┌───────────────────┐
└───────────────────┘
2 4 D A Y S A F T E R
My knife drags down the stone wall as I chip away at its grey paint, creating yet another line—a tally mark—of sorts. The conventional method of counting being something I used to do to the walls in my own cell, before all of this.
Our extended occupancy of this small room happened in the blink of an eye, and with very little forewarning.
First, I saw the panic in the eyes of news reporters as they tried to explain what was going on. Then—before getting any answers—the guard shoved us in storage room, locking us in until the foreseeable future.
All of the rest was just a series of distant sounds of chaos echoing from the tombs.
"Why do you keep scratching the damn wall?" Another inmate, Rosa, asks me from across the room.
She's a bit older than me. Her age not quite dictating her sense of maturity about the situation, as she's set easily set off by anything and everything. That being the only quality about her that I can have fun with.
She stares at me with furrowed eyebrows. "I can't stand that sound."
"Just counting the number of stab wounds you'll have when we're out of here." I roll my eyes and quietly mumble under my breath.
To my surprise, my words echo a bit louder than I intended.
Rosa's loud voice quickly intensifies as she tilts her head to the side. "What'd you just say you lit—"
"Guys, calm down." Gianna cuts in. "No one is getting stabbed. We just have to be patient and wait for the military to come."
Gianna's the oldest of us all. She's the barricade that keeps me and Rosa from constantly going at it.
"What makes you think there's still a military?" I start. "It's been over three weeks, and we still haven't heard a thing." My eyes squint towards her.
"I don't know." She mumbles, a certain gravity bringing down her expression, before she quickly tightens it up again. "But, what I do know is that we've got enough food to last just the three of us a couple of years."
"And that's a long time to be dealing with this nonsense between the two of you."
9 3 D A Y S A F T E R
My makeshift lock-pick once again fails to work, and instead snaps inside the keyhole.
With a sigh, I stand to my feet and pull out whatever I can of the thin coil from the lock. The underwire of Gianna's old bra being yet another unreliable method of our escape.
"Why don't we just try to bust through it?" Rosa asks, her desperate eyes meeting my angry ones, before quickening her tone. "Maybe we could jam someth—"
"Save it." I cut her off. "There's no use. It's supposed to keep us in here." I start, with a pause.
"And too much noise makes them act up." Gianna says, her voice raspy as she's not used it all day.
The unidentified creatures are once again talked around, considering that we still have no idea what they are. We've been living with the idea that the things in the tombs have something to do with the riots at the start of all of this.
"She's right." I say with a shrug, looking a frightened Rosa in the eyes. "There's nothing we can do."
"There has to be someth—" She stops talking when she sees the bothered look in my eyes.
"We'll just have to wait it out."
2 9 4 D A Y S A F T E R
The heat blares around the stone walls of the room, hitting me from every uncomfortable angle.
Our usual, lingering silence consumes us as we all stay in our assumed corners of the room. A metal chair sits in my corner, while Rosa lies on a mat and Gianna sits next to a sleeping bag.
I watch the ends of my hair brush against the dusty floor as I lie upside down on my chair, dangling my head over the edge of the seat.
An everlasting boredom casts itself over my corner of the room, considering I've already done my one activity for the day: scratching another tally mark into the wall.
As of now, counting the days is the simple task that seems to get me by.
And I often do it over and over again.
Most days, I spend my time double—even triple—checking exactly how long we've been in this stale room. It's only occasionally that I total the number wrong, which somehow gives me the most thrill when going back and counting again, knowing that the number will be different.
It's a pitiful little game.
I think that the three of us each have our own little senseless habits, though we never talk about them. The depths of our minds can only be explored so much before we start to drive ourselves mad.
Our dwindling sanity leaves no more words to be said.
My empty thoughts slowly drown out when I manage to convince myself that I hear a distant, echoing scream. After waiting for a few moments with anticipatory ears, I hear nothing more and decide to continue dangling my hair about.
My senses messing up recently became another symptom of whatever it is that's happening to my mind.
It all started with a few different smells: warm food, freshly cut grass, laundry detergent. Nothing but a faint waft of imaginary air to reinforce my starvation and discomfort.
Then came the noises.
Hearing make-believe sounds isn't uncommon between the three of us, especially as the days continue to pass.
Yesterday, I almost convinced myself that I heard gunshots coming from the field outside of the front of the prison.
It won't surprise me if soon, one of us starts to even see things that aren't there.
My ears actively perk up at the sound of more piercing screams. The blatant sound being harder to dismiss as another figment of my imagination.
It's probably just those things in the tombs being louder than usual.
