Number 7

"Did he really just leave us like that!?!?"

"Oh my gosh! Agh!!!"

"It hurts... it hurts..."

"My legs... they're both broken... am I never going to be able to walk again!?"

The screams and pained complaints of the other four filled the ears of Eclaire within moments of the sadist having left.

A migraine overtook her mind, and combined with the wounds on her neck and legs it was enough to make her very brain split.

"Ugh... ugh!!! Ngh!!! WHAT THE HELL!?!?!"

One girl in particular seemed to be sniffling as she shouted out, horror and despair erupting in her voice.

"How can he call himself human!?!?!"

As the girl shouted this out, Eclaire found herself frozen for just a moment.

She was too weak to even talk, and the pain was enough to cease almost all rational thought, however these words seemed to ground her for a single moment.

'What does it even mean to be human?'

Looking around, her vision was hazy, however the other four came into her sight.

They were all lying on the ground, fatally injured in one way or another.

Some of them had limbs which were lying on the ground after having been torn off by the undead. Others had been scratched all over, clawed to the point where their faces had become unrecognizable.

One girl was missing her cheek, which had been bitten clean off, and another's fingers seemed to have been consumed along with half of her hand.

Blood was absolutely everywhere, to the point where it was difficult to find even a single spot of the floor which wasn't completely lathered in the red fluid.

'None of us can move...', Eclaire lazily thought, too tired to even lift her arm.

"We're all dead.", she stated.

And as soon as she uttered these words, the screaming and complaining stopped.

The other four looked at her, fear having overtaken all of them as tears formed within their eyes.

"Hey... what do you mean by that?"

"That isn't true, right? Right!?"

"It can't be true!!! You're lying!!!"

The three protested the notion as soon as it was mentioned, however their protests were quickly silenced.

"How do you think the infection spreads?"

With these words, Eclaire held her forehead as she clenched her teeth, a burst of pain erupting as her mind seemed to throb uncontrollably.

"Being bitten... being scratched... airborne or waterborne... the mixing of blood... regardless of HOW this virus spreads, it's already guaranteed that we all have it."

Her mind seemed to boil at that moment as she forced out these words in a pained tone, everything within her working to force her next words out.

"And if that truly is the case... then we're only one step away from becoming just like them."

The words of the girl silenced the others completely, driving the nail of hopelessness into them.

"Regardless of what you say... how much you scream and complain... we've already lost our humanity."

Suddenly, the irritated tone of Eclaire became filled with a deadly hostility.

"So could you just let me sit here and enjoy my last sane thoughts with some peace and quiet?"

Then, closing her eyes, the girl's breathing was the only thing that filled her ears.

She sat there, and not a word was stated among the group, their breaths becoming all the more raspy with each passing moment as they came closer and closer to death.

"It's true that I came here because I was naive... and it's true that I lost everything I was given because I wanted to achieve my own goals... even if I knew it was a risk."

With these few words, Eclaire spoke to the other four, who listened in with patience, perhaps for the only time in their lives.

"But I don't regret anything that I did. If there is anything I regret... it would be that even when I had lowered my own standards... that it didn't end up getting me anywhere in the end."

Opening her eyes, the girl looked to the ceiling, no longer able to move her mutilated neck to turn towards the other girls.

"And... that I wasn't smart enough to figure out what the deal with that man was before he led us to this place to slaughter us."

With these words, Eclaire closed her eyes once more.

"I... I wanted to be rich."

One girl spoke, breaking the silence as Eclaire's vision was darkened.

"I wanted to become someone important... someone loved... someone who everyone was jealous of... I wanted to be at the top, even if it was as the Number 1 woman for a criminal syndicate leader. But I couldn't do that. Even with such a self centered goal, even after throwing my dignity away to achieve it... I couldn't do it. So I hated you. I HATED YOU, ECLAIRE!"

One girl seemed to shout out, becoming emotional as death seemed to approach.

"I wanted to be by the side of the boss so badly, so when you got it so easily just because he liked your damn hair... I hated that!!! I wanted to kill you! But even then... even then... that spot was nothing more than a tool to you! You were just getting close to him for your own purposes, and so I couldn't forgive you for that!!"

"It's true. I was only doing it for my own purposes. Just as you were working for your own purposes. The only difference was... that I was working to destroy something."

With a tinge of lament and reminiscence in her voice, Eclaire spoke with minimal emotion in her words.

"People say that it's easier to destroy something than it is to build it... and perhaps that's true... but I don't think that's exactly right."

As the cool liquid flowed around her mutilated leg, the girl bit down the unpleasantness as she continued to speak.

