I Found You

Good Morning.

I awoke to the sound of moans. It echoed from outside the door, where I was just able to make out the shadows of their feet. Scrambling onto the floor, I laid down so I could see them. Two very purple, pale feet dragged and slid across the floor. It had gone now. I took a very reluctant deep breath, and stood upright, squinting at the brightness that shone through the window. Just adjusting to the light, I realised the change this city had gone through. When I was seven, I had appendicitis so I had to stay in this hospital for a month. Back then, I would see clean, white and brown buildings and an occasional spray painting on the walls. Now, is a whole other world. The buildings are dirty, mouldy, bloody, wrecked and ruined, just like my jumper. I lifted it over my head and patted down my buttoned up dress. The top half was spotless, whereas the bottom half reeked of sweat and food bag mush (they were rather difficult to open sometimes, which led to spillages). I have hearing like a dog, so I was able to hear the mild shuffling behind me. My head turned sharply at man, and I got closer to him to investigate the sounds. His eyeballs were wriggling behind his eyelids, like they were trapped, and his lips trembled. He's awake!

My heart pounded behind my shaking skin and I placed my hand on his arm.
"Sir?" I said quietly, "are you awake?"
His mouth opened slightly, taking a deep, loud, long breath. His eyelids fluttered open, then closed, then opened again. Soon I became the centre of his vision and my smiled beamed.
"Good Morning! I'm Louisa. Are you feeling okay? Are you still hurting?" I said rapidly, he seemed rather overwhelmed and shocked by my appearance, but he simply raised his arm and rubbed his face. He closed his eyes again and placed the side of his face on the pillow.
"Can you get a nurse please," he mumbled, half asleep, not taking in anything I had just said.

Pausing for a moment, I tried to think of a way to tell him about the world now.
"There aren't any nurses." His face turned to me again, confused, and he furrowed his eyebrows.
"What's your name, sir?" I said.
"Rick," he murmured, "now what's going on?" A hint of fear glinted in his eyes.
"Everything's different, and not good different," he remained silent, so I went on, "I mean, I haven't seen anyone in ages, apart from you of course, and -"
"How long?" He said abruptly.
"Excuse me?"
"How long have you not seen anyone?" He questioned, sitting up slowly, cringing at the pain from his wound.
"54 days I believe, sir." He glared at me, analysing my face, as if he didn't believe me. Suddenly, he shot out of the bed, stumbling with his weak legs.
"I don't get it, this doesn't -" He paused to rip out the tubes that were stopping him walking a metre from the bed.
"This doesn't make any sense," he stated, and glared out window. He's not wrong, I thought. I didn't know what to say, or what to do. I didn't know him, and he didn't know me. How could he possibly comprehend this?

He twisted his body towards the doorway with ease, and began to walk clumsily.
"Woah woah woah!" I shouted, standing in front of him to block the doorway.
"I don't think we should go out into the hallway right now. I heard moans earlier. And you've just woken up!"
"Excuse me," he said, and gently pushed me aside. He clasped the door handle and opened the door. I followed him cautiously into the hallway. The lights flickered but all else was motionless. He took and long look around him and wandered down the hallway, his pace quickening as he spotted a telephone. He lunged over to the counter, placed the phone to his ear and furiously tapped against the dial. After he discovered that the telephone didn't work, he rummaged through old paperwork carelessly. I just watched him, I didn't think I should intrude. Finally, he picked up a box of matches and lit one, lighting up his determined facial features. He shook it out, which made the light disappear.

"Rick," I said softly, wanting to go back. He ignored me and drifted to a doorway, that lead to yet another hallway in this maze of a hospital. Rick pressed his hand against the glass of the door's window and stared into the hallway. I stood next to him and peered through also. There laid a body; a woman's body; a dead woman's body; a dead woman's body who's flesh had been eaten to the bone. A lump rose from my stomach to my throat and eventually to my mouth, where I lurched to the floor and gagged. I wanted to vomit but I couldn't: I had been rationing the food bag mush so much that I hadn't eaten in two days. That poor, poor woman. She died so gruesomely. Rick tumbled to the floor next to me, shaking furiously. His face was full of fear, distress and anger.
"Oh my God," he stammered. His gaze lifted to my face and he suddenly stared at me with sympathy.
"What's happened?" He asked me, desperately. Tears filled my eyes and my body was too exhausted to fight them.
"I don't know."

He got up slowly and held my hands to help me up, as if I were the one who had just woken up from a coma. His touch was so lovely, so sweet, what I had been craving for so long. His hands were large and warm, like Craig's. We ventured towards the other end of the hallway. Bullet holes made a wave-like pattern on the wall. A puddle of blood laid next to smashed glass and and other destroyed medical components on the floor. Wires, tubes and insulation hung from the ceiling like hang rope. This was the complete opposite of a hospital. Rick's feet dragged along the floor, seemingly not caring about the tiny shards that attacked it. I looked up at him, but his eyes were fixated on the large doors that stood in front of us. It read:

DONT        DEAD
  OPEN       INSIDE

We stopped. The door handles had been blocked by a large piece of wood, where a chain and lock hung tight around the handles. Moans, heavy breathing and inhuman noises came from that room. The door was being pushed by whatever was inside. A sudden push made my breath jolt and I stepped back. Boney, white fingers appeared out of the crack and fondled with the chains.
"Rick," I said again, and he didn't ignore me this time. The blood had drained out of his face. He was petrified. He put his arm around my back and we walked swiftly away from the door.

We came across a pair of doors, and Rick attempted to open the first one. It didn't budge. I shoved the second door open and before I knew it, Rick had shut us both in the fire exit stairwell in complete darkness. I don't like the dark. In fact, I severely hate the dark. Ever since Mom, Craig, Tessa and I entered the horror house at the fair last year, I haven't been able to sleep with the lights fully off. I began to hyperventilate and I searched for Rick's hand. It was swiping a match against the box and holding up the light. I could see Rick's face, just, but that was all. We slowly went down the stairwell, before Rick coughed and the match went out. He was quick to relight it, much to my relief, and we continued to venture down the stairwell. We finally reached the bottom and saw the EXIT sign above fire door. Rick pushed the bar down with an enormous thud, and light blinded us. It took a few moments for the daylight to finish torturing our eyes, but when it did, I wished I were in the dark again.

Bodies, hundreds of them, were bagged and placed in orderly rows on the ground below us. I followed Rick down the metal stairs to the ground where corpses laid on the concrete. Some were wrapped in rope, others poking out from their sheets. Flies danced around their blood and flew happily from one corpse to the other. A gag formed in my throat again, but I forced it down.
"I don't wanna be here anymore," I whimpered. Rick continued to stare at our surroundings, and simply nodded.