if we survive

o n e

a s h

two years after the outbreak

My story starts with death. Death of the world. Death of my parents. Death of my brother. Death of my will to live. You name it, it died. For the sake of whoever discovers this journal, I'll start from the beginning.

At this time the world went into chaos last year. Loved ones were dying from an incurable disease, then resurrecting with the urge to eat living things. Being alive had never been more dangerous. Not long after the outbreak, I was raiding abandoned grocery stores with my parents searching for food that hadn't been exposed to the disease. For the first few months of the outbreak my parents forced me to wear a mask that covered my nose and mouth and wouldn't let me eat anything with the sealing tore, meaning we mostly ate canned food that tasted like wet dog food. We'd struck gold the day my parents died, we found a store that hadn't yet been discovered by other survivors. The shelves were stocked, clean clothes still hung on hangers, food and water hadn't been touched. We took off in separate ways to cover more ground, I raided the clothes, my mom went for medical supplies, and my dad shoved as much food and water in his bag as he could.

My mother was deaf, she had been for as long as I could remember and I was raised in sign language meaning we barely had to speak. The first time I'd ever heard a sound come out of my mother's mouth was when she screamed that day in the store. I still remember it to this day. I was sixteen at the time. I still regret not helping her. I remember the sounds of lurkers tearing through her flesh while she screamed in agony. My father was next. He made the stupid decision to be the hero while I cowered, he ran in to save my mom and told me to stay back, he died that day too. The same way my mother did, in agony and being ripped to shreds by bloodthirsty corpses. I'd never cried so much in my life. I may have physically ran out of tears that day considering I haven't cried since.

Here I am, one year later and giving up. Now don't get me wrong I hated the idea of dying, but I also envied the idea of being at peace. Maybe as a lurker I could find my parents and just roam the abandoned post apocalyptic world with them. That didn't seem too bad. I hadn't seen a living thing in so long I was convinced I was the last person on Earth. What was the point in living if I couldn't help others? This was my exact mindset when I approached a hoard of ten lurkers in the middle of an overgrown field of grass. It was really a beautiful place to die. This isn't where my story ends, obviously. This, is where my story gets good. A girl voice distracted me from allowing these lurkers to get to me. The first girl I'd seen in over a year, the first human I'd seen in over a year. Of course, my first thought was that she was beautiful because I hadn't seen a living thing in so long, a deformed pig would be beautiful to me. She had dirty blonde hair that fell loosely over her shoulders, and blue eyes that resembled the sky before the outbreak. Currently, the sky looks like a giant burped and the green cartoon smoke just covered the sky. She wore a pair of denim shorts with a shirt that looked old and dirty, she had brown combat boots protecting her ankles and blood splatters and mud stained the color. She looked young. Younger than me, but not by much.

"What are you doing? Are you an idiot?" She yelled. Suddenly, an arrow was shot through the skull of the lurker closest to me. I jumped back but shot the girl a glare.

"Mind your business kid!" I yelled back and faced the lurkers again. I held out my hand to the closest one, it snapped at me causing me to instinctively jerk my hand back. An arrow was shot through that lurkers skull as well. I rolled my eyes and shot another look of annoyance at the girl. "I don't know you, and you don't know me. So leave and forget we ever saw one another."

"You're trying to kill yourself." She replied, placing another arrow on her bow.

"Really? I wasn't aware." I said sarcastically. Before I could say anything else, she shot an arrow through another lurker's throat. I heard her walking closer as she readied another arrow.

"Look, I could care less if you died but considering the fact that we might possibly be the last two people on Earth, we need each other." She yelled at me with such annoyance that I almost forgot what I was doing.

"I don't need anyone. If you're alive then others probably are too." I wasn't even trying to get a lurker to attack me anymore, this girl ruined my whole plan. "I've got no reason to keep fighting and being miserable for the rest of my lonely life."

"Say we are the last people alive, we could restart the population, we could be the Adam and Eve of the apocalypse." She said and approached me slowly holding out her hands.

"Adam and Eve had an incredible man in the sky to help them, we don't." I snapped. She got close enough to where she could grab my arm and jerk me away from a lurker that'd attempted to grab at me.

"Look, if you die the world dies. I can't have children without a man dipshit." She said and tightened her grip in my wrist.

"I am not doing that. I'd much rather die." I said and jerked my hand away from her. I stumbled backwards and fell right into the arms of an overweight male lurker. It snapped at me and I twisted away from it. This is what I'd wanted, but I was terrified. Survival instincts kicked in and I stabbed my knife into the lurker's temple without thinking twice. It's black, smelly blood oozed out of the wound and onto my face. I pushed myself up and spit out the little bit of lurker blood that'd gotten into my mouth. Another lurker had gained on me now. I expected another arrow to be shot through it's head but nothing came. It snapped at me and in a swift motion I shoved my knife into its throat. I went to face the girl again but she was gone. It was almost like she hadn't even existed. I'd thought I'd gone crazy but I heard the whistle of an arrow fly past my ear and into the head of a lurker who'd snuck up behind me. Then, I saw her laying on her stomach like a sniper. Except, she didn't have a gun, she had a badass aiming skill with a bow. I wiped my cheek with my shirt sleeve in a failed attempt to wipe off the blood, I ended up just smearing it. Four lurker's remained but they were a lot farther back than the others.

"Are you okay?" The girl asked, standing back up to face me.

"Unfortunately." I slid my knife back into its holster and shoved past the girl. My backpack seemed to grow heavier with each step and eventually, I sat down in the grass to rest. I assumed the girl hadn't followed me, I watched the green sky mix with yellow streaks. It would have looked beautiful  if I didn't remember what the sky had looked like before. Suddenly, someone flopped down beside me. It was the girl, I rolled my eyes and dropped my head onto my knees.

"I'm not leaving you. You aren't mentally stable and I won't let you kill yourself." She shot me a stubborn grin. I lifted my middle finger at her and stood to my feet. I have never wanted a partner in crime, and I still don't.