Shadows of Our Pasts

Chapter 1 - The Beginning...and Now

It's been 4 years since it started - and 1 since I've moved back into my old house. By now, I'm well-adjusted to this new routine of mine; going on runs every once and a while for some more supplies and food, but mostly staying indoors reading, exercising, training, repeat. 

Since I only have to provide for myself right now, I'm often able to stay inside for weeks - almost a month - at a time before worrying about a supply run. Now though, it's been about 5 weeks and I'm cutting it close, so it's time to head out of my safe zone again. 

My house is a decent-sized two-story home in the neighborhood that I grew up in until the age of 10, and I was glad to be able to move back into this home when the apocalypse settled down enough for everyone to adjust and begin looking for places to settle. I take good care of this neighborhood and - since I'm a well-trained athlete - I haven't run into any trouble with the walkers for a long time, even though I've been on my own for the majority of the past year. My most treasured part of this home is my reading room - a small room with nothing but bookshelves stretching wall-to-wall on both sides, complete with bean bag chairs and a recliner by the window, where I spend most of my time if I'm not training. 

I haven't gotten around to looting all of the neighboring houses yet, but I'm always looking for new books and supplies I can bring home with me to add to my collection. Like I said though - I've tried to stay inside a lot more recently to avoid both the walkers and the humans after an incident that occurred a year ago that pushed me into hiding. 

I wasn't always by myself.

In fact, at the beginning of this apocalypse, I looked out for others and brought them under my wing so often that they appointed me the leader of what became the largest and strongest survival group in the U.S. I stood with my head held high, surrounded by my fearsome fighters which I hand-picked and trained by myself, recruiting them and giving them jobs in our group which eventually became known as 'The Godless Shadows,'  and eventually, others began to see it as an honor to become a fighter in my group. We stood for freedom and strength in a time of such desperation and helplessness, and because of that, we were widely known and popular, allowing me to grow our group into this huge community of 300 fighters, each of them with their own family and close friends who helped anywhere else they could if they were not ready or were not able to fight. 

But then the incident occurred, and it brought this wonderful community as we knew it to its end. Another group rose up - jealous of my Shadows' reputation and fighting ability, and despite our true enemy being the walkers, this group decided to challenge us and fight us to the death whether we accepted or not. It was a massacre. This group was greedy, selfish, and cruel and they were not going to accept anything less than a victory and refused to give up until they defeated all of us or until every one of them was dead. They would become known and revered as 'The Lucifer Syndicate' - a bloodthirsty group of thieves and murderers who used the apocalypse as their reason to pillage, kill, and commit any crimes they desired simply because there was no authority to stop it. 

They challenged our 300 warriors with 500 of theirs. They were not trained as my Shadows were, but we were greatly outnumbered. They destroyed our main base, their only goal to slaughter every one of my members until there was only one group standing, and on top of everything else they captured the undead and released them in the middle of our civilian area, doing everything they could to kill as many members as possible. To them, it didn't matter if they were innocent women or children, old men who couldn't defend themselves, or strong warriors. They just wanted us dead. 

Eventually, I slashed and shot my way through their group and to their leader, bringing him down along with any enemy that was in my way. I stalled as much as I could while the rest of my group got away - but we had already suffered a huge loss in this war. Very few civilians were left, and more than half of my fighters had been massacred. We went into hiding to prevent this from ever happening again, and due to the guilt I felt for the number of good people that were slaughtered that day, I haven't recruited members since the war. 

Although we escaped due to the distraction caused by the loss of the Syndicate's leader, the Syndicate is still out there and hunting us - not finished with their goal of killing every single Shadow that remains.

So, we continue to hide. We haven't spread the word about who remains, or how many, so the remaining survivors are losing hope - some already spreading rumors that the Syndicate had completely defeated us. Truthfully, I cannot handle the responsibility of losing any more men to that awful group, so I have not given the order to come out of hiding yet. Instead, my members are scattered around my hometown, trained to live in secrecy as the silent, skilled, and dangerous Shadows that I always wished for them to be in order to survive. 

We separated into manageable groups - big enough to be safe, but small enough to be able to hide. I appointed an officer for each group, in charge of a walkie-talkie so we can remain in contact with each other. We are prepared to help each other at a seconds' notice, and we are trained to work as a team. This is my family, who I want so desperately to protect...but something's wrong. This was never meant to be like this - living in hiding out of fear of getting hurt...we're meant to do so much more...

So, I've decided that I need to change. We need to change. We can't just simply survive, we must stand up for each other and fight side-by-side. This group wasn't supposed to be temporary salvation - it was created to give hope to the people through the apocalypse that people are out there and fighting and they are not alone. I trained my people with the intention to be strong enough to stand up for ourselves and one another. I mean- our motto that I have drilled into my member's heads is "We believe in ordinary acts of bravery in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another." It's about time that I begin living up to that again.