Day: 1

Time: 3:37 PM

The city was once an escape from everything. The skyscrapers held such great meaning; they held such power. Like if I lived among them, absolutely nothing could hurt me like things used to. I would have made it, me. Out of everyone that graduated Lima, Ohio, Rachel Berry truly did make all her dreams come true; in spite of everyone and all the bullying. Lima would sing my praises while I lived among the cityscape, they'd pretend that they adored me, rather than toss slushie's in my face. They would regret not believing in me.

These skyscrapers, that now held such sorrow, such immensely great pain, would be my salvation. The whites and greys would be the coating of my shields, and I would be stronger than ever.

But I was crumbling now. Their walls molded over, the lights had been off for months, and the walls that were once so pure were now tainted in blood. Splatters, pools, splashes of human blood. They would be stained, and they would no longer stand as tall and as proud as before.

It was this that had everything about me breaking down.

New York looked so beautiful at night; not a star in the sky because they were all performing that evening, busy in the glaring stage lights, singing to a full house. New York now was haunting; every star that once shone brightly on a stage was now clearly visible up in the black sky, and the sounds of their murderers lurked about every corner. Down every alley, in every building, lost in the sewers; the murderers of those of the greats creeped about, looking for their next victim.

In the movies you expected what was to come. News stations would be broadcasting every second of a new disease, the government would blame one of two things; biological warfare via terrorism, or a new drug no one had heard about before.

In the movies, everyone learned how to kill them, how to protect themselves. One good shot to the head. Clean and clear cut. And in those movies, there was always someone that was an amazing shot. Someone that miraculously, with no experience of any kind, could aim, shoot, and kill each and every zombie they planned to.

Real life was nothing like this. Real life was slow. Painful. I had seen it myself, how the disease spread.

It was a bad flu year, everyone was getting sick. A new strandit seemed. The name hadn't mattered anymore, I could call it the otter flu and it wouldn't matter. Because no one was alive to hear it. New York fell much too quickly.

When the flu first hit, it was children. Parents kept them from school, took them to doctors; doctors made them wear masks, but still nurses caught it from the children,adults from the nurses, andso on. And soon it reached the teachers. One by one schools began to shut down. The breeding of the disease was quick, but the symptoms, God the symptoms looked painful.

Coughing, fever, nausea, body aches and pains, vomiting, diarrhea. Everything one would expect from a really bad case of the flu, only amplified. But when the hospitals began to fill with more and more patients, they found most were paranoid innocent human beings, who would surely catch the virus now that they'd walked into a tainted waiting room. Soon the cops had to come and create borders for the hospitals, single file lines, ID checks, symptom checks before even stepping foot into the waiting rooms. There were tents for those that had something completely unrelated, forced to stay outside in the New York chill of September because the hospitals were already so contaminated.

The police force fell soon after, and New York was declared a state of emergency. No one could go in, no one could go out. What the good mayor of New York hadn't known was that people began running before it reached this level of horror, and business men and women who only travelled for a short stay were long gone by now. So movies had gotten at least some portion of it all right; the spreading of the disease was quick.

What I wished they'd warned everyone of was the rapid change and growth of the virus.

Flu shots were given out everywhere, made on high demand. Every doctor out there all but demanded the citizens of New York to go out and get a shot; they couldn't have known, but if they hadn't told the people to do this, I couldn't help but wonder what would be different.

The disease that acted as the flu was clearly not what it first seemed. The shots given out had only morphed it into something worse. Some kind of flesh eating disease.

Another thought that crossed my mind more often than I cared for was whether or not I was lucky. Upon my arrival to the sterile tents, they had just run out of the shots. It created chaos, and ultimately many of those that hadn't caught the flu yet (one's much like myself) had grown outraged, and began to riot right on the spot.

Kurt had felt so guilty for asking to stand in front of me, he'd had a long planned trip to Lima coming up, and his biggest fear was whatever it was exactly being passed around. Blaine had already gotten sick, and was in the tent across the way. The tent meant for those that had already been exposed to the severe flu.

The entire walk home he said I should have gone first, how he hated himself for being so greedy. Now, I was the one hating myself. I hated myself for feeling relief that I hadn't gotten a shot. I hated myself for being thankful that they'd run out before me. I hated that it all meant that I was thankful Kurt had gotten his.

In the three weeks that followed, open sores appeared all over Kurt's skin, and Blaine had started to feel some relief. Apparently the severe flu died down the longer it was in your system, and remained dormant unless you fell ill once more. Or unless you were given a shot. No one understood it. No one even tried after things turned chaotic.

The hospitals were no longer helpful, they closed their doors, secured them with what little police force was left, and the rest of us had to fend for ourselves.

When Blaine wasn't at Kurt's bedside, doing what he could to ease the pain in his lover's eyes, he was out fighting for supplies. Riots occurred every other day at any given time, leaving me to stick to sewers should things ever get hairy. It was hardly the life I'd dreamed when I was young, walking around dirty, almost painfully disgusting scented tunnels. The rats were nothing compared to the knowledge of what I was walking through just to get home.

Once Kurt's sores spread, and the sight had become nearly impossible to look at, his fury came. Another point movies always got wrong. There was no heroic smile, showing everyone that they would be okay in due time. There wasn't a speech, or a hand being held. There was rage. Kurt's temper was so quick to be brought up, so easily accessible to him that only Blaine could stand to be around him. The few friends I'd made at NYADA and myself could barely step foot in the room without being attacked verbally. Of course, Blaine had been too, he simply stronger and more willing to face it all. A respectable trait that I now envied him for.

