A new morning, and unlike usual, it wasn't quiet. The noise of people had been spreading through the camp since early morning, and it was really bothering me. Anyway, my family wasn't in the tent, so they must be outside. I'll get dressed and go find them.
I stepped out of the tent. The sky was heavily overcast, and the air was cold too. The men were gathered inside one of the larger tents, and it looked like they were discussing something. The women were gathered outside, apparently preparing food. A few children were also playing off at a distance from the camp.
I went to the spot where I'd stood the night before, to look at my beloved city, the one with my house, my toys, everything I loved. Now it was nothing but a wasteland, only the houses far enough from the blast still standing, and even they were ruined. It's truly heartbreaking that all of this happened on my birthday, of all days. The one day my family and I were supposed to be celebrating turned into the worst day of our lives. The only good thing is that my family is still safe, despite everything. I'll head back to camp; I'm curious what they've been discussing.
I went back to camp, and things didn't seem to be going well there. I could hear a lot of shouting coming from their direction. From what I gathered, the men were upset too about what happened to the city, since everything they'd worked and struggled to build had simply been wiped out.
A soldier climbed up onto one of the chairs, holding a megaphone, clearly about to announce something.
All right, he finished. In short, he said the entire city had been overrun by those creatures, which he called zombies, and that there had been no fewer than 600,000 of them in the city, literally 50 percent of all the zombies on our entire continent. Because of that, the government had decided to wipe them out in a single strike before things got even worse.
After he said this, I noticed the worry spreading across the parents' faces, and silence fell over them. Honestly, even I was shocked by what he said. 600,000 of those things! That's an insane number. I'm still amazed we managed to hold out through an entire night against them.
I wanted to stay and listen longer, but my brother came and asked me to come play with him and the other kids, so I think I will. It's been a long time since I last played.
When I reached where the other kids were playing, I walked up to join them, but the moment they saw me, they looked at me with disgust and moved off toward the camp instead.
No matter how many times this happens to me, I still feel the same embarrassment and hurt every single time. I looked over at my older brother and found him staring at them too, just as confused as I was.
I stood there in the middle of the empty square, watching the kids who'd gone off to play somewhere else, and it made something boil inside me.
My brother came over and put his hand on my shoulder after noticing my anger from a distance, and said, trying to ease it:
"Don't worry about them, they're just scared. You know, with everything happening with these zombies or whatever, it's obvious they'd be scared of anything different from them, especially since we've only just started seeing what they look like."
I already knew all of that, but I couldn't shake the feeling anyway. They treat me like I'm not even human to begin with. It's unbearably humiliating, just for being different.
After hearing me out, my brother wrapped his arm around my neck and said, in a teasing tone, trying to lighten the mood:
"You don't need to be mad about this. Sure, you're ugly and you look just like our grandfather, but you're beautiful on the inside."
His words only annoyed me more, but he patted my head and kept going:
"Anyway, don't let it get to you. This is completely normal, people fear what they don't understand, but eventually they get used to it."
Then he laughed a little and added, mockingly:
"And honestly, if they don't get used to you, then they can go to hell."
I couldn't help but laugh the moment I heard that. Even with all the sadness I'd been carrying, it vanished the instant I was with him. He's truly the best.
Suddenly we started hearing screaming and gunfire coming from the village, and my brother and I took off running toward the tent without thinking, afraid something had happened to our parents. But before we got there, we found our mother and father, along with other people, running toward us. My father shouted for us to run, fast.
I didn't understand what had happened, but the terror on their faces was enough to tell me a disaster had struck.
I took one last look back toward the camp and was stunned to see, from a distance, three massive, hulking creatures, with yellow eyes like predators and gray skin covered in scars.
One of them grabbed a soldier standing in front of it and pried his mouth open with such force it broke his jaw, then began vomiting something into his mouth before dropping him to the ground. After that, the soldier started opening fire on every human nearby, while the other two creatures kept killing the remaining soldiers, doing the exact same thing to other people.
