The Fallen

Chapter 1

        Meghan sat in the corner of the hotel room she was in. It was nicely furnished: velvet carpet, antique-patterned bed spread, victorian style chairs, and a grand window on the farthest side of the room. Meghan looked out the window at the Los Angeles streets. There were cars everywhere. They were sitting there with no one in them, waiting to be driven. Meghan had been in this hotel room for a week. She had been eating the food in the mini-fridge, and sleeping in the bed. She used to watch T.V, but it stopped working unexpectedly. She always wondered when she could leave, because she got quite lonely. Her family had left the hotel room about a week ago and never returned. She tried to leave but the door wouldn't budge and she would often hear growls outside of her room, making her nervous about leaving. Her food supply was running low and she knew that she would have to leave soon to find food.

        Meghan stood up from the chair she was sitting in and walked over to the door. She took the table leg that she previously broke off the table and continued to burrow the hole that she had been working on in the door. She wanted to know what was outside and the tiniest hole would let her see. Meghan was very curious, and that was her fatal flaw. Once, in the third grade, Meghan had peeped in on a secret business meeting and got in a lot of trouble. She never learned from that instance and continued to be nosy. Now, she continued to burrow the hole. Her long, brown hair would move with every turn of the leg. Her green eyes focused intently on the hole. Meghan was about 5'3 and was 15 years old. She knew that she would make a hole after a while of burrowing, but that was about it. She failed almost every class, but she was rich. She didn't have to work a day in her life, and often times her dad would bribe the teachers to let her move up in her grade levels. She was in the 10th grade, but she only made it there because of her daddy. She missed her dad, but she had to pay attention to making the hole in the door. After a few minutes, Meghan gave up. She walked over to the window and sat in her chair. It was getting night out and she prepared to go to sleep. She brushed her hair, as usual, and gazed out the window. Normally, all she sees is the cars in the streets, but she saw movement. She saw what she thought looked like a person, but the person was decomposing. It's organs were hanging out of it's body and it was staggering like a drunk man. She didn't know what it was, as she had only seen a few of them outside of her window. She continued to stare and then she saw a few more come along. Soon, there were a lot.

        She was scared. She had never seen anything like it. She wanted to know what it was. She had to leave to get a close-up look. She walked over to the door and tried the handle. She pushed, with all her might, and the door wouldn't budge. Then, she took the table leg and hit the door as hard as she could, leaving a dent. She did that multiple times and finally made a hole. She looked out and saw lights flickering. There were papers every where and over-turned chairs. There was a chair barricading the door, so she reached her arm through the hole and pulled at the legs. It took her many tries, but she finally got the chair out from under the door-handle. She pulled her arm out from the hole and opened the door.

        Meghan walked out of the luxurious hotel room and into a chaotic mess. She walked into the stairwell of the hotel, and there were chairs all over the steps. There was a sign telling her not to continue down the stairwell. She ignored it, as usual, and stepped over the chairs. Once she reached the bottom, there was a heavy door. She pulled it and fell backwards. One of the decomposing humans fell on her and tried to bite at her neck. She struggled to push it off her, but she finally did. She ran out of the stairwell and into the lobby. There were many of them, so many of them. "Fuck," she said out loud. She saw another door, and quickly ran to it. It was locked. "FUCK." She screamed, again, as the decomposing humans got closer. She picked up a nearby vase and threw it at the things. She ran to another door, but this time it was unlocked. She quickly went inside and locked the door. It was dark, except for a sun-roof, which produced very little light. Walkers, she decided to call them walkers. They only walked. She considered flesh-eaters, but she decided on walkers. It was easier and faster to say.

        Meghan heard a noise in one of the corners of the room, which was a mess. The noise echoed, making it seem louder. She looked to the corner and saw something move towards her. She crawled backwards towards the door and started to panic. She opened the door and looked out. There were too many walkers to leave, so she prepared to fight for her life. She shut the door and stood up. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she noticed that it wasn't a walker, but a fuzzy animal. She reached out to pet it and it licked her hand.

"Hey buddy." she said, whispering.

A scratching noise started, and Meghan knew that it was a walker at the door. The animal started to bark. She now knew that it was a dog.

"Shhh...hush dog-boy. Please! Don't let it know that we're in here."

        The dog continued to bark. She clasped her hands around it's mouth and it wiggled away. Meghan could hear more scratching and she immediately knew that multiple walkers were outside of the closet door. There was no way that she could go back out there, and the only way out was through the sun-roof.

"There's no way I can fit in that," Meghan said.

        The dog started to bark again. Meghan walked over to the corner of the messy room. There were pieces of desk, a lot of papers, cleaning materials, and a rock. Meghan picked up the jagged rock. Meghan looked up at the sun-roof, which wasn't very high up, and judged how hard she would have to throw the rock. She could touch the sun-roof if she stood on one of the broken desks, but she didn't want to risk anything. Meghan stood under the sun-roof and threw the rock upwards. The rock went through the sun-roof, but it wasn't glass. It was more of a see-through plastic. If she crawled through that, she would get cut. Plus, the hole wasn't big enough.

        Suddenly, the dog stopped barking. He walked over to Meghan and licked her leg. Lovingly, Meghan petted the dog. "Axel is what I'll call you," Meghan said, "And I'll protect you if you'll protect me." It was completely dark outside, so Meghan laid down. "Axel, this isn't too comfortable, but it'll do." As Meghan spoke, Axel fell asleep, and as Axel fell asleep so did Meghan.

                                                                                    ****

        Meghan woke up to a