I don't think I'd ever know if the rage was due to the pain, or if it were simply part of the virus. When Kurt had passed away, Blaine cried for hours. It wasn't until a loud gasp of breath sounded from the bed that Blaine's sobbing subsided, only to be replaced with panicked calls of Kurt's name. It was when he didn't respond coherently that Blaine moved back to his bedside, face full of apologies ready to spill out for assuming the worst. But the moment he'd reached the side of the full sized bed, Blaine fell backwards, landing firmly on his butt with a thud.

The screech of...I still couldn't describe it, of pain? Of fury? Whatever it was of, it had been burned into all of our memories; haunting us for many nights. It still does to me this day. Blaine having gotten some relief when his fever struck.

There was so much that movies got wrong, but what was the most terrifying of all was the feeding. The reanimated bodies of the beloved dead didn't resort to the basic need to feed, they relied solely on a fight or flight system. They were animals. Animals that felt hunted.

And they were.

Everyone that hadn't gotten sick at least owned a gun, and the reanimated animals resorted to attacking. They attacked the living, the dead, humans, animals, everything. They didn't eat. They were already decayed, nothing worked other than small synapses in the brain. Basic needs were remembered, but food seemed to barely phase the animals at all. Food seemed to repulse them. So when Kurt had began to lunge at Blaine, his hands outstretched, mouth gnashing against each other in ferocious snaps, it wasn't out of hunger, but out of wanting to tear Blaine's flesh from his bones in any way possible.

The sight had been horrifying, and I still wasn't sure how Brody had gotten himself and Blaine out of the room without so much as a scratch. Kurt's screeching and pounding on the bedroom door had told me more than I wanted to know.

My best friend was dead.

My best friend was a monster.

And I hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye.

Two weeks passed from then to now, Brody, Blaine and myself had found solace in an old folks home. It was easier to fight off the elderly, though I took very little part in the actual killing of anyone. Instead I simply used my size, stealth and speed to run around the city sewers and collect what I could. Blaine had always gone with me, his protective nature shining through. I knew why, it's what Kurt would have wanted. It's what the love of his life would have asked for if he would have been able to.

There weren't many animals roaming about just yet. A few would pop up every so often, but the disease was always slow; and doctors always swore that they could cure whatever it was that tormented those that had fallen ill.

"Lights are back," Brody's words weren't necessary, but his eyes showed that he needed to speak. The silence of the home clearly beginning to get to him.

Outside riots broke out, our boarded windows never gave us any clues as to where it happened or what was going on; but the crashing sounds of bottles against walls, the tumbling of metal trashcans and shouts of living people told us all we needed to know. It was hell on Earth outside of these now lit walls.

"Food," Blaine stuck to one syllable words as often as possible, the energy for anything more seeming to be too much for him. Of course, when most of your time is spent working out, keeping fit and running missions, I guess it made sense that talking just didn't seem all that worth it.

Brody stood from his dusty armchair, his gaze no longer lost along the gloomy walls, and he moved to take one of the five cans that Blaine and I managed to scavenge. Hunting was never something I enjoyed doing, so whenever I was the one to join Blaine on an outing, we stuck to stores; whenever we could that was.

"I think we should look for a battery operated radio, maybe there's something coming through?" My tone was far too hopeful, both men looked at me with stone faces, they'd seen more destruction than I had, they'd seen what people were capable of now; clearly it wasn't pretty.

"I'm thinking we find a map, or an atlas. Something. It's getting less and less safe here." Brody argued, opening up a can of corn with his knife, opting to use the microwave to heat it in a plastic bowl. May as well now that there was the option to.

Every few days the power would go off, no one manning the generators or feeding fossil fuels to burn, meaning worldwide blackouts periodically. There were reports about Nevada, Arizona and California not suffering these kinds of outings. Lucky them.

"We can pick those up at a gas station can't we?"

"What gas station have you seen out there that isn't overrun by bandits claiming it as their own castle, Rachel?" Brody's voice is firm, almost too loud; a fact he recognizes himself as he steps back and wipes at his lips with his palm. There's a shadow there now, making him look far more rugged and ultimately more handsome than before. Though it seemed impossible, considering he was quite beautiful when I'd first met him.

"Sewers, Brody." Blaine reminded the boy, his own features looking far more wild than he used to let them. Hair gel had apparently seemed pointless now, trying to keep his thick curls under control in a world of chaos did seem rather pointless indeed.

He'd been different like that since Kurt's death. The bow ties were gone, he now wore fitting pants and running shoes. Slowly he began to look more and more like a guy's guy. Not some preppy doll from the fifties. I never minded his attire, it matched my own at some point in sophomore and junior year. But lately he seemed to care less and less about his appearance, this much given away from the thick beard growing each day around his face.

I didn't see the appeal of so much hair, but I guess I understood the freeing sense they must have. Not having to worry about shaving because well, there really was no need to. It wasn't as though they'd be going to a job any time soon.

Brody's frustrated form moved before me, reaching for his now hot bowl of corn and spooning mouthful after mouthful. "We need a plan."

"Why don't you and Blaine go out tomorrow and look for a map? We can come up with a list of the best places to find them. I suppose gas stations are out..."

Brody seemed fine with this idea, no doubt more so due to the fact that he'd be killing more than likely. It was demented, and I grew increasingly more worried over it, but somehow in this new world killing the animals that tore flesh from human skin relieved an immense amount of stress from the once Broadway aspired singer.

"Dawn?"

"Dawn."