AN: This story is complete. I've been writing it for over a year now around other stuff, mainly when we were writing Bone Deep so I needed something daft to brighten my mood. This is ridiculous, and daft but I had fun doing it. Thank you to Zodster for her encouragement. Donteatblue for not letting me give up. Dozer99 for another set of eyes. Shinata-Riyoko is my own personal cheerleader and a great beta. I'm really not a fan of first person but it's what I needed for this introduction. Feedback is appreciated. I do hope you enjoy.


Human Again

Prologue

Psst… Hey over here. Don't be alarmed.

I'm sorry, it's really dark in here isn't it? My bad. I tried to get someones attention, but nothing happened, frustratingly.

I didn't mean to just blurt out like that. Not what I was going for, believe me. I mean, I wanted you to know that someone was in here, but I didn't want to scare you off. Wires and tubes. You see, I have this teeny tiny problem… I actually can't physically speak with you. There's a tube in my mouth, but even if there wasn't, it'd be broken English, and slow, and we'd be here forever. So this is my subconscious – I know, weird… just go with it.

Do you believe in second chances?

I do. Why you may ask? Well, I'm hoping that this will be mine.

I want to explain how I came to be here, lying on a bed in the dark, but before I tell you 'the why' and for you to understand, I need to tell you a little about me before I met her. It's complicated because a lot of what I know about my life, she has told me – well reminded me. I suppose deep down I knew, she just jogged that part of my brain, without even knowing she had.

Have you ever met that person who just consumes your thoughts? That unexplainable pull to someone for reasons you're unsure of. Maybe it's attraction, intrigue, lust… who knows, but when it happens it can hit you like a… Um... like really really hard. I have trouble remembering the words sometimes, without her help… When she's around, my brain works. She reminded me what it was like to be human, to feel again, and to love. She's given me a reason to go on. You see, this is a story about how my life began. Which is funny because, it began after I died.

So yeah, I'm dead and to be honest it's probably the reason the lights are dim, normally running and screaming ensues before I have the chance to explain anything.

I'm glad you can't really see me right now because, well, I don't like to use the word 'Zombie', but that's what they're calling it – or at least that's what they scream at us before they fire wildly.

No doubt this is where I lose some of you, and to anyone looking for a kiss and tell, you might want to find something else to read, it's not going to happen – firstly ew! And secondly, a lady Zombie never tells.

Before all this grey unattractiveness, I used to be hot. If you could see the ID badge that was attached to my blue pyjamas it would back that statement up. I can't remember what those damn things are called again, I'll need to get her to remind me later. Anyway not integral to the story so I'll continue. Dark flowing hair, deep thoughtful brown eyes, and red lush lips – yeah let's just go with this image and not the one I am now. I mean, I'm getting better, but I don't want you to lose your lunch.

Before her, I thought I was destined to shuffle the land like the rest of them until I ran out of brains and flesh to eat. Waste away to nothing.

At the beginning, the hunger was overwhelming. The all-consuming need took over and, let's be honest, you could get a little carried away when you saw fresh food walking your way. No one gave us any alternative, it was all 'bang bang!' so was it really our fault?

I mean, I didn't want to eat people; I was conflicted about it if that makes you feel any better.

Eventually I was able to… let's call it, diet.

I had a one-step plan – don't eat people. But do you know how hard it is to try to explain to someone who's shooting at you that we could be friends? If you just took the time to get to know me a little… yeah, okay who am I kidding. If it was the other way around I'd probably try to blow your head off too. Seriously though, some of the guys I used to spend my time around. Wow, they'd really let themselves go. I mean, I'd want to shoot their scary ugly asses too.

When I met her I didn't look too bad for a walking corpse. I'd held up rather well… at least I thought so, so she told me… eventually anyway. I mean my long brown hair looked almost black, was flat, and had blood matted through it. It was a frightful mess. Tangled to fuck, but nothing that a good shampoo and conditioner couldn't fix. So I found out. To my relief I had nothing rotting off. 'Well preserved' she'd told me, except for my skin color – It was severely lacking. I will give you this little sneak peek though, I'm not as faded as I once was which is fantastic.

I did have a couple of scars gained in my earlier wild Zombie days, but that stopped when I gave up hunting. I had a best friend for that, he brought me… let's just say 'stuff to eat' and leave it at that. I can't remember when things changed for us because I have no sense of time, but we started to communicate. The occasional 'mmm' or 'grrr', but we didn't need words, it was all in the eyes. We could say everything we needed with just a look, or growl. The latter being more my attempt at communication, he would tend to bring that annoyance out in me for some reason.

