What's happening?
What is this strange feeling?
What's that sound? Where's that coming from?
The first time I opened my eyes, I saw my bloody hands.
This blood does not look normal. It doesn't look alive or healthy. It's all black.
The sound. Sounds. A chorus of roars and growls, grunts and moans. Crunching sounds. Munching sounds. It was only then that I took courage to look around me. Then fear began to eat me up. I wanted to scream, but my mouth was shut. I wanted to run away, but my feet felt tied to a rope or something. I looked around, at them one by one, each face creepily unique from one another. Each face that melted from their skull, different from the other.
What confused me more was that they were not eating me. They didn't look at me for once. As if they did not smell me. As if I were invisible. Then it finally came to me. I gasped. I'm part of the herd.
My feet. I couldn't control them. They were walking alongside the zombies that surrounded me. It was like they were doing this on their own. Like I was stripped of the free will to do my own. I tried to stop it, but I couldn't. I just kept walking. And walking. And walking. Walking, but limping.
I remembered being swarmed. I remembered the pain of my body being eaten out, my flesh being pulled from my bones. I remembered everything, until all I saw was black and white. A void of black and white. For a while, that was what I saw. And it felt like forever. But then, this.
I did not remember how I ended up in a herd. How I became a part of it. But that only meant one thing: I'm a zombie now.
But if I were a zombie, why was I still thinking? Why was I still conscious? Why was I still me? And the others. These zombies, why are they not like me? Why did they seem brainless, thinkless, dumb?
How was I different?
I need to find an answer.
I need to know what was going on. I need to find out where this herd is going. But I must not be in it. Wherever this might go, I must not be in it. I must take over whatever's controlling me. I must fight it.
One stride straight took the wrong turn. I looked at my feet and strongly defied its direction. One step forward, I fought it hard, forcing it to go to the right. Another step forward, it went to the left. One more step, I forced it backward. One last step, it felt light, and it went backward, too. A heavy breathing of relief washed over me. I took one more step, and it felt lighter than before. Like I just broke off the chains on my feet. I could finally get out of the herd.
I turned my back, and my feet were still limping as I opposed the herd's direction. Slowly, I regained my strength with each step, getting straighter, faster, stronger. Until I felt like I was running. I was running. Away from the herd, away from wherever it might have taken me. A conscious infected soul.
I stopped by a ruined establishment that used to be a store, and my eyes fell on the glass window. I looked very hard to see my reflection and found that my face had not been melting like the usual infected. I was alive.
But if I were alive, then that would mean I could talk.
Then I tested my throat out. I let out a sound, a grunt of my voice. Then a word. I had to think of a word. I said, "Orange."
"Apple. Banana. Zombie. I can still speak."
I can still speak.
I looked down next to my body, which was once a feast for the zombies. But now, it looked complete. I still had my limbs, my chest, my bottom. I was still complete. I could not find wounds all over my body. I did not see them. There were no injuries whatsoever. I was complete. Breathing. Alive. Human. Thinking.
But how was I a part of the herd?
"Where are they?" another sentence came out of me.
I looked around to find something. But what was I looking for?
Why did that come out of my mouth? Was there something missing? Where was I? Who are they?
I shut my eyes to try and concentrate, to remember what I had forgotten. To remember who I was looking for. I walked down memory lane, but nothing appeared. No memory of someone at all. I couldn't remember. I did not know what I had forgotten. There was no memory. It was a complete blank. All that came to mind was when I was hurt. When I was eaten. When I was dying. But none of anyone whom I asked about.
"Where are they?" I said again. But who are they?
There had been so many questions I wanted answers for. So many questions that confused me. It was like I was Frankenstein's monster who needed to be nurtured once again as he was reborn. I needed to learn. And that only means I needed to follow the herd. I took a step forward again and began to move faster and faster, catching up with the herd. It was going forward to the setting sun. And wherever they were going, there would be prey. And prey means humans. More humans to feast. That is where I must go.