Monsters

Chapter One

Running, I had been running again. I was slowing down because I was tired; tired of having no food or water, tired of barely getting any sleep, and just tired of fighting to survive every living moment day in and day out. Could I even really call this living anymore? I had been through too much already and I was running out of the fight while barely having enough left in me.

What made it worse is that I had been hurt. There was a big gash on my side leading me to lose a lot of blood. Taking another look at the gauze I had wrapped it in I saw the white it used to be had been overtaken by the color of red. I had run out of gauze a while back so I was unable to replace it again. This made everything all the more dangerous.

I was functioning on barely any food, I was dehydrated, I had been running on two days of no sleep, and now I had an unsafe amount of blood loss making me feel even more weak and tired. And the monsters could smell my blood, I just knew it. Hope, I had not felt that feeling in a while. All I could feel now was fear, I was scared, more than I had been in a long while.

My head felt heavy as black dots began to cloud my vision. I stumbled forward and fell to lay on the ground to catch my breath. My hand that held my gun lay next to my head in a loose grip as I stared at the sky above me. A few moments passed and I tried to get up only to fall back down as I didn't have the strength left in me. No! I have to keep moving! I screamed to myself as my eyelids grew harder to keep open.

"Amity," I heard a sudden voice say, "what are you doing?" I turned my head to see my brother looking at me curiously before slowly walking toward me. "You're supposed to keep going. Remember the rules we made?" He asked as he approached me slowly with a small smile and my brows furrowed.

"Edric?" I slowly pushed myself up before flinching, holding my side. Looking at him, he was wearing the same thing I last saw him in. I found myself smiling slowly. "Yes, I remember the rules. I have to keep going. Don't stop for anything." I mumbled as I watched him walk closer. His figure flickered, an image distorted causing me to tilt my head.

I felt my gut twist as I squinted my eyes and his approaching figure flickered again. Something was wrong. "Edric?" I swallowed hard and pushed myself up, stumbling back on unsteady feet. I saw my brother approaching me but my gut was telling me otherwise. I watched as my brother's image slowly grew to look like a monster.

His clothes became torn, his eyes red, and his mouth no longer mouthing distinguishable words. And before I could rationalize what I had been seeing, the monster before me grabbed my shoulders and tried to pull me in. "No!" I screamed out loud as I began to struggle to pull myself away from its steel grip on me.

Shakily, I brought my gun up as all rational thought went out of my head. I placed the gun up against its temple and pulled the trigger. The gunshot rang loud as blood splattered on my clothes and the monster's lifeless body fell to the ground; the image of my brother falling along with it, it wasn't him. I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut I began to breathe heavily as my ears rang. Opening my eyes my mistake finally dawned on me as I looked around my surroundings frantically. Every monster in a mile radius had to have heard that gunshot meaning I had to get out of here now.

I started to stumble forward while gripping my side as I looked around me alarmed. Dread rushed through me when I was a couple of steps in and I heard growls. Faltering for a moment I looked around for any place I could consider safe. Black dots obscure the corners of my vision as I lurched forward, my surroundings becoming indistinguishable. My hands fumbled for anything I could hold to remain standing.

My fingers brush up against rough, uneven bricks and I traced my path along with them as I continued forward. I had to keep going so that I could live to find my family. All of this surviving would've been for nothing if I couldn't. I shook my head causing a headache as my vision started to clear. But I saw my mistake and my heart dropped.

I was in an alleyway, a dead end. I tried to turn around and backtrack only to realize it was all too late. Tears began to build in my eyes as I turned back in a desperate search for a way out that didn't exist. And I was scared, more scared than I had been moments before. I knew what came next but my eyes widened when it dawned on me that I had used my last bullet on the monster I had thought was my brother. My tears began to fall as I made it to the wall at the end of the alley.

My back fell against it as I looked above at the fire escape that I couldn't reach. That's when I knew it was over and I let my tears fall even more. After everything that I had been through; this was how it was going to end. I watched them grow closer and It didn't seem fair.

Just when I had finally felt myself giving up; the dead surrounding me, what little remained of my hope dissipating, the final thoughts of my life and my family leaving me as well as possibly my life. Something happened I had not been prepared for. Before the dead could finally close in, a figure jumped from above acting as a wall between the monsters and myself. They looked back, yet all I could see were red eyes.

My vision had started to fade and as I looked at the cut on my side I discovered why. The reopened wound looked bad and the amount of blood loss was not a well-kept secret given the state of it. However, I knew of the damage when I realized that I wasn't feeling any of the pain anymore. My exhaustion from running for so long and the lack of food and water had started to all settle around me at once.

So with one last glance at the world before me, the tragic mess it had proven to become, my eyes shut. The darkness consumed me and my last thought was of my family and how sad I was that I never got to see them again.