from death we rise (borrowed time)

Chapter one: Rem

People scamper past us while the music rings through the thin streets. The lavish parties already starting a block away from our hotel, the roadways now crowding around us. Old battered beware signs still cling to the telephone poles as we pass them on the way to the pier. The conspiracy theorist trying to rile up the masses with their warnings of new world order propaganda.

The salty air smacks the palm trees overhead of us carrying their big leaves into a soothing, lullabiac motion. The ocean waves dancing and crashing against the rocky shore in the near distance, banishing the taunting thoughts plummeting me back into reality.

'You got the bud?'

Jase pulls the sack of weed from her purse, shaking it in my view. Soothing my paranoia, shooting me one of her famous winks.

"What's uh party without some trees?"

-

I snatch two of bottles of patron out of my purse, weaving my arms with hers as we stroll and dance to the song

'stand by me'

We toss our heads back, hair to the earth as we gulp down the bitter alcohol exchanging each other some nasty glares as it reaches our chests and stomachs.

'When the NIGHT  has come, and the land is dark and the MOON is the only light we see'

Pointing to her, twirling my body in a three-sixty sending my love out to her. My black hair gliding below my shoulders, my skirt blowing in the gentle breeze.  Feeling the alcohol settling itself in my stomach, the burn of it feeling so right. The weed smoke rising above of us, becoming one with the fair lunar glow.

The moment we are standing in feels warm and nostalgic, like a memory that would be imprinted in my mind and felt fifty years from now.

"No I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me"

-

"And what do we call you ladies?"

A man questions us, popping up behind Jase leaving the friends he is within the backdrop.
I remain silent,  my go to when being confronted by strangers.

"I'm jase, that's Anesaki"

She points to me, making my existence known.

The weird man smirks at us, grasping onto a stack printing papers between his hands.

"I'm JQ. Them accents, you ain't from 'round here?'

'Yea. From up north'

I peep out, detecting the shock yet proudness spread across Jase's drunk face as the words utter from my mouth.

"Did they tell y'all up north what's yet to come?"

JQ ask with serious eyes, the energy of him feels suffocating. He peels out two pieces of the printed paper with the zombie man stamped on the front of it and placing it inside our hands.

"We don't need this kind of  negativity"

Jase immediately blurts out through farrowed eyebrows, JQ face plastered with astonishment . She slaps the paper  into JQ's chest before pulling me away by my wrist, still muttering as we further distance ourselves.

-

Three ambulances rush amid the streets back to back, the remainder of partiers scatter to the sidewalks and closed buildings entrances.
officially terminating our night. Feeling myself being jolted in various directions, losing direct eye contact with Jase. Giving attention to the terrorized screams and vulgar sentences that besiege me. My stomach immediately drops, the movement of dozens of people pattering back and forth off-beat with my breaths. Sweat drops from my body, trickling down my face as doom begins to line my stomach.

'JASE'

Screaming out through a coarse voice,
people jabbing me from the sides
Striking my shoulders, stomping on my feet. Anything to get past me, through me.

'JASE!'

My words lost in a tangled web of turmoil, under the moonlight and facade of store lights.

-

Tears stream down my face, the crowds have depleted as people run, some still throwing the beware posters in the air letting them rain down on us. I'm stumbling around drunk and high, still being jostled like nothing. People running from what? From who?

'You got this Anesaki'

-

What's left of crowds all mangled and hot, stop and gape to witness a disturbing sight, A man disfiguring a young women's face, he is completely peeling her skin from her bones. The woman's body flexes up as he rips another piece of flesh off, unearthing her veins and the whites of her bones.

The monster glimpses at us, snarling with the fresh meat lodged between his teeth. He still looks human, but scarier. Her blood gushes all over the cement, causing the thing to go even crazier at its scent. He plummets forward and begins licking it off the pavement before he slowly scorns our way.

His all dim eyes, pale skin and scraggly hair now directly face us. The man still has a name tag affixed to his work uniform: John Maine

"uuAH"

He croaks out, reaching towards the crowd of frightened people. Staggering towards us tripping over the dead girl's body.

"Si- sir, are you okay?"

An older woman asks from the crowd,
her voice trembling as she reaches her arms out to grab the clearly, hostile man.

"Uahhh"

He snaps what's left of his teeth at her, clearly wanting to eliminate this woman. His teeth grind together as they barely miss her flesh. The thing still persists.

'What the fuck is wrong with you, lady?'

My screams directly in her face. Pushing the monster back as he lunges our way again for a real bite, the woman takes off running along with the group of people; leaving me an 118-pound woman to fend myself against this rotting corpse. He stumbles himself into me with more vitality. Extending his hand out while snapping his crooked jaw. I jab into his chest area once again but he doesn't budge, the monster continues to set forth against my decaying strength.

It feels like time suddenly slows down, I'm at the end of the clock. The word is set in slow motion, my fear riddled body moments away from subsiding into the grasp of this monster.

This is it? I'm going to die.

-