Who We Were | Book One

2. Hell Is Empty

The lack of authority was clear as I landed with a soft thud into the alleyway. The heavy smoke hung in the air, coating my throat and lungs as I crept down the darkened passage. 

The walls were cold and damp as I walked against them, keeping myself to the shadows. I feared it was not just water that layered the brick as I pressed myself closer. 

Litter crunched beneath my feet as I trod towards the main road, the opening lit like a beacon. Silhouettes crossed the entrance to the alleyway, staggering towards the siren that rang out like a dinner bell, drawing them all in. 

I held my breath as I stepped closer, reaching the corner of the building. I pressed myself further against the wall as they piled themselves inside, their attention only focused on the noise. 

I remembered the words Survivor Two had spoken before the line was lost. The new strain.

Cars lay looted and abandoned in the road, vehicles of the ones who had left it too late while street lamps dotted the pavements parallel to one another. Once upon a time, they had cast smudgy yellowed beams onto the darkened streets, but now, they sat idle with no purpose. 

While I sat in my flat, I'd been oblivious to the extent of the outbreak. Stepping out onto the pavement, I kept my back pressed firmly against the brick where the glossy coat of dew seeped through my jacket.

Only a few Infected now roamed the street as I side-stepped along the building. My eyes were wide and hectic, my breaths shallow. 

I froze as the last Infected lurched past me, brushing my shoulder with an arm that looked like someone had tried to savagely amputate it and failed. 

Its eyes were different than the ones I had seen, different from the one that had locked onto me as it had chased me down the corridor. 

Where the black pupil should have been, deep bloodshot veins laced the white like a tube map. Its neck jerked with its movements as if wincing at its own actions. 

I stiffened in response as the Infected lifted its crooked head, flaring its large nostrils. Sniffing the air, it carried on walking towards the building, following the rest. 

My shoulders lowered as I shifted away and sprinted in the opposite direction, not daring to look back. My legs burned as the adrenaline coursed through my veins, urging my body to do what I felt it could not. My eyes were wide as they let in every ounce of sunlight that streamed through gaps in the city buildings. 

My heart struggled in my chest. 

The echoing of my footsteps pounding against the tarmac resonated in the streets as the earsplitting alarm faded into the distance. 

I turned corner after corner, trying to familiarise myself and find my way home. 

It was the graffiti that caught my attention, the hasty scrawls across the length of buildings, a positive message loosely hanging from within their spray-painted words; 

'IT DOESN'T END HERE'

I'd had enough time in my flat to think about the people who left me behind. The so-called friends who would do anything for each other. I was almost grateful to be leaving the city, living on the outskirts had its advantages. 

While I tried to avoid it, I couldn't stop my thoughts wandering to how my parents probably wondered where I was; whether I was still alive. 

I ducked into another alleyway to catch my breath, steadying myself against the damp brick. 

The news had just started to break when I'd last seen them but none of us thought anything of it. Nobody could have anticipated what it would turn into.