"After all, when something is destroyed... all you have to do is build it up again."

Putting her hand to her neck, a chunk of which was missing, the girl felt her open wounds with a searing tinge.

"You can rebuild and rebuild... and so long as they don't take your life... so long as you inch by and survive, you will always have another chance."

Pulling her hand back from the stinging wound, the girl stopped herself from touching it again as she opened her eyes - which were forming tears.

"But if someone builds something so impenetrable that you can't destroy it no matter how many times you try..."

And at that moment, the tears erupted from her eyes, flowing down her face like a waterfall.

"Only then do you realize that when you fail to destroy something... you slowly destroy yourself."

Choking up, the girl's voice became high pitched as she forced her next words out.

"And even if you can always try again no matter how many times you fail..."

At this point she sounded like a frog, her own breathing becoming raspy as one of the other girls stood up.

"That only applies... so long as you have another chance to retry."

At that moment, Eclaire found herself face to face with a bloodthirsty creature - one of the girls who had previously been a member of this group.

And she - no… it looked directly at Eclaire as if to say 'Your turn.'

----

"Rargh!!"

The zombie lunged at Eclaire, who wanted to scream but didn't - for she was too exhausted even to do that much.

With a crunch, the creature bit down on the throat of the girl, staining her white hair red as the blood splattered.

"Ock!!"

The girl choked as the fluid filled her lungs, her esophagus ripped from her as if it were a sausage in the mouth of the creature.

It chewed and it chewed as tears and blood filled the vision of the girl, fear and pain overwhelming her to the point where she felt as if she would pass out from the intenseness at any moment.

'Why do things never go right?'

And as death inched ever so close, time seemed to slow as if to allow the girl to regret one final time.

'Is it because I did something wrong?'

With madness filling her mind, even as the pain seemed to overtake her, her headache continued to throb as if such a thing was still important even in this stage.

Of course, Eclaire knew that it wasn't - however such rational thoughts were meant for a moment in which she had time to think them.

'Is it that I made a mistake?'

'Was there something that I could have noticed... something that I could have done to prevent this?'

And then, suddenly, the pain stopped.

No - it did not stop - but it changed.

Its magnitude did not change in of itself, and the fact that Eclaire felt the pain didn't change - however two things occured simultaneously.

First, the migraine ceased.

Second, somehow the girl became detached from the pain.

She could still feel it, and the sensation was something which could not be described with mere words - nor was it something that a human mind could possibly comprehend.

Yet she felt as if the pain was no longer her own.

'What is this?'

'It still hurts... that hasn't changed at all.'

'I still feel my throat being torn up... I still feel the wounds on my legs...'

'But even though I still feel all the pain... I can think calmly.'

Why?

Why was she able to think calmly?

Eclaire had heard that before death one would go cold, and everything would become numb, but this was not the case at all.

Rather, it was as if she had denied the very aspect of death.

"Gurgle...."

Suddenly, a spurt of blood came out of the girl as some sort of sound was attempted.

'EH!?'

Yet this sound which was attempted was not a result of an action that Eclaire had taken.

'EH!?!?!?!'

And then, standing up despite her injured legs, the girl found herself moving not of her own accord, but as if something else was controlling her body completely.

'EHHHHHH!?!?!?!?!'

As Eclaired walked forward without a throat, the other girl who had turned into one of the undead immediately stopped attacking her, instead turning its attention to one of the other girls.

And as Eclaire stood over the girl, who was crying and screaming in fear, she lunged forward, opening her mouth as she dug straight into the head of the girl.

"AGH!!!!! GET AWAY!!!!"

And Eclaire could do nothing more than watch as her body attacked the girl.

'I'm... I'm a zombie!! I've become a zombie, and I can't control myself!'

'Is it the same for the other girl!?'

'Is she still in there, watching as her body moves like this!?!?!?'

Ripping into the head of the screaming girl, Eclaire then used her hands which had grown claws to tear at the face of the girl.

'So this is what it means to become one of those things!?'

'Am I doomed to watch myself kill until someone slaughters me!?'

'Somebody!'

'Anybody!'

'Help!!!!'

She wanted to shout, but of course she could not.

She had lost any and all control of her body, which was now the property of the monster that she had become.

Lifting her hand, the girl then shot it straight through the mind of her victim.

Blood puddled around her, and as she removed her hand from the skull of the girl, Eclaire begun to feast on the brain within.

She tasted the blood and flesh, however it immediately exited out of the hole within her throat with no esophagus for it to travel within.

Yet despite this, the zombie that had overtaken her did not stop eating, as if it had been programmed to do so.

