Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm

'The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry in the end' had always stuck with me from my high school English class. It was from a classical book that was now banned, and truth be told, I can't remember a single thing about it except for that one quote. It basically meant that plans never go the way you want them to.

My plan was to get my hands on a zombie and see if it was even possible for us to fight them underwater. The way I had it set up in my head was that I would be looking down on the swimming zombie from relatively shallow water and throw fireballs at him and see if that would do anything. 𝒃𝒆𝙙𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝙡．𝙤𝒓𝙜

There was a plan B that involved forcing the zombie out of the water and seeing if an Alpha challenge would work on the more 'wild' zombies as they did on the 'domestic' ones on land.

But once again, the best laid plans and all that crap.

I had entered the warm water of the East Sea, well within eyesight of my four men, and hadn't gone any deeper than getting my calves wet when a hand reached around my ankle, pulling me forward and down.

I fell backward into the water, my arms flying over my head as I tried to regain my balance. But before I could so much as take a breath to fill my empty lungs, I was dragged deeper into the water.

I struggled to get to the surface to be able to breathe, but the more I fought, the more I started to panic.

I tried to calm myself down, to think things through, but as my lungs screamed for oxygen, my ears popping from going deeper and deep into the water, the harder it was to even form a thought.

I tried to kick at the hand holding my left ankle, but it proved futile as the nails of what I could only assume to be the zombie dug deeper into my wetsuit, causing pain, but thankfully not breaking skin.

I was pretty sure that the only thing worse than the situation I was currently in was to add actual sharks into it. Unless the zombie would be more interested in eating the shark than me. But I couldn't understand why it had chosen me to attack.

I wasn't part of its normal food, and I didn't think that the navy divers would have been pleasurable enough to give them a desire for human flesh. So why me?

And why was it trying to drown me instead of just eating me? Was it trying to flavor my flesh like the zombies on land enjoyed doing? Were the two groups exchanging points on food?

Was there a zombie food network with different recipes?

Apparently, when my body was lacking oxygen, my thoughts went a bit… crazy.

Ah, who was I kidding? This had nothing to do with a lack of oxygen. These were just the regular thoughts in my head.

But, now that I got them all out, I was able to calm down a little bit more. I called up my ice power first and tried to freeze the zombie. I thought that it might be easier to manipulate underwater since the ice was just a different form of water.

It didn't work. I think the water was too warm to easily freeze and I still wasn't strong enough in my ice to be able to combat the natural warmth.

Strike 1.

I looked around, wondering if they guys were following me, or if they had run into similar trouble. Truthfully, I was hoping that they would still be safe on dry land, but I also knew that they would never be willing to leave me to my own devices in a bad situation.

And given how much my lungs were hurting; this would definitely qualify as a bad situation.

Fuck my life, I am too stupid to live sometimes!

I blinked out of the ocean and away from the zombie who was dragging me to God only knew where and into my space.

I collapsed onto the ground, my fingers clawing into the dirt under my hands, thankful for this place. My screaming lungs filled with air for the first time since I was dragged under, my heart absolutely pounding inside of my chest.

I rolled over onto my back and waited for a minute as my body started to calm down. My head started to pound due to a lack of oxygen and fear. Calling some painkillers to me, I quickly took two and just laid back down.

I closed my eyes as my breathing evened out.

Worried about the men, I tried something for the first time. Not sure if it would work, I called my men to me, picturing me dragging them wherever they were into my space. I was honestly winging it, but it worst thing to happen was nothing.

All of a sudden, there were four men in wetsuits coughing and panting beside me.

I smiled, too tired to move.

"You guys good?" I asked, knowing fully well that they weren't good. But they were alive, and at this point, that was what I was going for.

Liu Yu Zeng was on his hands and knees on the ground beside me, puking up water. His arms shaking from pure exhaustion.

"Princess?" groaned Chen Zi Han as he rolled over onto his back, his arm flung over his eyes. "You safe?" he continued, not caring about himself at all.

"I am good now," I said.

Liu Wei was the only one getting to his feet and looking around. "Where are we?" he asked as he took off the hood of his wetsuit and unzipped his top half.

Bad girl, we almost died not even five minutes ago and now all I am thinking is how much I wanted to climb that man like a tree.

"My space," I said as I tried to get my libido to calm the fuck down.