I turned away from the camp and ran as fast as I could, following my family.
After a while, once we were sure we'd put enough distance between us and the camp, we stopped running. Everyone was gasping from exhaustion and fear. My mother was holding my brother, crying silently, while my father pulled me toward them to make sure I was safe.
I looked around at the people nearby and saw women crying bitterly, screaming the names of their children or husbands, some of whom had fled in a different direction, others who hadn't been lucky enough to survive the attack.
Relatives were checking on each other, and some people had simply collapsed to the ground from sheer exhaustion.
We stayed like that for several minutes, lost in a barren, lifeless stretch of land.
All the men gathered to decide what to do next, while the rest of us sat and waited for them to finish talking.
A few minutes later, the men wrapped up their discussion and started walking slowly toward us.
A large, heavyset man with thinning hair, wearing a black shirt and long blue trousers, stepped forward from the group and told us we needed to find somewhere safe to hide, since staying here wasn't a good idea for now. One of the men suggested we look for the other camps the army had told us about, where we could ask for protection, while another objected, saying the road might be dangerous, especially after what we'd just seen those creatures do.
The men went back and forth, some wanting to head to another city, others preferring to split up and hide in small groups to avoid drawing attention. While they were still debating what to do next, rain suddenly started pouring down. There was nowhere to take shelter from it, which forced the men to make a quick decision. Each man went looking for his wife, his children, or whoever else he had with him.
My father came over and told us to follow him. The same man from before stepped forward again, and everyone else fell in behind him, and we started walking along the muddy road, which had turned slick from the heavy rain. I started feeling cold as my clothes began soaking through. There was no sound except the rain, mixed with the sound of our exhausted breathing.
I walked beside my father while my mother walked beside my brother, gripping his hand tightly.
I glanced up at my father, worried, and saw seriousness and tension etched into his face. He noticed my mother shivering from the cold, her clothes soaked through, so he took off his shirt and gave it to her to shield herself from the rain. She refused at first, but he insisted. My father really is a good man.
As for the diary, I tucked it inside my clothes to keep it from getting wet. After walking for a while, I noticed a pack of dogs moving in the opposite direction, thin, their fur soaked, led by a dog with a leg covered in bruises and wounds. The pack passed by us and looked our way for a few moments before continuing on, searching, like us, for somewhere to escape the rain.
As we kept walking, we reached a highway, and beside it stood an abandoned gas station, lit by dim lights. We headed toward it to get out of the rain, but we weren't alone. Other people had already gotten there before us. A group of them approached us carrying makeshift weapons, sharpened metal rods, knives, even burning poles they'd apparently lit using fuel. The man leading our group tried to calm them, saying we were only looking for shelter from the rain too and didn't want any trouble. But the man leading their group gave him a sharp look and told him, harshly, to get away from this place, since there was nothing to prove we weren't some of those creatures. One of our men shot back that it was obvious we were human, and how could he possibly fail to tell the difference? The man leading them pointed with his rod toward the right and told us to take a look over there. I looked where he pointed and saw a small room tucked into a corner of the station.
Our leader and a few of the men walked toward the room. Curious, I followed them to see what was inside.
The moment they stepped into the room, they froze. Then they began talking among themselves, worry and horror written across their faces, which only made me more curious about what they'd seen, so I kept pushing through until I managed to see inside.
The smell of mold filled the air, and the walls were covered in black stains, as if a fire had once raged through the place. I turned to my right and was stunned to see bodies piled on top of each other, some with disfigured faces, others burned completely. I threw up immediately at the horror of the sight and the stench.
