[A/N: Hello everyone.
We continue the scene from the previous chapter, and we'll see one of the last times we'll notice the protagonist's state of mind in such detail.]
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In the park.
Third-person POV, 10 minutes earlier.
"Alex are you here?", a woman asked as she crossed the threshold of her friend's house. "I brought you some water and food. I tried begging on the street for medicine for your fever, but since it's Sunday, there wasn't much traffic", she added with a worried tone.
To get in, she had to push aside a trap that served as a door. Inside, the scene was bleak: piles of trash, unwashed clothes, syringes, and several bags strewn about.
The woman made her way to what appeared to be a bedroom in search of Alex. Upon entering, a feeling of unease enveloped her as she realized her friend wasn't there. Instead, she found an alarming mess surrounding a pile of used clothes he used as a bed. There were traces of blood and a bit of vomiting, a discovery that made her fear the worst. Her heart racing, she began searching everywhere, scared that Alex had been in an accident.
"There you are!", she exclaimed, relieved to see her friend approaching. Abandoning her initial fear, she approached him and touched his forehead in an attempt to assess his fever. However, he grabbed her arm with a strong, unfamiliar grip. Noticing his abruptness, she tried to break free, but Alex's embrace held on with a disturbing tenacity.
"Alex, what's wrong?", she asked, feeling anxiety beginning to take hold of her. "It's me, Rose", she tried to clarify, raising her voice to get his attention.
"Is something wrong? You didn't take drugs when you were sick, did you?", she inquired, seeing that her friend didn't respond. Panic began to flood Rose; Alex's grip grew tighter, his nails digging into her arms. Desperate, she tried to scream for help, but she knew they were too far from the houses and that those who frequented the park or lived there wouldn't come to her aid.
"No, Alex!", she cried as he pushed her to the ground. As she fell, the man, who had once been her friend, released his grip, holding her torso tightly and preventing her from easily pushing him away. Faced with the imminent threat, Rose mustered all her strength to push him, trying to maintain her distance.
"Alex, please stop. It's me, Rose, I'm your friend..." he insisted, his voice trembling, until the pressure eased slightly, giving her the opportunity to move closer to her neck.
A moment of disbelief washed over her. At first, she thought he was going to kiss her or something similar, but the pain she felt next transformed her fear into horror. She realized Alex had bitten her throat, his teeth pressing into her skin, tearing through every layer. Rose experienced extreme pain, but at the same time, a deadly warmth radiated around the wound.
Fueled by a mix of adrenaline, fear, and perhaps a vestige of the substances she used to use daily, Rose managed to push Alex away, throwing him to the side. With her hand pressed against his wound, she quickly left the house. Her mind searched for a place to hide or call for help, but the intense pain clouded her judgment, making it impossible to think clearly.
"I must escape", she repeated to herself as she noticed Alex beginning to approach the entrance, knocking over objects and dragging trash scattered on the floor. She tried to run, though every movement felt like a monumental challenge, and the pain increased with each step. She felt weakness slowly creeping in. The heat she'd previously felt only in her neck now spread to her chest and stomach, a terrifying reminder of the impending danger.
Despair filled her mind as she pondered why her friend had done such a thing, taking out his violence against someone who had always supported him. "Maybe the drugs made him so violent", she thought, reluctant to accept that he might simply hate her. "Is he angry because I didn't bring his medication?", she wondered innocently, her pace beginning to slow.
Each step she took seemed heavy, as if the weight of her body were multiplying, unable to lift her feet, only mechanically dragging her limbs to escape. Finally, she stopped, no longer able to move forward. Her vision blurred and her breathing became increasingly shallow. Exhausted, she fell to the ground, fervently wishing someone would come and help her.
"I shouldn't have taken this path. I should have avoided drugs and dealt with my depression differently. I even lost my family, my children… I miss them so much", Rose mused as she felt footsteps slowly approaching.
Alex, who minutes before had been a human being, approached his former friend with a single purpose: to devour her in an attempt to satiate the most primitive instincts that now dominated his being. His morality had disappeared, and his mind was dominated by survival instincts, altered by a virus that until the day before had remained dormant.
Without warning, he lunged at her, attacking her most vulnerable spots. He began to devour her bite by bite, tearing at her skin and using his hands to widen the wound. With each bite, his instincts urged him to eat more, without any emotion, without hatred toward the person he was devouring; he was simply satiating his hunger.
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[A/N: I await your comments about the scene.]
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While this was happening, a man approached the scene, following the trail of blood Alex and Rose had left during their pursuit. This man had an idea of what he would find when he followed that trail; he had been waiting over a week for this moment. This Sunday was no ordinary day for him; It was the day he would confirm what he feared so much, despite his desire for things to be different.
