Please don't hurt me / 10k fic

Chapter 1 (leahs pov)

Another day, another week walking through hell. Walking, walking and more walking, occasionally running into a Z and shoving my bloody pocket knife through its rotting skull. How long has it been?? 1 year?? 3???Feels like it's been decades since this whole apocalypse thing happened and I'm just over it already.

I'm not too sure where I'm going or even where I am. I fled my hometown in Washington state after a huge horde of  the Zs came through  and destroyed everything, including my family. I started out in a blue Nissan. I think I made it out of Washington in it, but eventually that ran out of gas and I don't know how to siphon gas so I've been walking since. I'm on my way to Arizona or Nevada or some place like that with wide open land and few Zs.

Walking on some backroad in some town that I've never heard of in some state that I've never been to, I had left my little makeshift camp early today and had been on the go for a good 13 or so hours and I'm absolutely exhausted and need some damn rest.

Once the sun starts to go down I know I need to find shelter for the night because for some reason the Zs around here are more active in the dark. I see a sign for a town ahead and start using my remaining energy to jog my way there, it's only a few miles so I think I can make it in at least 20 minutes. Running and kicking up the dirt with my old, almost falling apart combat boots, I finally reach town just as the suns light is completely consumed by the darkness of the night. There is a fairly large apartment complex with a ladder that goes up to the roof so I start climbing. The higher off ground and away from Zs, the better. The next day I will look through the apartments and see if I can find food,weapons, water and medicine.

I get to the top just as I start hearing the moans and groans of the Z's, hunting around and looking for anything with a heartbeat to devour. I should be safe up here. I walk the perimeter of the roof just to see if there are any Zs that just happened to somehow get to the top. Lucky for me, I'm the only one up there. I sat on the cool cement roof and threw my backpack in front of me. I unzipped and started rummaging through the pack, pulling out a small, thin baby quilt I had grabbed for home before I left, a half eaten bag of fishy crackers and a bottle of water still filled to the top. This is what most nights are like for me, alone in a quiet place with my fishy crackers. That stupid salty snack is the only food I can ever seem to find in this damn apocalypse. Everyone else has already gotten all the good food and I'm left with these little fish with smiles on their faces. At least it's food.

I softly hum to myself the tune of a song I use to listen to while I eat my 'dinner' and sip on my water, careful to save enough for the next morning. Maybe tomorrow I can look in a gas station or store and see if I can find those 'rare' crystal light flavors for my water. I mean, I know I should be happy to have water because a lot of people don't have it, but I can't help but want a soda or juice every now and then and crystal light is the closest thing to those that I'll get in this run-down world.