Rise: An Apocalypse Story

prolouge

A light breeze coming from the open window woke me up. I opened my eyes to see a dust-covered, white ceiling.

Home, sweet home.

Sitting up, I reached for the bottle of water beside me. It was almost completely empty. I drank the rest of it, praying I'll find some more by the end of tonight. That was my last one. 

I grabbed my bag and looked out my window. Dead ones were scattered across the street. There was only about twenty of them, but that's still more than I can take alone. Sighing, I dropped to the ground, leaning up against the cold wall behind me. Maybe this was how I die: locked up in an office building, too afraid to fight my way through the living dead.

A loud crash echoed from outside.

I jumped up, looking out the window to see two people running straight into the crowd of walkers. They took them down one by one, but eventually started to get overwhelmed.

I turned my head away from the scene. I should help them. Maybe I could join them.

But, maybe I'll die.

Screw it.

I ran through the door and down the many flights of stairs in the building. I pushed the front doors open to find the two of them in a crowd of the dead. It seemed there was more than I thought.

"Hey!" I yelled at them.

They turned to see me and run straight at me. One of the dead grabbed one of them and took a chunk out of his neck. His friend looked back at the scene and hesitated, staring at the dying boy behind him.

"Leave him!" I yelled, "He's dead anyways!"

The friend took my advice and ran into the building with me. I locked the doors and grabbed his arm, rushing him up the stairs and into the room I was in before.

"Will those doors hold?" the guy asked.

He had dark brown skin and short, buzzed hair. He looked to be in his early 20's with a boyish face.

"Probably not. They've been through a lot," I told him, leading him out onto a balcony attached to a fire escape. We were gonna have to go right through another hoard to be able to make it to anywhere safe.

"You wanna go back down there?!" he asked me incredulously.

A large crash could be heard and the shattering of glass echoed through the building.

"You see any other option?" I asked, starting to climb down.

He looked behind him and down at me, making his decision. He then followed me. We get to the bottom and make a break for it.

"Where'd you come from?" I asked him, trying to figure out a safe place to go.

"Follow me!" he yelled, racing in front of me towards an alley behind the building.

We ran down it, being closely following by the dead. A chain fence has been torn down. That must of been the crash from earlier. He led me through multiple alleys to a parking lot of a 7/11. Here, many dead ones were scattered about. Now, they were all trained on us. I stopped, not being able to breathe from the amount of running we've done. I could see that he did the same, but he grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me towards a tan cadillac.

A dead one grabbed my arm. I took my knife out of my waistband with my other arm and swung it into its skull. It thudded to the ground and I jumped into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind me. The guy was already in the driver's seat, waiting on me.

As soon as I close the door he hit the gas and drove us out of there, hitting a few of the dead on our way out. We both panted heavily, trying to regain our breath.

"Thanks for saving me back there," I said, leaning up against the window.

"Thanks for saving me too," he replied between breaths.

We made it. We really made it.