It's been a long time since I've thought about Megan. Life nowadays doesn't really give you a whole lot of time to reminisce on the past, on the Before, so my thoughts have rarely strayed in her direction in the last couple months. It's weird, because I used to think about her every day, her hair or her eyes constantly in the front of my mind, and now I can't even recall what her voice sounded like beyond a half-remembered memory.

This strikes me suddenly, the fact that she's been dead for long enough that I'm starting to forget everything that I loved about her. I frown, lips pursed in frustration and forehead wrinkled. I bring a shaking hand up, holding it in front of my face. My nails are ragged, bitten and unkempt, and my dark skin is hidden by weeks worth of dirt and gore, but my ring is still there. Tiny and unassuming, covered in dried blood, but there.

We hadn't been married, as it still wasn't legal in Maryland, but she had proposed mere weeks before all the shit went down. I guess we could have found a church and someone to marry us afterwards, when everybody was too occupied with the dead, but by the time I had found an Officiant, Megan had already been dead two months.

I shake my head as if I could rid myself of the memories, but all I succeed in doing is making myself dizzy. Stumbling a little, I swing my bag off my back to grab something to eat before I remember. I ran out of food yesterday, eating the last can of ravioli from my bag, and even before then I hadn't been eating very often, trying to ration what food I had managed to scavenge from already looted houses and stores. I've been walking aimlessly in an attempt to find more food and maybe somewhere to wash myself, but everywhere I've looked has already been drained dry of resources.

A bit of hair falls in front of my eyes when I trip, just barely stopping myself from falling flat on my face, and I impatiently brush the greasy, matted mess back. I force myself onto my knees, bones protesting and muscles screaming in agony from too much use and too little sustenance. Letting out a hysterical laugh that more closely resembles a sob, I clamber to my aching feet and continue forward, bits of gravel still biting into my palm and a scrape on my left knee.

The sun beats down on my back as I walk, relentlessly hot and doing nothing to help with the dryness of my throat and the emptiness of the bottle that is clipped to my belt. I can hear the nothingness in it, loud and oppressing, and I can't help but wonder if I'm going insane. I stop myself from continuing that line of thought, recognizing the danger of self introspection.

The day continues to be hot and humid as I follow the highway, encountering no dead and meeting no living. I'm heading toward Atlanta, slowly but surely. I have no particular attachment to the city except for the fact that it's where Megan lived with her older brother before we met and she moved to Maryland. I bare my teeth in a weak parody of a smile as I remember meeting her on a high school marching band trip and our brief relationship before I left. We had kept in contact until she graduated and we both went to the University of Maryland. She had been a year older than me, and proposed as soon as I turned eighteen.

Now I'm nineteen, Megan is dead, and the people who killed her will never be brought to justice for what they did to her. For what they did to me.

I know I'm close to the city because I can smell it. Cities have a higher of concentration of the dead, and even in the still air, it travels. Surprisingly, I haven't seen any roamers, but I think it's because the majority of the dead have left in search of meals, meaning I'll be able to traverse the streets of Atlanta relatively easily. I hope.

I look up at the sky, where the sun is starting to set, and then around me. There are a few abandoned cars every once in awhile, and I shrug to myself before struggling over the barricade separating the two sides of the highway. I pick the first car that I see that doesn't have a roamer in it, setting my bag in the passenger seat and pulling out a blanket.

Curled up in the driver's seat with the windows cracked, I pull the blanket tighter around me. I screw my eyes shut, as if it will mean everything bad will go away, and shove my nose into the warm blanket.

It used to be her's, the blanket, and for a second I imagine that I can still smell her on it, but all that I can scent is myself and the inside of my backpack.


I wake up to shattering glass and a rotting hand.

I scream and pull myself away from the roamer that had broken the driver's side window in an attempt to eat the living being that lay inside the car. Desperately, my hand fumbles for my crowbar, even as my other grabs the roamer's arm to prevent it from ripping into my flesh.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

My searching hand eventually finds the weapon where its fallen underneath the seat. The thing's head is still outside the car where I can't reach, so I take a deep breath, grip the smooth metal tool tightly, and shove open the door.

The roamer is pushed back, still wildly attempting to grab me with it's decomposing hand as I round the car door, crowbar at the ready. It finally registers that it's meal has moved and starts to turn towards me, but I don't let it get farther than that.

My crowbar slams into it's head and blood and brain matter sprays me in the face. The roamer is dead by the first hit, but I keep swinging the crowbar, over and over, until the face is an unidentifiable pile of mush. I'm shouting the entire time, pretending that this roamer is one of the men who killed Megan, who took her from me.

When I've exhausted myself, sweat and tears mingling to drip from my cheeks onto the hot asphalt, I drop to me knees next to the body. For a second, I let myself just cry, weapon dangling from my hand, before looking around to make sure I haven't attracted any other roamers with my screams and shouts of anger.

