Part 1 - Chapter 2 - The Two Horsemen

After 19 hours of straight laying down, CJ was walking out the house, limping. The smell of the snake's bloody, rotten, and burnt body made CJ vomit a bit one last time.

CJ had to use 80% of his strength to simply unlock and open the front door, he collapsed again before he could even reach the bench 6 feet away from him. “I’m done for… if only I wasn’t that hungry yesterday… I wouldn’t have looted that specific house.”

CJ lay on the concrete driveway, still heavily breathing, CJ slowly started ripping more material off his shirt, leaving him half shirtless. CJ slowly made a splint with the ripped part of his shirt, and after 45 minutes of slightly painful movement and crafting, CJ finished the splint.

“Though, I guess I’m lucky. I survived that fight, and I’m in the final 200,000 survivors… knowing this city, that number probably dropped to 190,000 since I finished the fight…”

CJ kept laying there, too tired to move a muscle. All he could do was look around and speak, as if it was sleep paralysis in a way. “Where are people when you need them? I swear…”

CJ slowly raised his arm up and pointed at the sky. “The clouds… they look like a big heart if you take the outline facing outward. I remember reading about that… a sign of… the famous Two Horsemen? The two men who come to save injured people on their horses… I doubt they’re even in this city right now. They would’ve had to be here when the barrier was raised…”

Suddenly, footsteps could be heard on CJ’s right. They didn’t seem to be horse footsteps though, but instead, horse footsteps. “Yo! Are you injured? My name’s Horseman! The one next to me is Horseboy! Nice to meet you!”

CJ grunted in pain before attempting to get words out. “Yeah… I’m injured. I fractured… my left hand, and… my breathing is a bit wonky after a fight I got into…”

The horses beneath the two men vanished, and the men fell down on their feet. “So, we just need to fix your left hand and breathing? Horseboy can do that, he can’t speak, but he’s a medical expert!”

Horseboy nodded, before picking up CJ. Horseboy grabbed CJ’s left hand, and examined it a bit, sliding his fingers against the surfaces of CJ’s palm slowly and steadily. Horseboy kept nodding, before out of nowhere, Horseboy just bit down into CJ’s left hand as hard as he could.

“AH! OW! OW! STOP IT!” CJ started screaming in pain, but he was too weak to defend himself. After biting down for 20 seconds, Horseboy started to do the same thing, slowly and steadily sliding his fingers against CJ’s palm.

Horseman nodded after seeing Horseboy do that. “It’s painful, but it’s Horseboy’s special power. He basically just healed your left hand instantly after doing that short painful ritual thing with your hand. All of that at the cost of his ability to speak.”

CJ nodded. “Oh… yeah… I feel it now. Thank you. Horseman, was it? What’s your special power, and… why did the horses disappear from under you when you went to help me?”

Horseman laughed. “My special power? I can talk with horses, that’s it! Us horsemen can understand horses, but only I can talk back with them.”

“Us horsemen? What do you mean by that?”

“We’re our own race. You are a human, I’m a horseman, Horseboy is a horseman. We’re just a copy of humans who can summon horses from under us to travel on at will, and we all get a special ability at birth, with a 50% chance of a setback being added to that ability. Like, my ability has no twist to it, but Horseboy’s ability does. You get it?”

“Yeah. Cool… sounds cool.”

Horseman giggled. “Yeah, it is pretty cool stuff. Now, Horseboy is gonna fix your breathing problems, he’ll have to bite your neck to do that though, you up to it?”

CJ nodded. Horseboy put his fingers on CJ’s neck, before stabbing them into CJ’s neck. After 5 seconds, Horseboy ripped them out, then swiped his fingers against the wound he made. The hole in CJ’s neck closed, and out of nowhere, CJ was breathing normally again.

“Oh… that feels way better. Thank you.” Horseboy put CJ down, and helped him stand back up. Horseman patted CJ on the back, helping his posture get back to normal.

“So, what’s a young man like you doing out here? Looting? Getting into trouble? Simply just surviving? We haven’t seen someone as young as you yet, I bet almost all people under 17 have died already…”

“I’m just trying to survive by looting. I got injured like that cuz I got into a fight with this huge snake thing. Though, I blew its brains out with a revolver I found in the house I was looting by some miracle. I’m 13, so yeah, I’m probably the youngest survivor you’ve seen still alive and breathing, let alone thriving.”

“You got that right. The youngest I’ve seen in this day and age, I believe he was 15. You hit the new record!”

Horseboy tapped Horseman on the shoulder, and pointed at a figure slowly approaching in the distance. “Who’s that buff looking figure in the distance? I thought the young boy was the only one in this neighborhood. Why does he walk so menacingly?”

CJ squinched his eyes and tried to get a good look at the figure. The man appeared to be 6’5”, somewhere between 170 and 190 pounds, and very muscular. “Hey… Horse people or whatever you are. Is it just me, or are both of y’all getting deja vu?”

Horseman and Horseboy shook their heads. “No… all I’m feeling is this menacing aura… I don’t like it though. Even for us, this is sending shivers down our spines.”

As the figure got closer, a deep voice could be heard. “Hello! Behold, my power, my partner in life, the embodiment of my mind. THE IDIOT!”