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Fallon Novette-Naim had made a decision, albeit a slightly unethical one.

When faced with the moral quandary To eat, or not to eat?, the young teen zombie had decided to look at it from a practical angle. Eventually, she would have to consume flesh; there was no avoiding it. It gurgled in the pit of her stomach with increasing urgency, begging her to give in, to destroy, to consume. It was a typical issue for her, though she was used to having to struggle between stabbing someone in the face with her butcher knife for violating her OCD rules of life or just ramming them in the gut with her fist. Sure, the victim of her actions would look up with puffy eyes and demand to know why she had attacked, but Fallon merely shrugged. If only they knew what she could have done, what a part of her truly wanted to do. Just like in those situations, Fallon needed to channel her compulsion so that it did not rule her.

Basically, she needed to pick someone to eat.

Her mind scrolled through the faces of those lives that she really could care less about at Barren Pines. Her first impulse had been to wander off campus and nab a bum or something, but Andeon had told her leaving was impossible. And when she tried to do it anyway, she felt herself rejected from taking another step, inevitably turning back toward the main building without even realizing she had changed direction. So, it was simple. She had to kill a fellow student. She had seen other zombies, but their smell was nothing compared to what she had whiffed coming off of Andeon. No, she wanted a human.

Best case scenario: she would get to kill someone who she wanted dead anyway.

A few names sprung to mind, those who had wronged her, but one flickered to the front like that little brown-noser kindergarten kid who always wanted to be the line leader: Lucas. Fallon had an entire list of grievances piled up against the boy (literally), and she largely felt that the world would be a better place without him in it. Therefore, she would eat him. It was as simple as that.

The tricky part, however, had proven to be finding him. Fallon had been sluggishly marching all over the school that day, and night was swiftly approaching. As the sun grew dimmer and dimmer, Fallon felt herself move closer and closer toward pandemonium. It was as though the sun kept some part of her in check, and if it went down, Fallon had no idea what might happen. Despite her naked arrival into this Brave New Zombie World, she had managed to nab an old uniform from the laundry room before beginning her search -- a search that was taking far too long.

The initial bounce in her step that had propelled Fallon throughout Barren Pines had degraded into a drunken stumble. The longer she went without eating, the more out of control she felt. She wanted to feel that power again, the same power that had raced through her veins when she attempted to bite Andeon. If draining another student would return that power to her, then that was exactly what she needed.

Lucas is what she wanted, but Fallon was getting desperate. She pushed through the doorway into the main hallway, tilted her nose to the air and took a deep breath. Humans. The very thought made her mouth water, eyes rolling back into her head. All thoughts of Lucas drifted away, and when Fallon lowered her chin, she did not look like herself.

She looked like an animal that had just been let out of its cage.

"No, it's okay." Chronos assured Virgo. "I understand; the dark is kinda scary." Like that woman they had met earlier. Chronos hadn't gotten a very good vibe off the woman, and still was wondering why she felt this way. Back there, she had been almost seized with fear. It was lucky Virgo was there with her, or she wouldn't have known what to do.

She was stopped in her steps and snapped out of her reverie as Virgo halted and Chronos raised her head to see who they had run into. "F-fallon?"

Chronos as Serenade had liked Fallon. Fallon had been nice to her, though she was solely ignorant of the purpose behind the other girl's affections. Still, she had thought she was an awesome cook and it made her sad to see Fallon become one of those zombies. Dark pink eyes stared at the zombie, hoping that no one else would hop in and try to use her as a puppet against them. They had enough of that for one day.

Poor Fallon! Still. You don't know us, she thought, but the lie sounded hollow even in her mind, so she just shook her head. It looked like Chronos liked Fallon, so Virgo would definitely keep her mouth shut. She grimaced, unhappily thinking about how hungry she'd been as a zombie. Probably Fallon wasn't going to do anything, like Virgo-as-Elke hadn't. But she should not risk the princess, no.

Fallon had started to turn into a nighttime monster, like Virgo had just before she had been awakened again. "They're around," she blurted, "But they're probably outside, most of them are outside." How had Fallon gotten to the woods? Virgo had woken up in the ruins of the school's dining room.

Ugh, but she didn't even know what to do in this case... But she had to do something! Conflicted, she started to back up, arms spread out a little to keep Chronos behind her. Virgo would protect the princess, just like before!

Fallon's eyes moved slowly from Virgo to Chronos, appraising them. Serenade might find the gaze familiar; it was the same one Fallon had given her back when she was human. It was a hungry gaze, a predatory gaze, but when Fallon became aware of it, she let it soften, casting her eyes to the floor as if she were afraid. "I've looked," she said, and it was true. She had been searching for Lucas all day, damn slimey b*****d. Couldn't he just give up?

