"God, I hate this!", with a grumpy expression on your face, you kicked the wheel of the crappy car that was rusting in your hideout for weeks now. "Why can't you fucking work, huh? Why do I have to repair you, thousands of fucking times, only for you to break down again?! Am I a joke to you?!"

With anger boiling inside of you, you grabbed a wrench of your workbench and hit the engine so hard, a piece of metal broke off. With your luck, it was probably an important part too, that couldn't be replaced easily.

Metal screeched, a sharp pain chased through your hand and wirst, forcing you to drop the wrench and hold the bone as if it would snap in two any moment.

"Ugh...", you let yourself fall onto one of those crappy, foldable camping chairs.

You had found that thing years ago, even back then it had looked shitty. The legs seemed twisted and unstable, the fabric for the seat was as thin as paper.

But despite the weak looking outside, to this day this camping chair was serving more trustable than a German solider back in 1943. It was almost invincible.

With a deep sigh, you let your head fall back, only to groan as loud as humanly possible.

"I hate this...", you complained to yourself, while your voice echoed from the walls of your workshop.

Technically, it wasn't your workshop. It was one of the three prison buildings, that former inmates had used to work for a bit of money in their free time. You had claimed it after the additional inhabitants had been shot in the heads for god knew what reason.

Back then, you had payed little attention to it, but now it seemed some of them had been infected and the others had not been willing to take the risk. Eventually, they had started to kill each other one by one, until the last one had starved to death.

You had buried the bodies as humane as possible at the prison graveyard, behind the main building, far enough away from your sleeping space, in case the dead decided to rise again one day.

It had seemed like a waste to not use this place for anything, so you had secured it with a few traps and doors and now it was almost like a normal place to live and work in.

Normal.

The word alone was enough to make you snort in a sarcastic, yet bitter way.

What was normal these days?

The world was turning into hell quicker every day, dead bodies returned to life despite the cold temperatures and even behind the safe walls of the former county jail, monsters lurked in the shadows.

Not the undead kind, but the ones that you disliked even more.

Humans.

Survivors.

It had been a while now since the surviving people had started to build a new place to live in Jackson. In the beginning, you had been curious about the place, a new civilization, as quiet and safe as it had been before the outbreak.

To be around other people again, had seemed like a nice thing as well. But with time you had realised that this new civilisation had no place for somebody like you.

And in the end, it didn't matter. In The end, it turned out just like she had said.

God, that thought tasted as bitter as acid.

But it was fine, you liked it in prison, a fenced-off realm just for you with thick walls that kept out everything that was dangerous and deceitful. In warm months, there was enough space to grow plenty of food, there was a forest all around where you could go hunting in winter and you had arranged the buildings so that each had their use.

A workshop, a storage for all kinds of stuff, a small area to kill some time in and a building for running water and electricity.

No, here it was really not bad and you did not want to leave at all.

But even you, a loner since birth, had to admit that it was sometimes lonely.

"Hmpf.", with a dissatisfied expression on your face you rubbed the back of your neck, looked around briefly and then reached for the cup of coffee that always stood on the workbench next to you. "I'm getting old... time is making me sentimental or some bullshit..."

The contents had already gone cold, thanks to the wintry weather and the fact that you had forgotten to drink it fast enough. With a shrug you opened your mouth and let the last bit disappear.

Drinking cold was better than not drinking at all. Plus, it would have been a waste.

Suddenly a cold wind swept through the workshop. You flinched in surprise, even though you were wearing a thick sweater and jacket. A bit of snow danced through the air, the sound of winter reached your ears.

Hastily, you threw a glance over your shoulder, one hand on the handle of your knife. But against your expressions, the only entrance to the workshop was tightly shut.

Turning your head back to look around, you frowned.
There was snow covering the stone floor. It wasn't a lot, barely more than a hand full.

How did it get in here?

You could have sworn you had closed the windows before you had started working on the car.

"Huh...", you let your eyes wander over the snowy windows.

There was nothing to be seen outside. Everything was white. The sound of ice hitting against glass filled the silence.

At this time of the year, it was not unusual for a snow storm or even a blizzard to be raging.

A white cloud left your lips as you breathed out.

Strange, a few minutes before, the temperature had been high enough to prevent this.

Why did it drop all of a sudden?

As you looked through the windows again, only a little bit of dark sky managed to fight its way through the cloak of white. So it was already evening.

"Strange...", you mutter to yourself and start chewing your lip thoughtfully. "They are all closed. But I could have sworn there was a breeze."