'Please...'

And as she watched herself consume the girl that she had killed with her own hands, with thoughts that mimicked crying, the girl began to beg to nobody in particular, as if hoping that someone could hear her voice.

'Someone... kill me.'

[How irritating.]

----

A voice.

'Who was that?'

As she chewed upon one of the now expired girls while listening to the screams of another who was being attacked by the other zombified woman, Eclaire found herself focused on something else completely.

'Who just said that? That isn't a voice I know. There are only five of us here. Is someone hiding somewhere that I can't see?'

As she couldn't control her body, naturally Eclaire could not turn her head to look around, therefore she was forced to maintain a limited field of vision subject to the whims of the creature she had become.

[It truly is irritating, you know. I went through a lot of effort to pick a most interesting host. And I did learn quite a bit over these past few years... but to think that you would just go and die like that... tch.]

The voice spoke again.

[It looks like I can't stay hidden any longer.]

And again.

'Eh?'

'Eh?'

'Eh?'

Disbelief and confusion became the emotion of the moment in her rapidly changing flurry of feelings - which seemed to come as a result of her own zombification, detaching Eclaire from the emotions of her own body.

'Who are you?'

'What do you mean you can't stay hidden any longer?'

'No... most importantly... what do you mean by these past few years!?'

[Ah... looks like I said too much. Well, no going back now. An espionage unit who can't keep her mouth shut... haha... I'm a failure as a spy, aren't I?]

The voice was that of a woman, however she spoke particularly like a tomboy - one who didn't seem to have any concern for womanly charm in the slightest.

[Well... not that I had any use in the first place once I lost any motivation to fulfill the missions that were given to me.]

'Who are you!?'

Eclaire shouted this out - or at least within her mind she did so, not even registering that she hadn't actually spoken the words as she continued to feast on the limbs of one of the girls.

[If I told you who I was then I would really be a failure as a spy, now wouldn't I? Ah! But I guess you know now that I'm a spy... that isn't good. Well shit... hey, can you pretend you didn't hear that?]

'What the hell do you think you're talking about?'

Eclaire's tone suddenly became filled with anger as the voice seemed to playfully joke around, without any reverence for the entire situation.

'I'm consuming human flesh here... against my own will... and you're asking me to just forget that you're some sort of spy as if this is all a big joke?'

She snapped.

'Do you see me laughing?'

Eclaire snapped.

'Do you see anything funny about this?'

And with this, even the zombie that was currently feasting stopped for just a moment.

'WELL!?'

[Scary. That's how I would describe you.]

Yet the voice remained nonchalant as it spoke with sarcasm, however it was in the next instant that its tone changed to become that of a snake.

[But I would watch your mouth when speaking to me, human.]

Malice erupted, enough to shake the very heart of Eclaire as she felt herself become small.

[Because if you piss me off, then I might just let you live the rest of your pathetic little life feasting on these other humans.]

----

[Eclaire Samantha Armstrong]

[Born into a middle class family in Stronvardia, there was little of note about your childhood. You attended school just as many of the other children in your area, you never struggled immensely when it came to academics or physical fitness, however on the other hand you never particularly showed any talents either.]

[If there was anything of note about your childhood, it would be the fact that you were exceptionally KINDHEARTED.]

The voice rattled off facts about Eclaire's childhood, as if in an effort to intimidate her.

[Often you would give your own money or time to help others, never ceasing to look for an opportunity to do so. If anyone was in need, you were the first person to offer their help. You were outgoing and social, and couldn't say no to someone.]

[This led you into many unfortunate situations, however you would brush these things off as if they didn't matter. You always seemed to be the one taking the blame, or receiving the short end of the stick.]

[But that only fueled your rotten ego - one born on the idea that you had to help everyone.]

[And that nobody but you could do it.]

[With every struggle or suffering you encountered, you used that as an excuse, telling yourself that if it were anyone else that they would have crumbled - that it could only be you.]

[And this rotten tendency continued into adulthood.]

Eclaire felt her throat tighten - though she had no actual throat, for it had been ripped out - as the voice seemed to dig right into her very mind, saying things that not a soul should know about her.

[You began your work... however your tendency to help people quickly turned into a tendency to be used. During your college years you would often help people even if it meant allowing them to cheat off you on tests and assignments, and you shoveled the burdens of others... as if it would gain you something.]

[And you did all this while deceiving yourself that you were SAVING them.]

'Stop it.'

[You only encouraged their bad habits, furthering their dependance on weak minded people like you, as if inviting them to use others and showing them that it would yield good results.]

[And finally... this ended in your own ENSLAVEMENT.]

