ad·dict·ed

chapter one

"rae come back here!" i hear my brother call after me laughing as i run up the porch into our childhood home.

"the point of the game is to run away from you not to you bubba." i say turning towards my brother laughing uncontrollably as he tackled me on the couch.

"alright you two dinner will be ready soon. go upstairs and wash your hands." our mother tells us setting the table. we run upstairs racing to the bathroom to wash our hands from playing outside all day.

"I WIN!!" i scream as i slide down the hall into the bathroom door way.

"no fair! you're such a cheat raleigh." my brother practically yells pouting like a three year old.

"aww poor baby boy. race you back down." i say as we dry our hands and start sprinting back down the stairs to our dining room seeing our father enter the room. i ran to my dad hugging him as we all sit at our spots at the table. we sit there in silence enjoying our dinner together as a family. a family something no one wants to lose.

//

"dr. rhee please report to the nurses station immediately. i repeat we need dr. rhee to report to the nurses station on the third floor immediately" the intercom over the hospital announces. i sigh as i get up from my seat in the cafeteria.

"i guess i'll see you guys later." i say tk my friends as i pick up my trash off the table. i walk into the elevator pressing the third floor button. as the elevator starts moving i feel my phone vibrate. i reach to grab my phone as i feel the elevator jolt to a stop before starting again. i knit my eyebrows together in confusion as i turn my phone on to see a text from my brother.

youngest twin 😋: what time does your shift at the hospital end? i was thinking of bringing pizza over and binging horror movies.

me: around 8ish.

youngest twin 😋: great i'll see you at 8:30. love ya!

i smiled rolling my eyes as the elevator stopped and i turned my phone back off and put it back into the pocket of my scrubs. i walked up to the nurses station greeting the nurses sitting in the chairs.

"i was paged?" i questions one of the nurses.

"oh dr. rhee dr. ramone asked me to ask you if you would scrub in with him on a gunshot victim coming now." she replies looking up at me.

"i would love to whos the patient and what or?" i reply asking her.

"patients name is an officer rick grimes gunshot wound to the chest. currently headed to or 3." she tells me handing me the chart. i nod in thanks taking the chart from her arms heading towards or 3. i pull out my phone to send my twin brother a quick text.

me: change of planes, i got called into emergency surgery. rain check?

younger twin 😋: ofc. good luck with the surgery rae.

i smile putting my phone back into my scrubs heading to grub into my surgery. little did i know that would be the last time i talked to my brother, or anyone for that matter, before the whole world went to shit.

// two weeks after the end //

i jolt awake to the sound of something heavy falling into the floor. my hand instantly reached for my gun before my eyes focused on my surroundings.

"nurse help. nurse help me!" i heard someone saying. as i searched the room i finally realized what was happening. the patient i went to surgery on, rick grimes, was on the ground calling for help. i immediately stand up and go over to him helping him walk to the bathroom.

"it's ok calm down." i tell him trying to calm him down as he looks in the mirror panicked.

"where am i? where's my wife and my son? and shane i just saw him where'd he go?" rick asks confused and scared searching and looking at me frantically.

"they're gone. everyone is." i tell him looking down sadly thinking of my brother.

i haven't left the hospital since everything went down. a few days after the surgery on rick people started coming in the hospital with flu like symptoms. the fever was off the charts and they all had a scratch or bite from people suddenly attacking everyone. the military showed up, started shooting parients and workers at the hospital. i saw ricks friend, who was with his wife in the waiting room when i updated them on ricks surgery, roll a gurney in front of ricks door and run from the hospital. i was scared to say the least. i watched the people who were supposed to save us start killing everyone. i ran into ricks room and hid in the bathroom when i heard someone coming towards the door. i heard someone open the door and i held my breath trying to make as little noise as possible. after i heard the door close i slid down the bathroom door and tried to calm down and breathe. i stayed at the hospital looking after rick and scavenging the hospital for any food or supplies i could find without traveling too far from his room. after i realized rick was still alive, in his coma, i decided to stay there until everything settled down on the outside of the hospital. occupying myself with taking care of rick who was unconscious and unaware of the hell storm the world just walked into.

"what do you mean gone i have to find them." rick says stumbling out of the bathroom into the room out into the hospital. i decided to just follow rick to make sure he didn't get into trouble but not pushing him into seeing how the world was now. i realized how crazy i would have probably sounded so i decided to just let him look for himself. as we walked around the hospital for a minute we came to the double door with the message someone has written in it. rick watched in horror as the decomposed fingers of the dead slipped through the crack of the door. rick ran to the stair well me trailing behind him. we ran out the doors into the sun light. this being the first time being outside since the start i frantically looked around taking in my surrounding. i scrunched up my nose at the smell of the dead bodies littering the outside world. just piled up outside the hospital like it was normal. i didn't know much about what went down but one thing j m ew for sure was that we weren't safe just standing there.

"we should probably keep going or head back inside i don't know what it's like when night falls." i tell rick walking behind him reaching to grab his arm.

"i have to find my family. my wife and my boy." he says walking towards a bike lying on the ground.

"where are you headed?" i ask him walking walking next to him as he rode the bike. even though he was riding a bike he was quite say to keep up with considering he just woke up from a coma he had shaking legs.

"i told you i have the find my family. i have to go home." he tells me before i see him stop and looking over at the field scaring at something in the ground. i look around him following his gaze when i see have a body on the ground chomping it's teeth crawling towards us.

"i tried to tell you everyone's gine rick there's no family to go back home to." i telling looking away from the body towards him before i continue walking forward.

"i have to find them i have to atleast try." he tells me looking forward pale faced. i look at him, sympathy in my gaze.

"well we better get there quick i don't wanna be outside when it gets too dark out." i tell him as we continues to move where i'm guessing is ricks home. i don't know much about what happened in the end all i knew is that suddenly the dead was walking. around trying to kill everyone and i didn't wanna be apart of that bunch. i look down towards my shoes getting lost in thought as i walked with rick in the empty streets of the neighborhood people used to call home. wondering if maybe ricks wife and son were still alive. if there was a family to go back to after all. wondering if maybe my brother was still alive and i would see him again one day. i walked next to rick with a new sense in my brain. the sense of hope and determination to help rick get home and maybe even find my own way into this new world. somewhere we could call home again.