He arrived at the scene, and what he saw terrified him. He knew he would find something like this but imagining it and witnessing it are two very different things. He first laid his gaze on Alex, watching him hover over the woman, devouring her insides without hesitation; he seemed to have no remorse for the atrocious act he was committing. Then he looked at the woman, who had long ago lost hope of surviving this cruel fate.
As Rose suffered from her friend's attack, she felt another person approaching. She wanted to scream for help, but her consciousness was becoming increasingly blurred, her strength was gone, and the only thing keeping her alive was the hope that someone would come to her aid.
"Someone came to rescue me?", Rose thought as she tried to turn her face in the direction of her longed-for savior. "Help… me", she said with her last bit of strength, the blood preventing her from speaking properly.
Rose was dead. After all that suffering, she had finally succumbed to the clutches of death. Seeing the man had given her hope, and she died thinking that the man had saved her, and that she would soon be able to rise again, abandon the evil habit that had driven her to live this kind of life, and finally recover her family.
First-person POV, in the park.
"She died", I said in a dry voice.
The situation was far from what I had imagined. I knew this was one of the most likely scenarios I would encounter, but reality is a thousand times more difficult than imagination. Watching a woman fall victim to a brutal zombie attack made the hairs on my body stand on end. Fear filled my being, and I could only watch as the zombie continued its feast.
Slowly, I regained control of my body. Watching that scene for even a minute had already made me desensitized to the brutality I was witnessing. I also felt a familiar sensation was like that time I tried to let go of the behavior I displayed in my dreams during that gun purchase.
Calm flooded my mind, and what had once been a deep fear now felt like a simple scene, I'd seen hundreds of times, something every day. I didn't know if that feeling was good for my mental state, but I certainly preferred to remain calm in these situations than to put my life in danger while fear paralyzed me.
"I have to get rid of him", I thought determinedly as I slowly approached the zombie from behind.
"I must kill him now, or I could kill many more people", I thought as I stood behind him and drew my knife from its sheath.
At first, I thought he would hesitate, but without thinking, I swung the knife through his neck. I lived that entire moment in slow motion, or at least that's how it seemed to me. I watched as he extended his arm back to gain momentum, then with a swift motion, I swung my arm toward the back of his neck and watched as the knife easily penetrated layer by layer.
When I felt he was no longer moving, I dropped the knife in a bit of panic. His body immediately collapsed, inert. The knife was still inserted in the wound. I crouched down beside the zombie's body and slowly pulled it out. Dark, gooey-looking blood flowed from the wound where my weapon had once been.
"I did it", I said excitedly.
For a moment, I thought I'd killed a man, but since I knew it would happen in a couple of days, and I knew what this thing really was, my remorse disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. I felt a sense of accomplishment for overcoming the fear that paralyzed me at first, and I also felt relief knowing I could face them without fear soon.
"What do I do with her?", I asked myself as I scanned the surroundings.
I had been so excited by this personal victory that I forgot about the woman who had died at the hands of this zombie. I saw how her body was battered, her stomach ripped apart, and her face contorted from the extreme pain she had endured. Her face was completely covered in tears, which were now dry, and part of her face had traces of blood coming from her mouth.
"I have to kill her, or else I might do the same thing they did to her to the rest of the people in the park", I said, my voice saddened by this woman's fate.
I took the knife again and placed it next to her temple. I hesitated for a moment, but finally, I forcefully broke through all the barriers preventing me from reaching her brain. I pulled the knife out, and blood shot out.
"Luckily, she didn't stain me", I thought, imagining myself covered in blood as I left the park.
After preventing the woman from turning into a zombie, I slowly walked away from the scene, scanning the surroundings for witnesses, or the presence of any zombies. At first, I wanted to get rid of the bodies, or bury them, but I knew that with every passing minute, I could expose myself to the public as a murderer, and I didn't want to spend the next few days in jail while everything went to hell.
"I don't even know their names", I thought when I reached the outskirts of the park, looking back at the park.
"They were probably people who knew each other, or a couple", I reflected regretfully as I continued walking to my truck.
At night, Alex's house.
"I never thought the first day would be like this", I thought as I lay resting in my bed.
At first, I thought I'd go see if I could spot people turning into a hospital, but I ended up visiting a neighborhood infested with drugs and crime. While I was able to find what I was looking for and even kill a zombie, the situation was more shocking than I expected. Even now, my hands were shaking; I had the persistent sensation of taking the knife and piercing through skin, muscle, and bone.
"I don't want this to become a trauma for me", I thought as I tried to calm down and fall asleep.
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[A/N: CHAPTER COMPLETED
Thanks everyone for reading.
I hope you enjoyed the first formal appearance of zombies, at least in this timeline (I miss the vision scenes).
Just in case, I was working on a new novel, but since I didn't like it, I'll focus on some spin-offs of this novel.
Read my other novel called Vinland Kingdom: Race Against Time.
You can find it on my profile.]