HA\LF: Dead nor Alive

Chapter 12

Archie slashed the sword and cut the tongue so easily like butter even though the sword was rusty. He was surprised that it was so easy but he couldn’t care less to think more about it and immediately charged at the parasite. He tried to swing his sword at the parasite but the parasite immediately crawled away from him and climbed up to the tall tree.

“Fucking coward!” Archie glared at the parasite with his hand gripped the sword so tightly. As he glared at the parasite he could hear growls and roars coming from all directions, he decided to leave the dangerous area and kept running away in hope of not being chased by those parasites anymore.

As he ran away deep into the forest, something crashed onto him and he was thrown away and could feel something biting him deep into his right ribs. He looked down and saw the same werewolf trying to crush his torso with its sharp teeth and fangs.

Archie screamed in pain as he tried to free himself from the werewolf, he was still holding the sword and he clenched his fist and raised his arm which was quite hard to do because the muscles under his armpit and on his back were being crushed by the teeth and fangs. He finally managed to lift his hand and immediately impaled the sword onto the werewolf’s skull as he scream in pain and anger.

The werewolf laid down with Archie’s body in its mouth, Archie still couldn’t free himself from it and something was charging at him, something big that made him feel scared and threatened. A huge lioness with its mouth opened four ways and the long front legs charged at him. The lioness opened its mouth wide open enough to swallow Archie’s half body in a single bite, but Archie pulled out the sword and pointed it at the lioness.

*Crack*

*Splat*

Archie’s vision went blurry for a moment as he caught his breath rapidly, he looked panicked and slowly inverted his eyes and looked at his right arm that was already gone because of the lioness. He turned around as he looked at the lioness was choking because the sword pierced through its throat and the blade came out from the back of its neck.

Archie wiggled his body and tried to pull out the teeth and fangs of the werewolf from his chest. He finally managed to free himself and slowly stood up, still in disbelief of what just happened to him. He slowly approached the lioness who was still struggling with the sword that pierced through its mouth, he then went up and onto the lioness’s body and gouged the lioness’s eyes with his bare hand.

“Give me back my arm!” As Archie tried to fight the lioness.

While he was trying to kill the lioness and making the cut wider on the lioness’s head with the blade on the back of the lioness’s neck, he felt a very irresistible itch coming from his right arm. He looked at it and could see a black gooey liquid coming out from inside his body, he was shocked and backed away while he glared at that thing. He didn’t bleed blood, but he bleed that black gooey liquid, he shook his head repeatedly in disbelief, “What’s this?!”

The lioness died because of the sword and Archie didn’t realize that since he was too focused on the black blood that came out from his body. The itch was getting worse and he was too scared to touch the wound but because of the itch, he decided to scratch it. It relieved the itch feeling but realized that the wound was getting worse because of that, and he decided to stop doing that and grabbed the sword from the mouth of the lioness.

Archie was catching his breath not because he was tired but because he was trying to calm himself down, and while he was doing that, he heard something slimy crawling away. He looked around and saw a lump of black slimy parasite just coming out from the mouth of the werewolf. His body felt like it was trying to move and approached the slimy parasite, but he resisted it, and when that happened, his body felt an immeasurable pain.

“What… is… happening…” As Archie collapsed to the ground while he crawled.

Without him realizing it, he was crawling toward the parasite and he couldn’t move his own body because of the pain in his whole body. “Stop controlling my body!” Archie shouted as if he wanted to address that to something inside him, but his body didn’t stop moving and was getting closer to reaching the slimy parasite.

His hand slowly reached to the slimy parasite that was harmless, he grabbed the parasite and his hand slowly moved toward his mouth. “No! What are you doing?!” Archie shook his head and tried to resist but then his mouth slowly opened and took a huge chunk of the parasite. As soon as he forcefully chewed the parasite, he could feel something was moving inside his mouth and something was trying to come out from his mouth but his mouth was tightly closed.

It happened again, he could taste the most disgusting thing in his mouth while he only could watch and listen to it.

Archie felt tired after he was forcefully consuming the parasite, not just one but two of them because the parasite from the lioness came out as well. He felt dizzy and so he decided to walk and find a place to hide to stay low and undetected by the parasite.

He found a very tall tree and there was a small hole underneath that tree, he crawled inside and dug up more so he could fit in there. After he fit inside, he closed his eyes with a fever that made his whole body feel hot and his eyes warm.

The bird chirped and he slowly opened his eyes, his throat was dry and it hurt to swallow his own saliva. He looked at the hole above him, he saw the sun was up, he decided to get out and find a water source to satisfy his thirst.

Hours had passed, and he still couldn’t find a river or a lake, but then he could hear water flowing from afar. He followed the sound of water while quietly and stealthily running around the trees, he looked around and there was no sign of parasites. By the look of the surroundings, he was confident the area where he was is a safe place because no marks or anything that indicate a parasite went to that area.

Archie dipped his head into the river and sucked the water, he never felt so happy just by drinking water. He decided to dip all of his body into the river and washed, he brushed his right arm and left arm, “Wait…” He looked at his right side where he lost his arm during the battle, but now it was there and it shocked him deeply.

“This is… this is my hand! This is my arm! This is my fingers! Everything is here!” He chuckled nervously with disbelief as he lifted his right arm onto the sunlight, he was happy and terrified at the same time knowing that he grew his arm back.

Knowing that he could grow back his whole arm, he looked down and all the wounds that he had now disappeared and healed completely. He was terrific by the fact that he could heal everything, “How could I heal everything?” He asked himself, “Could it be…” As he deep in thought, he realized that it was all might be because he consumed the parasites.

“Am I have become a parasite now?” He was scared by the fact he was no longer a human being.

He took his time to think about who was he or what he had become, but then he heard a cracking sound coming from afar. He looked around and slowly walked toward the other side of the river and climbed up to avoid an encounter with the parasite. He didn’t realize that the cracking sound he heard was a few hundreds meter away from him, and the sound of the river when he heard it was also a kilometer away from him.

Archie walked for hours and still had no idea where he was, but he believed if he kept walking in the same direction, he would end up somewhere.

Days had passed, and he was still inside a forest, he started to think that either he was just circling around the forest or the forest actually a big and vast jungle.

Archie stood still as he remembered the place he was standing, he remembered the scenery of this forest. He looked around and remembered that this place was when the lesbian couple got eaten by the Ex-Humans, he then ran toward the place where he left Iohann alone.

As he ran through the forest, he immediately stopped and glared at something that slowly brought his tears down to his chin. He saw Iohann from behind or used to be Iohann, a very tall and muscular human that just stood there and stared at nothing. Iohann’s muscles were bulkier than what he remembered, a tree might get crushed if Iohann decided to punch it.

“You were scared of death, huh, Iohann?” Archie chuckled while he sniffled and wiped his tears.