- God it's so pathetic that the words stay here and be in your service do fluttery things to her stomach but there is not really a lot of point in pretending to herself that this is not a thing that just happened.

She nods.

"I - think, then - I - kind of want you to kiss me but, like - definitely only if that's something you also want - "

"I think that I want to kiss you and if you told me to kiss you and I did not want to I could make a face and be very disappointing at it and I am not gonna do either of those things.

- well I might be disappointing at it but I will try not to."

" - okay."

Gosh he should have practiced this with other people or something.

Uh?

Oh frick she also has no idea how to kiss people. Uh. Probably you're supposed to part your lips and tilt your head so your nose doesn't get in the way and - uh, she's not really sure what to do with her hands, so she rests them in his hair, and part of her is not sure this is Appropriate Kissing Behavior, but another part of her thinks that probably she's supposed to do it if she wants to, and she kind of does, and honestly she is probably doing this really wrong but it doesn't matter, really, because Connor is - hers. Or something. Wants to do things she likes. So if she likes it that's okay.

Her stomach is doing some not entirely pleasant fluttering right now but she's pretty sure she still thinks this is something she likes. Probably.

He gets debt confirmation that he did not disastrously fuck up the thing! And he's really happy about it!

He will stop while he's ahead, probably.

" - that was nice. I think."

"Oh good. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be."

"Yeah. Probably."

It will maybe take her another minute to be capable of driving safely but then she can drive them home.

What a good dance!

...yeah.

His life is pretty great and he is glad she saved it. Not just compared to the possibility she didn't but also to the possibility they were not attacked by zombies.

Being attacked by zombies is weirdly convenient sometimes, apparently. Her life is good. It would be a lot less good without him in it.

They finish out the school year. Zana starts talking properly. Karen calls her parents and holds up the phone for Azalea so that Azalea can tell them that Karen's grades are way better than they were last year, and it'd probably be better if Karen just stayed here until graduation.

They explore the catacombs more. Eventually they run the camera car down to the fourth level. There's a lot of stuff down here. More unsprung traps, though so far they've been able to spring all of them before actually getting caught. More valuable gems. Thicker, dustier books, sometimes on pedestals. She still mostly hangs back and watches for zombies, out of habit, but there haven't been very many of those. 

One day they find a thick dusty book on another pedestal. There's a dart that comes out of the wall if you step on the floor tile in front of it, but they spring that and determine that it doesn't reload, so they're probably good now.

Thick dusty books on pedestals have historically been very valuable so he picks it up.

Annnnd the corpses in the walls come alive. All of them. Not, like, all-all of them, just within a certain radius of the book, but for a second it definitely feels like everything dead down here is now undead and wants them to be dead, too.

She fires her gun and hits one of the corpses in the face. It goes down. Something else comes up behind her and bites her neck, very deeply, and she screams.

Well fuck -

- he doesn't know anything about medicine but he knows how to use the gun - 

- a lot -

- he can feel it when she is no longer alive because he can feel his debt evaporate, just like that, and the feeling is kind of like floating, in a horrible sickening way, floating above your body which is shooting everything in the room.

Karen does not feel it very distinctly when she dies. She's alive, and it's getting harder and harder to see and to move - not to hear, she can hear the gun fine, though it seems less and less important - and then at a certain point it starts getting easier and she's able to sit up and then stand and then see herself on the floor.

At some point the gun stops working. This point is long after there are not any zombies. 

He should turn around and look but he does not do that.

...maybe she's a ghost? Azalea's a ghost. If she's a ghost he should probably be able to see her.

"...Connor? Can you hear me?"

He should - he should go get out of here. And tell someone. And then - 

- maybe his parents can adopt Connor and Zana but what if they aren't very good at it. Maybe he can do it himself with Azalea's ghost - Azalea's ghost -

He turns around and looks but there is no ghost.

"...Connor?"

He does not seem to be able to see her.

Great.

Well if she's not in heaven and she's not in hell and she's not a ghost, what...?

A figure appears from the shadows. He has a long black cloak, a scythe, and a completely white skull where his face should be. 

"Hello. Karen Teller, right? You're dead?"

"I... guess so...?"

"Yeah, you look pretty done for. No wonder, wandering around in a place like this. Time to head to the netherworld. Except - "

He sniffs the air, which is really weird-looking, because he doesn't actually have a nose.

"Do you have.... a flower, on you?"

Does she have a - ?

Oh, right. She pulls her spirit-backpack off and rifles through until she finds the notebook with the pressed flower in it, the one that looks weirdly like a skull.

"This?"