I walked into my home, carefully closing the door behind me as I made my way into the living room. Immediately upon entering, I saw my parents sitting on the sofa, they were looking in my direction with a desperate gaze upon their face that soon morphed into a relieved smile.

  Mum rushed towards the door, her arms open as she almost tackled me against the door with how fast she was closing in on me. I had to resist the urge to push her off of me as I felt her wrapping her arms around me for a tight hug. Dad soon followed as he groaned upon standing up from the sofa before slowly walking up and joining in the cuddle. After a few seconds of silent cuddling he asked "What happened? We were both worried sick about you."

  Looking away from him for a second as I think about what to say, I eventually say "It's a long story. Maybe we should sit down for it first?" Dad nods as he began to move back towards the sofa and Mum soon followed him. I sat opposite them on the recliner as I considered how to say what happened. I sighed as I realised that with all my pnning earlier, I had never actually thought about what specifically to say. After a few seconds of awkward silence I broke it "Dad, you've been in incredible pain since we ran out of meds for you a few days ago. I've been seeing you force yourself to help around the house and Lichenbury. I just... I couldn't let you go on without at least some pain relief."

  Putting my hand into my bag I pulled out a box of painkillers that I quickly passed over to him.

  As his hands wrapped around the box, Dad's expression filled with a look of guilt as he said "You shouldn't have left for this... We have more traders coming in soon, we'd have figured something out. Besides, all the nearby houses have been searched already, you couldn't have found much, if anything, beyond this box. I'm not in so much pain that you need to risk yourself like that. You know how we'd feel if something happened to you." Whilst I could tell that he had said his piece, Mum was much angrier. So much so that if looks could kill then I would have been dead ten times over by now. She said nothing though, leaving us in silence for a few awkward seconds as I waited for her to speak up and say her piece.

  She eventually spoke up and said "You worried us sick as you galvanted off on some midnight excursion deep into the town? All the nearby houses and such have been picked clean by us and others. As a result, you must have gone deeper into town where the hordes are thickest, risking your life and now you have the GALL to tell us that it was for your father's sake? Do you know how big of a risk you took?"

  I bit my tongue, resisting the urge to correct her right away. She had it all wrong. As soon as she finished I nodded towards her as I said "That's what you'd normally think. However, I was looking at the scavenging maps the other day and saw that there was a house that had been marked down as a horde location during Lichenbury's initial scavenging and as such not looted. I decided I'd check it out since it had been left unlooted for so long. When I arrived I saw that the horde had moved on and began to search the house and it was completely loaded. There was more stuff there than I could bring back with me. Most importantly though-" I began to remove my backpack from my back, opening it up as I continued "-there was more than enough meds there to st you for a while." I grabbed a box of each type of painkiller and passed them over as I then noticed Dad's gaze at the bag itself "It's not yours, I found a simir bag there as well."

  Mum was looking at the meds that I had passed over, her expression softening slightly as she continued her tirade "I don't think these are worth the stress and risk you've caused. These meds won't st us much more... than... a-" she trailed off as I had tipped the bag upside down, the empty box of Jaffa's and my old bag falling out onto the tea table first before several more boxes of painkillers fell out. Looking upon her now stupefied expression, I added, "This isn't all of the meds by the way. I couldn't grab all of them before leaving."

  They both looked at the pile for a few seconds, it was in the brief silence that followed that I heard an almost inaudible creaking noise coming from elsewhere in the house. I seemed to be the only one that noticed it though as Dad eventually picked up on something I had said, his head tilting sideways as he asked me "Wait... Couldn't? Did something happen?"

  Before I continued I realised that our argument had likely woke my brother up.

  Wincing at the realisation, I nodded as I said "There was a zombie that ambushed me in the bathroom. It scratched my arm, luckily the jacket I had on stopped it piercing the skin. I then repced it with this one after I'd killed the zombie and began looting the rest of the house." They both looked at me and then at each other before Dad sighed, Mum took that as her chance to speak "I hate to admit it but... This is an astonishing haul, especially if there truly is more there. There should be enough here for at least a few weeks. However... Why didn't you wait till the morning? Why didn't you go with your brother? You went alone and took way too rge of a risk on this than you needed to and worried us all for no reason."

  After considering the question for a few seconds, I realised that she was right. Why hadn't I gone in the morning with my brother? Or if nightfall was important, why not go at night with him? The truth was a mixture of both pride and genuine worry.

  It was me that had found the house, I had plotted out the route to it, I had done all of this myself. I wanted to prove myself to both my parents and the community. If I took him with me, I'd have to share the credit for the find with him. Not to mention what if it turned out to be empty or the horde still there? I would have wasted both our time for no reason.

  At the same time though, I genuinely didn't want to dey the search any longer because Dad truly was truly suffering. Merely getting up off the sofa just now had clearly hurt. I couldn't go much longer seeing him like this.

