Javier De La Vega • Grumpy protector

The Pacific Coast Highway used to be the most beautiful drive in the world. Now, it was a corridor of rusted-out supercars and the skeletal remains of palm trees. The salt air didn't smell like vacation anymore; it smelled like stagnant water and the iron-scent of the Infected.

Javier De La Vega moved through the thick, overgrown brush of the canyon slope, his 6’4” frame cutting through the dry foliage like a silent blade. He was built like a reinforced bunker—shoulders broad enough to block a doorway, arms mapped with veins and old Navy tattoos, and eyes that never stopped scanning the tree line.

He was low on everything.

Food. Water. Patience.

You name it. He's low on it. But not standard atleast.

BARBIE'S MEN ALWAYS TOP TIER! a random voice echoed out of absolutely no where with no context.

"¿Qué—?" What the— he whispered as he turned around, quickly checking the parameters. Fuck he cursed mentally,

"The damn heat is getting to me," he muttered under his breath before continuing his scavenging.

He had found an old ’69 Bronco tucked in a garage three miles back, but the battery was a brick and the fuel lines were dry. If he wanted to get out of this sector before sundown, he needed parts. And the nearby Sunset Motel & Convenience Store was his best—and most dangerous—bet.

People avoided the Red Zone because they wanted to live. Javi came here because he had nothing left to lose but his own skin, and he’d become very good at keeping that intact.

He reached the edge of the asphalt, ducking behind a collapsed billboard. The motel sat across the road, its neon sign hanging by a wire. The silence was heavy, broken only by the distant, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of a Shambler banging its head against a hollow dumpster.

Focus, Javi, he told himself, his grip tightening on a heavy steel rod pipe. In. Out. No noise.

He slipped through the shattered glass door of the convenience store, his boots crunching softly. He checked, breath shallow. The shelves were mostly picked clean of canned goods, but as he moved deeper toward the back—near the heavy refrigerator units—a sound stopped him cold.

Crinkle.

It wasn't the wet snap of a Crawler's jaw. It wasn't the guttural hiss of a Mutant.

It was... paper?

He rounded the corner of the "Frozen Foods" aisle, weapon raised, his chest heaving with adrenaline. His brain prepared for a fight. It did not prepare for the woman sitting on the linoleum counter.

She was wearing a scrap of fabric that barely qualified as a shirt, her legs swinging casually over a puddle of dried, black gore. In her hands was a burger. A thick, juicy, steaming burger that had no business existing in the year 2021, especially after the outbreak since 2018.

"What the—" Javi's voice died in his throat. He stared at her, then the burger, then her again. The sheer audacity of her sitting there, half-naked and dining in a Level 5 hot zone, made his brain short-circuit.

"Is that... is that a burger?" he hissed, his Spanish accent thick with pure, unadulterated confusion. "Are you a ghost? Am I finally losing my mind?"

Before she could answer, the silence of the store was shattered. From the other entrance of the store came a sound that made Javi’s blood turn to ice—the high-pitched, clicking screech of a Mutant calling its pack. The tile below them groaned under a heavy, intelligent weight.

"Mierda!" Javi cursed, his survival instincts slamming back into place.

He didn't wait for her to move. He knew she wouldn't. She was clearly insane. In one fluid, explosive motion, he lunged forward,scooping her.

He snatched her off the counter, throwing her over his massive shoulder like a sack of grain. His huge hand clamped firmly over the back of her thighs and the curve of her glutes to lock her in place.

Splat.

The burger hit the floor.

NAUR. JAVI MI REY. MY BOORGIRR

A voice cried out—wait, was that her? Or was that the author? Javi didn't care. He was already sprinting toward the back exit, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"Shut up! You want to be eaten?!" he growled, his face turning red from the effort of sprinting with pounds of "audacity" on his shoulder. He ducked under a low pipe and charged up the service stairs of the adjacent building, his boots thundering on the metal.

He didn't stop until they reached a boarded-up room on the third floor. He slammed the door shut, kicked a heavy dresser in front of it, and finally—finally—dropped her onto a dusty mattress.

He was panting, covered in sweat, his eyes blown wide as he looked down at her. He realized then that she was shivering, and his shirt... well, it wasn't doing much. With a frustrated groan, he ripped off his own stained tactical overshirt and threw it at her face.

"Put that on," he barked, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Now. Before I decide to throw you back down there to find your damn burger. Who are you? And how are you not dead yet?"