Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Immediately after coming to a conclusion, Ryan approached his group of survivors, and made a frank and bold statement to them all. A level of honesty that they had not come to expect from the teenage boy who had usurped the position of leader through ill-gotten means.

"I'm going to be blunt with you all… If we do not go out and scavenge more supplies… Well… There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. We will run out of supplies within two to three days max… So… I'm looking for volunteers to go out and scavenge supplies. Whether on campus or out in the city.

I'm not going to lie to you all. This is an incredibly dangerous situation. We have no idea what evil lurks in the city outside the safety of this gymnasium. And we know that Zane and his forces will try to undermine us at the first given opportunity. Because of this, I will be granting priority access to rations, to whoever returns with the supplies we need.

So… Are there any volunteers?"

By now, many of the young men who were following Ryan had become disillusioned with his rule. And as previously discussed by one party in particular, they were considering abandoning the safety of the gymnasium altogether and striking it out on their own.

But until now they never had a proper means to do so. Because of this, the young man and his group of friends were the first to volunteer, without any actual intentions of returning to the high school campus, or the gymnasium where Ryan currently acted as a de facto dictator of sorts.

"I'll go…"

Everyone looked over at the young man who had spoken up, and the confident look on his face. It was not confidence in regards to success, at least the success of Ryan's plan. But rather confidence that he and his group would be able to escape from this dire situation, and gain the freedom to navigate that they so desired.

Instantly after saying this, everyone in the boy's group raised their hands, including his girlfriend, who trembled at the idea of doing so. She obviously had no love for this gymnasium, or the dirty deeds she was forced to do to secure rations for herself and her friends.

But the outside world also terrified her. Being stuck in a rock and a hard place, she could only follow the lead of her boyfriend, who she honestly thought was a better leader than Ryan. Though Ryan was slightly perturbed over the idea of one of the females in the group going out and risking their lives, he also knew that if he tried to prevent her from doing so, he would arouse suspicion.

Thus, he nodded his head, and accepted this result, before wishing the group good luck.

"Alright, since you have volunteered for this dangerous task, then I wish you all god speed. You shouldn't venture too far beyond the campus' borders, as we have no idea just what dangers are out there in the city. As soon as you find some food, water, and medical supplies double back to the gymnasium, understood?"

With this, the small party of roughly seven individuals immediately set out, with their aluminum baseball bats in hand, as they embarked on a dangerous quest to escape from Ryan's tyranny.

---

It became abundantly clear shortly after exiting the facility that there were far fewer undead walking around the school campus than they had previously been. Though for the life of them, the students could not figure out what had happened to all the Walkers.

Nevertheless, they treaded cautiously as they approached the school gates, where they found not only had they been shut, after being breached on the first day of the apocalypse, but they had also been chained shut. By whom, they had no idea.

Because of this, the students had no choice but to scale the concrete walls that surrounded the campus in order to get outside into the city. After all, they already knew that the cafeteria had largely been looted already, and thus it would be a wasteful detour to wander there.

Instead, the group of adolescents wondered through the streets of their city, making it roughly five hundred meters away from the campus when they ran into the first group of undead. In comparison to the massive horde of Walkers which had previously occupied the school grounds, most of which had either wandered off due to the sound of gunfire, or been killed by Zane and his pawns.

This group of some fifty Walkers was not all that threatening. At least relatively speaking, but against seven youths, catching the attention of these undead was basically a death sentence. Unfortunately for them, the one girl in their group yelped in fear when she saw the monsters, attracting the entire horde's attention.

Immediately, the undead began to sprint towards the group of high school students, causing them to break ranks and flee. They ran for god knows how long, quickly exhausting themselves while being pursued by an enemy that seemingly never ran out of stamina, until eventually they heard the crackle of gunfire in the air.

The walkers began to collapse from the shots which pierced their skulls. Shots which were being fired by a .50 BMG machine gun mounted on the back of a pickup truck. No doubt scavenged by its wielder from the national guard, as was evident by the mix of civilian attire and army equipment that they were wearing.

The adolescent female in the group hit the ground and covered her ears while crying profusely. Wanting this whole nightmare to just end. It was while she was doing this that she saw a small, deep red crystal rolled past her. No doubt caused by the burst of a Walker's skull as a result of a .50 BMG projectile blasting its head apart.

She did not know why, but in that moment she suddenly grasped onto the crystal and stared deeply at it, wondering whether or not it was a ruby or some other precious stone. All the while the gunfire began to cease, and the vehicles on which the machine guns were mounted on, and that the individual men fired from, began to surround the group of youths.