Cold + Dark

Introduction: Autumn's View

"Ahh! Help me!" is one of the last things I heard that unfavorable night before everyone fell away in a handshake that I had never shook. My dreadfully fearful nightmare was coming back to me, and so wasn't real life.
"I'm coming!" is what I last heard that unfavorable time before I blacked out that evening. The air was cold and still, hard to believe that since summer had just started, and it was about fifty degrees out tonight. I felt frozen solid.
I awake from one of my sleepless nights once more. You see, the zombie apocalypse has been going in for over a month now. Many have died in action, some to even sacrifice themselves for a significant other; an act of bravery in my opinion. Just about everyone has disappeared from the town within that small amount of time. No one was prepared for the danger they were about to face; and literally, turning just about every corner, you'd see a corpse from what used to be, once, a human.
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Sliding inside building and building, I hear an extremely faint noise. I didn't think it was anything, so I kept searching around.
But just then, I immediately hear someone bellowing, "Help!" as zombies start to try to pound the doors when I run upstairs.
I think to myself, 'Zombies can only hear you, not see or smell.' I see a zombie, that slithery little thing, trying to attack the closet as if someone was in there. I see the gleam of a gun inside the closet. Luckily, I had a crossbow on me and shot that zombie's head, just as another enters. I quickly recollect my arrow. The noise I thought was a person, and I was right, and they bursted out of the closet and pounded the zombie that had entered. I couldn't see their face, but I was sure it was a boy, their short, scarlet hair whipping as he sliced zombies as they entered. It was like he didn't know I was here.
"Hello?" I spoke as he finished off all the zombies.
I heard a return voice. "Autumn, is it you? Tell me really, is it you?"
I repeated with sudden expression, "Cooper? I thought you left me?"
"That's later to discuss," he spoke. "I thought you were dead?"
"Let's talk later. Something wrong?" Sudden urge crossed upon his face.
"You know, Kai is stuck behind the rubble in the basement..."
I cut him off, "Kai?" I said, surprised and started digging the rubble away...finally revealing the horrible truth. "You didn't tell me about Justin..."
He was lying lifeless on the earth; suffocated to death, and struggled not to die. He was gone.
"I'm really sorry," Kai continued trying to say to Cooper, "I couldn't avoid it."
"It's fine. She'll get over it," Cooper replied, second guessing his words.
By then, Autumn had run upstairs by the zombie she had killed minutes before. She ripped out the second arrow from its head. She was going to leave, and she will start tomorrow. Hopefully, nobody will know...she started to pack her thinhs for the long haul becayse later that day she would come back.
Maybe...just maybe she would.
Or at least she should...