Tangled Ever After

Chapter 1: Sneak Peek (Unedited)

Today was supposed to be my wedding day.

But instead I'm stuck here in my penthouse for 90 days now with only 2 bottles of water, a can of beans, a pack of instant noddles, and Rapunzel singing her heart out in my laptop screen. Yeah, that was how I survived the last 3 months; eating canned foods and instant noodles, reading books, and watching Movies. Netflix went down 3 weeks ago and all I had left where the Disney DVDs from someone's apartment a floor below. Don't get me wrong, I love Disney movies but these fairy tales only made me more miserable.

I'm supposed to start living my happy ever after today but it seems like fate has it's own agenda leaving me to live without actually living. I guess I'm no different from all the zombies roaming the streets; alive and dead at the same time, a shell of human flesh waiting to rot itself to death.

How can life be so cruel? All I wanted was to experience my own fairy tale. To love and be loved. To be treasured. But just like that, fate had robbed me of that simple dream.

My chest tightened and I heaved as if to cry but no tears came. They'd dried up a long time ago. This isn't living, not even surviving. I had to decide once and for all: live or die.

I absentmindedly touched the locket hanging on my chest reminding me of Jared. Was he dead? It's almost a month since I last chatted with him on Messenger. I held still because he promised... He promised he would come for me.

I walked back to the living room, my eyes landing on the desk, the manuscript of the last novel I've written scattered about. I was on a 45-day writing sprint when all hell broke lose. I had no idea that the world had turned into zombieland as I had cut myself off from all distractions like TV and the internet, especially the internet. When I got back online, the President had just ordered a martial law. Riots were everywhere, the sickness spread rapidly, infected people started dying. Everyone thought that was the end. But when the dead began roaming the streets once more, everybody knew it was just the beginning of the Real End. If I've known the pandemic would escalate that fast, I would have tried to find a way to go home, to be with my family, to be with Jared. At least I would be with them, not here, alone.

I dragged in a deep breath and instantly regretted it as a hot gust of wind came through the open glass doors leading to my balcony, bringing with it a strong acrid stench of rotting flesh, the decaying smell of the undead.

I gagged at the foul smell and walked over to close the sliding doors when I heard moans. I peeked over the balcony to see what the commotion was about. Up ahead, a few blocks from my building, a horde of zombies were marching with purpose, like they are going to war. I'm not sure where they're headed but I know if I kept quiet, they won't even notice me spying on them. Their bulbous heads bobbed almost synchronously, footsteps thundering on the tarmac just 9 storeys below from where I was. In all of my 3 months of getting stuck here, this was my first time to see this many zombies.

"At least some of us has something exciting going on,"I muttered and scanned the mob to see if I recognized any of them. They're pretty fast for creatures with stiff knees and mangled bodies. A flash of white caught my eyes as the lead zombie looked up directly at me. My heart beat raced in an instant. He couldn't possibly know I'm up here. The white looked like a mask, a N95 respirator to be exact. The zombie was a male with jet black hair, his eyes were wide as wide as mine as we locked gazes for a brief second.

Wait, he's not... He's alive!

*****
Hey yah! Thanks for reading this snippet for my Novel. I know it's short but I'd be back in to add more when I've finally finished the first draft. This is just half of my original Chapter 1 and I would be adding the rest soon.

If you are to write the next part, what would happen? Send me your thoughts at jmbernaldez.author@gmail.com.

I'll choose a few submissions and will feature them on my page. See yah!