Welcome To The Apocalypse.(Daryl Dixon)

The Beginning Of The End Of Days.

I was running. Sweat dripped down my face and fell on my clothes and the ground beneath me. I relied on my legs to swiftly carry me over the terrain- lunging over debris and large objects when it was called for. I've gotten quite used to running. It was necessary in these times. If you couldn't run, you couldn't survive. Simple as that. Not even running could save you sometimes. You not only had to be swift- but mindful too. If you were a slow thinker, most likely, you wouldn't survive either. I've learned to use the resources around me. I've also learned to hunt, fish, scavenge, and steal. I've learned the use of firearms and blades. I've learned all of this- and only in the time of 7 short months. Why would I need to do all of these things? It's the fucking apocalypse.

My feet pounded on the ground as I ran. Two walkers were behind me, keeping their pace pretty well. Even after trudging through the deep creek and hopping a waist high fence, they still kept up with me. My heart was beating so fast and I continuously felt the tingle on the back of my neck, like when it felt like someone was about to catch you. I looked behind me to see that they were slowing their pace a bit. Finally, they stopped chasing me all together. Must have caught wind of something else. Just because they stopped, didn't mean I was going to though. I kept my speed until I reached a familiar landmark. It was an old beaten down Ford Mustang, rusted and dented to Hell. I did a quick look around to make sure there was no threat then leaned in the back seat of the Mustang. I pulled out a backpack and unzipped the pouch, revealing 3 water bottles, a bag of stale chips and a can of baked beans. I pulled out one of the water bottles, untwisted the cap and gulped down half the bottle, then poured the rest over my head. Not that it helped much- it was at least 110 degrees outside and the water was almost as warm, or at least that's what it felt like. I put the backpack back in the broken car and continued walking down the road at a fast pace.

I'm sure you're wondering what the hell is going on. I said apocalypse, and just let your imaginations run wild. I said walkers, and that probably helped a bit but the apocalypse didn't start by someone getting bit by a rabid animal or from someone breaking a vial of poisonous serum that evaporated in to the air causing people to breathe it in, and it sure as hell didn't start by any toxic trees. Truth is, nobody knows exactly how it started, but we did rule those possibilities out.

The day everything did start... I remember, perfectly.

I was driving my daughter, Lynnore to school. The sky was grey with clouds- the same it had been for a week but there was no rain. The day it happened though, was the day it did rain. I was walking my daughter to the front steps of her school. There were lots of children with their parents waiting outside to be let in. My daughter asked me if I was cold and I told her no. She started shaking and her face grew pale. I didn't know what was happening. I did know that she was just getting over a cold but none of her symptoms matched the ones she had then. My daughter collapsed and began to seize. I shouted for help as I held my baby girl. I started crying as the seizure got worse. I called for help again, screaming this time. The people around me started to surround us as others ran for help. Lynnore began bleeding from her eyes, mouth and nose and her blood soaked in to the clothes I was wearing. I sobbed as my 6 year old bled out all over the ground. 

When the life left her little body, the ambulance came. I held tight to my little girl as the EMT's rushed over to us. They pulled her away from my grasp and examined her. When I heard them call a DOA, it was almost as if I felt my life slip away as well, but I was still there. I was still alive. One of the EMTs came to my spot on the ground and knelt beside me, pulling me in for an embrace, he spoke the words "I'm so sorry, ma'am." and I broke down. I sobbed so loudly, I almost didn't hear the child screaming a few feet away. Everyone turned to see the little boy staring down at his mother on the ground. She seemed to be seizing too. The EMT quickly pulled away from me and ran to where the women was. They did what they could and gave her a shot of something but it was too late. The women also bled out on the concrete. 

The crowd surrounding the scene was quite large at that point. Parents, children, teachers and curious passer-by's watched as myself and the young boy cried for our losses. Other people in the crowd cried as well, overwhelmed with the horrible event they had just witnessed. That was when I felt the first drop, and then the rain came. It poured harder than I had ever seen. You couldn't see a foot in front of you clearly. Most people ran to their cars and to the school for shelter. The EMT's stayed, calling the dispatch on their walkies for a coroner and policemen. Everything happened so slowly around me. I was still in my position on the ground, crying. I wanted to wake up. I wanted to scream. I wanted to die.

It continued to rain for 4 days, without stopping. And on the day the rain stopped, I got a call. It was a women calling from the morgue. Calling about my daughter. We weren't able to have a service for Lynnore yet because she was part of an investigation and the morgue was not allowed to release her body yet. The women on the phone spoke frantically. She spoke of my daughter. She told me that my daughter was alive. She told me that when my daughter woke, she wasn't normal. She told me that my daughter attacked and bit her coworker and ran. The women told me that the lady who died when my daughter did, woke as well and also attacked a coworker, but she killed them. This women who spoke so frantically told me that my daughter did not have a heart beat when she woke up. This frantic women also tried telling me something else but we were cut off by a loud noise then a scream, then the line went dead.

That was the beginning of it all. That was the beginning of the end of days.

I called the cops and told them about the phone conversation I had with the women and how I heard her screaming before the call ended. They told me they would call me back after checking it out- they never did call back. A month passed and the change happened so fast. In only a week, our little town in Northern Georgia was overrun by these things some people called "walkers". They were people who died, then came back with only one desire... and that desire was to feed on the living. If you were bitten or scratched, you turned in to one of them. If their blood mixed with yours in any way, you turned in to one of them.

7 months later, here I am. I lost my daughter, my parents, my brother and my best friends. I don't have a home or a car. I don't even have an I.D. anymore. All I have are the clothes on my back and my memories. This is how I live. This is how everyone lives... at least the people who are still human that is...