Our group's leader shouted at the rest of us to stay away from these people and be careful with them, then looked at their leader with a face full of tension and anger and asked, his voice shaking, "What happened here? Who did this?" The other group's leader answered, "One of your friends asked how we couldn't tell the difference between humans and monsters. Well, as you can see, all these bodies belong to monsters that disguise themselves as ordinary humans, just waiting for the chance to attack. If it weren't for the sacrifice of our brave men, who burned themselves along with those monsters, a lot more of us would be dead." Shock and horror spread across our group's faces as we realized then that danger could be anywhere, even if the person standing right in front of you looked perfectly human.
One of the women in our group stepped forward and asked, anxiously, how we could possibly tell them apart from ordinary humans. The other leader answered, "I don't know. They looked like normal people at first, until suddenly they attacked us for no reason, trying to eat them." Silence fell for a moment before our group's leader broke it, saying, "Look, I know this is a lot to ask, but we need somewhere to take shelter from the rain tonight. We're not asking for much, just until morning, and none of us will come near you." The other leader looked at him for a moment before answering that we could stay, under those conditions, and told us to head to the back section of the station. We reluctantly agreed and made our way to an abandoned storage room in the back of the station.
Inside the storage room, I sat down on the cold floor.
With everything that's happened, all I want right now is to sleep. My whole family has huddled together to keep each other warm, and we're covering ourselves with my father's clothes since they're big enough for all of us. I looked over at my brother to find him fast asleep on my mother's shoulder, and she's asleep too. Right now I'm writing down everything that happened today while trying to warm myself up. I really miss my house, my warm room, and my comfortable bed that I loved so much. All of it vanished in the blink of an eye. Well, I think I'll go to sleep now, since there's nothing else I can do.
Another morning, another new day. I woke up after my father shook me awake, since, as we'd agreed the night before, we were only allowed to stay one night, and now it was time to move on.
The rain had stopped and the sun was shining. We packed our things and started walking away from the station, following the same direction as the highway. It looked like we were headed to another city.
Four hours passed with us walking nonstop, and exhaustion was starting to catch up with me and everyone else, though luckily we still had a little water and food. Eventually we reached a crossroads, where a road sign pointed toward a nearby city, ten kilometers away.
We stopped for a moment to catch our breath while the men talked among themselves, and it seemed like everyone agreed heading toward the city was the best option available to us right now. After resting for a bit, we kept walking toward the city, and I could only hope it would be safe there.
About two hours later, I started seeing the outline of the city in the distance. We hadn't reached it yet, but I could already see a lot of wrecked cars scattered around, like there'd been some massive accident. There were wrecked cars all along the road leading to the city, some burned, others simply crushed from collisions or something else. One of the men from our group started checking one of the wrecked cars along the road. Its window was already broken, so he was able to reach in and open it from the inside. He started calling us over, it looked like he'd found something. Good news, he'd found a gun! That would help us a lot if we ran into any attacks. Hmm, you know what, I think I'll go search through the cars too, in case I find something useful.
I reached one of the cars, its door already smashed in, so I didn't have any trouble getting it open. After searching, I didn't find anything except a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches. I took the matchbox and kept moving with the group. I checked a few other cars but couldn't find anything useful except a stack of paper and some pencils, which might come in handy once my pen runs out of ink. My brother seemed to get a bit lucky, finding a knife in one of the cars, while others picked up broken car parts that could double as weapons, just in case something went wrong.
We finally reached the city. The place was unsettlingly quiet. Some of the buildings and houses were destroyed, and what worried me most was the number of human bodies lying on the ground, even the bodies of soldiers and strange creatures like the ones we'd seen before, scattered all around. It looked like the zombies had already hit this place. We kept moving forward into the city, and fear and disgust were plain on the faces of some of the women and children, clearly from the sight of the bodies.
Wait a second. It's like I'm hearing some kind of noise from somewhere, or am I imagining it? No, I don't think I'm imagining it, because the leader stopped us, and the rest of the group looked like they were hearing it too.
