Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 177: Visiting the Injured

He was just... Thomas.

One of the first he passed was a young Overwatch soldier — maybe nineteen, twenty at most — his entire left arm wrapped in gauze, suspended in a sling. Shrapnel wounds dotted his chest, a few stitches peeking from under the hospital gown.

The boy's eyes widened as he recognized him.

"Commander," he croaked, trying to sit up.

Thomas raised a hand immediately. "Easy. Rest."

He pulled up the single folding chair at the side of the bed and sat down heavily.

"You fought well," Thomas said simply.

The young man — his ID badge read Benjamin— swallowed hard. "I... I thought we weren't gonna make it. When the Behemoths came, sir..." His voice broke slightly.

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Thomas leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"You held," he said quietly. "You bought time. You gave our defenses enough breathing room. That's why you're alive. Why we're all alive."

Benjamin blinked rapidly, his mouth twitching between a grimace and a smile. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he just nodded — a sharp, jerky movement — and slumped back onto the bed, exhausted.

Thomas squeezed the young man's shoulder gently, then moved on.

In the next bay, two engineers sat side-by-side on their cots, legs bandaged up to the thigh, swapping quiet jokes over a battered tablet.

Both saluted when they spotted him.

Thomas returned the gesture instinctively — but this time, with a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I heard you two kept the northern CIWS online even after it took a direct hit," he said.

"Had to," the older one — a burly man with streaks of gray in his beard — said with a raspy chuckle. "We figured if the flyers got in, we were all bird food."

The younger one, missing two fingers on his left hand, grinned through his pain. "No way we were letting them turn the mall into a buffet."

Thomas laughed softly — the sound almost alien after everything.

"You saved lives today," he said.

He meant it.

And they knew it.

He spent a few more minutes with them, trading small talk.

Even though they were summoned from the system, they felt like ordinary people with ordinary lives, doing extraordinary things.

Room by room, cot by cot, he moved.

He visited the medics who had dragged wounded back under fire. The gunners who stayed at their posts when the air turned black with plasma and smoke. The scouts who marked enemy targets until the very last second before the bombardments fell.

Some were asleep. Some were too sedated to even notice him.

But that didn't matter.

Thomas made sure to stand there anyway. To see them. To acknowledge them.

Victory wasn't banners raised high and heroes on podiums.

It was broken bodies.

It was sacrifices stitched together in IV lines and gauze.

Toward the end of the row, he found Phillip.

Shadow 0-1 himself — propped up against a mound of pillows, an ugly gash stitched across his side, an arm in a cast, but otherwise awake.

Phillip cracked a tired grin when he saw him.

"Sir. Took you long enough."

Thomas smirked. "You looked comfortable. I didn't want to interrupt."

Phillip chuckled, then winced as the motion tugged on his stitches. "Tch. Would've been worse if you hadn't gotten that AA grid online when you did."

Thomas pulled up a chair beside him.

They sat in companionable silence for a moment, the distant sounds of heart monitors and muted voices filling the space between them.

"You did good, Phillip," Thomas said finally.

"Could've been better," Phillip muttered, glancing down at the bandages. "Lost good people today."

Thomas nodded slowly. "We all did."

Another long pause.

Phillip's voice dropped to a rough whisper. "Do you think it'll ever be enough? Everything we're throwing at them?"

Thomas didn't answer right away.

He stared across the medical wing — at the wounded, the tired, the broken.

At the ones who would carry the scars of this day forever.

"No," Thomas said quietly. "It won't ever be enough."

Phillip looked up sharply.

"But it doesn't have to be," Thomas continued. His voice was steady now. Certain. "We just have to outlast them. One day longer. One fight tougher. One step further."

He looked back at Phillip.

"And with you here? With all of them?" — he nodded toward the rows of wounded soldiers — "We will."

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Phillip let out a slow breath and leaned back against his pillows.

"Guess I better heal up fast, then."

Thomas chuckled low in his chest.

"Yeah. You'll need it."

He clapped Phillip lightly on the good shoulder, then rose to his feet.

"Rest. Doctor's orders," Thomas said with mock sternness.

Phillip gave a lazy salute with his uninjured hand. "Aye, sir."

Thomas smiled — a rare, genuine smile — and turned to leave.

As he walked back down the hospital corridor, the fatigue finally began to settle into his bones.

The burden of leadership was heavy.

But tonight... after seeing them... after seeing the fire still burning in their eyes...

He knew it was a weight worth carrying.

No matter how long the war would last.

No matter how many nights like this would follow.

He would carry it.

He must.

Because behind every victory, behind every wall they held, behind every inch they refused to surrender — there were people counting on him.

People worth fighting for.

People worth bleeding for.

People worth everything.