Ban POV:
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I don't like zombies.
Actually, I am completely and utterly terrified of zombies, which is probably why they're so frequently included in the dreams I inflict upon others.
I can find nothing more terrifying than being torn limb from limb by cold, lifeless hands. Hands of your neighbors, friends, and family members, strengthened by their hunger for warm flesh and pumping blood.
I've only seen one zombie movie in my entire life- the classic- 'Night of the Living Dead'- and it terrified me to no end.
I saw it when I was eight. A whole decade ago. But I can still recant how every character bit the dust.
Trauma comes in different forms. After the movie, I became obsessed by the dead, but only from a distance. Look at this dead cat here, that dead pigeon there. Squish this bug to find out where the fluids explode from.
Isn't it funny how a cold, rotting carcass could have once sustained a mind? The heart once pumped blood through veins, sending nutrients to the brain. The brain memorized and photographed every part of a creature's life, but that same creature can only access a few memories. Important parts. Like movies.
The brain is just tissue. Layers and layers of throbbing globs of gristle and muscle and veins, suspended in liquid and attached to the rest of the body by separate threads of veins and nerves. The lungs- just muscle. Breathe in, breathe out. The lungs expand, the lungs contract. They pull in oxygen and push out carbon dioxide. They send oxygen to the heart, which transports the oxygen into red-blood cells. Blood swimming through our veins is dyed red with hemoglobin and pumped past arteries and capillaries and through to the brain, feeding and nurturing it.
And if one thing goes wrong with the whole process of the eating and the breathing and the exercising, it all shuts down. The blood stops pumping. The neurons in the brain stop flashing. The nerves shut down. The heart goes still. The memories you've collected are wasted. Your efforts- gone. The moment it all stops, you are essentially forgotten. Your hard drive is wiped- gone. Forever. Whether you rot in a gutter or a box, you're still rotting.
And the worst fate I can think of is that, for some reason or another, the neurons in your brain tissue start flashing again. Nothing else starts, just that. No memories, no thoughts, just hunger and movement. And with each step you take, the more your blood-deprived skin rots.