Survival, Revival, and the Constant, Ominous Loom of Death

Something explodes nearby, your wall is shattered and you are thrown off your feet and against the opposite wall…it’s not safe. As your fear takes over, you find yourself crawling, then hopefully limping, and eventually climbing down the sewer into the darkness below. You didn’t even think about it but you grabbed your radio and a flashlight, simple necessities that your brain immediately accounted for in your desperate flee.

The sewer stinks and the bombings don’t stop. A small hole of light shines through the sewer lid now put securely back in place as dirt and dust float through the now contaminated sewer air, if it could get more contaminated. You turn on your radio and hope for a signal but you get nothing, hopeless as you sit in the cleanest place you can find close to this sewer grate and tire off to sleep…

You wake up to find red light shining in your eyes, the sewer grate in front of you blasting the contaminated light directly into your retina. You stand quickly and grab your radio and flashlight, climbing out of the sewer. The radio blazes with static as you climb, getting a litter louder and a little more refined, like in waves as if someone is talking. As you breach the cover and set the radio down, it blares out:

“…desperate times called for desperate measures and we had to ensure the safety of our community. The island has been secured with all exits upon land destroyed. Do not panic, these monsters will not be able to hurt anyone not on the island. For anyone on the island: I wish you hope to survive. The bombings we conducted earlier seemed to not work as we expected but we have learned more about these things. For sake of clarity, we will call them zombies. We all know what zombies are, right? Well, these are a little different. They are not zombies per se, instead they are thousands, millions of tiny parasites that circulate your bloodstream and eventually eat through your brain. DO NOT let them inside your body! You will die! But…of course…there’s no need to worry,” the man on the radio says, now sounding a little quieter and less sure. You hear a tiny ruffling of paper before the man abruptly says, “anyways, that’s all for now. We will figure this out…no further questions…” and then loud noises start filling the radio, like a bunch of reporters all yelling at once to ask their questions before the man leaves.

You turn the radio down as it hurts your ears and look around for the first time, bringing yourself up to sit on the edge of this manhole. It’s worse than it seems. Your house no longer exists, nor the yard, nor the house next door. They look like they were burnt down, mashed, and then buried but the grave wasn’t filled in. Around you, the air is filled with dust, ash, dirt and clouds your vision. You can’t see far, like you are trying to see through thick red fog, as you look down the road to see only more of the destruction similar to that brought upon your house, and you if you had stayed. What a terrible thing to think. A road a block away seems to intersect your road as well as a parallel road directly behind you, though you can’t see very far down it with this fog.

You quickly wipe off your face and get up, standing now at the edge of the manhole, with your flashlight in hand, ready to do…what?

Creators Note: I encourage you to explore both the area you start in and the areas around you. There are different things in every direction and different people scattered throughout. Instead of a just looking around a little in the beginning, try to move around the world and find someone…or something.