**Thump**
Awakened from another restless night of sleep on the floor of an abandoned apartment, Lucy's eyes groggily opened up to face the blood-shot eyes of her father. It seemed he had finally broken through the door quite easily.
Within seconds, Lucy was scrambling away from the now infected monster who used to be her father. She had been waiting for this moment for hours now – the two had shared their goodbyes after examining a large gash that had quickly revealed itself to be a bite. She couldn't bare to leave him as an infected monster so she waited up all night till he changed. She quickly got up, hitting back shards of wood from the door as he flung himself in her direction.
"Dad? Dad! Daddy stop it!"
She had to try, but it was as if he never even knew who she was. He just continued to charge at her, babbling some incoherent language from his foaming mouth that Lucy had heard countless times from the various infected she'd encountered. She dodged his quick attack and reached for the bat that she had been keeping at the foot of her bed.
As Lucy's hands wrapped firmly around the base of the bat, her father had tightly gripped her wrist and started to pull her towards him. With her left hand, she punched him square in the face causing him to pull back and moan.
Hands back onto the bat, she swung at his pale face multiple times until he finally fell to the floor, twitching like some dead animal on the street. Dropping the bat from her shaking, bloody fingers and falling onto the ground, Lucy began to weep. There was blood in every crevice of her room and caked all over her body. She stared at him, tears streaming down her face and cried helplessly.
What was going on in the world? This virus was beyond anybody's control, and she was now completely and utterly alone. She knew the day would come soon where her last remaining family member would be taken by the apocalypse, but she just couldn't bare the idea of being alone.
Lucy had just celebrated her 22nd birthday when the world had started contracting a strange disease. It had initially just caused the infected person to become violently ill and suffer from temporary memory loss. However, it evolved quite quickly into something more grim and became a deadly end to the human population.
They had been worried about it for a while and always took precaution when in public. Whether it was wearing medical masks or simply just not going out, Lucy's family tried desperately to avoid the plague that was taking more and more lives every , Lucy and her family hunkered down in their secluded house in the woods, fighting off whatever infected they came across while the disease took over the rest of the world.
But it didn't matter. It had taken only two months for it to finally reach her and her family. Her mother, Katherine, contracted the virus first. She had been trying to obtain food and water for Lucy and her father from the local supermarket that had been abandoned weeks earlier. Within seconds of a run-in with a group of infected, Katherine had her ankle ripped open and could barely make it back home.
When her mother returned, limping and weak, Lucy knew it wouldn't be long until she changed. They didn't even have a chance to say goodbye before her mother went mad, ripping their house to shreds. Even after Lucy and her father left, Katherine tried running after Lucy's car, limping and snarling as they left her standing in the middle of the street.
Since then Lucy couldn't even hope for a cure. She had given up, but still had the will to survive for her father's sake. But now that her father was dead, she was left with nothing to live for.
Lucy started to panic as she wiped her tears away, searching the apartment for anything that could help her survive. Rustling through some of her belongings she had grabbed from home, she found her only backpack that she used in college. Deeming it worthy, she quickly managed to fit three water bottles, a small first aid kit her mother made her carry, and some of her small various weapons, including her small pistol and some rounds of ammo into the pack.
She quickly decided that she would leave the crummy apartment her and her father had found. Too many terrible memories and lack of food. Lucy prayed that she would eventually find some survivors because whatever food she could scrounge for downstairs would be very little.
Taking a deep breath and wiping away any remaining tears, she quickly pulled on her dark green zip-up hoodie, hiking boots and pack and made her way down the stairs
With every step she took, she flinched at how loud her shoes were. Her and her father had been the only two people in this apartment for the past week, but it didn't mean that there weren't any infected that had broken in while she was resting. Stopping halfway on the stairs, Lucy peeked over the banister of the stairs.
It was dark, but from what she could tell all that was left on the first level was an upturned table and some scratches on the wall – most likely from the changing of her father.
Walking into the kitchen, Lucy silently prayed that there was some remainder of food that her and her father had found on one of their runs. Opening the creaky, white door she sighed in relief. Half a loaf of slice bread as well as some unopened cans of soup still remained un-touched. Behind the cans she also noticed the distinct package of a Twinkie – most likely her Dad's. He always had a bit of a sweet tooth and thankfully, Twinkies didn't have an expiration date.
"You liar. You told me they were snowballs."
Laughing to herself, she promptly grabbed all contents of the fridge and shoved them into her pack which instantly became heavier. She didn't care. All the things in her pack would eventually help her and she could deal with the weight.
Content with all of her findings, Lucy decided it was time to leave the dejected apartment her and her now dead father had shared. Grabbing one of the pistols from her pack, she loaded the gun with ease and placed it into the side pocket of her sweatshirt. In case she got caught up in a horde, she also pocketed another two rounds of ammo into the back pocket of her wrapped jeans.
Walking to the entrance of the apartment, Lucy glanced through the slits of the boarded window into the street outside. It was around twilight, and from what she could see in the abandoned street there wasn't any movement in sight. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her brown waves back into a low pony tail and reached for the door.
