I wake up.
Or at least... I think I do.
My eyes open—slowly, like heavy doors pushed against rusted hinges—and the sky above me is an overcast gray, choked with thin clouds that look like stretched-out ash. There are trees, tall and mostly bare, reaching skeletal fingers into the sky. The air is still. Cold. And thick with the smell of rot.
I try to breathe.
Nothing happens.
There is no breath.
Just a steady, foul stench that curls in my nostrils and sits behind my teeth like old meat left in the sun. It's so strong it has weight—like it's coating my tongue, my throat, my skin. God. It's everywhere.
Then I hear them.
Moans. Low, guttural. Some long and dragged out, others short and wheezing like broken accordions. The sound of dragging feet across dirt. A wet shuffle. A cough that isn't a cough—it's more like a dying motor turning over. They're all around me.
I can't move my head, but my eyes work. I shift them to the left. Bodies. People. Dozens of them, wandering slowly through the trees like lost ghosts on repeat. Their clothes are tattered, crusted in brown-black stains. Their skin—what's left of it—is pale, greenish, or bloated purple. One guy has half a jaw swinging loosely beneath his cheekbone. Another's scalp is just... gone.
They're not people anymore.
They're dead.
Zombies.
And so am I.
I don't know how I know. I just do. Like a horrible truth I've always known but only just now remembered. There's no heartbeat inside my chest. No breath in my lungs. My limbs hang dead, heavy, unmoving. I can feel everything, but I'm a passenger in a body that refuses to obey.
I want to scream, but nothing comes out.
Time stretches. Could be seconds. Could be hours. I watch them—these... things—drag themselves through the underbrush like ants in a daze. A few bump into trees. Others walk into each other and bounce off again like slow-motion pinballs. They don't care. They don't notice.
I don't even know if they can.
But I can. I'm not like them. Not anymore. I remember things. Not everything. It's like staring into a foggy mirror—there's an image in there somewhere, but it's blurred. Smudged. Yet like them, I shuffle along aimlessly on autopilot.
I remember the world ending.
A virus—fast, vicious.
People dropping in the streets. Screaming. Running.
No time for answers, no time for escape.
Then there were guns. Survivors killing each other over food, gas, antibiotics. I remember hiding in a hardware store, and then—gunfire. Pain. Sharp, cold pain. My leg? No... my chest. Yeah. Right side. There was blood. My own voice screaming.
Then...
Nothing.
Then hunger.
So much hunger. The kind that burrows under your ribs and grows thorns.
I think I've been walking for months. Flashes of highways, suburbs overgrown with weeds, flipped trucks. Once I saw a burning building and just stood there watching it crumble. Did I remember fire? Did I feel warmth? I don't know. I don't think I cared.
But now I care. Now I'm awake. Something in me... clicked. Turned back on. Why?
I try to move my hand. Just a finger. Nothing.
I try harder. I scream at it—Move, goddammit!—and after what feels like forever, my left index finger twitches. Just a little. Just enough.
Progress.
I focus harder. Move the eyes. Left. Right. Yes. Now the hand. The wrist. It lifts—barely. Like someone else's puppet strings are slackening, giving me back the controls one thread at a time.
The body is stiff. So stiff. I must've been walking—or just standing—for weeks. My joints feel like rusted bolts. My skin... it's wrong. Too tight in some places, too loose in others. Cold. Damp. Cracked. I catch a whiff of my own smell, and it hits like a bag of spoiled meat.
Oh God.
I'm disgusting.
I want to vomit, but I can't. My stomach's not mine anymore. Nothing is.
A groan echoes to my right. I glance over—another walker, close enough to touch. His skin's peeled back around his neck like someone tried to rip off his head and gave up halfway. He looks like he's staring past me, mouth hanging open, slack and dripping.
I name him: Jacket.
He's wearing a red suit jacket. Like he was going somewhere nice when he died. Or maybe he was buried in it. Maybe he clawed his way up out of the ground.
I don't know why I named him. It just makes me feel... less alone.
I shift my eyes again. Another one. A woman. Young, maybe my age. Her face is still pretty. Too pretty for a corpse. Her eyes are dull, lifeless, but there's something about the shape of her cheekbones, the gloss of black hair stuck to her shoulders like wet ribbons.
I call her: Red.
Not for her clothes. For her lips. They're still red. Somehow. Maybe it's lipstick. Maybe it's blood. I don't know. It suits her. She's in a skimpy green halter top, as if she was caught doing Pilates during the pandemic, and her still-shapely form is hugged by grey yoga pants.
And then there's Tyson.
He's a few paces ahead. Black hair like mine. Tall. Lean. We even walk the same—well, shamble the same. I hate him already. I decide he's my rival. I don't know why. It just feels right. Gives me something to hold onto in this mess of a world.
Another wave of hunger hits. It's not like regular hunger. It's not in the stomach. It's in the bones. The teeth. Like my whole body is salivating without the ability to produce spit. My vision narrows. I can smell something—far off. Not rot. Something else. Living.
I groan. It's not voluntary. It just happens. Low and rumbling.
I'm still one of them. I might think, but I'm not free. Not yet.
So what do I do?
What can I do?
I'm surrounded. Outnumbered. Trapped in a body that barely responds. The forest is quiet, save for the endless shuffling and groaning of the dead. But something in me is awake now, and it's not going back to sleep.
I don't know who I am anymore.
But I know this:
I'm not done.
Not yet.