Our leader ordered us to hide, quickly. We ducked behind one of the houses, while part of the group hid behind another. The sound kept getting louder and louder, until I felt like it was right there with us, in the same place. I couldn't see anything from where I was, since my mother was holding onto me tightly, afraid I might do something reckless. But our leader was watching from around the corner of a wall, and when he turned back to us, his face was pale, terrified, like he'd just seen a catastrophe unfold.
He signaled for us to stay low and not make a sound.
I could still hear their footsteps clearly, but from how loud they were I couldn't tell if they were getting closer or moving away. I felt my mother's hand tighten around me even harder, as if she were trying to tell me to stay completely still no matter what happened. Not that I needed to be told; I already knew that much.
Damn it, this is a disaster. Someone from the other group sneezed. Damn him, why couldn't he have held it in just a little longer.
What is this? What is this? What am I seeing right now? In less than a second, an entire horde of zombies swarmed the other group! A mass of human-shaped creatures piled on top of each other, like armies of ants. Screaming rose from among them, and even though they had weapons, they never even got the chance to use them. My hands are shaking as I write down what I'm seeing right now. I feel like my heart is about to come out of my chest. None of us, not me, not anyone else, dared to move, terrified of what would happen if they found us.
Our leader turned to us, clearly just as terrified by the horror in front of him, and whispered for us to move and run before it was too late.
We started moving away from the place, trying not to make a sound that might draw their attention. My heartbeat was pounding so loud I could hear it in my own ears.
Wait a second, what am I doing? Seriously, why am I writing in my diary of all things, at a time like this? I need to put it away until we find somewhere safe to hide.
We finally managed to escape. We broke into one of the houses thanks to one of the women, who was able to pick the lock using a hairpin. Lucky for us she was with us, and lucky she hadn't died.
Inside the house we found a lot of food in the fridge, along with a stove we could use to cook.
Night fell, and we locked all the doors and windows to avoid being spotted.
We tried to turn on the lights, but there was no electricity, so people used their phones to light the room instead. The food we had and the food we'd found in the house was divided up among everyone. I was given a little bit of potatoes and some cold vegetables. They didn't taste great and weren't even enough to fill me up, but there was nothing else I could do about it anyway. I asked them why they hadn't just called someone earlier to come pick us up, or ask for help now. One of them told me they'd tried, over and over, calling any relative or anyone who might be able to help, but there was no signal, no internet, nothing was working. So we were stuck here until we found somewhere safe.
In just a few days our city was destroyed, and the one safe place we had was attacked, and now we're trapped in a city crawling with zombies, where any one of us could die at any moment, without any effort at all on their part. And on top of that, we're completely cut off from the outside world. Damn all of this.
I'm not used to this much pressure. I don't know what to do. Things keep getting worse every single day. At any moment we could die, if just one of us sneezes, if just one of us accidentally makes a loud noise, it could mean death for all of us, just like what happened to the other group.
I'm going to die of exhaustion at this rate. Better for me to go to sleep and get some rest, since tomorrow will probably be another hard day.
I don't know what time it is right now, but it looks like everyone's asleep.
I'm tired, exhausted, but sleep refuses to come.
Every time I close my eyes and try to sleep, images from earlier come flooding back. The screaming, the blood, the sight of survivors screaming in agony as those creatures ate them alive right in front of me, even the way those creatures looked, like ordinary people at first, but with pale skin, most of them with deformities across their bodies, missing parts, like walking corpses.
And every time I try to stop myself from thinking about it, the images only get clearer.
All I can do right now is keep writing.
I feel like this diary is the only thing keeping me together right now, like it somehow lightens this whole burden, in some way.
I'll try to sleep one last time, and I'll try to avoid thinking about those images as much as I can.
I woke up to a hand shaking me violently. I opened my eyes in a panic to find it was just my older brother. He told me to wake up quietly, because we were leaving.
I got up to find everyone already ready to go.
We stepped out carefully, following our leader, who was out in front. He stood still for a few moments, checking the area outside.
