“I’m sorry, okay, that you don’t like me. But I will never apologize that the bits of myself that survived are unpalatable to anyone. I grew up cold and angry and inexpressive, and I grew up. Not a lot of people who lived the life I did get to say that.”

The siren’s eyes were black and glassy. Very little light reflected off them- more like empty pits than pools of glass.

“Hello,” says the hero chosen by no one “I’m here to help.”

“You’ll drown trying,” warns the siren “but follow me, unwanted one.”

“Are you okay?”

“No, but I will be now that you’re here,” xe lies sweetly, carefully concealing a small blade in xir palm  Shame things must end this way.

“Maybe I just plain old don’t want to die.”

“Lame. Don’t be a coward. At some zest to your fears.”

“Dude, you cried the last time a goose looked at you!”

“Yeah! That? Hilarious and fun! Fear of dying? Plain and overdone.”

“Welcome to my home friends, associates, cherished enemies.”

“Do you cherish your friends or just your enemies?”

“I adore my friends but i cherish the lessons my enemies teach me, such as the fact that none of them will leave my word choice alone and I’d better improve my vocabulary.”

“Nobody panic,” xe shouts, panicking.

“We’re not,” says the other person in the room, frowning “Literally, you are the only one panicking [X], what the heck.”

“I’m so tired I can’t see in colour anymore.”

“Uh, what the fuck?”

“One of these days… I’m really going to murder you, you know that?”

“Ye.”

“You’re not concerned at all, are you?”

“Not really tbh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What isn’t?” xe frowns “We’re all going to die.”

“We’re not,” ze rolls zir eyes “Don’t be so fatalistic. So the world outside is full of zombies trying to eat us alive. None of us have been bitten yet.”

“About that,” xe says.

“You’re all I have left,” xe says “Unfortunately.”

“Yes, we all know how you feel about me, sibling.” ze rolls zir eyes “The lost child.”

“You abandoned your family.”

“I found my family,” ze snarls “And they are not you.”