Sleepy, Hinata heard her cell phone ring.
It took her a few moments to distinguish whether it was a dream or not. It was still quite dark.
When she finally woke up, she turned in bed, fumbling for the device. It was a call from Naruto, her best friend since childhood, at exactly 2:17 a.m. on a Tuesday.
"Do you have any idea what time it is, Naruto?" she snapped as soon as she answered.
"Hmm... Around two-something, I think... Were you sleeping?"
"No, I was watering the plants..." she replied sharply.
"Oh, great, because I was really worried, you know? About the possibility of waking you up," he shot back with a smile.
"Just tell me what you want and I hope it's important."
"I was watching World War Z and I..."
"Good night, Naruto."
"No, please, please... I won't be able to sleep and, consequently, neither will you, you know that!"
Naruto was the best person she had ever met in all her 17 years of life, but he could also be a pain in the neck when he wanted to.
"What is it, then?" the young woman said after a long sigh, staring at the shapes that stood out in the darkness of her room.
"So, I was watching World War Z and I had a cruel doubt about zombies. Like, they're zombies, right? Everyone agrees they're zombies. 'Undead' beings. Dead because the organism has no biological life, but alive because they can still move, walk, kill other people, right?"
"Are you serious, Naruto? Really? You woke me up for this?"
"Shh, pay attention. Excluding all knowledge and possibilities involving the zombie world, and analyzing only the zombies from this movie and the information we have, how does the virus spread?"
"Like any virus. They invade the host, take up residence, multiply, and infect another organism when they get the chance," she commented, defeated.
"Exactly, but they need a living organism, a functioning circulatory system."
"They were still alive when they were infected. No mystery so far."
"Correct, and then? The virus takes over the entire host system and kills it, quickly. It dies."
"Yes. Probably that's why they seek a new host so desperately, since the one they got died... I don't know... It's an idea."
"Ahh, that makes sense, that makes sense... Except they don't really die. They continue living, or, better said, existing..."
"With minimal functions, that's why the body deteriorates. So what?"
"What do you mean 'so what?' How do they stay alive if they die?"
"That's why they're called undead, Naruto. They die, but they don't die. And there's no logic in that, since it's a non-real story. Their existence is a fable, like vampires."
"No! Don't you dare compare. Vampires are an illogical existence even for what has no logic. The existence of zombies is different."
"Aren't undead illogical?"
"Of course not. Look, taking our reality as a basis. It's perfectly possible for a highly resistant virus to emerge, one that dominates the entire organism, starting with the nervous system, and that is also highly lethal, to the point of killing the host quickly. And, as you yourself said, the need to propagate and survive makes the virus spread, seeking and killing one host at a time. It's dead, but it remains 'alive' because, inexplicably, the virus is strong enough to keep the body going for a while."
"Go on..." she whispered, too sleepy to argue.
"Now vampires, assuming it would also be a virus