Hope II

Prologue

Darkness. Nothing but a dark shadowy light, blurred in the distance as my eyelids shutter open, my ears focusing to the sounds in my surroundings and my senses slowly unveiling to the world around me. I heard before I saw, smelt before I felt, the eerie noise of growls and dragging footsteps, pulling along a ground full of rubble, ash and a deathly surrounding. 

Vision slowly had my eyes slide open slightly as the sound of a crumbling building hitting the ground with a bang that echoed throughout, immediately opening my eyesight, my face laying against rubble of stone on a rooftop, the left side of my face crushed into the pavement of the roof.  

I stared across the street to see the crucifix hit the ground along with the rest of the burning church, collapsing from the flames at its base and falling like a tower of lego to unveil the morning light that was hidden behind it. Its shadow was cast no more over the town. The church had fallen to its demise together with the rest of my burning home. 

The smoke blocked the sun, the morning sky full of dark clouds and smoke rising into the sky above a village ravaged by the dead. 

Slowly I got to my feet, taking my rifle off the ground and checking for ammunition... there was none. 

My head bleeding and my hand cut. I must have taken a hard hit, knocked me clean out... at least it was up here rather than down there, down on the street where, once I saw it, I knew it was no dream. Dozens of them walking mindlessly through the burning streets of rubble, in and out of homes which came collapsing down on top of them, spitting smoke and flames onto the deathly streets. 

A village of death and decay, buildings falling all around me in a dark, bleak environment. 

Homes came crashing down and I was left watching as the village began to crumble to bits. 

The gates had fallen, run down by the infected who now own the place I once called home. 

I gazed out into the high grass to see a clean line of it flattened down, right out to the old dirt road... somebody found a car and managed to escape. That is the path I will take. Follow the path, maybe we I can catch up to them. It's the safest route. I don't want to be walking through the high grass with infected surrounding me.

As the crackling sound of fire and the crumbling of homes echoed throughout my ears, I bent over to pick it up, my trusted Yankee's baseball hat. Putting it back onto my head restored my confidence and energy. I'll need as much as I can get. The road I have taken has come to an end. The one ahead is a long and dangerous trek into the unknown. For the final time I turned my back on my home having realised I must leave the ruins of my crumbling paradise.