"Ugh-" I muttered.I opened my eyes, one more time. The blinding light of the sun enters my eyes as I look at the sky. I see the world, stripped off of its color. All of a sudden, living doesn't seem fun anymore.Life has become hard. It has become a game, but without the ability to try again. We only got one chance, and we need to make it count. Together with a child, we survive. A child that is in no way connected to me. It must have been a long time since we met, but I still remember the scenarios so vividly.I was walking around the street, looking for supplies, and I encountered another survivor, a lost child. Hell, you can call everyone alive lost now. We all have nowhere to go. Every area was now on lockdown until further notice by the military. We're lucky to be even alive at this point."Hey", I spoke softly, hoping that I will not scare the child."---Mommy", the pitiful looking child whispered while he points in a direction of a house. I can see the sadness in her eyes, and the trembling of her body while he points.I did not say anything. I slowly walked to a house with a door that says "BIOHAZARD – STAY OUT" with the child in tow. "This looks promising." I said to the child.I quickly got my gun out on my left hand and my axe on my right. I removed the warning signs and slow opened the door. I entered through it and examined the rooms one by one. I can see signs of a break in. "Someone must have gotten in through the windows. That explains why there are still warning signs at the door." I said loudly, just so I can reassure myself and remove the eerie atmosphere I am feeling inside the house.I walked upstairs to examine the second floor. The increasing creepiness is rapidly affecting my sanity. I got more focused so that I don't lose track of my goal--- to live.While examining the second floor, I heard something through the door. It sounds like someone's eating. It alerted me and made me enter the door forcefully. I once again saw a sight that will always surprise me. A human flesh, being eating by another human---err, if you can even call it that anymore. It is a thing that feeds on the flesh of its own being. It is a cannibal. You may even call it a zombie if you want.I run to it, with my axe on my right hand, hoping to have the first hit and end it fast. It did. "This is not a sight to see for a child." I exclaimed.I was trying to get out of the room before the child comes but I saw him, staring quietly. I did not utter a word, but just stood behind the child for some time. I turned around, hoping that I will forget what I just witnessed. "Mommy!" the child screamed.I quickly turned around again and saw a half-eaten body slowly rising to the ground."No, no, no, NO!" I repeated those words as I rush to the standing corpse."Be—a." the corpse said.I flinched on the spot. I can't believe that a corpse is speaking. Is this also the work of the virus, or the memory of the body? I was puzzled with those questions that I didn't realize that the corpse is rushing the child. I don't know if it's my reflex or I just got so accustomed to the situation I'm in that I quickly put my axe where the head of the corpse should be. I heard the child scream. For the last two months, that has been the most heartbreaking thing I experienced.There was a moment of silence. I can see the pure sadness on the child's face."Why did this happen?" I whispered to myself.Two months ago, a news report was broadcasted all over the country. It claimed itself as urgent or breaking news. Many of us thought that it was just a late April fool's joke. It. Was. Not. It was the start of something bad. I didn't believe it until I noticed the people at the town being strange.At first, after the news was broadcasted, many people stormed to the broadcaster to get an explanation to which they replied with silence. After some time, many places are being contained "due to military reasons." I didn't even care, and that in itself is the biggest decision that I regret. I was not ready for this.But I'm not the only one who took it as a joke. Who would believe something like "zombies" anyway? It only exists in the fantasy world, and we're in the reality.Okay. That's enough flashback. Ten months after the news broadcast and here we are, back from the start. I returned to my city in order to get more supplies, but all I saw was a barren place. A wasteland, if you must say it like.I questioned myself again and again. I must know the answer to the question, "What happens to the undead?" Do they still retain their own consciousness, or does the body just do what it does as a reflex.We lived together like this for years, and we have grown fond of each other. We met so many other survivors that led us to a research center, the CDC specifically.They had a breakthrough. They were also asking the very same questions, and found out that they do retain their own personality and consciousness, that it was like being taken over by something. Using this said logic, they looked into how to make the personality of the body more dominant than the virus that has taken over.After that, we have learned that they have made advancement, and that they have made a cure. They held a press conference in their own facility where they announced it officially. Everyone was injected with the cure and everyone helped spread it. It was finally time for this to end.It was the end of us being survivors and the beginning of us as a society, once again.
