Bitten To Survive

one

Chapter One
The Sypnosis

The world has been infested with corpses. Yes, corpses. Dead, yet kind of alive. Oh, a zombie you could say. And the thick wall that separates them and us, the ones alive, is the only thing that keeps us secure from being a part of them. The premises is spread over an area of 50,000m², and is surrounded by long, thick, concrete walls; no one has yet even dared to leave it. Well, at least that's the protocol and order made by my father, a scientist, a politician, an owner of a huge construction business and a former commander who took up the role of leading us. There are 259 people with us. Safe and sound, and alive.

It's been a year now ever since the zombie outbreak, and a month since I've been staying here. We do not know the rest of the world as of now but, we are going strong, to what I was told. Resources, food, and water are limited, which could only work us up for a few more months before we'd either be forced to die out of starvation or be forced to leave these secured premises in search of food while the outside world is probably infested with hundreds, thousands, millions of corpses. Zombies. Deadly ones.

I sat over the tall edge of the mountain with my legs dangling down to nothing, looking at the dead world that was once filled with the brightest lights. Things felt so off, the world was either coming to an end or it was the start of something new; a new beginning that no one else is sure about. I took a sniff in to calm down my nerves, the smell of gunpowder and wet mud clung to my nose, and it was far from pleasant but had served to be a much nicer aroma than that of the dead. Flesh-rotting and raw-had to be one of the most disgusting smells on planet Earth. I was sure that if times were different and I could be picky I'd revert to a strict vegetarian diet.

I would visit the store freely, loudly, explicitly and I'd grab one of the trollies with a now-dead joy, even if it had squeaky wheels that barely rolled in a straight line, and fill it with fresh fruits and vegetables, puddings-lots of puddings-I'd buy shower gels that smelled like heaven in a bottle, laundry detergent that made me feel safe and warm and I'd pay at the till with the largest grin on my face; thank the cashier, wish them well and be sincere about it. If times were different, I'd rush the food home so it didn't go bad, wrestle my bike out of the little shed I had in my garden and head to the gym, and spend an hour or so there before I'd head back home and message around to see if any of my friends were busy because I'd finally got a day off.

Or maybe, just maybe I'd have given one last kiss to my mother. Before she had been taken away from me. Just maybe I'd have had a type of closure with her. But times like those, and things like those are the only things I can just think about. Those actions will never come to life, nor will my beloved mother.

If things were different, I wouldn't have taken the little things for granted. But things were not different, everything had reached its terminus, an end to those little segments of euphoria; an end to mankind as I once knew it. It probably wouldn't last much longer, it was morbid but I have grown to accept it, everyone in an apocalypse is either just waiting for the resources to finish and take up on a tour in search of ways to survive, or they're just simply waiting to die; procrastinating the inevitable because humans could never really process abruptness and take up measures quickly... unlike my father, who decided to build an 'empire' of his own, as soon as he knew we'd be stuck in this crowd of the living-dead.