Chapter Text
Another awful day.
You wake up at the asscrack of dawn – you still haven’t adjusted to the, ahem, recent changes surrounding the world around you. Thankfully, the outside world was still shrouded in darkness, not a glimmer of light (or otherwise) to be seen. No birds were singing, no crickets were chirping, no flowers were blooming. The world – and everything within it – was either dead, dying, or praying for one of the two.
With a groan, you drag yourself out of bed. You’ve always hated mornings. Now, you hate them just a bit more. You let yourself glance out of your bedroom window, now heavily boarded up with only a few cracks covered in thin fabric to keep out the light. It’s funny, you tell yourself. The sun used to be a source of comfort, of sustenance. It used to keep you alive. Now? It does the opposite, acting as an enemy that humanity has never experienced before. Where it used to give, it now takes, and where it used to heal, it hurts instead. You sigh as you look out at the barren wasteland of what used to be your family’s farm. All of the animals have disappeared, and you have no idea where they went. Perhaps they ran off with a better understanding of survival than you could ever dream of having. Perhaps they were eaten, torn apart by one of the–
With a shake of your head, you clear your thoughts, refusing to let your mind consume you. You don’t want to end up like some others you’ve heard of – paranoid, angry at the world for what it’s done to them. For what it’s done to you. So you don’t let yourself linger on what’s currently roaming the world, looking for just a bite to eat. Looking for a home to enter. Looking for a body to occupy. “Fucking animals,” you grunt out, flipping the fabric scraps back over the cracks they’re meant to cover. “They know better than to try this house. They know better…”
Or, at least, you hope they do.
Your gaze drifts over to your bedroom closet. Being raised in a family of farmers and gardeners, you know your way around a gun, around any tool, really. You know how to defend yourself if things get rough. If something gets in.
Before your mind can wander any further, the alarm clock on your bedside table begins to ring. 6:30 am. Usually, you’d be waking up right now to head outside and tend to the animals, but, well…there aren’t any more animals to tend to. It makes you sad, in a way – you did love the farm animals, especially your favorite cow, Missy. Missy had been pregnant when the world came crashing down around you, and it didn’t take long for her to disappear along with the rest. You really hoped Missy was safe.
Wherever she was.
Your alarm is shut off by a shoe, thrown swiftly by your own hand. No time to get over there to turn it off yourself – this morning, you’re expecting a phone call from…well, you really don’t know who they are. All you know is that they’re the ones providing information about those things wandering around outside, and therefore, they’re the ones keeping you alive. To miss a phone call could be the end of you, and you really don’t want to end up like one of them. To spend your entire undeath seeking for something you can’t understand, to spend your nights luring in the helpless for a shot at a mindless meal…it seems like torture to you, in a way. Perhaps it is. Actually, no. No perhaps. It simply…is.
With a quick grab at your jacket, you slide it on and leave your bedroom. It’s freezing cold in your home – obviously. The services quickly stopped working, one by one. The heating was the last to go. Not that the lack of power bothered you that much, however – one perk of living on a farm is that you always have a working well, just outside the back door. Lights weren’t an issue, either, since your home was well-stocked with flashlights and candles. You decide to skip the water this morning, instead heading downstairs to camp out by the phone. You couldn’t miss this call, as it always provided information quicker than the news on the TV ever could.
Minutes pass by with an agonizing pace. Slowly, those minutes turn into hours before…
The phone rings.
You jolt up to answer it, holding the receivers up to your ear.
“Hello?” The voice on the other end says, rather desperately. “Is this–”
“Yes,” you answer, your own voice hushed for no real reason. “It’s me.”
“Good! I have more info. Nobody knows yet but me – us.”
“Go on?”
“Eyes!” The voice exasperated. “It’s their eyes. They have bloodshot eyes, completely red.”
“My eyes are pretty–”
“Not as red as theirs,” the voice cut you off. “Uncanny. No white at all, veins and blood vessels more pronounced than anything you’ve ever seen.”
“Veins?”
“Yes, veins.”
You pause, taking a moment to process the information. Okay…red eyes. Easy enough. “Thank you,” you state after another moment of silence. “I’ll, uh, I’ll keep that in mind. Anything else?”
“Not at the moment,” the voice replied without hesitation. “That’s all we have right now.”
Another silence.
“Who…are you?”
The voice didn’t answer.
“...Hello?”
The line went dead.
You sigh and place the phone back on its stand, moving to run your hand over your face. “I don’t know why I try,” you mumble. Regardless, you were grateful for the information. It would – hopefully – be accurate. And useful. But mostly accurate. You can’t help but wonder who the person on the other end is, however. It’s clearly a man, or at least, someone with a voice masculine enough to present as one. You have no idea how he got your number, or how he gets all of this information before the literal news, or why he’s helping you. You’re fairly certain, however, that you aren’t the only one he’s helping. Not only that, but you pray he stays alive long enough to keep helping. He seems smart.
Not that you fully trust him, though.
You can’t trust anyone in this day and age.
The morning sun glares outside, threatening you even within the safe confines of your home. It taunts you, in a way – daring you to come out and face it. You don’t let yourself give in, despite the strange pull that tugs at you every time you think too hard about it. You regret not heading outside when it was still dark out to fetch fresh water, but you suppose it’ll be alright. The bucket and bottles in the kitchen are still mostly full, and should be enough to get you through a shower (or, well, as close to a shower as you can get), while leaving just enough drinking water to keep you sane in this hellish place.
The sun must be dehydrating you, even through the walls.
You spare yourself a glance at the boarded up windows in the room around you. They’re not all boarded – you used most of the plywood upstairs, leaving hardly any for the downstairs windows. So, for the ones you couldn’t spare a plank for, you simply layered as many blankets and old clothes as you could over the glass. It should do the trick.
…You really miss looking out over the fields.
Oh well. You push that thought out of your mind – those days are long gone. You let out yet another sigh and collapse onto your couch, allowing your mind to rest. The world may have gone to absolute shit, but you refuse to lose yourself amid the chaos. You grab the remote and turn on the TV – some news about how this exact thing is happening on the other side of the planet. At least now you know that you aren’t suffering alone.
“And now, more news on the crazed, pale madman loose in the–”
You turn the TV off.