We started walking carefully, trying not to make a sound, the tension almost unbearable, since one wrong move meant death for all of us.
After we'd walked a little way, I started noticing something strange around us. I began seeing what looked like flesh spreading between the buildings, like fleshy bridges. It wasn't spread out too much, but it was still strange.
One of our men walked up to that mass of flesh and started poking it with his knife. A moment later he cut off a piece and brought it with him, then went to the leader to tell him it was real flesh.
Our leader looked at the piece of flesh and examined it for a moment.
He told the man to throw it away, since it was spoiled and would probably just make us sick. No one argued with him about it, and we kept moving forward.
After an hour of walking, we stopped at one of the small abandoned shops, and our leader signaled for us to go inside quickly.
Inside the shop, it looked like the place had already been looted, most of the shelves were empty, and broken glass covered the floor, but we kept searching for anything edible anyway.
I moved between the shelves looking for food, but there wasn't much. All I found was a box of biscuits and a can of food, while my brother found two cans. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either.
I found a small backpack, a bit old looking, but it would definitely be useful.
Anyway, we took everything left in the shop and headed back out.
We went into one of the houses, and our leader told us to lay out everything we'd collected so we could split it up, and as was already clear to me, there wasn't going to be enough food for everyone.
I looked around at our group and saw exhaustion and hunger written on everyone's faces. Our leader stayed silent for a moment, looking at us, exhaustion and tension on his own face as he tried to think of a solution, then suddenly told us the food wouldn't be enough and he had no ideas for now.
Everyone fell silent, trying to think of anything that might help. I had no ideas myself, and I could barely think straight from hunger anyway, so I just waited for someone to come up with something useful.
Suddenly, one of the women said she wouldn't eat and that they could give her share to her child instead. Even though exhaustion and hunger were clear on her face, she gave up her portion for her son.
After that, some of the other parents started doing the same, but strangely, my mother and father weren't among them. They stayed oddly silent, exhaustion written across their faces. Well, I won't blame them, they must have been too tired even to speak or do anything, they needed to eat.
Everyone fell quiet, and the ones who'd given up their share went off to rest elsewhere, while the rest of us who got food stayed where we were as it was handed out. It wasn't much, but it was enough to fill me and my family a little.
As for the ones who'd given up their food, they looked awful, most of them slumped on the ground, unable to move, while others just slept, trying to escape the hunger. Their condition was genuinely bad.
As soon as we finished eating, we left the house and started heading somewhere. I asked my father, quietly, where we were going, but he didn't answer, afraid we'd be overheard.
I started noticing something strange now. The further we went, the more that fleshy material we'd seen earlier kept appearing, clinging to the buildings like spider webs stuck to something, except instead of thread, it was flesh.
Whenever we heard the sound of zombies, we'd hide and only come back out once we were sure they'd moved on. We stayed like that for hours, found a little more food, gave it to the ones who hadn't eaten yet, and kept moving.
Night fell, so we ducked into one of the houses quickly, before anything bad could happen.
The place had some food, so as usual we gave it to the ones who hadn't eaten yet. Everyone's going to sleep now, and there's no light for me to see what I'm writing, so goodnight, diary.
The group and I woke up suddenly to a strange sound, something like a drill or similar. I have to stay quiet right now, to avoid any trouble.
The sound finally faded away. I think we're safe now.
None of us got up or spoke, to avoid any mistake that might get us caught.
I opened my eyes in terror to find a horrifying monster standing right in front of me. I don't even know how to describe how hideous it was. It emerged suddenly from the ground, a creature fused to the floor like a plant, but made entirely of flesh, its tendrils covering every part of its body, its muscles and veins exposed all over, as if it had been skinned. And at the far end of its body was a massive mouth, packed with sharp teeth already soaked in blood after it had started eating members of my group. Everyone began screaming in absolute terror.
Some tried to run, while others tried to fight the thing off with whatever tools they had.
