The loud report of a pump action shotgun filled the streets of what had once been Manhatten. The owner of said shotgun, a twenty one year old Caucasian man, with shaggy dark brown hair, and a half grown beard, smiled while the barrel smoked. Before him laid the tattered remains of the last member of the infected hoard. He seemed to have been some sort of buissnes man, but that was ignored in favor of the satchel that the shotgun toting man wore. From inside he removed a small roll of gauze, and some antiseptic. He used these items to clean and bind the nasty bit said businessman had given him before his death. After tying off the wrapping on his forearm, the young man began walking back down the street, reloading his weapon as he did so. "Damnit all." He muttered. He was running low on amunition, something that could get you killed nowadays. With a sigh he decided to cut his hunting trip short, and began the long walk back to the harbour.

About halfway home, on the backstreets of New York, his shotgun was once again put to use, when a particularly crafty infected woman had jumped him from behind a dumpster. What had been six shots, now dwindled to five. Then shortly after four, and then three. Now he was running home, wildly dashing through streets, and alleys. A two hour walk suddenly became a fourth-five minute run, that ended abruptly when he saw the reinforced steel door of his home. A two story house, cramped between all the others just like it. Unlike the rest of them though, this one had large steel plates closed over the windows, along with quite a few metal bars. He swore under his breath when he saw the door was open, hopefully nothing too bad had gotten in. Berating himself for leaving the door open, he entered the house with his shotgun level at his hip. From here it could equally hit a croughing hunter, or a running charger, and that was exactly his intent. Though the though did cross his mind, if it was a infected, he could lead it out of the house before he shot it. Save him some cleaning, and the smell. Conterary to popular belief, infected only stink once things like staff, and gangreen set in. They are too stupid to work a first aid kit after all. That nd they dint take baths.

"Since when do I leave the damn door open?" He grumbled, as he roamed the halls. "I mean it's a big steel door, it hard to close! How the hell do you forget that?"

A foul smell wafted through the house, more along the lines of a garbage scent, not the usual rot of an infected. Coming around the corner, he came into the kitchen, and nearly had a heart attack. Sitting on the floor was the most feared infected in existence.

A witch. She was sitting on the floor eating the sugar she had obviously knocked off the counter. The small paper bag it had been in was shredded, and discarded near his feet. The witch herself was filthy, and covered in a black sludge he often saw leaking off of the old garbage barges. He nearly gaged on the ripe smell, but choked it down, along with his fears, and leveled his gun on her. To his chargin he tried to be quiet, but his boot chrunched on the sugar. He flinched, and the witch twirled on all four's to face him. For a few minutes the two stared at each other, his blue eyes locked with her blackened ones. Curiously enough her entire eye was mostly black, save for the dark yellow pupils, and the slightly brighter ring around that. In a moment be broke the co test and leveled the gun on her. He expected her to do a lot of things. Scream, lunge at him maybe, but he never expected her to scrable bacjwords across the floor until she pressed herself againt the wall. Dumbfounded, he sat there staring at her now shaking form, as she bawled, streaking the muck on her cheeks. He decided to use this strange moment to his advantage.

His gaze roamed her body, though with the grossness co wrong her he saw very little skin, and found she was wearing the tattered remains of a McDonald's uniform. The black pants, or rather the one surviving pant leg was tattered, as was the shirt, which may have been yellow once, but was now streaked many shades of brown. It took him a moment to realise half of her bust was exposed by the missing half of the shirt. The once yellow rag, was held on my the barley remaining left shoulder, and sleeve. This left her right breast, and shoulder exsposed. Turning his eyes from that, he saw the small rusted bit of a nametag pinned to the left side of the shirt. While he couldn't read it he was shure it had her name on it, or at least the name of whoever she got the shirt from. The young man had often gone out of his way to avoid witches, more because the crying broke his heart, than the claws did his skin. Even now as this one paniced with fear, something he had pwrsonaly never seen, his heart ached at the thought of shooting her. She sounded so human to him, in a way that made him feel sick when he though of how many infected he had killed already. He breathed out a sigh and lowered his gun, the strap catching it and letting it swing up onto his back. This was probably gonna get him killed, but he crossed the five foot gap between them, while trying to ignore the smell, and crouched beside her. She paniced more, and curled into a ball against the wall. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, though tears still managed to escape.

"Hey now," He whispered, "Don't cry, I can't stand it when people cry."

While his entire mind and body screamed at him to turn and run, he reached out and put an arm over the witch's shoulder. She tensed but didn't move away. Instead she began to break down into sobbing, and curled herself against his chest. Strangley enough she kept her foot-and-a-half long claws curled close to her abdomen while she did so. He flinched slightly, both at the smell and the sudden closnes to something that often tried to kill him, but carefully put his own arms around her shoulders and gently rubbed the poor girls shoulders. She may have been infected, but for some reason he got the feeling she knew something was wrong with her, even if her fevered mind couldn't figure it out correctly.

"Shhh, it's alright I'm here." By god did he feel akward, this was like consoling a lion. It was a stupid idea that wasn't suposed to work, and left you in mild shock when it did. Finnaly his brain decided the smell was worse than any claw in his gut and demanded he fix the issue. So with a bit of work he managed to get the witch to her feet, and shuffle her down the hallway from the kitchen to the bathroom, were the second most akward moment of his life took place.

