A Day In September - BTS Zombie au

1. The Bright Bleak

As days went on, it got a little harder to breathe.

Mara looked back, looking over her possessions and heaving out a sigh.

I'll have to really go out there and scavenge.

At the far right corner of the small office Mara had inhabited, were her belongings. A tall military bag sat against the wall, the contents of it spilling out from its open top. There were a couple of clothes that hung out of it from when Mara had changed and carelessly shoved some back in. It held the basic necessities she could find; from her food to a deodorant she had scored a while back that she used conservatively once every day. The makeshift holster and its accompanying machete sat leaned against the backpack, right beside her water jugs. Two of four were halfway full, which was somewhat of a relief to Mara. Hydration was vital to survival, and Mara couldn't risk running low on water when going out to look for food.

Sometimes, the basic necessities would teeter in abundance, and that was when things really got difficult. Mara had to manage her resources, meaning she'd have to resort to portion control in order to really make things last.

Beside her backpack was her neatly stacked blankets. The sight of the thick sheets brought a small smile to Mara's face. It was a couple of months ago that Mara had found the blankets. It was over a period of time, scattered occasions, in which she'd found them laying about. Some were too dirty, but knowing that luck only came around once every year, Mara decided to take them and wash them at a nearby lake-back when she had set up camp near one.

Living near a lake a city back was about the luckiest in living situations that Mara could have achieved. It provided with water she could bathe in, and a makeshift laundromat. Although she couldn't drink the water, but that was a matter of walking to a nearby river, where water was plentiful, fresh, and not stagnant. Pine trees surrounded her, providing thick foliage the eye could not see through, and therefore hiding the cabin she'd found in which she resided. For a couple of months, things were great. She'd found a couple of edible-berry bushes and periodically partook in hunting. The wildlife was scarce, and Mara would often forgo eating meat, just in case certain animals had rabies or the Kuru virus. It was hard to tell sometimes, especially when Mara was hungry or craving meat. Preemptive measures were taken to ensure Mara was boiling the water enough or watching for rabies and Kuru. It took a long time for Mara to fully understand the severity of the situation, but she fortunately came to realize that the world wasn't safe anymore. It wasn't completely safe to begin with, but now you were really on your own....with no one but yourself to protect.

In that cabin, everything had felt safe. Mara had been surrounded by nature in all its undisturbed glory. She rarely had to worry about brutes, and the cabin was hidden enough to keep raiders away. It was the epitome of safe places. Mara hadn't had a full night of rest in months until she found that cabin. Like the treasure that many sought, but did not dig deep enough to find, it stood in pristine condition.

Mara thought it was almost too good to be true.

Until it became too good to be true.

It was a frightening event to wake up to. Pounding, scratching hands at your door and moaning from flesh eating monsters-they had managed to reach her. The sound of the wooden door giving in and cracking, and the drawer nightstand pushed up against the door (for extra safety measures) shaking violently as the dead hit against it. Everything was falling apart.

Mara remembers the hands that pried at the door that had burst in wooden shards, the heads that shoved themselves into the room and into her vision. At the sight of her, they cried and fervently tried to climb their way inside.

Mara had jumped out the window after quickly gathering her things and never looking back.

Just thinking of that event ever repeating itself made fear run through Mara's veins.