Infectious Infatuation

Chapter 1

Twenty year old Annie Cresta was convinced that human beings had become sort of a rarity now a days. Ever since the outbreak occurred, nothing was like how it had been before when the Earth was normal. It was like a slow, painful suicide for the planet, and it had worked pretty well. Annie hadn't seen another human being in over a year, well, what she thought was over a year. The dates had kind of jumbled together, and Annie never bothered to keep track.

Annie herself was short, with long, brown hair that went down to about her belly button. She had never bothered to cut it, so it just continued to grow. She had a fairly pale complexion despite being in the sun for hours on end. She usually burned, didn't tan. She had bright green eyes with a plentiful amount of freckles that spread across her cheeks. She didn't look like much of a threat, but she had been on her own for awhile and learned a thing or two about killing these.. things. At first, it was hard to get over the fact that these things were once human beings, able of thought and feeling, possessing memories, thoughts, opinions.. But that's not who they were anymore. They weren't human. They were vicious, flesh craving fiends. She quickly learned that they did not deserve mercy. Thinking with emotions these days was definitely not the way to go, although it was harder to control then one might think. She herself had always been an emotional girl, but ever since she had lost her family, she had grown cold, but more logical. She had a way with weapons, but specialized in her throwing knives that she possessed. She had a handgun on her as well, and knew how to use it, but it wasn't her favorite method of killing zombies.

Annie had recently collected a few cans of food from an abandoned convenience store. Nothing big, the store had already been raided a few times, and she took whatever she saw that might satisfy her hunger. She had gotten used to the hunger pains though, she never ate enough, and you could tell by looking at her that she was malnourished. Her ribs poked through her dirty, black tank top, and the shorts she wore around her waist sagged a bit due to the fact that they didn't quite fit her anymore. She twirled the knife around in between her fingers and looked around, observing her surroundings closely. Be aware of your surroundings. This was one of the key things she was taught by her family before she lost them. They had made a good attempt to stay alive during the beginning of the outbreak, but in the end, their kindness is what had killed them. Annie remembered the earlier times of the outbreak, she was around sixteen years old when the disease started to spread. She and her family would take in as many people as they could since both of her parents were doctors. Sparing the gory details and making this long story short, someone had turned in the middle of the night and bit her mother and father. The only reason Annie had survived was because at the time of the attack, she was in the basement practicing piano, not upstairs where she was sure if she was there, she would've met her end. She ran like a coward away from her mother and father who were now coming after her to rip her flesh apart. That was the last time she ever saw them, if you even want to count that as actually them.

As she walked down the path of the long dirt road, her eyes scanning the green trees, the blue sky. Even though humanity was pretty much gone, nature continued to prosper, maybe even better now now that there were less people to hurt the environment. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a gun cock behind her and shut her eyes tightly. Her first thought probably should have been, shit, there's a gun pointed at my head right now, but instead, her thoughts were, only a human being could handle a weapon. A human being is pointing a gun at my head right now.

"Your name," the voice behind her said. Low, distinctly male. Gruff. Whoever he was, he sounded like a guy that she did not want to mess with. He was probably here to take everything she had. That was how it worked. Kill or be killed.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and sighed.

"Annie," she replied.

Now was when she started to feel the panic coursing through her. What if this man killed her? Took her stuff? She would be left with nothing. Taking all her belongings would be worse than killing her, in her opinion.

"Put your weapons on the ground. All of them," demanded the man.

Her brain started working for ways she could get out of this. She could quickly turn around and shoot this guy right in the head. There was a chance she could miss, then get shot herself. All of the options were too much of a risk except one. To comply, to set her weapons on the ground just like he wanted.

Annie bit on her lip and took a deep breath before removing the three other knives she had in her belt loop, as well as the one in her hand. She set her bag down on the ground which contained her small handgun.

Fuck, she thought to herself.

"Turn around," he ordered.

Upon doing so, she came into view of a tall, very handsome man. Very handsome, although he was pointing a gun at her. One of the first things she noticed about him were his eyes, bright green, staring intensely into hers. He was at least a foot taller than her at least, and had definitely a stronger build than her. His hair was sort of a bronze, blonde color, which looked to have gained its lighter color from the sun. Her eyes locked with his and suddenly, she felt out of breath. His gaze was intense. It intimidated her, made her nervous, but she couldn't look away from him. Maybe she was just imagining things, but she saw his hard, static face change for just a second, into what she thought was maybe curiosity. But, it quickly returned to its threatening, hardened look.

"Annie?" He repeated, as if testing out the name, or maybe trying to reconfirm it.

She nodded, swallowing hard, looking at the gun pointing straight at her.

"What's yours?" She asked, even though that was stupid. It's not like she really wanted to even know his name, but she couldn't help but be fascinated with the human being standing in front of her right now. Living, breathing, talking to her.

Her social skills were definitely off since the only person she had been talking to this past year was herself.

The man paused for just a moment before he replied.

"Finnick."