'STOP IT!!!'

Eclaire shouted out now within her own thoughts.

If she could control her body, she would have been panting, distressed at how someone could know her so well.

[But you've changed since then, haven't you?]

[And right now... whenever you look at yourself... you have no idea who you really are.]

[I am one and the same.]

[I have no true mission... no goal to achieve... and I have more faces than I can count.]

[And none of them are me.]

[So from this particular personality which I have chosen to approach you with... I greet you, Eclaire.]

[I am a parasite that has been living within you for quite some time... and I know every detail about you from the moment you were born.]

[Because it is my role... to obtain information.]

----

Overload.

How was Eclaire to even comprehend everything that the voice had stated?

She could not.

And so, she sat there, her mind blank as her body continued to gorge on the corpse in front of her, which oddly enough had not yet turned into one of the undead.

Perhaps some were more resistant to the infection than others, or perhaps if the target had already died then the process wouldn't take place.

'I have just one question.'

If she still had control over her body, and if she still had a throat to do so, Eclaire would have taken in a deep breath, trying to calm herself as she contained a flurry of emotions that threatened to erupt.

'What do you want with me?'

[To be honest, I wish I knew that answer myself. But I told you, didn't I? I no longer have a mission. Anything that I've done is nothing more than a mission which I've given myself. Gathering information on you and witnessing your actions, using the places you went and the experiences you had in order to learn more about this world and its factions, it was as if I was programmed with the order to learn. So I did. But as to what I was supposed to be learning... well… you went and died on me before I could figure that out.]

'So you don't want anything from me?'

[I want to have a purpose for existing. Observe.]

It was at that instant that the body of Eclaire stopped its consumption of human flesh.

Standing up, Eclaire headed towards the exit, passing by the other three girls - two of which had died and the other which had become a zombie, who was currently doing exactly the same as Eclaire had moments before.

Then, something happened.

Eclaire couldn't say exactly what happened, for her eyes could not perceive it - yet in an instant, the zombie that controlled her body fell to the ground - dead.

It did not explode in a bloody rain, nor did its head fall off its neck. It appeared to be completely intact in every way possible, yet it had died.

Then, something else occurred within the body of Eclaire - her skin which had turned a pale blue became a peachy color once again.

'Eh?'

'What's happening to me?'

And then, Eclaire - or rather the parasite who controlled her - spoke.

[Deception is where my abilities lie.]

And in that instant that the woman spoke, Eclaire felt a deep seated horror lunge itself into her heart - for the creature which had overtaken her body sounded EXACTLY like Eclaire.

[Imitation and impersonation... stealth and infiltration... diplomatic relations... and if necessary, assassination. These are the skills that I have been specialized in.]

The woman, who had now been taken over by a different creature, walked over to a window, glaring into it as if it were a mirror, a smug grin coming over her expression.

And as Eclaire witnessed that sinister grin cover her own face, she was horrified.

'Wait just a minute... you...'

[Thank you for the body, dear Eclaire. Ah, don't worry. I won't allow it to go to waste.]

'You're... taking my body?'

At that instant, the window shattered.

The pieces of glass fell to the ground, as if the wickedness of the smile on the girl was too much for the fragile shards to handle, at which the woman closed her eyes with a quiet laugh.

[Are you so surprised? Regardless of how useless you were in your life as a human, I can still do something with the person that you've become.]

As she exited the dealership, the woman picked up one of the pistols, inspecting the magazine before loading it once more.

And as she placed the weapon by her side, the woman nodded with satisfaction.

[I may have no mission which has been assigned to me by someone else... but that doesn't mean that I cannot perform my OWN mission.]

She walked outside into the dealership, quickly viewing the cars as her eyes landed on one in particular - a large SUV.

She made her way over to the vehicle without hesitation, and as soon as she made it to the vehicle the woman held out her hand towards the lock.

The finger of the woman seemed to shift in shape, its end becoming like that of a key, which the woman then used to unlock the vehicle.

And as she jumped inside, once more she used her own finger to start the engine, which began to purr without issue.

[Ah... I had a feeling this one would still work.]

Buckling up her seatbelt, the woman took the wheel as she revved the engine, prepared to drive off.

Yet just before she did so, the woman put a hand to her lips in thought.

[Ah... but I suppose I have failed to introduce myself, now haven't I?]

And as soon as she uttered these words, she floored the gas.

The vehicle spurred forward, heading straight towards the gate with a terrifying acceleration, and the eyes of the woman widened with excitement as Eclaire felt her heart jump out of her chest.

[I'm experiment Number Four! Nice to meet ya!]