Jack and Wilson are dead

Chapter 10

Frozen in shock, I can do nothing but stare at the creature that stands only a few meters away from me. The creature is bigger than the average human and is covered with brown fur, has big sharp teeth and big soulless white eyes, which are staring right into my eyes.

Scared out of my wits, I frantically feel around me for something I can use as a weapon against this monstrosity. Getting a hold of something, I quickly pick it up and defensively hold it in front of me, noticing that I luckily picked something that could suffice as a weapon, Woodie's axe. The creature suddenly starts walking towards me in a slow pace, which makes my grip on the handle of the axe tighten. As the creature creeps closer and closer towards me, I close my eyes for a few moments to suppress my fears, calm my nerves and to collect my thoughts. Opening them again after gaining enough confidence, I start swinging at the creature, survival now being the only thing that's on my mind.

My first swing misses, but the sudden attack stuns the creature, giving me another opportunity to attack, resulting into me hitting it in the shoulder. Black blood starts to seep from the wound and the creature lets out an agonizing roar. Not wanting to give the creature a chance to attack me, I swing at it again, hitting it in its side, which causes the creature to fall on its knees. The creature looks at me, its eyes that used to be white turning to red. It screeches at me again before falling over.

I keep staring at the creature for a few minutes, only believing that it's dead when it hasn't moved for several minutes. Looking at Woodie's blood-stained axe, I finally realise what I just did. I start to tremble and Woodie's axe falls out of my hands. Turning around, so I wouldn't have to see the gruesome scene anymore, my eyes fall upon two weird beast-like shadows, which looked like the ones I saw in my sister's drawings. Not wanting to give them a chance to attack me as well, I bolt out of the camp.

As I'm running away from the camp even more shadows seem to gravitate towards me, each one looking creepier than the last. I keep running away from them, dodging them quickly and efficiently.

Suddenly I fall to the ground. I looks behind me to see what had caused my fall and saw that I had tripped over a stone. Looking back in front of me, my eyes meet with the worst creature I have ever seen. The shadow creature, that stands only a few centimetres away from me, has an enormous beak and a slim body with several small legs. Not moving from my spot, I sit still in hope that the creature would just leave me alone. The shadow creature suddenly produces a menacing, snarling growl, which causes me to scramble to my feet and start running again.

I have been running for a while now, but every time I look behind me the creepy shadow creature is still following me. My breaths are slowly becoming more rapid the longer I'm running, exhaustion slowly overtaking me. My sight becomes fuzzier by the second and not even a minute later, I lose consciousness.

When I wake up the next morning, I can't remember what happened to me after reading my sister's diary. I check my pockets to see if I can find anything that could be of use to me, but find nothing, so I decide to head back to the camp with the sun as guidance.

Whilst I'm walking, I think about my little sister. The last time I saw her was five years ago. It was her birthday and I remember how happy she was to see me and how much she loved the gift I had given her. I think back to when I found the diary in the abandoned house around a week ago. There is no chance she just left it behind, as it was one of her most important belongings. Something awful must have happened to her. I Know how difficult it is to survive in this world. She's probably in at a better place right now.

Finally snapping out of my thoughts, I can see the camp in the distance. I calmly walk towards it and upon entering the tunnel, I see Woodie sleeping on the ground. Getting the feeling that something is not right, I walk towards Woodie and shake his body. His body felt ice-cold. I turn him around and, when I see the two large gashes on his body, let out a strangled cry. I look around, trying to find out how this could have happened, when I spot Woodie's blood covered axe on the ground not far from his body.

Memories of what had happened yesterday night filled my head. The herbs I took yesterday must have had some side-effects. I realise that they made me hallucinate, which ended up in me killing my only friend. Tears spring to my eyes as I continue to look at Woodie's dead body. Hours slowly tick away as I sit unmoved beside his body. Only when I run out of tears to shed, I'm able to move again. I decide to give Woodie a small burial, as it is the least I can do after killing him.

After burying Woodie and Lucy, I pack my back and leave the camp, knowing that I can't stay at the place where I killed my friend without losing my mind.

I walk around the meadow, no destination or goal in my mind. I feel empty, losing the drive to keep on living, to try and survive this apocalypse.

After a while, I find himself at the edge of a cliff. I sit down, my feet dangling off the ledge and look at the sun that was slowly disappearing. I smiled softly, tears threatening to fall from my eyes once again. I closed my eyes and let out a deep sigh before leaning forward and letting my body fall down in the depths below.