I liked to call him Mmm before she told me his name. We'd made a home at the hospital. That's where we worked before – for some reason that memory stuck. It was easy pickings at first as they came to us looking for medicine. I'm not going to lie, I became lazy; I was so incredibly bored with it all. Every day became the same, maybe it was more than one day, I don't know. Anyway, it had become my life, numb, void, dead. Shuffling through the days, hour after hour, minute after minute, but not really taking life in… then again when I was alive, I never really took it in either judging by the many work related memories coming back... All work and no play it would appear!

You see, things had started to come back... slowly at first, little snippets of memories, and it sucked. I mean really sucked. It's not my fault I'm dead, I didn't ask for this. I remembered that there was a virus, but hell, I couldn't tell you how I'd got it. I mean, I remember now, and things have been explained to me, but back then, I couldn't even tell you my name before I met her. I knew it began with a C, but that was all I remembered no matter how hard I tried. Everything of my previous existence had been foggy, little bits had started to come back, but to be truthful, I don't know… I could have just been making shit up – could be other people's memories. You never know what you've put in your mouth.

Thinking, it's new… Well it's not new new, but you get it. There had been nothing but the surge for so long and then bam, suddenly I started doing things that I must have used to, and I noticed Mmm and others too. It was freaking amazing.

I've noted three types around here… zombies I mean. First off, I call them Screechers. If you could hear the sound they make you'd understand. They are the psychopaths of our society. They're just so violent and so much faster than us. I didn't know where they came from – shit, they even scare me and I've been living with Mmm. It surprises me how they keep going, they just look like skin covered bones, but they are deceptively strong. I've watched in horror when a human has stumbled across them.

The Zzz's, aptly named because well they're mindless, clumsy and slow, but when they see food they group together, they outnumber their prey. It's a natural hunters' reaction.

I haven't figured out what to call us, but it was like something just turned back on, a flicker. Some more than others, but it was something. The best way I can describe it was that I felt like I was trapped in my head. I knew what I wanted to do, but the signals got completely fucked up. It's like I knew I wanted to say 'Hi', but I found myself chewing on your leg instead.

Our brain is the human body's most mysterious organ. I do remember that. It's probably why it's the first thing we go for and the first thing you aim for. The brain, it learns. It changes, adapts. It tells us what we see, what we hear. It lets us feel love. Personally, I think it holds our soul, everything about who we were, and no matter how much research is done, no one can really say how all that delicate grey matter inside our skull works. And when its hurt, when the human brain is traumatized, attacked, well that's when it gets even more mysterious. No one truly knows what we are capable of. I mean, look at me, dead, my heart stopped. Ceased. Yet I still moved. Something made me move, that has to be the brain… you know?

My father once told me… I'm so glad I can remember my Daddy finally. Wow, it still sends shivers when I do. It makes me smile… Do you know how hard it is to smile when you're a corpse? You can't move your jaw too much. I knew this one guy who tried and his just fell straight off, hit the floor and he managed to kick it with his trailing foot… Anyway off topic. Daddy, he told me. "Mija, things only get difficult when you meet a girl and every beat of your heart is meant for her and her only." Cheesy I know.

The thing was, my heart… I had forgot what it was like to have it beating until that day at the hospital. The day that a group of humans came in search of medicine. That's when I first laid eyes on her and it was a completely different hunger that took over… If you know what I mean. Yes, who would have thought it, I like girls – women I mean. I don't think daddy would be pleased I actually listened to his words though... Turns out she's the love of my life… Love of my death actually. From the moment I laid eyes on those expressive blue orbs, and a smile that could melt ice, that was it. One beat in my chest sent me crashing to the ground on my knees. I was completely taken by surprise. I had no idea what was happening until a couple of minutes later when I felt another thud where my heart once pounded and then there was a warm rush, it lasted seconds… but it happened.

Luckily, she didn't notice me looking like an idiot. I was making a fool of myself as I sat on the floor looking like a love sick puppy while she was busy with a crowd of Zzz's moving toward her.

My death turned upside down that day I met her. She's reminded me things about myself that I'd forgotten, she's helped me change into a better pers… a better being. I don't want to say person because that assumes that I'm human. I don't know what you'd class me as now, maybe one day I can be human again. I feel like I was getting there… If I wake, with her by my side I think I can.

Unfortunately though, our relationship didn't start out on the best of terms - Okay she shot me… but it wasn't in the head so that had to mean something right?