One day was all it took for the world to turn on its head. A virus that reanimated corpses had broken out without anyone realizing its destructiveness from the start. Every city was bound to become infested with zombies thanks to the grass-covered graves of the cemeteries next to each one and those dying in the thousands of hospitals all around the globe. There was no cure to be found other than pest extermination and even that did little to give back the hope that had been stolen. The scientists and the governments had informed the public of the high infection rate of the virus and that alone had been enough to cause panic.

You can't keep something so significant from the people; they're bound to find out, anyway. Keeping the virus a secret would've done more harm than good.

Upon death, a corpse would come alive. There was no doubt that every human on the planet had been infected with the virus, dormant and sleeping within their body, by the time the cases had skyrocketed so much that the media had grown concerned. Death and zombie bites were the only known causes that instantly activated it, however, making it way more dangerous than it sounded.

Slowly, at first, the dead began to roam the streets and with them came the soldiers and the police forces but the corpses were fast– they ran like the devil was one their tails. They didn't stand a chance and those who survived had been left with a bite or a missing limb as their reward; and then they'd join the army of the brainless undead.

From the windows of his living room, Xisuma had witnessed it all. He'd witnessed a wounded soldier beg their comrade to put them out of their misery before they turned; before they turned into one of them. He'd witnessed children, crying out for their mum and their dad, –shouting, yelling, screaming on the verge of hysteria– being swarmed by corpses and joining them soon after. He'd witnessed soldiers cutting off bitten limbs on the field to slow the virus with little to no success.

Like many others, he didn't exit his apartment and he was certain that there were zombies living next to him. A few days before, when the second horde raided the city, he saw his elderly neighbor being escorted to her apartment by her grandson, both of whom were tattered and bloody and walking in a strange way. Xisuma didn't exit his apartment until he heard her door lock and footsteps descending the stairs. The undead had bulldozed through the army forces that day, leaving holes in the barricades and tarnishing the rationed food.

He decided to leave that day. He was fed up with being cooped up and the danger living in the streets and right next door to him. It was not safe to be in the city anymore, regardless of how the priests and the governors preached the opposite. There were less and less soldiers posted at his city and he'd heard rumors that most of the military had been called to defend the capital. So he'd take to the woods, where there were no people for zombies to accumulate.

A week of preparation after, he had a duffle bag full of long-life food, clothes and other essentials that he thought would benefit him. Other than a chef's knife and a switchblade, he didn't have much else to protect himself with. The number of the dead in the streets was intimidating but word arrived that there was another wave coming at the end of the seventh day.

He had to move quickly if he didn't want to witness worse Hell than that.

Sneaking his way through the crowds of people at the rations station and going around the barrier of officers at the city exit, he made his way to the forest. There were a few hiking trails there and on the map on his phone, there was supposedly a campsite far into the trees. He got lucky to not be spotted by the men atop the barricade walls and he hurried to duck into the trees that lined the road.

It took a few days for him to travel far enough in and already, he was missing his home. He'd left everything behind: his job, his friends, his life... Had he had a life anymore, though? Ever since the apocalypse started, there were less activities to do and the world wide web had gone down –there was no way to contact his loved ones anymore. He'd even left his guitar behind –the only thing that had kept him sane during self-isolation. That life, in the city, had become boring, mundane, miserable. It had become survival.

Eat, sleep and maybe take a shower.

Sighing, he continued on.

The forest was devoid of death and so was the campsite when he arrived. There were a lot of cabins sitting in a straight line and an old bonfire with pitch black embers. The silence was unsettling to say the least, even though the birds were singing and small mammals ran to and fro.

He'd arrived at a new place he could call home; one that would hopefully be safer than his old one.