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🕑 Added 2025-06-18 09:06:17 +0000 UTCStay Alive
Chapter 71 – I'm Only Human After All
"Zz… Last Eagle on its way, descending into the prepared zone."
In less than an hour, he was at the massive football stadium that had been repurposed as a temporary base before relocating to the island they had identified as an ideal place to live.
Alan stepped down, gazing at what must have been more than a thousand people in motion—everyone had an assigned job, which was surprisingly well-organized.
"Isn’t it amazing?" Stuart approached Alan and pointed beyond the heights. "We’ve got snipers ready to take out any infected that turn inside this place. The protocols are the strictest, and the soldiers are always on the move."
"Gather your best men. Call Stuart and John." Alan looked around before nodding and allowed everyone to reunite with their families.
The soldiers who had been with him at the base were now hugging their families—people they had managed to bring here through great effort, all in order to establish a stronghold. The roots of what he wanted to achieve had to go deep into the earth if the tree was to stand firm.
All those smiles, tears, and shouts were something Alan set aside because, deep down, he felt utterly empty. What did he have left in this world?
His brother had died, and the respect he held for him made it all worthwhile. Now he could mourn his brother's death in peace, without any worry that it had been in vain.
Seeing everyone happy now—families and people who, without him, would likely have been dead by now—gave him a sense of accomplishment he hadn’t expected to feel.
Alan's goal was to build something lasting, something to keep him grounded so he could ignore the pain. He valued life so much that taking his own would be impossible. When he had tried to kill himself at the lowest point in his life, it hadn’t been a rational decision.
Everything was clear now. Alan would seize this second chance he had been given and expand his domain further than any man had dared.
But first, he needed to rest. Killing those sleeping people weighed heavier on him than he had initially imagined.
“Alan!” Riya, who had seen Alan walking away into the distance, quickly followed him. She just wanted to know how he was doing and to thank him for everything he had done.
When she saw him heading upstairs, she ran after him. But when she lost track of where he had gone, she started searching room by room.
After several minutes of searching, she couldn’t find him—until she heard something heavy fall to the floor. “Alan…”
Crack!
Opening a door that had been shut, Riya found Alan on the floor staring at a photograph. None of this would have been so alarming if not for the blood all over the wall—and Alan’s knuckles torn and bloody.
“Damn it, Alan, what the hell did you do?” Riya ran over to him and grabbed his left hand, trying to assess if the damage was worse than it looked.
Alan, still sitting on the floor, said, “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I was a coward for not facing all my wounds and being honest with you.”
Riya picked up the bandages from the floor and began wrapping them around Alan’s hand, which had shown no sign of pain until now.
“Do you have a death wish?”
“I’ve done bad things all my life here, and I think that out of all the people I’ve killed, none of them deserved to die less than I did…” Alan told Riya about the sick people they had left behind—what he had done, and everything he would continue to do to protect those still outside.
Very few people understood that Alan’s need wasn’t to be a hero—it was to cling to something that gave his life meaning.
But if he kept clinging only to pain and sacrifice, he wouldn’t survive much longer.
Riya sat down beside him, saying nothing at first. After a while, she looked at him and said, “You showed mercy to those people. No one else could’ve taken on that burden but you.”
Alan stayed silent, so Riya continued: “If we let ourselves be judged by actions someone else considers selfish, then no one in this world would be a saint. Perfection isn’t something that suits us. The only thing that matters is surviving and moving forward. I know you’ve done incredible things, but I—and many others—won’t let you carry all the weight alone.”
“Those you’ve saved need your ideas. They need what you know to keep surviving, and if you’ve brought them this far, then you can’t abandon them now.” Riya had seen Alan’s decline, and knowing they both suffered from similar things, she was determined to help them move forward together.
Alan smiled, put the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and said, “I’m glad all this didn’t change you.”
“You know me.” Riya smiled too, though she was also hiding pain she needed to let go of soon.
“What do you think about killing the infected?”
Riya looked at Alan and asked, “Is that what they call them?”
“I gave them that name…” Alan stood up, realizing he’d already made enough of a useless scene.
Riya smiled. She had talked just enough to shift the course of Alan’s thoughts—to help him carry them in a better way.
Alan realized he wasn’t as numb as he thought he was. After all, he was only human.
He didn’t need to take on the blame for all the pain others felt. He wouldn’t be the one to carry all that weight—not when there was still a long way to go.
From this moment on, he would stop lying to himself. No matter who he ended up becoming, he would make sure everything was worth it.
“How about I tell you what happened on that mission?”
