The Dead Side ° horror ✔️

Chapter One

Chapter One:

Breathe.

I tried to. It was a lame attempt at getting air into my lungs. It was more of a shaky gasp if anything at all. I was pretty pathetic if you thought about it.

My back was pressed up against the thick wood of a desk in a crowded office building. I was crouched in a fetal position under the table of a probably dead employee. A picture of a small toddler had fallen onto the floor and now stared at me from the cracked glass of the frame. The child has small teeth growing in as it gazed happily towards the camera, drool slipping down its chubby chin. Once upon a time, I would've made a noise to indicate how cute it was. Now I just stare and wish that I could believe that kid was still alive.

The ozone layer had been punctured, leaving the air thin and toxic. Those who survived became one of two people; creatures, delirious from the lack of oxygen and transformed into vicious killers and stragglers, humans.

Honestly, the only people capable of making it out here had to be old enough and self sufficient. Children were loud, and attracted the hordes faster than the mothers could quiet them. I remembered the child who got everyone in my group killed, more than I'd like to.

I ran my fingers delicately over the scarred skin on my wrist. The teeth of the creatures had left indentations on my flesh. The odd thing was; I wasn't infected with the pathogen like I should've been. Instead, something had changed.

Snapped.

My humanity had evaporated like water on the sidewalk in a drought. I became colder, harder. Within those five, fragile seconds of lying on the ground, the toxins had pumped all the way through my body and left me in a mere shell of what once was human.

Now here I was, the complete opposite of a normal person.

The creatures move quickly, their senses sharpened. They crave us, humans. Give them time, and they'll eat every inch of flesh and strip every organ from your dead, lifeless body.

I wasn't human anymore, but I wasn't one of them either.

That day, I killed every creature in the building with my semi-automatic. My group members received the standard shots to the head, dead or alive. I had taken my bag of supplies and left the scene without a single speck of remorse.

My brain wanted to bury the ones lost. But the new me had ordered to keep going.

And there I was, crouched under a desk with the soldiers searching the place for the creatures. I should've become a creature, the poison was inside of me. Instead I was like them in the sense that I could kill- and I did that all too well- and not feel anything. That sucked because I kind of missed feeling things, you know?

Blood had stained the linoleum next to my hiding spot, covering the ground and tainting the air with the metallic smell.

It probably came from the creature I shot on my way in.

The only things left in this world were the soldiers, stragglers, and the living dead.

I covered my mouth and nose to block out the smell of blood threatening to make me vomit the meager meal I'd devoured. I couldn't afford to make any noise. Not with the soldiers in here.

They'd kill me for being what I was. Half human. Half undead.

Hybrid.

One year ago. One hour before the DC went dark.

"Screw the apocalypse!" I muttered under my breath while my best friend went on and on about the latest episode of The Walking Dead. I had my nose in Maximum Ride and I was wondering when she'd notice that I was completely not paying attention to a word she was saying. I did that a lot- zoned out while reading, I mean.