Pandora's End

Prologue: A Beginning To An End

My body is dead.

I didn't want to look, I already knew what I would see. Blood, and plenty of it covering every inch of my body. Although I had passed the point of feeling, the feeling of pain was a memory, and in a perverse way it bothered me; I wanted to feel my Injuries if I were to have them. I let my eyes wander. There was blood on my hands, a deep crimson liquid slowly dripping down my arms from the scratches and gashes caused by savage teeth. It was sick. No man should ever have to go through what I have just done. I keep telling myself over and over again that I didn't have a choice. Maybe eventually I'll believe it. Although deep down, I know I didn't have either a say or a choice; it was either them, or me.

Standing there staring at the bathroom wall, hand prints of blood covering everything in the room, I'm not even sure if it's my blood or...theirs. Quite frankly I don't even know what's happening right now or what just happened five minutes ago. It's quite sick for me to think I'm alone now but, I have to face the truth, I am alone, and I have no one. I could just walk outside this hotel door and let them get me, it would be a quick death, it would be a somewhat brave death too to die fighting, but letting myself just die would be the cowardly option overall.

I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want to make decisions anymore, I just want to leave this world. After the Great War, nothing has been the same, everything has gone to shit. It’s quite ironic how the human race in a matter of years went from the top of the food chain and being the most populated species in the world to the bottom of the food chain and being almost extinct, well the uninfected humans anyway, the infected human’s they-god I don't even want to think about those poor bastards. No matter how savage and animal-like they are now, once they were just like me, they could have made anything of their lives now they're just mindless abominations that will do anything to get fresh meat from anything uninfected. All I really know now is I'm here by myself, it looks like it's going to stay that way and I'm going to have to continue this journey alone.

The blood stained novel lay untouched next to the beautiful corpse on the bathroom floor. I could feel my eyes start to water as I opened the crimson wet book on the floor to read the quote on the inside of the page, I knew the quote off by heart but for some reason I wanted to read it in her handwriting. “No matter what precautions we take to keep those we love and cherish safe, in the end it does not make a difference, fate sooner or later steps in. Fate; it’s inevitable, it’s unavoidable. Even death is a path we must all take at one point that is the way in which life is meant to be lived. We are not meant to drown ourselves in memories of the past, we need to keep moving forwards and live in the presence, and to keep what makes you happy close to your heart and try to keep it there forever- A S Jones” Her voice was in my head, she was whispering it in my ear, she was singing in the shower. God I missed her, my beautiful wife...