World War Zayn • ZM

1 || Down in the Doldrums

Sitting on a corner of her small room, Jasper felt the quiet reverberating between her ears. The silence was deafening but she figured she had only numbed her senses to what was really going on outside.

Zombie movies usually advised people to hightail it out to the hills (or a prison, if you wanted to be TWD about it), but now that shit hit the fan living dead style—it was hard to follow every rule in those imaginary survival guides they've read when they were younger.

For one, the mass hysteria was real. You'd think people would just shut up and go about it, unlike those crazy idiots in the movies and series, but it was an inevitable and prophetic fate, it seemed. People were people and people were mostly bad people. It was depressing as it was liberating—for some at least.

Before the dead started to make munchies out of her neighbors, Jasper remembered her short-lived dream life fondly. London was beautiful. Europe has just been amazing. It was everything she had dreamed of—until she had to include 28 Days/28 Weeks Later references, that is.

It was unfair. Her sister had been the one obsessed about zombies. NOT HER. And now she was stranded in this one bedroom apartment, the dresser shoved against the door, and she was on the brink of contemplating jumping all the way down—18 floors down. What was stopping her?

Survival, mostly. But what if she didn't die immediately? What if by some unfortunate circumstance, the wind breaks her fall and she ends up with one bad broken arm? What if she breaks a foot, what then? She'll be what she feared the most—zombie chow, ala Filipino. Lucky sons of bitches; getting a taste of her before any real British man could devour her.

Jasper laughed in the quiet. She was going nuts. Mental. Maybe she should jump soon. How could she think about her virginity right now? Wasn't this shit irrelevant during this devastating moment in time?

NO. Sex was a basic instinct. Considering she had given up on scavenging before she even began (she was always the bad finder, the worst in I Spy car games since the dawn of time), maybe the idea of sex and breathing was the only thing keeping her alive.

... And her fucking hyperactive brain who was more intent on thinking about men and sexy and sadness when any regular, normal human being would rather think of a way out of this hellhole she used to call home.

Thankfully, there were no blood splatters in her apartment. She had managed to escape from the debacle which happened on unit 183.

Poor Josh. Just when she had finally gotten the guts to actually flirt with him.

Guts.

Jasper almost retched. Let's just say she got to know him intimately (in a bad way) before even asking him out on a date. What a waste of handsome, she thought. Although to be fair, Josh wasn't really her type. She rarely went for the nerdy dudes. Oh well, too much for that. Too late for that.

Too late for anything.

Now there was only her, the dresser, and death. She didn't even bother thinking about her family. God knows the one way trip to the ground floor through her window was going to be an easy one if she thought about her mother. Or her sister.

Thankfully, she was too hungry to cry.

Then the violent pounding came.

Her world froze.

Jasper felt an indescribable fear consume her. Why was this happening to her now? Weren't things supposed to be better because she was hiding here? She feared the man-eating meat suits, sure, but she feared real people more. What if a group of bandits or raiders were outside the door?