He had to undress a witch. Suprisingly he did it with a professional air, not lingering on any risque areas, before continuing on, and moving her I to the bathtub. She did panic slightly when he started filling the tub with the warm, clean, water. His absute favorite part of this particular house, had to be the rain caputre system on the roof. It had taken ages to find parts to fix it, but it was well worth it. He held the struggling witch still long enough for her to understand the water wast going to hurt her, and proceeded to wash the filthy gunk from her body, once again with an extremely professional air. A trick he often found himself using when he had to kill infected, he gave himslef a goal, and timed how long it took to achive that goal. As he washed her hair, running the heavy white sides into it with a cautiosness he had never known, who knew what a witch with soap in her eyes could do, he noticed a very...odd thing.

The witch was beginning to purr.

It wasn't quite a cats purr, in fact it sounded more like a murring noise from the back of her throat, almost like humming, but he did find it oddly ammusing that he had made a witch purr like a cat. In fact he chuckled a bit at the absurdity of the situation, some mania evident in it.

"I'm giving a witch a bath." He snickered. Drawing said witches attention for a moment, until she decided the bubbles in the water were more interesting.

He continued washing her until the last of the liquified garbage was gone, and to his suprise she didn't ha e any form of staff, or gangrene mating her greyed skin, nor wash she emancipated like most of the infected. He soon found the reason why. As he was drying her, he discovered the area aroung her shoulders, shins, and parts of her wrists had small scabbed cuts over them, most likley from her own claws, which would soon become very bad scars. But it was the mark on her right bicep that drew his attention.

A set of raggad dual cresants faceing weak from each other, was printed onto her arm. It was still slightly scabbed, and the skin around it was a light pink, a huge contrast to the grey of her body. The poor girl had only recently turned. Most likely in the last week or so. No wonder she was in better condition than most of the infected, she hadn't been starving for several weeks yet. Though she did look a bit underweight, as he could see her rings a bit. Nothing a few hearty meals couldn't fix. Once again the insanity of this development crossed the twenty year old's mind. But he shrugged it off, poor girl needed clothes. He led her out of the bathroom, and up the stairs into his own bedroom. He sat her on the bed, trying, and failing, to ignore her nudity. He was only a man, and as I human as she may have seemed, she was a female. Something he hadn't seen in several months. Shaking his head, he disloged the lewd thoughts, and began rummaging through his dresser in search of wearable clothes for her. He ended up picking out a pair of chekered boxers, an oversized, at least on her petite frame, white t-shirt with Mettalica printed on its front in red. Then he managed to dig out a pair of dark grey sweats to let her wear, they were particularly comfortable, and he often lounged around the house in them. Once she was dressed, and his own blush subsided, the two of them sat on the livingroom couch, her playing with her claws, and he trying to figure out what to do next. Finally he diecided to introduce himself, even if it did very little good.

He tapped her thigh, making her turn back to him. "My name is Mark." He said slowly.

She seemed to get the idea and smiled at him, her slightly yellowed teeth showing, though he had brushed them, that seemed to be their natural color. He repeated this a few times until she began to attempt reapeating it.

"M..mrr."

"Mark." He said again, slowly like teaching a child.

"Mm. M..Eeaak!"

The small screach was sudden, and made him flinch, but he tried to ignore it. "M. A. R. K."

"M...mu... M-Merk." She finnaly said, a wide grin on her face. "Merk...Merk, Merk Merk!"

He laughed at her suddenly very proud demenor, she was a lot like a child, easily upset, yet just as easily made happy. It occured to him that she would need a name, so after making sure she wouldn't follow him he went back into the bathroom, and pulled the nametag off her disgusting uniform, which he had let soak in the used water of the bathtub. Washing it off in the sink he held the small peice of metal up, and read the inscription on it.

"Donnald." He sighed. Well that was a bust.

But it did give him an idea.

Running back out to the living room, he caught her giggleing st the little tabby cat he had forgotten lived with him. The cats name was Jammy, but Mark often called him Jam for short. The cat was slithereding in and out of her lap, tickling her sides with his fur, and whatnot. Strangley enough, she kept her curled away from the small feline. She obviously knew they were dangerous. He sat back down beside her, and once again tapped her to make her look at him, before pointing at her and saying a single word.

"Dawn." It was so much better than Donnald. Yet kept the nice combination of sounds.

She didn't try to say it this time, but she did waste not time in hugging Mark tightly, a few tears soaking into the side of his shirt. He spent the rest of the night with Dawn, watching a few old movies he had found, before he decided to send her off to bed when she began to fall asleep on the couch. He put her in the second bedroom, and upon returning to the kitchen, remeber the mess she had made with the sugar. Once that mess was clean, Mark took his own shower, and then dressed himself in some boxers, and a pair of sweats, though Dawn still had the more comfortable pair, and retired to his own room for the night. He had a bit of teouble sleeping, but he was co soled by the fact that he had checked the door before he went to bed, and he also knew Dawn wouldn't hurt him. Even though it was his own survival instincts that kept him up, reapeating the threat of having the witch around, especcialy while he was asleep. He managed to finnaly fall asleep closer to midnight, and it was a suprisingly peacful night as well.

The next morning wasn't quite as peacful, especially when he woke to Dawn sleeping beside him. Of course she was lying on top of the covers, but that didn't stop the small heart attack at not being alone when he woke up. Regardless he woke the snoozing witch shortly after, and asked her a simple question.

"Are you hungry?" He knew she couldn't answer yet, but it was still polite to ask.