I was standing in the middle of a small bedroom, the morning sunlight slicing through the shades that covered the window. My body was frozen, my arms and legs were bound together by invisible chains, I could only stand still and look at my surroundings. The room I was in was considerably small in size, barely able to fit one dresser, a desk, and bed. The desk was covered with random papers that varied from indistinguishable scribbling to cramped and extensive hand-written essays. Tearing my attention away from the desk, I looked over to the bed shoved into the corner. A lump the size and shape of a small body was laid down and covered by a large quilt. I could hear the gentle exhale as the lump underneath the quilt slowly rose and fell. Despite the miniscule size of the room it never felt claustrophobic; in fact it felt inviting and homey, wrapping around me like a mother's arms. Even though I couldn't close my eyes, I let my mind relax and for one second, one glorious second I felt happy. But sadly my happiness never seemed to last long. Two people began yelling in the next room behind me, their voices booming through the wall. Despite how loud they screamed I couldn't understand a word they said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see whoever was lying in the bed stirring, eventually the kid rolled out of bed and landed flat on the floor. The resounding impact seemed to jolt the kid awake, he then got up and onto his feet and started walking towards the door, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Then it hit me, realization dripped into my consciousness like a painter splattering water colors across a page, and this picture was one the worst moments of my life. Suddenly my invisible chains broke, freeing me as I fell onto the floor. I immediately scrambled onto my feet and reached for my ten year-old self. I could have stopped him, arrested him from opening the door and seeing what had haunted me and taken away months-years of my life. However when I tried to grab myself, my hands simply passed through like a ghost. At that moment I was dead, a mere imprint of consciousness chained to this moment and left horrified only able to watch as the scene unfolded.

My past self reached out and twisted the door knob, opening a scene that I've repeated inside my head so many times. There my dad was, standing in the middle of the door way arguing with my mom. The early morning light shined through silhouetting my dad, obscuring his face. Despite having the shadow across his face I could feel him turn his gaze towards me. Whatever he and my mom were talking about was immediately dropped. My mom followed dad's gaze and immediately saw my ten year old self. Her express softened, yet became sadder at the same time. Before she could even say anything my dad pushed open the door and looked back towards my ten year-old self. A look of absolute disappointment was smeared across his face; he regarded me then walked out the door.

My face burned and I clenched my fists, fury coursed through my body. I began sprinting across the living room, towards the door. I would grab the son of a bitch and drag him back inside, make him apologize to my mom then to me for ruining six years of my life. However as soon as I had reached the door I fell to the floor writhing in pain, it felt as if someone struck me on the side of the head with a base ball bat. Tears rolled down my eyes as the living room around me began to dissolve and disappear as if all of it was made of nothing but mist.

I opened my eyes to see my book sitting on my face, I could feel tears stream down my cheeks. I picked up Harry Potter off my face and snapped it shut, getting off the bed I began to pull together my belongings as I got ready to move out of the safe house. Admittedly it wasn't the brightest thing to do however I wasn't going to stay here another night with the swarms of mindless flesh eating mutants knocking at my door. Despite how bleak things seemed now I was inspired to move on, that list of what people wrote gave me faith that there was at least somebody out there who was still human. Thinking of humans a small wave of sadness washed over me, I nearly had forgotten about the girl who just disappeared, despite not knowing her at all I felt guilty for her go so easily. On top of that my dream left me shaken, I knew it wasn't just a dream but part of me refused to take it as reality, maybe waking up with no memory was a gift.

With my bag in one hand and a revolver in the other I could only imagine how strange I must have looked as I walked out of the bolted door into the bright sunlight. As I passed by I could the steel door, it had large dents and a few of the bars seemed to be ripped out of the small window, this only reinforced my feeling that it was best to move on. To my surprise the alley way had next to no infected as I jogged by, all small group of them seemed to be busy with something paying me no attention, I shuddered to think what they could be so immersed in and didn't want to stick around to find out. I slipped by them without a sound and continued on to the main road.

I grabbed as much food and water as I could from the safe house and shoved it into my bag, the increased weight now made the handle cut into my hand and my shoulder ache from exhaustion as I trudged on down the road. I looked straight ahead of and could see miles away from where I was, that was the good thing about Florida it's nice and flat. However the sun beamed down onto the road, heating up the rough asphalt and began to burn my feet with each step I took. It wasn't long until I began hopping towards the shade avoiding any uncovered ground. I stopped right in front of a store-well from a couple of observations and an educated guess I decided it at least was a store. A small neon sign read: JustFab. I looked back to the street behind me, it was eerily quiet nothing roamed the streets, which was very strange considering I saw a small group of infected wandering around a couple of miles back. But that wasn't what worried me the most, but made me uneasy is that I felt watched, I could easily feel hundreds of eyes watching me, just waiting. On my way here I saw out of the corner of my eye figures stepping forward a couple of inches but immediately slinking back into the darkness. Something was coming and it wasn't good.

