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CHAPTER THREE. ━━━━ WHERE IT BLEEDS, IT FESTERS. BEFORE THE EVENTS OF THE SHOW. EP 0.
SOMEWHERE IN GEORGIA. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 22ND. YEAR 2010
DAY 12. TESS
WARNING: mentions of homophobia, child abuse, and sexism. gun violence, creepy behaviour, and implied threat of r*pe.
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. . .
—— THERE WAS A grim sense ofirony to the unmistakable sound of dead air draining out from Thomas's aged radio. What had once been a continuous drone of background noise in the wake of the collapse had decayed into a deafening void of static. Within days, the airwaves had ceased all transmissions of music, reports, and warnings. Now, it was just silence. No more pre-recorded messages could be heard, no more news anchors urging citizens to seek shelter, no more EAS announcements. The airwaves remained open, awaiting a connection —— only to never respond when they did. Any contact with the military had been severed the moment they sent a dosage of napalm to the city. As far as Tess and any other survivor were aware, Atlanta was no more— just a deserted territory possessed by the undead doppelgängers that still roamed the streets.
When Thomas spoke of the government and the military, there was a level of acidity laced in his tone that didn't go unnoticed. He never delved into the intricacies of why he thought lowly of the government, but among the bitterness was an understanding that Tess struggled to find closure in. According to the veteran, and his extensive knowledge when it came to keeping up to date with the news and scouring online forums, with a desire to seek as much information as he could —— what Tess had witnessed over a week ago wasn't even the half of it. The virus had been spreading around the globe for months at this stage before it hit the news, before it hit Georgia, and before it hit Atlanta.
Come to think of it, Tess felt like an idiot for not paying attention when she should have —— when it actually meant something, when it was vital that she knew. It almost seemed like she was the last person to find out about it.
