*Core's POV*

It's been about a month since the apocalypse started. In all honesty, I'm glad.

My parents weren't the nicest people on the planet, super religious, believed in some stupid God, yadda yadda yadda. Didn't support me at all when I came out as trans and wanted to be a girl.

"You were born a boy, you stay a boy! God made you that way!" My father shouted at me from across the dinner table, while my mother nodded mutely. Mom didn't say much, just did the dishes and what my father told her to. I honestly felt bad for her, with her being forced into this household and all the stuff that had happened.

When the zombies showed up, they left without me. Drove off while I was in school. I honestly hope I never see them again. But, I have made a friend. Two friends, actually. Jordan and Brandon.

Jordan in non binary, and will absolutely kill you if you don't say their pronouns correctly. Which is what they did to Brandon after he accidentally misgendered them.

Brandon's straight, but supports us nonetheless. He doesn't treat us any differently than he would his friends at school; Slaps on the back, laughing at jokes that we make, and honestly just being a really cool guy. When I came out as trans to him he looked kinda surprised for a moment before grinning and high fiving me. "Well that's just plain cool, then Core." He said with a grin.

Speaking of which, that is where I got my new name from. Jordan also provided mass amount of support as well, and this all happened within a span of a week.

Since then, we've just be wandering around town, trying to find supplies and just survive. Although we're running out of food, but I have fixed a broken radio recently, although it hasn't helped yet. 

I'm snapped from my train of thought as Brandon says something beside me. "Uh, what did you say?" I ask, glancing up at him. Brandon's tall and stocky, probably a jock, although he won't say anything about his life before this happened. The black haired boy look annoyed briefly pointing at something in the distance. "I was asking, what is that?" I follow his finger to where he's pointing, and is surprised to see a figure, not the slouching, out of proportion silhouette of a zombie. This one is standing up straight, and running at top speed. "I think that's a person..." I say, unsure if I'm correct or not. Afterall, the virus could have mutated. As the figure approaches, I hear a female voice scream:"What are you guys doing? Run!" My caution is replaced with confusion, then fear as I see a crowd of zombies speed walking from behind her. "Brandon! We have to go!" I shout, grabbing his arm and begin to drag him towards the base where Jordan would be hopefully. "But what about her?!" The idiot says. Shoot, I forgot about the girl. I glance over my shoulder just as the girl makes her way to us. I can finally see her features now: Blonde hair, with blue eyes and heavily sunburned skin. At this point she probably has skin cancer, I think. She's wearing a white tank top with mud and blood all over it, along with jean shorts and white sneakers since stained brown. She has one of those weird sun visors that are orange. 

"Let's get going!" She shouts, grabbing my arm and dragging me. I yelp in surprise, the get my composure and yank my arm out of her grasp, then follow her. I'll give her a telling off later as I run. Swiftly checking over my shoulder to make sure Brandon is following-he is, thank goodness-and then take the lead. "Follow me!" I tell her, and she nods, obviously having no choice. I look around, then spot a load of crates leading to a roof. "Up there!" I say, pointing to them and running over. The sound of footfalls and groaning is getting louder as I lunge for the boxes and haul myself onto the first one, then turn wanting to offer help to the new girl, who just helps herself up next to me without any problems. Brandon takes my hand though, and I help him up, brushing it off as my plan all along.

The three of us scramble up the crates, then I kick down the top one, killing several of the undead and making sure the rest can't climb up after us. We all stop to catch our breath, then move to the other end of the roof. "So. Introductions." I say, looking at the blonde girl beside me. She nods, takes one last lungful of air, then sighs. "Kimberly Busac, 16 years old. I'm from New York." I raise an eyebrow. New York? Then what the hell was she doing in Florida? Kimberly seems to read my thoughts, since she begins a long explanation about how her class went on a field trip, she wanted to sneak off to get some pictures, came back and everybody was the creatures. She didn't sound sad when talking about it, which was surprising. Must be from the shock.

Kimberly cleared her throat, jolting me from my thoughts. "You have a habit of getting lost in your own head, don't you?" She says with a light laugh. I shrug.

"Yeah, I suppose I do." I say with a say. Brandon chuckles from my left, and I shoot him a glare.       "So, what are your names?" The blonde askes, tucking her knees to her chest. Brandon coughs, grins, and winks at her. Kimberly rolls her eyes. "I'm Brandon. 15 years old, and currently single-"

"I'm lesbian." I start choking on my own spit. One, cause she said that so nonchalantly, and two, because of the look on Brandon's face. I start laughing at the look of heartbreak and surprise on his face. "Well, then I am sorry." He says, sitting back down and looking down at his shoes in disappointment. Kimberly cracks a smile at him. "It's alright Brandon." She says with a smile and a chuckle. "My name's Core. I go by she/her pronouns." I say, and she nods. 

"Cool. Now, do you guys have a base and some food? I'm starving."

*Macy's POV*

I've been walking for days. The car that I was driving ran out of gas down the road, and there isn't a gas station in sight. There hadn't been one for miles, and I was running out food. 'I'd eat anything at this point.' I think glumly as I trek on. One foot in front of the other, that's what I've been repeating ever since the zombies broke down my door and killed my mother, and probably my brother.

My brother....

A pang of grief and regret fills me. If I had just been stronger, if I had just picked up a weapon and fought....

I'd be dead.

