Hello! Last time, our brave hero very nearly had a romantic night by the fireside with a girl.

Rylo: Shut up!

He’s just mad cause when she tried to seduce him he got scared and ran away. He couldn’t be seduced. He was unseducable.

So now he’s grumping around another camp trying to sort out his feelings. He’s pretty emotionally stunted, so it will probably take him a while. In the meantime, let’s give an update on the rest of the Yu family!

Or not, cause they never do anything, ever.

Oscar and Sam haven’t done anything noteworthy. The only person I can talk about is Joey, who is finally a young adult. I think Story Progression seriously forgot to age him, so he’s a little behind.

And he went and married this blind girl named Marina. Every single picture I took of her has her eyes shut, I have no idea why. I swear they were open when I took them. She has blue eyes, in case you were curious. She also has probably the best trait list a random townie has ever had. It’s like Good, Friendly, Charismatic, that kinda shit.

Yeah, there’s nothing to tell.

But Rylo seems to have sorted himself out and gotten some sleep. Over the course of the night he started to wonder if maybe Kayliss likes him, and maybe he should try talking to her more (Der, ya think?).

The sun is starting to creep over the hills and Rylo is hoping that Kayliss is still at the camp.

He gets within sight of the river and breathes a sigh of relief, although he’s not sure why. She’s still there, sleeping deeply and peacefully.

Suddenly Rylo senses that something’s not quite right, and breaks into a run across the sand.

Just as he reaches the camp, two rotting zombies emerge from behind a rock. Moans rattle in their throats as they shuffle towards Kayliss. Rylo knows that if she doesn’t wake up now, she’ll have no chance. He screams her name.

A fury comes over Rylo and he yanks the first zombie back by the hair. He feels her decaying scalp come loose from her skull, but it’s just enough to allow him to drive his knife upwards into soft flesh.

The sound of her name rouses Kayliss in a groggy panic. She stumbles backwards and scrambles to escape from Mister snazzy CEO zombie in front of her.

This handsome gentleman lurches towards Kayliss with a ravenous snap of his teeth. She shrieks and cowers in the sand as he looms over her, dripping brown saliva onto his nice Armani suit.

CEO is then pitched backwards as Rylo’s wiry arms wrap around his chest. The zombie flails and thrashes, nearly knocking Rylo off his feet.

Kayliss stares transfixed as the zombie’s ruined teeth smash together, blindly searching for a bite of Rylo. Rylo fights to hold on, and shakily raises the blade of his knife to the creature’s writhing head. One sharp jabbing motion, and the limp corpse drops to the sand.

Rylo gasps for breath. He is surprised to see that his hands are not shaking as he would have expected, but are perfectly still. He wipes his knife clean on the zombie’s sleeve and replaces it in his pocket.

Kayliss sits in the sand with wide eyes and tears streaming down her face. Rylo isn’t too sure what to do about that, so he sets to work on cleaning up the mess.

Kayliss eventually eases herself onto a chair to watch him work. She sits for a long time, quiet and shaking .

Rylo binds the zombie’s wrists together and drags it off the beach and as far into the forest as he can. The corpses are absolute dead-weight, and rotted bits tear off as the bodies drag against the ground, leaving a revolting trail of flesh and gristle.

He realizes while hauling the bodies that this was the first time he’s ever come into direct contact with a zombie. He’s a little critical of himself for having so much trouble with the second one, but he’s sure that if he had a long range weapon it would be much easier.

Rylo then hauls off stripper granny zombie. He can sense that Kayliss is still dealing with some FEELINGS so he steers clear of the riverside camp for a bit.

He wanders around for a while, checks his traps, all that stuff. At this point he’s got sort of a routine for when he’s avoiding Kayliss, since that’s what he seems to be doing half the time now.

Whoops. Damn flying turtles’ll getcha every time.

Anyway, he does eventually return later that day. He figures it’s safe since he doesn’t hear any more traumatized sobbing.

Kayliss seems completely back to normal, and stands up to greet him. She steps close and stares into his eyes.

Kayliss: You saved my life you know.

Rylo: Uh….

Kayliss: I would have died if you hadn’t yelled my name.

Kayliss: I bet that’s the loudest you’ve ever yelled anything, Rylo. But you were really brave.

She looks up at him from under her eyelashes, and Rylo steps back and grimaces.

Kayliss steps forward, resting her hand delicately on his arm. He gets the strange feeling that his skin under her fingers has both turned to stone and been set on fire at the same time. He has a strong urge to pull away, run for the trees, and bury himself alive so he’ll never have to feel the soft touch of her hand again. But Rylo does none of these things, and remains frozen in place.

Kayliss: I’m so glad you came back. I didn’t know if you would, but I’m glad you did.

In a quick motion she throws her arms around him and flashes him a bright smile. His head starts to swim and his vision starts to blur. He stares wide eyed and panicked into ice colored eyes. She giggles at him.

Kayliss: You’re cute, Rylo. And I think you need to… relax.

And then Rylo has no idea what’s happening. His mind is an overwhelming rush of confusion and nothingness and he waits for it to all be over.

But then somehow biology kicks in and Rylo finds himself not just enduring it, but participating. His hands are somewhere and he has no idea what he’s doing with his face but it seems to be working and there’s no real reason to stop.

After forever hours and eternity minutes, they slow down and take a breath. Rylo’s self conscious nature kicks in again, and he becomes fully aware of her body pressed firmly against his.

Kayliss looks up at him and giggles shyly. Rylo is grateful that for once she seems to be lost for words, since he can’t seem to find any either.

Kayliss: Well that was fun.

She gives him a bright smile and then pulls out of his arms.

Rylo watches as she walks off the beach and over the hill. He doesn’t move an inch until long after she’s gone.

Finally he realizes his mouth has been gaping open for a very long time, and staggers forward towards the fire. He can’t seem to decide what to do now. He feels restless, giddy, terrified. Mostly just to move, he walks off into the forest.

Rylo finally stops a long ways off, and sits for most of the day pulling out handfulls of grass. Occasionally he lets out a swear word. Nothing really gets accomplished, but by sunset he’s decided that she’s surely in love with him, so he must be in love with her too. He’s not sure. He’s never loved a person. But he loves swimming, and trapping food, and fishing, and warm summer days. He’s starting to think he might love killing particularly disgusting zombies. So he’s probably starting to love Kayliss too.

Rylo thinks it was very nice of her to kiss him. In fact, she had been so nice this whole time and all he’d done was act awkward and mean towards her. Maybe he could do something nice for her. He’s not sure what.

On the way home he stops by the graveyard, which is infested with wildflowers. He follows his nose until he finds the sweetest smelling flowers, and pulls out as many as he can carry. Then he stops at a nearby apple tree and fills his pockets with the ripest, reddest apples he can see.

Back at the river camp, Kayliss still hasn’t returned. Rylo is feeling much less nervous, in fact he’s almost happy. He arranges the flowers and apples on her bench for her in a way that he thinks she might think is pretty. This takes him about ten minutes of arranging and rearranging and getting frustrated with himself and telling himself he’s stupid to even be doing this.

By nightfall he gives up arranging the items on the stool, and even forbids himself from touching them. The apples have started to look pretty tempting, so he gets to work on cooking himself some dinner.

It’s quite dark now, but Rylo is feeling positive and warm. He’s finished eating his dinner, and now sits in his chair admiring the gifts he’s gotten Kayliss. He’s sure the flowers will be beautiful to her, and the apples will be the sweetest of the summer. Each breath of the wind in the trees causes him to turn around, not out of fear of zombies, but in anticipation of Kayliss.

AWWWWWWWWW!

He’s. So. Cute. Barf.