But it was useless. Nothing they had seemed to affect the creature at all.
The monster moved its tendrils, and in the blink of an eye they punched straight through the chests of the ones still trying to resist. It lifted them slowly toward its mouth and began devouring them viciously, blood spraying from their bodies as it ate.
I jumped up from where I was and looked around frantically for my family, only to find they weren't beside me anymore. They'd already fled.
I tried running toward the door, but it was jammed with people, so many that I couldn't even get close.
The creature took advantage of the chaos and started picking them off one by one, their screams rising all around.
Suddenly the creature came at me. I was about to die, but my older brother pulled me away just in time, though I came out of it with a large wound across my shoulder, blood pouring out nonstop. My brother pulled me quickly and threw me over his shoulder, then tore off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around the wound to stop the bleeding.
My heart was pounding, and the fear and tension inside me had reached their absolute peak. I felt hot, sweat pouring off my body, while I stayed frozen in place, unable to move from sheer terror.
My brother slapped me hard across the face and yelled at me to move. I got up with difficulty, my legs shaking, while he led me somewhere.
We reached a small gap in one of the walls, and he ordered me to get inside, fast.
I went in, and he followed right behind me. Inside I found my mother and father, along with four other people from our group and the leader, apparently in the room right next to our first one.
I felt nauseous from the blood I kept losing, and could barely walk because of it, so my brother caught me and slung me over his shoulder, then started carrying me out of the room. Everyone tried to leave the building, but my brother stopped them and told them the zombie horde was most likely coming our way, so it would be better for us to head up, to the roof specifically.
Everyone agreed to the idea right away, and we headed for the roof, locking the door behind us. My brother set me down on the ground, then pulled his shirt off my wound and rewrapped it, tighter this time. The bleeding stopped, but my strength had drained from the amount of blood I'd lost, and since my body can never produce new blood on its own, I was, at that moment, as good as dead.
But my brother tried to save me. He shouted at our parents and the others to share their blood with me, so I could stay alive.
Everyone stayed silent, staring at him with worry.
He shouted at them again to hurry, but my father cut him off. He said, "Michael, forget it, he's going to die no matter what, we don't need to hurt ourselves for his sake." My brother shot back, shocked by what he'd heard, "What are you saying? We can save him if we give him some of our blood, and you know that!" My father answered, angrily, "That's not what I mean. We're in a life or death situation right now. Even if we give him our blood, all it'll do is weaken us. Just let him go, he's not worth it." My brother tried to speak, "But—" but my father cut him off again. "It's not our responsibility to save him, and it's not yours either. How much longer are we supposed to protect this thing, when all he's ever brought us is trouble his whole life? Half my money went to feeding his stupid blood needs, if it weren't for him we could've gotten back on our feet a long time ago, and the other half went to debt. And even after all that, nothing changed! He's always just been a burden on us, worthless! If it were you in his place, I'd save you, because at least you're a normal man who can actually help me. But him? Forget it." Anger and shock crossed my brother's face, and he snapped back, furious, "How can you even call yourself a father? Your own son is dying right in front of you and you're just going to let him die, like he doesn't even exist? Fine. If no one else wants to save him, I'll save him myself." My brother grabbed the knife he'd found earlier and raised it into the air, ready to cut his own arm, but my father stopped him at the last second, gripping him hard and shouting, "Stop this madness right now, Michael!" But my brother looked at him with contempt and fury, kicked him away, and said, "This isn't your business. If you don't want to save him, then I will."
My mother suddenly stepped in between them. She'd been silent the whole time, and I'd assumed she would stand with us, defend me alongside my brother, but I was wrong. All she did was try to stop my brother from what he was doing, and side with what my father had said.
My brother didn't answer them. He just pried my mouth open and cut his arm, and blood started pouring out of the wound.
He pressed his arm directly over my mouth so I could drink his blood.
