Alone

Chapter: 1 // shortline •

The air smelled like rotting corpses and the ground was freshly wet. My boots were coated with gunge and my hair was a frizzy tangled mess. I sped through the woods, branches nipping at my bare skin, leaving multiple scrapes and scratches on both my arms and legs. I kept running until all of the sudden I tripped fell into a lake, a pea green lake in the woods.

My legs felt like weights dragging me to the pit of the nasty lake. I used my upper body as much as I could to stay above the water, but it was useless. I was surrounded by a body of water and I was just one girl, one ailing, helpless, lonesome girl out in the woods accompanied the biters hobbling around groaning and moaning like the dead bodies they were.

They couldn't help, they're not smart like humans. They were once upon a time until the disease spread out of nowhere and what once was the world, wasn't anymore.

I've always pictured zombies to limp around with their arms outstretched groaning, "Brains!" but then realized how unrealistic that idea was once I was introduced to the real zombie apocalypse, and it's nothing like the comic books you've read or the movies you've seen about green animated zombies coming for your brains, they're actually re-animated humans infected by an inoperable disease that some may call the flu.

Sometimes I feel bad after piercing my weapon through their skull because I'd like to believe that there is a cure after all and I still hang on to that short thread of humanity left in me. That thread gets smaller every passing day, and the more I think about the idea of humanity and observe the savage world around me and all the hungry ruthless people in it, each with blood on their hands and fingers on the triggers of their guns, I start give up and lose that fight and hope that I had for this society, that there is still good people and a remedy for this virus that's affected millions of people.

As the thought of death slipped in my brain, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the lake. I could barely see the top now, and below me looks like a never ending pit of darkness that I would definitely not want to fall in. I found it hard to hold my breath under water, I just couldn't do it anymore. I opened my mouth, immediately choking on the green contaminated lake water as I did.

I managed to get my head above the water long enough to scream, "Help me! I'm dr-" Then I was under water again, and I flailed my arms but nothing seemed to work. I finally accepted it, I accepted that I'm going to drown and die in this lake and no one will come to my rescue, because I'm alone.

...

I stirred, coughing up dirty salty lake water that blocked my lungs. I fluttered my eyes, taking in my vicinity. My surroundings were quite the same, same trees, same sludge beneath me, same grey cloudless sky, the only difference the lake that was a distant view in my vision.

Unconscious of the stranger sitting next to me, I nearly had a heart attack. I distanced myself from the stranger before taking a good look at him, his skin pale and blue and green eyes like the globe and all it's land and water, and almost just like the actual globe the blue covered most of the green on his pupils.

His light ginger hair fell just an inch below his chin, he flashed me a crooked smile, his eyebrows met above his nose.

I realized how long I'd been staring at the poor guy who must feel violated and shied away, quickly turning the other way so I wouldn't have to come up with an explanation of why I was gawking at him for what seemed like minutes. My outfit was drenched in that disgusting lake water, my boots squelched as I pressed them against the mud.

"I saved you from drowning, just so you know." He said, breaking the awkward silence. "And another thing, you're wearing my shirt, so could I at least get a thank you? Or are you finished coughing the water out of your lungs?" I tugged at the sleeves of the brown button up shirt he lent me for the time being and I felt a little embarrassed.