I’m stirring awake in my own bed, it’s clean, and it’s dry, that can’t be right. I must be dreaming. How cruel, to know when you’re dreaming while in a dream. I’m not able to enjoy this necessary break from my current physical state. I look around, taking in my fake reality. I feel rested, I feel warm, and I feel as though I’ve eaten recently. Why must my dream give me what I cannot achieve in the real world?

“Hey, morning,” I turn to the soft-spoken woman to my right.

It’s my wife, my ex-wife, my dead ex-wife stirring awake with a sleepy elated look upon her face. She’s happy to see me as she smiles and reaches out to caress my face. I jerk back from her touch, it feels real as her fingers trace my cheek down to my chin. I jump out of bed, squeezing my eyes shut, telling myself to wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!

I awake with a start, my heart pounding, sweat pouring off of me, all over my body. I look around and see the recognizable surroundings; my dark green sleeping bag that has a hole in the bottom, my backpack that’s seen better days, my dulled black bladed machete with the notches of how many I’ve killed etched in on the blade with my pocket knife.

I take a moment to catch my breath, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness surrounding me, my ears perking up to the sounds as well. Water is dripping somewhere, go figure, there’s no escaping that shit. I don’t hear anything or anyone else as my breathing has finally slowed down.

I rub my eyes and reach into my pack for a cigarette and my matches. I keep them in a plastic bag within the small zipper section of my backpack. They are such a rarity these days that I never risk them getting ruined, especially with how the world is now.

The way the world is now. . . What a crazy fucking world I am living in. I thought things were bad enough when there were zombies but now?

One year ago. . .

I found Ridley’s location to discover that everyone there was deceased. Everyone had been pulled apart to pieces by the zombies I found milling about the area. Fresh blood was pouring out of their mouths as they turned towards me, opening their mouths to let out a low moan full of hunger still. I raised my machete and took them out, one at a time, letting out all of my anger on them with each swing. By the end of it, I was collapsed on the floor, on my knees, breathing heavily, and tears falling down my face. I threw my head back and screamed in anguish to the roof above.

“FUCK!”

I was all alone.

I was exhausted.

I was scared.

I threw my machete across the room, it clanged against the corner of a desk and skittered halfway back to me across the floor. I stared at it, taking in the blood-soaked blade, the old and new blood that layered it. I crawled over to it and wiped off the blood on my pant legs. Pulling out my pocket knife, I opened it and started to etch in a mark for everybody I brought down since the beginning of this nightmare.

One of them was my ex-wife. . . I stopped, swallowing hard as the tears formed in my eyes. Then the tears poured forth as I laid down on my side, grabbing my legs into my chest, and allowing myself to sob uncontrollably.

I passed out for a few hours after letting those tears out. I awoke with a start, relieved to see that nobody was nearby or nibbling on me for that matter. I collected my machete, did a quick search for useful items, and started to head out to find a place for the night.

6 months later. . .

There were still people alive who were in control of the world and how to put things right. Their decision? To pull a Noah’s Ark reboot. Apparently there have been secret employees working on underground tunnels that were fully leaked proof for those fortunate enough to find them because what the government did next was worse than the idea of zombies.

It was 3 AM when the alarms went off, lights were flashing, and a monotone command was blaring loudly but unintelligible through hidden speakers throughout the world. It started to rain then and I could hear waves of water lapping against the building I was inside of. I shook my head, bringing myself to my senses and my surroundings. I reached out in the dark and could feel water all around me, I became soaked as I waded to the window.

The scene I saw outside looked like hell had opened up and instead of fire, had given us the cleansing power of water instead. I was in a building that was approximately 3 stories high and I was on the 2nd floor. There was a wave lapping against the window I was looking out of, there was water pouring over my head in steady drips to streams, depending on where you stood.

I quickly picked up my items and scrambled up the stairs to the top of the building to get a better view. All that could be said was that it looked as though the world was drowning. We were all being purged so that the world could become anew because there was nothing else to do but kill anything and everyone that remained on earth. What an executive decision to be made.