I'm sorry. *Bows head down in gesture of repentance.* This story doesn't have ten chapters in it. I got greedy. I should have wrapped it up after the Simon arc, but success got to my head. I promise this story isn't completely dead, I'll probably rework it and end it after Simon like I was planning to in the first place. After rereading, I'm embarrassed at how bad it got towards the end and the sharp drop of quality. This just proves something I've always suspected- romance can't hold up a long plot line, it has got to be paired up with something else. However, I am not planning on dropping Jellal's tattoo, because while that isn't popular, I like it. I would like to apologize again to everyone who was waiting. The reason this statement took so long to get out was because at first I wanted to write a tenth chapter to end the story, and after I couldn't it became laziness that prevented the release of this hiatus message. To show how sorry I am, here is an unrelated story that has nothing really to do with Jellal or Fairy tail, but one that I thought was entertaining enough to share to lessen disappointment.

Everyone knew the world was going to end that year, people were just taking bets on how it was going to happen, or rather it should be said that the internet knew the world was going to end, normal people just put money into as a cash sink until the new model of the iPhone was announced. Turns out the internet was right, and I just won ten thousand dollars. Too bad that doesn't really matter anymore.

As far as I know, the zombie apocalypse began at god damned six in the morning.

The zombies have just entered the store and I recognize my tenth grade Spanish teacher Mrs. Noonan as one of the monsters and was unsure of whether I should cheer or pray. On one hand she has completed her evolution into a soulless abomination of shambling doom, on the other, at least she was no longer a teacher. Then my brain remembers that it should be terrified and I screech. I am still rooted to the spot as customers flooded around me in deluge of people not seen since the crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews. My temporary paralysis breaks when the manager tries to calm people down over the loud speaker and instructs the employees still there to evacuate the customers in an orderly manner; still his voice is shaking badly and no one is fooled. Panic rules the mall now.

Now as an employee in Walmart, there are times when I am willing to go above and beyond the call of duty, and then there are times when I know to give a middle finger to that promotion, and abandon customers, colleagues as well as any semblance of dignity to think of myself first. I believe that a Good Friday in which zombies invade my mall and shoppers are actually stampeding away from the building counted as a time to cut my losses and abandon ship.

"Forget that, they don't pay me enough!" I thought. The lumbering horde was about to reach me. I am close enough to see the chunks of flesh ripped out from their thighs and stomachs, as well as the gaping holes in their skulls from which brains were spilling out, coating the floor behind them with its squishy gray substance. I cut and run, taking advantage of my employee badge to make my way to the employee access only store room with an exit to the back of the store. Hopefully the zombies had not surrounded the store. As I run past the baby care aisle on my way to survival, I notice a stroller with a crying baby in it. I nearly consider leaving it behind, but I decide to take it with me anyways. I have a comfortable lead on the zombies. The zombies may blunder along relentlessly at speeds of four miles an hour, but I work out every day on my treadmill and can run six miles an hour no sweat. The baby is right there, with a stroller attached for minimum inconvenience. It would hardly slow me down. The time is ticking slowly until I reach stroller and have to make the decision. I stretch my hands out unsure then grasp the handles firmly and run with the baby. I may be a survivor, but the baby wouldn't impact my chances of survival greatly, and if worst came to worse, I could always through the baby to the zombie horde, a sacrifice to callous and forever hungry gods.

The finish line is close and I pick up speed. On my mad dash to the warehouse door, I swipe diapers and any other items for babies I can find. I considered it the true compensation for my underpaid services. My adrenaline is pumping and the outside world disappears until it is just me, the baby and the stroller. I do not know if there were others in that mad retreat, more desperate than any ever made in history, and I do not care to find out. I do vaguely remember a dull throbbing in my fist as it meets resistance and hearing a sickening crack as I crossed over the finish line and out of the mysteriously already opened warehouse. I really hope I didn't kill somebody. Just because I think of myself first doesn't mean I want everyone else to lose, or in this case die.

As I exit the store and lock the door behind me, I begin to make plans. There was an army depot nearby. I should run there and check for weapons. Considering the situation I think they would let me have some, and if they don't, I think the zombies would change their minds very quickly, unless they ate the depot guys first. Then I would run to my family and begin making plans to move before the zombies came to my neighborhood, hopefully it wasn't too late by now. My parents would need to gather all their valuables and we needed a move to a more easily defensible location. A hill, and we shouldn't need to leave it often, so there should be enough space to grow crops for four people, and it should be the source of a river. I reached my bike as the zombies crowded through the hole in the wall made by the fleeing crowd through sheer force of desperation. Many of customers were trying to start their cars, but were too nervous and kept dropping their keys. The store was on fire the smoke lazily wafts into the sky, leaving behind a thunderous gray trail. Red tongues of flame flicker around the building, probably the result of the chaos setting of someone's secret meth lab. It happens, there are all kinds of weirdoes at the Walmart. There was dull red blood seeping onto the parking lot, and many people were slipping over it in their rush to get away. As I watched this scene of entropy and chaos, all I could think is, "and this was only one Walmart."

I wondered if perhaps this was an isolated incident that the police and he army would soon regain control over. Even as I thought that, I doubted it. Since when could the government be trusted not to make the problem worse?

As I hopped on my bike, I remembered the baby and nearly swore. I quickly readjusted my plans- find a home on a hill with a river and space for a farm and with a nearby store selling baby supplies. And since he was coming along with me, as it was likely his parents were dead, I had to name him too. An infinite number of possibilities cycled through my mind and I briefly toyed with the idea of naming him Muhammed Jesus Buddha as a sort of prayer to nearly every god out there but then I decided against it, and settled with the rather mundane Harry Potter. I wondered if my brother would understand the joke. By now the zombies were already half way across the parking lot. It was time to get away.

Then I pedaled away from the scene thinking, "So this is how the world ends, not with a bang or a whimper, but the moans of zombies, that sound much like the sullen mutterings of a teen told he has to do his chores."