’m not doing anything," Sera said softly. "They are."

"You could stop them—"

"I gave you a chance to let me walk away." She took one final step forward. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "That was mercy. This is consequence."

The creature inside of her leapt forward, taking complete control, and Sera didn’t fight it.

Her body surged forward with impossible speed. One girl tried to swing at her—Sera caught the wrist mid-air and snapped it like chalk before ripping off the entire arm. Blood sprayed everywhere, covering her head to toe in the stuff, but Sera didn’t so much as slow down.

Another girl tried to hide in a dorm room, but Sera kicked the door closed on her neck, snapping it.

The screams were wet. Messy. Quick.

It didn’t take long for the hallway to fill with the scent of blood.

Still, she didn’t lose herself. She didn’t black out. She didn’t howl or laugh or even raise her voice.

She moved with clarity.

With purpose.

She moved like something born for this.

And the zombies?

They followed her lead.

When the last girl choked on her own scream, Sera stood in the silence. Her chest rising and falling slowly. Her hoodie soaked in red. Her hands glistening.

Behind her, the creatures of death waited.

Silent. Watching.

No one moved.

No one dared.

Sera exhaled slowly and ran a hand through her blood-drenched hair. Her fingers came away sticky with purple and red both.

She opened the door to her room and picked up her go bag. She then took her time and went into every other room, collecting clothing, makeup and any other supplies that she thought she would need.

In one room, she found a black toque and tugged it over her head and down past the worst of the staining.

Turning so that she could look at herself in the mirror, Sera studied her reflection slowly. The mirror didn’t show a monster.

Just a girl.

A very quiet, very bloody girl.

She slung the bag over one shoulder.

Walked past the bodies. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

And opened the door.

The zombies parted again.

Like they knew she was done.

Sera didn’t speak. Didn’t smile. Didn’t look back.

She walked out of the dorms like it was any other day.

And not a single thing stood in her way.