AW? Chapter 11 (Patreon)

Third-Person Point of View

A man sat alone in a padded cell. His body was wrapped in a straight jacket to not only protect himself from self-harming but also to protect others from him. Inside the padded cell with extra thick walls, the man heard a voice in his head. He had heard voices before but this was a new one. It didn’t tell him to hurt other people it told him about the Strengthen Humanity program. 

As he thought so, a swift and brutal pain shot through his body as the virus tried to fix his mental instability. He couldn’t help but laugh at it. This was a feeling very familiar to him, like an old friend. He passed through it easily enough then the pain shifted up a degree and he still handled it easily enough. He somehow retained his psychosis through what should have been impossible.

He felt immediate changes to himself as he was one of the few gifted with a source. As his body expanded it was put through the vice-like grip of the straight jacket until his muscles finally burst the seams of the clothing. He flexed tearing through even more of it before ripping his arms free. He could already feel a huge difference in his strength from what he was before. 

He closed out of the stupid blue box which showed alert after alert of him failing to be cured. None of that information mattered to him. He made his way to the padded door next and swung hard against it as it didn’t budge. Another swing and the door crinkled outward slightly. A smirk crawled across his face as he slammed again.

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Third-Person Point of View

Hermione disliked her job at the Starbucks cafe in town but it was a means to an end for her. She would do this for enough money to fund her plane ticket to England and try to find a living over there. She loved everything about the country since she was a little child. The way they talk, the atmosphere of the country. She loved it so much that she changed her name from Emma to Hermione after her favorite character from her favorite book series.

Price’s law states that fifty percent of the work is done by the square root of the number of employees. That law is completely broken by some people and Hermione is one of those people. She did more than ninety percent of the work done at Starbucks by herself. A constant overachiever since school no matter what she did she made sure to put in the work.

She put the two coffees on the counter in front of herself and called out the names. The two very stoned men walked up and accepted their chai latte and a witch’s brew frappuccino. Witch's brew was no longer a product at most Starbucks but as it was one of her favorites she kept it on the menu for herself. The stoner who ordered the witch’s brew had a crush on Hermione and would often make small talk. Because Witch’s brew was one of her favorites he often got it. She liked the London fog as well but the pimply-faced stoner only tried it once before realizing he didn’t like it.

He started making small talk with her, asking what she had planned later that night but she knew it wouldn’t go any further than that. If anything she was more interested in his friend but he seemed to never give her the time of day so she quickly quit that pursuit. Most men were turned off by her flat as a board body and the few that liked her REALLY liked her to the point of creepiness.

All three passed out at the exact same time. Out of sheer luck, the two stoners didn’t remember there was a person just on the other side of the counter as they shuffled around. After hours of them shuffling around Hermoine finally woke up making enough noise to draw their attention. The stoner let out a snarl before reaching for her over the table. The voice she heard in her head said that they’d become zombie-like creatures that wanted to kill survivors. Without thinking she did what she would always do when she was nervous.

She would try to cast a spell. Every time she was uncomfortable or she was bored or just if it had been a few days since she tried last time she would try to cast a spell. She pointed her hand at the man before stating. “Expelliarmus!”

She knew what the spell would do. It would knock an item out of your hand or if you put more effort it could fling them backwards but she never saw someone use it without a wand. A wand controls the magic and keeps it from going wild. She didn’t honestly expect anything to happen. She had done similar things a thousand times in the past with nothing happening. The magic exploded out of her hands like a missile.

The feral stoner was shot back with enough force he collided with the roof of the building before slamming through the plate glass window and ending up outside of the building. The shock from the spell firing from her hand wrenched it back with so much force it dislocated her arm and tossed her back a few feet.

For a few seconds her body fought to keep her conscious and a few more seconds after that she stood back to her feet. As she stood up she realized she twisted her ankle during the attack as well. She made her way towards her locker in the back. Inside her locker was one of her favorite wands.

During breaks, she would eat and just hold it in her hands. It wasn’t a generically made wand but one she made specifically for herself. As much as she wanted to be a Gryffindor she knew what house she really belonged to. She was a Ravenclaw through and through. Her wand handle sported gems in the Ravenclaw colors and the clear lacquered finish let the color of the golden oak wood show through.

It felt right in her hands and she would hold it whenever she could to the point of wearing off the lacquer about once per year. As she brought the wand to her hand her two zombie coworkers made their way from the back room where they’d lounge around until she needed a break and take over while complaining for the fifteen minutes she needed to eat. She aimed her wand at them shouting. “Stupefy! Petrificus totalus!”

Two spells fired out rapidly each hitting a different coworker. While she disliked them she still held the hope that they could be fixed if given enough time. If someone found out that she killed her coworkers it would be very difficult to get another job. 

“Brackium Emendo!” The dislocated arm she pointed the wand at slowly worked its way back into place. Bones grinded and she almost passed out from the pain of the joint popping back into place followed by immediate relief. The fast use of her spells sapped her energy immensely. It didn’t look that hard in the movies or books. She smashed into the vending machine and started to load up one of the coworkers' backpacks with the food.

Hermione pulled out the letter of resignation she kept in her locker since the second week of working on the job. If the manager came by she wanted her to know that she wasn’t coming back in for work. She walked out the door keeping a constant watch out for zombies as she made her way home. She needed to load up on her wizarding equipment, then she would start the search for survivors.