Bloom and Scatter [Free! Zombie AU]

They Live - Part 1

"Are you okay?"

Rin looked up, expression shuttered, unaware that he had been hunching over in the first place. He managed to choke out a 'yes' and it burned his throat.

"You're wheezing," Tachibana said concernedly, a hand on his back.

"I'm fine," Rin gasped, weakly swatting him away, surprised at how breathless he sounded. His head was spinning and his eyes were watering again, in spite of the goggles.

"You're not fine," Tachibana said firmly, "It's the fog. We need to get out of Iwami."

Everything sounded faint and muffled, as though he was submerged underwater. It was hard to think, but he had heard Tachibana clearly and that one part of him that never changed was immediately offended. All that they had been doing so far was skirt around the borders of Iwatobi city, and Tachibana was suggesting that they leave the district altogether?

"I'm not... going to... leave... after all it took... to get here."

"Kitajima, if you keep going, you're going to turn feral. The fog will only worsen the further in we go, and until you've gotten yourself a gas mask, you're in danger."

"Fuck... that shit."

"Listen to me – you could die, you're not even... oh. Oh."

Rin squinted up at Tachibana, saw the ashen expression in his eyes, and tightened his grip on Tachibana's sleeve. He was trying to keep his eyes open but his limbs felt heavy and it was too hard to even hold his head up.

"Vaccinated," Tachibana whispered, "Oh my god, you're not vaccinated against the fog. What have I been doing, I..."

Rin's eyes shot open.

He was staring up at sterile tiles and fluorescent lights that were too white and over bright, making him squint and turn away with a low groan until his vision adjusted. The glare had made his head throb for a second, but it slowly ebbed away into something vague and dull and present, but distant. Despite how much his mouth felt like cotton, his mind felt calm and his lungs...

His lungs.

Rin reached up hesitantly, pressing his fingers against his sternum and rubbing. The sharp stabbing pain that had been there was just... gone. He could breathe. He realised there was a plastic mask strapped to his nose and mouth, bandana lying on his stomach. There was the quiet mechanical sound of pumping that came from an oxygen machine behind him, which it appeared that he was hooked up to. He inhaled slowly, let his chest expand, and then exhaled. He cleared his throat. Nothing hurt. He felt fine.

Rolling onto his back, Rin realised he was on the cold tiled floor of what looked like a laboratory. In the periphery, he saw counters and carts made of stainless steel, covered in bottles upon bottles of what he assumed were prescription drugs. He sat up slowly, relishing the feeling of being able to hold himself up without being on the verge of collapse, and glanced to the side. On his left, Tachibana had curled up, asleep, clutching tightly onto something. He couldn't make out what it was.