Before seeping back into my absent thoughts, the sound of harsh, thudding gunshots sends vibrations through the room.
Without a second thought, I slowly flip my body upright and turn toward the other girls. To my surprise, they are already alarmed and listening, as well.
"Guys?" Gianna asks. The shock in my body stops me from responding as I stare at her, realizing that they hear it too.
Immediately following the sound of her voice is more of the muffled, echoing commotion. It sounds as if it's coming closer, traveling toward us through the tombs.
The three of us quickly find our way towards the front of the room, pressing our hopeful hands against the bars.
The gunshots thud closer and closer, starting to sound as if they're coming from right outside of the door. If I listen closely, I can faintly hear the sound of the bullet casings clinking against the floor.
"Guys that door is locked!" Gianna tries to yell to whomever is on the other side of the door. She then grabs the bars, harshly rattling them. The panicked girl nearly breaks a sweat as she watches the door with anticipation.
"Just wait." I say sternly, hoping to cover up any shakiness in my hopeful voice.
After waiting for what feels like eons, the gunshots ring louder and closer.
Someone or something starts to frantically bang on the door. Muffled, desperate voices gently echo into the room as they are just on the other side of the metal door.
The door thuds and shakes just as I am able to see the brief flashes of light from the gunshots creeping under its cracks.
With one final snap of the handle, the door flies open, creaking loudly as it hasn't been opened in several months. These people—clearly not wearing military uniforms—barge in and lie someone down on the floor. Their flashlights bounce beams of light around as they run to the center of the cafeteria.
"Shut the door!" The gruff voice of one of the men echoes out.
Two men hurriedly shut the double doors, slamming them closed just before whatever's on the other side starts to bang on them.
One of them shoves a metal rod in between the handles. Then, the both of them back away, leaving whatever is chasing them to lazily pound on the doors from the other side.
Once the doors are closed, I turn my attention back to the small group of people, who move about in pure panic. It's hard to see what's happening to the person on the floor, but smears of their oozing red blood dirty the skin of the people who'd carried them in.
"Only one way to keep you alive." I hear one of the men haphazardly say.
The rest of the people take a step back in shock. The silence between the once chaotic group grows immensely as everyone anticipates what is about to happen.
On the contrary, the three of us remain stunned with silence as we can't help but stare at the first new people we've seen in months.
Amidst our curious gawking, one of the men raises an axe and drives it into the leg of whoever is on the ground.
I don't notice what's happening until after my eyes process the horror, while my ears already hear it: the labored screams of the person fading as they take several moments to lose consciousness.
Nothing but confusion washes over me.
Outsiders entering a prison would never be voluntary. But cutting off someone's leg definitely yields its own special type of necessity and desperation.
Once the bludgeoning is done, the people stare at the sight before them, in a few moments of tense silence.
"He's bleeding out." The axe-wielding man says in a breathy voice. His eyes remain wide and his body involuntarily heaves out of exhaustion.
Blood from the leg slowly spreads along the floor. The disturbing sight keeping all of my attention, as Gianna and Rosa decide to keep their focus on the people.
"Duck." The raspy voice of one of the men says. My eyes flick from the growing pool of blood, towards him.
He quickly raises his weapon—a crossbow—and aims it at us, causing us to involuntarily take a step back from the bars. One of his knuckles being nearly white as his finger keeps a firm placement on the trigger.
The other people follow the man's gaze until they realize what—or rather—who he is staring at.
☆
It was all a very surreal blur.
With a gunshot to the doorknob, we were freed by the dirty man with the revolver. The same man who'd taken someone's leg off only a few moments ago.
The man had no idea what he'd just relieved us of.
With some hasty, aggressive questioning from the crossbow man, we sent Gianna to lead these desperate people into our old cell block. Cell block C.
Our immediate response to the men yelling in our face was to send the eldest of us with their people.
Rosa and I hesitantly exit the tombs after what seems like an eternity waiting for Gianna to come back. After following the trails of blood and the smell of gunpowder, we wearily enter through the doors into the familiarity of our old cell block.
Except nothing about it is familiar.
The people remain unsettled as Gianna stands in front of them with her hands raised in surrender.
The same scruffy-looking guy with a beard and a readily-aimed crossbow stares at her, ready to attack. Rosa and I slowly enter the corridor, raising our hands as we move in next to her.
"Is that all of you?"
"Yes." Rosa answers in her usual snarky tone, trying her damnedest to hide the complexities of what we're all really feeling.
Looking at the people in the corridor, I realize that there's quite a few missing from the amount I've seen so far. We remain with the timid Asian man, the man in the bloodied riot gear, and the one with the crossbow aimed in our faces.
