Suffering: Male Reader x TWDG

Chapter 15: Maybe Today Is The Day?

It has been a couple weeks and it is now the day before your 15th birthday, you and Jessie haven't spoken since the argument. You mostly spend your time training with the Rangers and scouting for bandit camps. There have been a few more attacks recently so there is guaranteed to be a bandit hideout somewhere but so far you have had no luck.

You are pissed off, not just because you cannot find the camp but because your relationship with Jessie is practically non existent. On top of this, Mark has been hanging out with her a lot which makes you want to kill him or at the very least badly hurt him. Gandalf said that he will come up with some way for you to get back at him so for now you haven't done anything but if a good opportunity comes up, you may not be able to resist.

You are currently on patrol with Cutter and Bug, "So how did you get your name?" you ask Cutter as you all stroll through the woods keeping an eye out for any signs of life. "When I was sharpening my knife I cut myself pretty badly, almost lost a finger" he says holding up his hand, you can see a big scar that looks kinda cool. "How's things with Jessie?" Bug asks.

You just sigh, "Still won't talk to me, I don't even know what I did". A bush rustles nearby and all three of you ready your AK47s pointing them towards the source of the noise. You edge closer and see some sort of movement. A racoon jumps out and sprints away from you all at a lightning speed. You all laugh slightly before continuing on your patrol.

As you walk you feel your pocket for your balaclava, you take it out looking at it. You smile faintly before putting it back in your pocket. The mask is a way to distance yourself from the job at hand, or at least, that's what Captain Anderson told you. He said it was psychological warfare, something to strike fear in the hearts of those who cross us. But also a way for the Rangers to dissociate themselves from the acts they commit.

You aren't the same person when you have the mask on. You have to be brutal, deadly, efficient. You cannot show fear, you cannot show empathy. You have to kill. What was the slogan of the Rangers? You think back to what you've been told, it was something like Strength And Survival or Strength Through Survival you can't quite remember which but it was definitely one of those.

As you all walk on you reach the edge of the forest and are standing on a paved road. "So what do we do now?" you sigh walking towards a rock and sitting down on it. You unscrew the lid of your canteen and take a big swig as you stare off into the distance. You see a heavy cloud of smoke from over the hill, you turn to the others who have spotted it as well. Without saying a word all three of you turn the safety off of your rifles and start jogging towards the source of the smoke.

As you crest the hill you look down below and see a small farmhouse not unlike the one you saw years ago. It seems to be partly on fire and as you approach you can hear screaming coming from inside. There are a few infected and as you approach you unsheathe your machete swinging it into the head of an infected, killing it. You yank the machete out and turn to face another infected which has caught fire. It stumbles its way towards you snarling as its face slowly melts away.

You kick its legs out and stab it in the back of the head while it wriggles on the floor. You blade pierces and kills the infected and you look around for the next target. You can see Cutter and Bug killing other infected and you can only see one left. You run towards it raising your machete, it hears you and turns around snarling. You swing your machete hitting it in the jaw. It carries on moving towards you as you take another swing. This time you hit the side if its head and the blade gets stuck. The infected is still alive and almost on top of you so you sidestep out of the way and try to pull your blade from its head to no avail.

Noticing your options are thin you unholster you sidearm and put a bullet in its head. It flops to the floor like a diseased ragdoll allowing you to pull your machete out of its skull. You turn to the now very much on fire house and see Cutter carrying a woman out of the front doors. She is covered in soot and has bruises all over her.