Confident that I'm safe for the moment, I turn back to the car, gathering my stuff. A quick glance inside in the hopes of finding food or water yields two sealed bottles hidden beneath the back seats, which I grab with shaking hands, cracking one of them open and taking careful sips of the water. It's warm from having sat in the heat for months on end, but I barely even notice in my quest to prevent myself from drinking the entirety of the bottle. Two bottles is barely enough to get me the rest of the way to Atlanta, so I have to continue with my strict rationing.

I forcibly take the bottle from my lips after a few more gulps and screw on the top, setting it in my bag instead of inside the bottle at my hip so I can avoid temptation. With a contented sigh, I swing the backpack on and take a step away from the car, kicking the roamer as I shuffle past it.

"So long, asshole."


The streets of Atlanta are silent. The kind of silent that makes me more nervous than the hissing and growling of roamers would have. The kind of silent that means that there are people here who are the cause of the piles of bodies lying on the sidewalk. The kind of silent that means I need to be very cautious.

I avoid the bodies to the best of my ability, which is easy because someone had purposefully dragged them to the sides of the road, probably to let their cars pass. Even though none of the bodies have moved, I keep my crowbar at the ready incase a roamer is just hiding.

My travel is unhindered by anything dead or alive, and I start to hope that maybe I can get to Megan's old apartment, maybe find her brother. I've spoken to him a couple times, and he was supposed to come and stay with us for the weekend right before the world ended. I don't know what I'll do if he's-

Something moves in the alley next to me, a shuffle and a scrape against asphalt. I tense; I'm far enough into the city that I'm not confident in my ability to escape if there's enough roamers.

I press my back into the side of the building next to the alleyway, waiting for whatever it is inside to reveal itself. The shuffling gets closer, and now I can hear the hissing and groaning associated with the dead. I smell them before I see them, the stench of rot and gore, weeks and months old, having baked in the Georgia sun for who knows how long.

"Shit," I exhale quietly upon seeing the first roamers of what has to be a decent sized horde. Without a gun, I can take down five or six of the dead before being overwhelmed, but there's at least a dozen shambling out of the alleyway mere feet from me.

I stumble backwards at the intimidating sight before me, shoulder scraping against the rough brick of the wall. Roamers are attracted by the scent of the living, but I'm hoping that the fact that I haven't washed in weeks and I'm covered in gore will help disguise me. It seems to be working, their near-sightless eyes not noticing me and their noses fooled as I back away, but I'm too distracted by the dead in front of me to notice the roamer walking up behind me until it grabs a handful of my hair.

My grunt and scream of terror as the thing lowers its head to take a bite out of my shoulder is enough to attract the attention of the small horde, and I can see out of the corner of my eye all of their rotted heads turn in the direction of my struggle. I swing my crowbar up into the roamer's skull, feeling the spray of blood hit me before yanking the weapon back out and getting ready to run in the opposite direction of the pack.

The snarls of the roamers increases as they draw closer, and I sprint down the street, weaving around the gore and the dead. Caught up in the fact that I'm being chased by a horde, I don't pay attention to the road until my foot catches in a hole and I go down, putting out my arms to catch myself.

Maybe I should have just let myself fall flat on my face, because I hear a loud crack before feeling shooting pain in my arm. I collapse in on myself, horde momentarily forgotten as the world blurs around me and tears burn my eyes. A litany of curse words escape me as I struggle to me feet, protecting my right arm with my body and switching my crowbar to my non dominant hand.

My breathing is ragged and harsh, escaping me in fitful gasps as I face the roamer's before me. I can't bring myself to move my feet in a feeble attempt to run, but I know that I'm in no condition to fight. I lift my chin, knowing I'm about to die.

I know I should close my eyes, spare myself from having to stare death in the face. Instead, I grip my weapon in my head, feeling it catch against the metal of my ring, and square my shoulders. As such, I see it when the first bullet hits a roamer's head. My eyes widen in disbelief as the rest of the herd is torn apart by the men behind me.

When the last roamer falls, I turn around, cradling my arm to my chest protectively. Two men wearing police uniforms stare back at me from in front of their car, weapons aimed down instead of at me.

For a second we just stand there silently, before I let out a harsh laugh, causing them to startle. They watch as I drop to my knees, crowbar hitting the street with a clang.

"Boy, am I glad to see you guys." The words have barely left my mouth, slurred and broken as they are, before blackness creeps in and I fall onto my face. Just before I pass out, I see them strolling towards me, feel their hands grab me roughly and pick me up. The car sway in front of me, and I see the back door open before I'm swallowed.


My eyes open slowly, squinting against the bright light entering from the window. I lie there for a second, enjoying the softness of the bed beneath me and how clean I feel, before realizing why that feels so wrong. Abruptly, I bolt upward, my head swimming for a second, looking around wildly for some clue as to where I am. My eyes land on on man standing near the door, dressed in hospital wear. That's what finally alerts me to the medical equipment strung up around me and the cast on my arm.

"Where- Where am I?" My voice is weak, throat parched.

The man -doctor- smiles hesitantly.

"You're in Grady Memorial Hospital."