[TWD x Resident Evil] — Chapter 614 - A Little Disappointed

Simon's mind was still spinning in a fog.

The warm weight in his arms was far too real.

Real enough to stir a deeply ill-timed impulse in a bachelor who'd spent over a year eating nothing but canned goods in the polar wilderness...

He swallowed hard, his throat working.

His gaze drifted slowly downward, following the soft glow of the firelight.

In this godforsaken apocalypse.

In this freeze-you-solid Arctic Circle...

To stumble onto a windfall like this, Simon was pretty sure God was finally settling a debt.

He had to already be dead.

Because if this was heaven,

the mood was already set,

and he was already dead...

Not letting something friendly happen would be a flat-out insult to this crackling fireplace!

Simon worked up his nerve.

"Hey, baby, this is our first time in heaven—"

He didn't get to finish.

His gaze drifted past the woman's soft shoulder, and he happened to glance into the shadows at the far corner of the cabin.

Oh, hell.

Simon nearly came out of his skin.

Less than 2 meters from the bed, sitting ramrod straight beside a battered wooden table, were two people.

An old man, face carved with wrinkles, beard gone salt-and-pepper.

An old woman bundled in a heavy reindeer-skin coat.

The two of them were each holding a wooden cup, their dim yellowed eyes fixed hard on Simon in the bed.

Not the look of curious onlookers. More like two people sizing up a cut of meat on a chopping block.

And worst of all, the old man was idly turning a hunting knife over in his fingers.

The image hit like a bucket of ice water.

Every last scrap of nonsense rattling around in Simon's head was physically wiped clean in that single instant.

He shuddered violently, recoiling as if he'd grabbed a live wire, then snatched half the reindeer-skin blanket and clamped it over his lower body with both hands.

"What the fuck!"

"Who are you people?"

"What are you staring at?"

His thrashing jolted the woman awake.

She opened her eyes in a groggy squint, brow creasing with mild irritation.

By the firelight, Simon finally got a clear look at her face.

Young, early twenties, maybe. A scattering of prominent freckles across the bridge of her nose. A head of tangled flaxen curls tumbling loose over her shoulders. Her features weren't particularly delicate, but they carried a wildness in them, the kind that gets ground in after years of surviving polar blizzards.

Kaya.

That was her name.

Kaya rubbed her eyes and sat up. She made no move whatsoever to cover herself, completely unbothered by the cold air on her bare skin, and climbed out of bed with easy, unhurried steps to crouch by the fireplace and poke at the dying embers.

"You're awake."

She yawned.

"Tough little thing, I honestly thought that scrawny frame of yours wasn't going to make it through last night."

Simon clutched the blanket and pressed himself into the corner.

His fingers jabbed nervously toward the old couple at the table.

"They... what are they doing here?" His tongue was nearly tied in knots.

Kaya glanced over in the direction he was pointing.

"My dad. And my mom."

She said it like it was nothing.

"We've been living out at the polar radar station for over 10 years now." A beat. "You're the first living, breathing person we've seen in the past year."

Simon drew in a sharp breath.

A family of three.

He had been lying there bare naked, holding their daughter in his arms, right in front of her parents.

Back in Texas, the old man's shotgun would have turned him into a sieve by now.

"Then why did you undress me?"

Simon gripped the blanket and pressed his case, doing his best to position himself as the innocent victim here.

"And you — why aren't you wearing anything?"

Kaya heard that and rolled her eyes without hesitation.

She reached over to the wooden rack beside her, pulled down a heavy fur coat, and draped it over herself in one easy motion.

"Where do you think you are?"

Her voice was flat, dry.

"Buddy, this is the Arctic."

"You were frozen solid in that blizzard — your heartbeat was barely there."

"Kept those ice-crusted clothes on, you would've been a completely dead popsicle in under half an hour."

➤ Next: Unwelcome