"Perhaps if I walked with you two? I keep getting turned around. The fire has erased some hallways completely." She shrugged impassively, moving a bit closer. Fallon wasn't making any outwardly violent moves, but she was most certainly putting herself in an advantageous position. "It is very creepy being here when the building is like this."

Fallon thought to say more, but it seemed like talking too much might give her away. It seemed clear that they realized what she was, but neither seemed to outright attack her for it. Had others before her not been as bloodthirsty? The thought didn't quite bother her, but she shook it off anyway, letting out what she thought to be a most pathetic and lonely sigh. How could they refuse to help her? She had to seem so pitiful...

Chronos had never always understood the way Fallon looked at her or even thought if she meant something else by being so nice to her. She, on the other hand, was giving the zombie a look of pity, remembering when the Captain had ordered some to attack them. It scared her to think that her classmates were under the realm of influence of...of the bad guys, whatever they called themselves.

"Maybe just walk her in?" Chronos whispered back. She was scared still, however. Scared that another bad guy would jump in and make Fallon try and kill them. Chronos didn't want to hurt her schoolmates, especially those she knew.

"Yes," agreed Virgo; then she turned to Fallon with an apologetic smile. "Sorry," she said, placing herself between the monster and the princess again before continuing awkwardly, "Only, well, you're dead, and people have attacked us before." Honesty was the best policy, even with the starving undead. Wasn't that so? It was so so.

Cautiously, she followed Fallon towards the 'kitchen'. She must mean a home ec room; hadn't the dorms burned down? If they hadn't, Virgo wanted to go so see if she could retrieve some of her possessions... Memories and such. It'd be nice to see if she could pick up internet from her laptop, too.

The sun set... Fallon disappeared, and Virgo whimpered, hands over her mouth. "It'll be okay," she said to Chronos, the reassurance as much for herself as her princess. She balled up both of her fists and looked around, trying in vain to find Fallon before something terrible could happen.

The dark made Fallon feel better. When she closed her eyes, it was as if she had no body. She floated freely in a sea of black, just another speck moving across infinity. Alone, but not alone -- hundreds of particles just like her doing the same slow dance across time. Was this peace? It felt like it. Perhaps it was the only chance at peace Fallon could ever have. If she just kept her eyes closed, then maybe she could will her body to dissipate in to pieces, to break apart from the mortal coil, or even this undead one. She could float away, just another tiny speck in the sea.

Then the hunger struck, a sharp whine in the pit of her stomach, and Fallon returned to the dark corridor.

She took a sharp inhale of air, drawing in every taste in the room. Her keen nose in humanity followed her into this new life, but now, it focused on the notes of bodies, of blood. Chronos, especially, appealed to Fallon's new preferred palette. Perhaps it was the echoing remnants of Fallon's desire for the girl who lurked beneath the fuku. Perhaps it was the youma in her seeking out a princess over a normal sailor. For whatever reason, Fallon felt her limbs tremble, demanding the flesh of another.

With the sun gone, the human voice in Fallon's head retreated to a quiet corner, curled into a tight ball. The youma took over, and the youma was not nearly as patient. "You glow..." her voice whispered, raspy and tense. "You should light our path." Silence fell over the hallway. Fallon's breathing no longer whispered down the corridor. In her body, two forces swam, one controlling and one resisting in a steady ying and yang of existence. The third presence of the monster impulse set everything out of balance. And Fallon could not right it.

An exposed pipe dripped a steady beat. Drip... drip... drip...

And then Fallon lunged. Her eyes glowed almost red, skin changed to a sickly green. Her once tidy uniform appeared in tatters, stomach exposed and the cut that rested there visible under the pale beams of moonlight that cast a glow in the room before the hallway. The attack was almost silent, the heels that had been on her feet discarded in the hallway. This girl was not Fallon; this thing was unthinking, unknowing, unfeeling. It understood only one directive -- and that was to lunge for the throat of Sailor Chronos.

There was no resistance in Fallon's eyes -- just a numb helplessness to keep herself in check.

Chronos screamed.

She screamed when Fallon lunged at her; it had been entirely unexpected even as one considered they had just been attacked by two zombies. But then again, those two had been controlled by Nealite, and said orange-haired woman was nowhere in sight. "Fallon, don't do this!" She wailed, ducking behind Virgo as her heartbeat quickened in fear.

The darkness also didn't make this situation any better.