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SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW long it's been since It started. Since her world changed. Since everyone's world changed. A month? Maybe it was two months? She wasn't keeping count of the days that gone by, the restless nights spent tossing and turning in a cold, plain tent, the days that were spent in a constant state of fear, always having to look over your shoulder if you just wanted to survive. When your life had turned into this, marking days on a calendar seemed useless, like it didn't matter. Because to her, it didn't matter what day it was. Not when it didn't feel like she was living in the first place.
Juliette Graves—less formally referred to as just Jules—tried to block out how it started, how things went down, but she could vividly remember the entire day that it happened. She could still hear the shouts that littered her street, the sound a constant echo in her head late at night, though they weren't ones of anger. It was of fear, sheer terror, screams she only ever heard in the horror movies she's seen about the paranormal, or just some crazy psycho wielding an unconventional weapon they used on their victims. The sounds made her freeze up, watching as her uncle shot up from the couch the two were sitting on, his jaw working, like he, too, didn't know what to make of the situation. Like clockwork, he held a handgun closely to his side, beckoning her away from any windows or doors, as he crept to the window, pulling the curtains back to reveal a sight Jules would never forget. All she could do was watch in horror as what looked like cannibals wreak havoc on people she had met and grown accustomed to not long before that moment. Only they weren't cannibals, weren't aware of what they were doing as they ate other people. They weren't even alive. She could vividly remember the fear and confusion she felt as her knees threatened to buckle, her uncle's words thrown at her not meeting her ears. The knot in her chest and the bottomless pit sinking in her stomach.
That same feeling was one she had grown well acquainted with, like a parasite using her as a host, constantly making itself known as she continues to suffer with the haunting feeling as the days pass along like clockwork. Because even though the world had ended as she knew it, time still continued to flow, and she still woke up every morning, despite not wanting to, despite nature seeming to be out to get her. The knowledge that she'll never be completely safe is something that harbors her mind often. That, at this point, all she can do is survive based on human instinct, an instinct that made humans want to strive to keep going that she hadn't been aware she had. She's not living, not really. She knows she's just surviving, and she knows it's only a matter of time before she joins the millions, maybe even billions, of those who are dead. She just hopes she doesn't wander even when she's dead, that she doesn't kill and eat like those things do. That she does peacefully, and stays buried in the ground.
The getaway from the now unsafe home, neighborhood, city, whatever, was quick. Sirens blared every few blocks, the emergency evacuation drill coming from every radio station and TV channel that was on, while Jules hopelessly packed her bags alongside her growingly panicky uncle. He practically hauled her towards the car, cautious as he did so, before making his way to his best friend, and co worker's, house. She hardly knew them personally, just knew their story. Lori and Carl Grimes were the only two to grab, the man of the household stuck in a coma in a hospital unreachable, according to her uncle. So she sat in the backseat, trying to drown out all of the sounds around her, heart thumping against her rib cage, threatening to break out, one of her sweaty palms clutching the smaller boy's hand that sat beside her. She doesn't remember if it was for her comfort or for Carl's. She does remember that traffic had backed up on every highway and interstate, that the four of them had narrowly made it out of Atlanta, Georgia, before the entire city got bombed. They were unable to go any further than that.
