p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"The world had to crumble down somehow. Matter of fact, you were pretty sure or at least hoping from the depths of your soul that someday, just that one very mighty fine day -whenever and however that may be- you wouldn't have to weakly attempt to hustle through your nine-to-five desk job, rush due trade deal papers minutes before the deadline which was set months ago or wake up in the middle of the starry night upon your respectful neighbors raising all hell loose doing Lord knows what. You pondered maybe, just maybe, that someday, it would all come to a halt, a peaceful one at that. It was a thought of yours that once all the stress and chaos was shooed out of your ordinary life, you would finally have room to just unwind. Begging for mercy on your way to a desired admission into heaven. Tending livestock in the countryside during your anticipated afterlife if there ever was one./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Might as well admit that you were right, well, partially right in your foretelling. Partially, because, see, initially, you used to be somewhat optimistic about this supposed nearing end of the world and about what would be its' probable triggers. The former possibilities and your well-developed future scenarios could either involve your demise, moving out into the country and living the quite desirable ranch life or simply, in some other cases, quitting your tedious job. The cursed infection brought by a wretched type of mushroom had certainly never been a runner-up in your list./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"The darkness was commencing to evolve into being more and more decipherable and see-through as your worn out orbs became gradually acquainted. You scoffed to yourself, with nobody to hear it besides the clicking and scratching and groaning creatures just outside wooden door a few feet away from the cement wall against which you previously collapsed. The dark grey dust and muck got stuck in and onto your unpolished, dirty and grimy leather combat boots you had found during a raid back in an abandoned house around the state border. They had been so shiny and well-kept that you could clearly make out your reflection on the black patent leather, one of the rare occasions that helped remind you how you looked like, how you used to look like before the dried blood of yours and others on your skin, greasy, unkempt hair and various little battle cuts and bruises here and there replaced your radiant natural glow. You chuckled while shaking your head, in both nostalgia and at your pathetic state as these thoughts ran through your mind, trembling and bubbling. Reminiscing about the good old past and getting lost within haunting, yet living, vivid memories were not what you should have been doing at the very moment. Instead, you had to find a way out of this crumbling downtown skyscraper, out of the office room in the 7th floor you got trapped in, considering a bleeding hole in your leg and the Clicker hoard scraping at the thick (thank God) wooden door not exactly increasing your chances of survival./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"It had been no bite, no, none of that fucking nonsense. You'd be real quick and efficient in putting a well-deserved bullet for your idiocy into your skull, if that was the case. In a world full of endless gruesome possibilities for one's demise, as a hardened survivor who had supposedly seen it all, it would be a petty and humiliating way to wrap your living soul up by a damned bite. No, this stupid God-forsaken burden of a wound, all wrapped up thanks to your best attempts at making a nice tourniquet out of the fabric you tore out of your shirt with your teeth, came from a worthless of a hunter already camped down inside the building you had sneaked into for supplies and who, by pure blind luck or his real bad ineptness at aiming, missed your precious head and put a bullet through your left thigh. The dark, crimson liquid seeped through your fingers as you hissed, taking in a few sharp breaths as your head was arched back slightly, eyebrows furrowed. How long did you have to wait in order for the blood loss to be fatal to save you the thrill of getting torn apart from your ribs? It was a question you had been calculating the answer for when you heard the wide, square glass window shatter to pieces on the far left corner of the room, letting in the moonlight and the stars of a late Boston midsummer night./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Panic rushed through and waves of anxiety traveled from top to bottom. Your thigh throbbed in protest, blood still finding its way through the tight makeshift bandage and reddening the cracked linoleum flooring. If the all forsaken infected had found a way to climb on buildings, even buildings made of glass with no visible crevice or parapet to hold onto, then the remaining survivors were doomed all to hell. You shouldn't be so lucky to be dying of fucking blood loss right over /br /Footsteps, and pants, both heavy, originating from a grand, vast silhouette in the dark, near the window that was just blasted. Your head arched back, your neck exposed as the veins on the side bulged prominently. Teeth gritted, jaw locked tight, eyes pressed shut. The scratches and shrieks behind the door growing louder and higher. One hand over your wound, the other curled up in an iron-clad fist. Exposing much skin, especially your neck, the glorious body part the infected loved to feast on. Your sole intention, as the pants and footsteps so heavy that could only belong to a turned individual approached, was to get this whole nasty ordeal over and done with. Presenting yourself to the creatures that you had sworn would not get a hold of you indicated the collapse, the destruction and the demolition, just like those wrecking balls crashing to a tenement