The sound of shuffling footsteps echoes from the adjacent cell block, interrupting my thoughts.
Soon, the formerly axe-wielding man leaves cell block C and walks over to the scruffy man who has us within his control by crossbow.
"I think he'll be okay." He slowly mutters, trying to sound sure of himself for the well-being of the people around him. "He's lost a lot of blood. We just have to wait."
"Did you guys rob a bank or something? Why don't you take him to a hospital?" Gianna pipes in, asking the man what we're all thinking.
The four men share an array of different looks before turning back to us. One of them—the Asian man—looks as if he's about to speak up, but then convinces himself not to, maybe as to not give us the harsh reality we're not yet fully aware of.
The man from the cell block rests his hand on his revolver, which sits comfortably in its holster. Even though I don't make it visible, the attachment these people have to their weapons starts to worry me.
"How long have you been locked in that cafeteria?"
Two hundred and ninety four days.
The two other girls immediately look to me, knowing I'd been counting since the very beginning. My work has finally come in handy.
Although quite nervous under the aim of the man's crossbow, I can't help but recall all the times these girls gave me grief for scraping away at my wall.
I nervously shrug. "Ten months."
"Riot broke out," Gianna starts and shifts her weight, slowly dropping her hands to her sides. "I've never seen anything like it."
"A guard locked us in the cafeteria and said he'd be right back." Rosa adds. "He even gave her a knife." She nods her head to me. I avoid eye contact with the men as they all look in my direction.
"The army should be coming to get us any day now." Gianna said, sounding hopeful.
I have a feeling that Gianna and Rosa have no idea what this man is trying to say. They'd have taken the man to a hospital, if not for some dangerously peculiar reason.
"There is no army, anymore." I huff under my voice but speak loud enough to where everyone in the room can hear me. What seems like a statement is really supposed to come across as an honest question.
A lingering silence creeps upon the room, as the men avoid my words.
"Right?"
The last word barely comes out as I fight back the nervous lump in my throat. I avoid the looks from the men, scared that I might actually receive the answers I'm looking for.
"She's right," The scruffy man starts.
He tilts his crossbow toward me and I lift my hands up a little higher, subconsciously. The man nods toward my pocket. "Hand the over the knife."
I slowly lower one of my hands, and reach for the knife and remove it from the pocket of my jumpsuit. My fingers flip it slowly and hand it out to the man, handle-first.
Still avoiding eye contact, the man doesn't take my knife.
I shift my gaze from the floor, to the direction of the man and see him standing right in front of me. My eyes finally make their way up to the man, looking him in the eyes, as I'd been too nervous to do so before.
He waits for a moment after our eyes first meet, sending me a threatening glare—as if I don't already know not to mess with him—before grabbing the handle of my knife and roughly shaking the blade out of my grip.
"What do you mean she's right?" Rosa asks, sounding both confused and scared out of her mind.
"There's no army," The man with a steady grip on the revolver starts. "There's no government, no hospitals. No police. It's gone." He shakes his head toward the ground.
The man clearly fights the fact that he feels a hint of remorse for being the person to break the—seemingly old—news.
"Really?" Gianna asks. The men both nod. "What about my mom?" She looks down to the ground and shakes her head. Rosa puts a shaky hand on her back in attempt to comfort her.
"Do you guys have a cell phone we can use to call our families?" Rosa asks, hopeful that she can contact her family.
"If they don't have hospitals, what makes you think there's anyone left that will pick up?" My voice lingers with its faint intensity. The fear inside me slowly creeps out along with my words.
The man shakes his head and looks over at the both of them. "As far as I can see, most of the population has been wiped out."
"How?" I ask, my voice strikingly monotone.
"People," The man with the crossbow starts. "They die and they come back." He sighs. "And they eat—people." He tenses up, seemingly remembering some order of events that lead him to the conclusion.
I drop my arms slightly and tilt my head.
"There's no w—" Rosa starts and shakes her head.
"That's why we had to cut the his leg off." He starts again. "If you're bit by one of them, the infection kills you—within days—and you turn."
"But no matter how you die, you turn." The sheriff starts.
"By turning?" Gianna starts, with the intention of the strange man finishing.
"You become one of them."
───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────
2971 words
A/N
HI! HELLO! whether you're reading this for the first time, or you're coming back after editing!!
i really dislike how long this prologue is, but it's because I merged the old chapters one and two into one part so it's okay!! I PROMISE that these chapters get better when my original plot comes into play!! it's a little bland and two-dimensional until then!
☆ leave a vote pretty please xoxo☆