"We run," she answered while already turning her back to him to search for an exit. "We don't have the resources to fight them and from the sound I imagine they outnumber us on a scale I'm not willing to stick around to measure."

All she had to do was think. She'd been here more times then she could count, never the basement, but she had skimmed the exterior in past escapes and remembered a cellar door from the outside. "Follow me." Turning so that the elevator shaft was on her left, she ran with the expectation he would follow as directed. The smarter ones learned early on to do so with little question until they were able to pause long enough to play the question and answer game. Some were not so patient or intelligent and barely made it past the second day. Curiosity always killed the cat in this world.

Derek followed her without hesitation, thinking that she was going back to the elevator shaft but she ran past it and he didn't even pause in his step, only following without question. His survival instinct had taken over once again, pushing all the unnecessary things into the back of his mind. All the questions he had weren't important right now. Surviving was. And so he didn't hesitate when the corpses started to wander out from the darkness of the cellar. 

Their horrific faces and forms upset the dust floating peacefully before in the sunlight streaming through the cellar windows. All around them they seeped from hidden corners, mouths drawn open in anticipation of sinking their teeth into fresh flesh. The mistake of one stepped out in front of Sophie. Half her face had been eaten, her jaw hung from a thin thread of skin, bouncing against her shoulder with every step. However grotesque that would make even the most hardened of men pause, Sophie did not hesitate in taking out the knife she found to embed in its forehead then withdrew and plunged into the temple of another behind it.

Behind her, Derek caught up, instinctively taking on the dead to her left, shielding her flank while she fought on their right hand side. It was how a wolf pack would have acted in this moment and right now Derek was more animal than man even though he hadn't shifted. He used his leg chair as a club against the heads of the corpses, as he had done before, while he noticed from the corner of his eyes that the woman always went for the head as well. This indeed seemed to be their weak spot and Derek doubled his efforts.

Seeing the crack of sunlight through the doors of the cellar not far in front of them, she sighed in relief. Pushing her legs faster she barreled forward with the intention of using her body to thrust them open only to be thrown back down the short flight of stairs to the cement floor when the bolt and chain holding the doors resisted. Blonde tresses escaped their newly bound tie to fall about her face and through them she could see the feet of the dead in the distance. Their shuffles hurried with the ring of the dinner bell the chain and bolt so kindly mimicked.

"Break it," she ordered while climbing slowly back to her feet. Greasy hair and the smudge of their black blood clung to her fingers where they wrapped tightly around the only weapon she had. They were too close and she wouldn't dare risk him being bitten so soon. 

It was almost comical to watch how she bounced off the locked doors but Derek didn't feel like laughing at all. Once again, he didn't hesitate but just followed her order. She seemed to be used to give orders and right now Derek didn't question them. Instinctively he knew that she was his best chance of survival. He threw the left side of his body hard against the doors and even though they cracked slightly underneath the impact of his weight and strengths, the path was still blocked and his side hurt.

Sophie focused on nothing but the strong desire to live and the current push of the dead through the narrow corridor was threatening it. She found it was the one way to truly survive the surge of a group. Only worry about herself. Even a fraction of a distraction could be the difference between standing wholly or fighting to catch your stomach as they ripped it through your flesh. So when they surged, she placed her back to him and accepted the first wave with a skill honed to a deadly precision over the years.

The corpses stumbled over each other in the small confines. Arms endlessly reaching for their meal. She ignored them in lieu of their heads. The knife she held continuously striking down into their foreheads, eyes, cheeks, temples, necks... With each one that fell, it created a more difficult obstacle for the dull ones behind to clamber over. Their coagulated blood coated her face and jacket. Their torn fingernails and decaying hands, some with only remnants of skin clinging to their bones, scratched at her clothing. Some caught and dragged her dangerously close. 

Her face stilled within an inch of an old man whose mouth gaped open immediately as if intending to swallow her whole. Catching her balance on the back of dead that just fell near, she pulled herself back just enough as her knife swiped up cleanly slicing through his soft jaw. It fell to the floor without even a pause from the owner who could no longer do harm to her yet still a victim to the endless hunger of the dead. 

"Fuck," he cursed loudly under his breath, taking a quick look over his shoulder. The corpses already were dangerously close and he knew that he needed to make a decision. He would be able to break through the doors easily but only in his wolf form. The thought about shifting in front of her made him uneasy though. He was so used to protect his secret that shifting in front of strangers wasn't really an option. But he knew that he didn't really have a choice right now, there were just too many of the creatures around and so he didn't waste any more precious time.

Derek shifted effortlessly and within a second. His eyes were a glowing red first, followed by the appearance of his fangs and his rapidly protruding claws. His face shifted too, taking on some sort of contorted appearance but he turned around quickly and simply punched a hole into the door effortlessly before using his body again, almost falling out into the harsh sunlight together with the debris from the force of the impact. 

He immediately shifted back into his human form and bashed the head of a corpse in that had been standing right in front of the door. There were others around but they were far away in the distance and it would take them some time to shuffle over. At least they weren't too fast. The woman was already behind him, followed by a bunch of those things.

He allowed himself the luxury to take a single deep breath, sucking in the fresh air like someone who had been drowning, before he instinctively turned towards the tree line in order to make a run for it. He was able to survive in the woods for a long time, he had done so before in his life. But his human side held him back from simply running because he had no idea about those woods. There could be other deadly creatures living inside of them. 

His life had been turned upside down since he had woken up in this room and the woman clearly was the one with the knowledge of this situation and their surroundings, she would know if the forest was safe. Derek knew that they needed to find some sort of civilization in order to call for help. Other people, a phone, anything.

But he wasn't sure if she had seen him turn into his wolf form or if she had been too busy fighting off the corpses to notice. Usually people completely freaked out upon seeing him turn for the first time, even those who actually knew what he was and he had seen her handling that knife. If she decided to attack him, she was going to be a serious threat. But there was a bunch of corpses right behind her and he knew that they only had a few seconds left to make a decision. There just wasn't the time for anything else. He turned around completely to face her, looking for signs of an attack, halfway expecting one. "The forest?" he then only asked quickly. "I know how to survive in it!"