building, of your walls that once presented damaged morality and scarred /br /It was only after you were abruptly hauled up to a stand out of your state of resignation by a strong, fierce and controlling hand did you realize the wound in your thigh had been no joke. A loud scream escaping your lips. Then came the relieving darkness, engulfing your being, your motionless and limp body pulled down by the mighty gravity before landing in a pair of arms./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Might as well admit that you were right, well, partially right in your foretelling. Partially, because, see, initially, you used to be somewhat optimistic about this supposed nearing end of the world and about what would be its' probable triggers. The former possibilities and your well-developed future scenarios could either involve your demise, moving out into the country and living the quite desirable ranch life or simply, in some other cases, quitting your tedious job. The cursed infection brought by a wretched type of mushroom had certainly never been a runner-up in your list./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"The darkness was commencing to evolve into being more and more decipherable and see-through as your worn out orbs became gradually acquainted. You scoffed to yourself, with nobody to hear it besides the clicking and scratching and groaning creatures just outside wooden door a few feet away from the cement wall against which you previously collapsed. The dark grey dust and muck got stuck in and onto your unpolished, dirty and grimy leather combat boots you had found during a raid back in an abandoned house around the state border. They had been so shiny and well-kept that you could clearly make out your reflection on the black patent leather, one of the rare occasions that helped remind you how you looked like, how you used to look like before the dried blood of yours and others on your skin, greasy, unkempt hair and various little battle cuts and bruises here and there replaced your radiant natural glow. You chuckled while shaking your head, in both nostalgia and at your pathetic state as these thoughts ran through your mind, trembling and bubbling. Reminiscing about the good old past and getting lost within haunting, yet living, vivid memories were not what you should have been doing at the very moment. Instead, you had to find a way out of this crumbling downtown skyscraper, out of the office room in the 7th floor you got trapped in, considering a bleeding hole in your leg and the Clicker hoard scraping at the thick (thank God) wooden door not exactly increasing your chances of survival./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"It had been no bite, no, none of that fucking nonsense. You'd be real quick and efficient in putting a well-deserved bullet for your idiocy into your skull, if that was the case. In a world full of endless gruesome possibilities for one's demise, as a hardened survivor who had supposedly seen it all, it would be a petty and humiliating way to wrap your living soul up by a damned bite. No, this stupid God-forsaken burden of a wound, all wrapped up thanks to your best attempts at making a nice tourniquet out of the fabric you tore out of your shirt with your teeth, came from a worthless of a hunter already camped down inside the building you had sneaked into for supplies and who, by pure blind luck or his real bad ineptness at aiming, missed your precious head and put a bullet through your left thigh. The dark, crimson liquid seeped through your fingers as you hissed, taking in a few sharp breaths as your head was arched back slightly, eyebrows furrowed. How long did you have to wait in order for the blood loss to be fatal to save you the thrill of getting torn apart from your ribs? It was a question you had been calculating the answer for when you heard the wide, square glass window shatter to pieces on the far left corner of the room, letting in the moonlight and the stars of a late Boston midsummer night./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #eeeeee; background-color: #333333;"Panic rushed through and waves of anxiety traveled from top to bottom. Your thigh throbbed in protest, blood still finding its way through the tight makeshift bandage and reddening the cracked linoleum flooring. If the all forsaken infected had found a way to climb on buildings, even buildings made of glass with no visible crevice or parapet to hold onto, then the remaining survivors were doomed all to hell. You shouldn't be so lucky to be dying of fucking blood loss right over /br /Footsteps, and pants, both heavy, originating from a grand, vast silhouette in the dark, near the window that was just blasted. Your head arched back, your neck exposed as the veins on the side bulged prominently. Teeth gritted, jaw locked tight, eyes pressed shut. The scratches and shrieks behind the door growing louder and higher. One hand over your wound, the other curled up in an iron-clad fist. Exposing much skin, especially your neck, the glorious body part the infected loved to feast on. Your sole intention, as the pants and footsteps so heavy that could only belong to a turned individual approached, was to get this whole nasty ordeal over and done with. Presenting yourself to the creatures that you had sworn would not get a hold of you indicated the collapse, the destruction and the demolition, just like those wrecking balls crashing to a tenement building, of your walls that once presented damaged morality and scarred /br /It was only after you were abruptly hauled up to a stand out of your state of resignation by a strong, fierce and controlling hand did you realize the wound in your thigh had been no joke. A loud scream escaping your lips. Then came the relieving darkness, engulfing your being, your motionless and limp body pulled down by the mighty gravity before landing in a pair of arms./p