  However, I don't think that saying these reasons will satisfy them. Mum would care more about my safety than my ambitions and Dad would feel guilty if his illness made me risk myself for him. So I was forced into saying some mixture of truth and fiction.

  After a few seconds of contemption on what I'd say, I spoke up "I didn't want to waste both of our time if it ended up being empty. Not to mention that it would be far harder to sneak past the undead with multiple people. As it was, I nearly got spotted on the way back. If there was two of us, it would've almost certainly ended badly. Either way though, it worked didn't it? I'm here, fine and dandy and we're all the better for it. Yes it was risky but it was worthwhile."

  I couldn't help but notice both Mum and Dad frown at that but the results had clearly silenced much of their criticism. "I still am not the biggest fan but... It's been done. No point crying over spilt milk." Mum said to both me and Dad before sighing as I heard Dad begin to speak. "So that's that then?" he asked, "Nothing negative happened? Nothing else to tell us?"

  I think for a few seconds more about how to phrase things about what happened with the creature before nodding to them as I spoke "There is one more thing. Just, don't freak out about it because you wasn't there. It might have just been a bad dream but either way, I can guarantee you now, whatever it was, wasn't a zombie."

  They look at me confused for a few seconds before Mum simply asked "Can you eborate?"

  "There was a weird fingered creature. It was a bit like a scorpion but with a tail the length of a snake and no pincer at the end. I was in the bedroom of the house, moving the things I'd acquired into the new bag when I heard a noise. Bear in mind, this was after the zombie encounter, so I was already on guard. As such, I checked the room for any signs of zombies, found none and then locked the bedroom door, just to be sure nothing could barge in on me. After that, the creature jumped towards my face with some weird tongue-like thing headed for my mouth." It was here that I took a break from my expnation as my parents stared holes into me with expressions on their faces that told me they were both concerned and had questions to ask.

  My Mum spoke up and asked "I've never heard of anything like that before... And you say it's tongue thing was headed towards your mouth?"

  "Yes, although I think the proper term for it is a 'proboscis' but that's irrelevant. It did and I can only assume it succeeded..." both of their eyes widened as I continued. "I fell onto the bed before losing the fight with it and falling unconscious. I... had a weird dream where I was drowning but when I awoke the creature was nowhere to be found. My throat was sore and my knife out of it's sheathe. So I don't think I dreamt up the encounter. Although, I don't know what to make of it the encounter wasn't a dream. It was most assuredly not a zombie but I have no idea what it could be."

  Both of them sat there considering things for a few moments before my Dad spoke up and asked "Have you... Told anyone else about this?"

  I shook my head and stated the obvious response "Too big of a risk they'd jump to the conclusion it was a zombie anyway. You know how they are. I've only told you two about it."

  Dad looked to the sides for a few seconds clearly thinking. Just as Mum looked like she was about to say something he spoke up, saying "I... Think that's for the best." Mum looked at him slightly surprised before saying "What? You remember what happened with Julia. I trust Jade when she says it wasn't a zombie. That doesn't mean anyone else will. At best she'll be kicked out and at worst... Either way, I don't want that to happen to her over paranoid fear."

  Mum's fingers drummed against her arm. She sat there in a simmering silence for a few seconds before reluctantly starting to nod "Yeah... You're right... But keeping quiet about something this big still feels wrong."

  My face scowled as I heard her response, harshly snapping a reply of my own "What should we do then? If we tell them it'll cause more problems than it's worth. I don't like it any more than you do but here it's necessary. If I was bitten then I would leave myself and turn outside the walls. However, I'm not bitten. I'm not going to turn. So I'll repeat, telling them will only cause problems."

  Mum visibly recoiled backwards and looked a mixture of shocked and angry at what I'd just said, she looked like she was about to speak but Dad beat her to the punch. "Watch your tone Young Lady! That is your Mother you're talking to! I understand that you're probably worried about things but taking it out on us isn't helpful. Now what do you say?"

  I nodded slightly, looked towards Mum and apologised "I'm sorry about that Mum, I shouldn't have snapped at you. This does worry me quite a bit and it's been one of the main things on my mind since I left."

  After that, the room fell into an uneasy silence. Mum looked tense, with her arms crossed as she looked at the pile of meds on the table. Meanwhile, Dad rubbed his temples, clearly deep in thought. I knew that they weren't happy about what I'd done but at least they weren't furious anymore, the rewards from my risky expedition having dampened their fury. I knew that if I left things alone right now that this would be the end of things and I'd likely not hear anymore of this. However, there was one more thing I needed to tell them, something I knew that they wouldn't like.

  "In other news though, I'll probably be going back to the house with the group scavenging team tomorrow or the day after. Depends when they decide to go for it. There was a lot more left to scavenge and I made sure that when I told Raynor that, he knew it. I'll likely be going with them."