As I'm walking, I look up at the horizon and to my relief, I see a town. I can get supplies, poke around to see if there's any survivors, then be on my merry way towards the Safety. Eager to get there before sundown, a speed up my pace to a jog, and let my mind wander.

It's been a month since everything happened, and my birthday has passed. I am now twelve years old, with both parents dead and surviving a zombie apocalypse. Not convenient at all honestly, but I'll make do. Get past this hurdle in life and keep on walking is what my mother would have said. God I miss her.

Sparing a glance upwards towards the sun setting, I pick up my pace. I'm at the edge of town in minutes, and spot the sign that say the towns name. It's no worn down that I can't see any of the lettering, but it doesn't matter. Supplies and potential survivors are what matters right now, and hopefully both are here. I continue down the main road, glancing in shops and killing zombies along the way. You get used to their appearance after a while, and they were killed easily. I tried not to dwell on the fact that they were humans before, it made my job harder. So far, almost none of the town's shops had food in them, and even then there were only a couple bags of chips and pop. I grabbed them anyways, they'd help keep my hunger down for days to come.  I sighed loudly and started on my second mission: other survivors. With the amount of food gone there had to be people here, and some of the shelves had dust marks showing that they were picked clean at least a couple days ago. The weapon's store was also empty, which made me think that people where either still here or that they had left. Either way, I'd find them. 

I started down an alleyway, checking everywhere, when I heard a shout. Several shouts, followed by groaning and zombie sounds. I peeked around the corner to see about maybe fifty or so zombies. My eyes widened. I hadn't seen this many since the first wave, and I had barely survived that. So I darted up some crates stacked up against the side of the building, and leaped onto the roof. I looked over the edge, to see the zombies turn into the alleyway. A crash, and my head shoots up before hiding behind an air conditioner thingy. I'm not sure what it was called. I sat behind it and listened.

Three survivors by the sounds of it. Two where friends and one was new. Kimberly, Core, and Brandon. Reasonable sounding names, though Core was a little weird. I decided I would tail them back to their base, and keep watch until I sure they where safe. They may have treated Kimberly well, but I'm not so sure about me. They might actually mistake me for a zombie. As soon as I heard the scuff of shoes against stone and the muffled thuds of them landed on the opposite building did I bother to get up and silently tail them. This was going to be a long day.

                                                                   ***

I set up camp just outside the apartment they were in. And by they I mean the survivors. There was another person there to, Jordan. I'm listening in when...

"Hey Brandon, mind checking out what's outside the window?" I froze. I had dealt with a lot in this month, but not dealing with potential hostile survivors. I pressed myself against the wall and prayed that Brandon wouldn't see me. 

Of course, he did.

Brandon was tall and stocky, with curly black hair that fell over his forehead and dark skin. He had a green t-shirt and beige cargo pants, along with brown hiking boots and wielded a spear, which was now pointed at my throat. There was surprise in his eyes for a moment, before he seemed to be torn between killing me and letting me inside. "Well? What is it Brandon?" Came the sound of who I thought was Jordan. "I think you mean who." He called back, causing a mess of short light brown to poke out the window, along with grey eyes that widened when they saw me. "Well. Either the virus has developed or we are extremely lucky." The person who had been identified as Jordan said, staring at me. 

"For the sake of my life and probably yours, I'd say luck." I say, wincing at the quiver in my voice.

*Rian's POV*

It had been three days since my parents left me in that car and ran.

And by that I mean foster parents. They were bad anyways, I don't care. They left me and I was fine with that. You know, surviving off scraps and bargaining with the local survivors, but never joining them because they would probably leave as well. To cope, I've been writing letters. Not to anyone in particular, just writing letters. It helps a ton, honestly. I pour all my anger and my frustration into them as I write. 

My head jerks up from my most recent letter as the local survivors come to my door. "Hello Rian." Brandon says with a little wave. I nod back, and glance towards Jordan. Jordan was their self-proclaimed leader. If the group had something to say, the blonde would say it. "We know where the Safety is." They say, and I nod, before realizing what he just said. The Safety. It's a place where the government resides, and to keep it from being overflowed with people, amde so that you had to either by the coordinates or steal them from somebody else. The involved a lot of people killing each other to get them. My parents where one of those people, but they were probably dead by now. I raise an eyebrow at them. "How." I ask, and Jordan steps out of the way to a rather tall girl with midnight blue hair and light brown eyes. Her skin is tanned from the sun, and she has a massive scar from the left side of her face to her mouth, revealing exposed yellow teeth. I want to look away from the horrific sigh of her face, but I force myself to as it would be rude. 

"Your the map person?" She asks, crossing her arms. I turn around in my office chair and nod. The girl hands me slip of paper. Right down to business. I like her already. "Those are the coordinates." She says as I'm Iooking at the paper. The numbers are clear, in dark black marker and have obviously been drawn over several times. I had to give credit, she kept it in tact her entire journey. "Alright. These should be in..." A while back, I had been bitten by a zombie and didn't turn into one. I blacked out, but why I didn't turn into one I'm not sure, but ever since then when I look at coordinates I can see their exact place in the world. I raise an eyebrow at the place it's in. "Guelph....Canada?" I'm confused. Why on earth would the Safety by there? I mean seriously, I have never heard of that place before. I catch the glance that the three give each other, then Jordan shrugs. "Guess we're moving to Guelph."

(Holy that was a lot of words. And typing. I skipped class for this.)