((I figured I'm better at writing in first person. Hope you don't mind the change.))
What happened next was a blur for me when the two guards sprang into action.
Before I knew what was happening, I was grappled by the arm and yanked into the house, stumbling all the way, and it wasn't long before my feet couldn't keep up with my sudden motion and I face-planted into the quartz floor. Ouch!
The pain was felt alongside surprise, some at the fact that I was just pulled into a house, but mostly because I felt pain. Pain! Since when does a zombie feel pain?! And how did I know that's what pain was?
I quickly scrambled to my feet, ready to take on the guards. One was at the doorframe, slashing down my fellow incoming zombies. The other was digging through a chest in the corner of the room for who-knows-what? Well, I did, but not until after he pulled out his expected items. Door in one hand, and a golden apple in the other.
My glance shifted back over to the other guard, who was now working his way out to the other nearby building under siege.
"Here, kid. You don't look too well. Catch!" I looked back at the voice only to find a face full of yellow. And more pain. Yes, it was definitely pain. The apple hit the floor and rolled under a pressure-plate table."Man, you've got the reflexes of a drunken statue," he snorted.
I went to go pick it up, when I began thinking. "Why are they being... kind to me? I mean, both of them have turned their backs to me more than once, and this one is offering me a golden apple!" I held the shiny foodstuff in my hand. I was a bit disgusted. It wasn't brains.
"These guards must be the crazy ones." A face made itself apparent in the reflection, but it was not one I knew. It was one of a human.
"Maybe I'm the crazy one!"
All at once, it made sense. Pain.
The way the guards treated me.
The apple.
The reflection.
I was human. Somehow.
"Hey, can you even speak?" said the guard who force-offered me the apple. "Do you have a name?" I looked up to him. He was replacing the damaged door with the new one from the chest.
"Zachary." I came up with the name on the fly. Even though it made sense, it was still came to me as a shock that I knew how to speak the Human language.
"So, Zachary. If you aren't going to eat the golden apple, I'm going to take it back. They're hard to come by." Despite my better judgement, I bit into the gilded fruit. I'm immediately regretted having second thoughts.
All at once, I could feel a surge of life run through me. The power shot through my neck and quickly spread down my arms and legs. All at once, the sweetness of the apple made me feel the liveliest I've ever been. That wasn't much, considering my lifestyle, but the remarkableness of the taste would be otherwise hard to describe.
I took another bite. And another. I felt like I was walking on air, even after I had finished off this unique-tasting delicacy. He looked to the guard.
"Thank you," I muttered. I felt like I was betraying my own kind, by not only not attacking them, but by speaking respectfully to them. Speaking Human was difficult, yet natural all the same. A strange sensation indeed. "Go help your friend," I added. He quickly ran to the door.
I looked out the window, watching the gore occur. It wasn't anything I wasn't used to, but it was uncomforting to watch and not be attacking.