I stepped towards JustFab and treaded carefully towards the door. The large glass windows on either side had shattered, spreading a million pieces of glass onto the side walk. Watching my step, I opened the door and walked through. Despite the time of day, the store was nearly pitch-black. I reached into my bag and fished out my flash light. Switching on the light I saw what mess lay before me, racks of clothes were scattered across the floor, glass stands holding miscellaneous objects were smashed, and as I shined my flashlight to the cashier desk I saw a hand on the floor digging into the ground as if it was trying to escape. I averted my eyes and concentrated on something else, my stomach squirmed threatening to expel what little breakfast I had that morning. That was when I noticed the ceiling; a large crack ran through the entire store, the ceiling was dipping into the room created a sort of V-shape; the only thing that was holding the wreck up was a pair of small pillars, their plaster cracking underneath the pressure. This place was collapsing in on itself and I didn't know how much time I had before it eventually did.

My heart race, I scanned the entire store looking for what I needed. I sped down the aisles, grabbing a packet of socks as I ran by. I desperately needed a pair of shoes, not many people would list shoes as a top ten priority on their post-apocalyptic plans, however in the middle of a city full of shattered glass on cooking asphalt you'd be dead wrong. I'd finally reached the aisle lined with adult shoes and began to rip through trying them on as quickly as possible. I was in the middle of trying on my sixth pair when I noticed the enormous set of foot prints imbedded into the floor. I froze in terror, what the hell could have made those? In my momentary silence I could hear sniffing ripple through the store. In a split moment I connected all the pieces together that created a situation that would likely kill me instantly.

In the list someone named Amber Green had written about the sniffing, I never gave much thought about it until I realized maybe the reason why no infected paid me any attention was because something much more powerful was on my trail, and the final piece that fitted the puzzle, the giant set of foot prints before me. They all fitted together perfectly, and I could hear a little sarcastic voice in my head say: Have fun. After my small revelation I nearly failed to notice that the sniffing had stopped, silence pounded against my ears as I listened for any sniff or foot step whatsoever. Nothing…I took in a sigh of relief as I lifted my flashlight back to the shoe racks, immediately after a deafening roar rumbled through the entire building and a dark shadow surged towards my head. I ducked to the floor as the cashier desk flew over my head and crashed into the wall behind me. I got up and onto my feet and sprinted out of the aisle, whatever had thrown the desk was now after me. I shined the flash light at my attacker and nearly had a stroke, now imagine a bulky weight lifter, now imagine that his upper body muscles were so huge that he resembled a chimpanzee and often had to use his own arms as legs; that should give you the idea of what my attacker looked like. His pale skin was blotched with agitated patches of infected cuts; he was missing his lower jaw so his tongue flapped around wildly whenever he moved.

My immediate instinct was to pull up my revolver a fire a couple of shots, despite my in-experience with ever shooting a gun my target was so large that if I'd have missed I'd probably would have been able to miss the broad side of a barn as well. The bullets embedded themselves into the monster's body with a sickening squelch. However this seemed to more irritate the monster rather than it did any physical damage, no matter how many shots I pulled off the creature would just tanked it through and lumber towards me faster, but that didn't stop me. I pulled the trigger as many times as I could before the sharp click told me that I was out of bullets. "Shit" I thought out loud before jumping to one side as the "Tank" I now officially dubbed it barreled past me. It crashed into the wall shaking the whole building, the ceiling above me collapsed a little bit lower, giving me an insane idea. I glanced towards the two pillars; their cracks were even deeper now due to the Tank's little bluster. My eyes shot over to the Tank which was still paralyzed from its stampede into the wall, this gave me enough time to drop my bag to the floor and run to the pillars right before the Tank came to its senses.

"HEY SHIT FOR BRAINS, OVER HERE" I yelled at the Tank trying my best to antagonize him. I guess my little jeer worked as it locked onto me and began to charge. Time seemed to slow down, I could see the Tank running full on head first towards me, my eyes darted to the bag and then to the front entrance, I wasn't get much time, but if I got out in time it would save my sorry ass from getting pummeled into the wall behind me. I needed just the right moment, waiting until the very last moment with the Tank only a few feet in front of me I rolled to the side and let him crash into the two pillars. Just as I expected the ceiling immediately began to cave in only giving me a few seconds. I grabbed my bag and sprinted towards the door, behind me I heard the Tank give an outraged roar as I ran through the entrance. "RAAA-"was the only thing he managed before tons of plaster and concrete crashed on top of him.

The entire building behind me came down in a crash, I rolled out of the way before it collapsed on me as well, the glass on the ground cut into my hands and feet, but I couldn't give a damn. A cloud of dust billowed out from the crash and surrounded me; I sat there on the asphalt dumbfounded. Had I actually just made out a collapsing building with an infected body builder on my trail? I felt my chest and face to see if I was solid and sure enough my bloodied fingers bumped up against my skin. I bolted onto my feet, ignoring the sharp pain of glass and gave out a triumphant cheer. However that cheer was soon cut off by the sight of four figures having their guns pointed at my chest and head. The cloud of dust soon settled and I could see the four more clearly now. Before I could take a longer look at any of them a gruff voice to my left that belonged to what I could assume was an old veteran with a grayed beard and a cigarette sticking out of his mouth said: "Now who the fuck are you?"

(Evening, first off before anything else I just want to say that I am truly sorry, I have no idea how I could hold off on this chapter for that long, it just seems that whenever I start writing this chapter the purest essence of procrastination started dripping out of my ears. With the apologies aside I will TRY to resume the promised schedule of a chapter per week-once in a blue moon, with the wind blowing in the right direction, any way I hope by the time you read this you have enjoyed this chapter and I will see you in the next one.)