Time passed, and my brother kept bleeding heavily. I noticed he was gradually losing strength, but he kept trying to hold himself together with everything he had. At the same time, everyone in the room was staring at him in a mix of shock and disbelief. Suddenly my brother grabbed my shirt, tore off a piece of it, and quickly wrapped it around his own wound.
His color had gone a little pale, and exhaustion showed on his face, but he stood on his feet and looked at my father with defiance and contempt, then said, in a voice heavy with fatigue that he tried to mask with anger, "Now what? Can't do something as simple as this? Just share a little of your own blood with your son, or are you just too much of a coward to save even a piece of your own family?" Even though my father had been shouting at him this whole time, he stayed silent now, as if he were trying to process what had happened, or maybe he just didn't care at all.
My brother pulled something off his neck, a necklace, I remember, and held it out toward my father, his face full of anger. "Remember this?" My father's expression suddenly shifted, worry crossing his face, but he didn't say a word. My brother went on, "You gave me this on my tenth birthday, remember? You told me it was a symbol of family, that no matter what happened, we'd protect each other. But look at yourself now!" He hurled the necklace at him. My father glanced at it for a moment, then looked back at him and tried to speak, "Son—" but my brother cut him off, furious. "Don't ever call me that again. From now on, you're not my father, and you're not my mother. You're just strangers to our family. Protecting family, no matter the circumstances or the reasons, that was always my one core principle, above everything else, and I won't abandon it, because the person who taught it to me turned out to be nothing but a lying hypocrite. I'm going to hold onto my principle, and I'm going to protect the only real member of my family left, whatever it costs me."
Suddenly our group's leader stepped toward us and signaled for us to be quiet. The screams from our group down below were getting louder, mixed with other strange sounds. My brother helped me up, and we made our way closer to the edge of the roof so we could see what was happening.
We found the people who'd managed to escape the monster being torn apart and devoured savagely by a horde of zombies below. Men, women, children, all of them meeting the same horrific fate.
Everyone with me was stunned by the horror in front of them and stood frozen in place, unable to do anything, only hoping the horde wouldn't be able to reach us.
Suddenly we started hearing the sound of running, mixed with a strange, garbled muttering, which made us realize they were coming for us too.
My brother turned to the leader and said, "Is there any way out of here?" The leader stayed silent for a moment, scanning the area quickly, before saying, "There's one way, but I can't promise it'll work. Jumping to the rooftop next to us. It's not too far, but it's not close either. Still, it's our only option."
My brother agreed to the plan without any hesitation, then walked to the edge to measure the distance between the two roofs. It wasn't impossible, but it wasn't easy either. He came back and said to me, quietly, "Get ready." I didn't even get the chance to respond before he took off running at full speed. I didn't fully understand what was happening, but I started running with him, matching his pace. And the moment we reached the edge.
We jumped, using every last bit of strength we had left.
For a few seconds, I felt like we were flying through the air. I saw the dark street below us, the zombies gathered around the place we'd just left.
Then we slammed hard onto the surface of the opposite roof and rolled across the ground from the impact. Only seconds after we landed, my brother had already thrown me over his shoulder again and started walking toward the roof door, heading down. I tried to ask him about the others, but he told me we'd be better off on our own now.
I never found out what happened to my father, or to the others who'd been with us, but somehow we managed to escape and put enough distance between us and the danger.
Right now we're sitting in one of the small houses. We found some uncooked vegetables and ate them anyway.
I don't know what to say. The pain from my wounds was nothing compared to the pain of my father's words. Even though people looked down on me and saw me as less than human, my family was always the one thing that made me feel a little safe, made me feel like at least there were people who cared about me and loved me. And now here I am, discovering that none of it was ever real to begin with.
I don't want to write anymore. Writing doesn't make me feel any better anymore. Every word I put down now only brings me more sadness. Every time I pick up this diary, I remember every terrible thing that's happened.
Right now, all I want is to sleep, and stay as quiet as I can.
(to be continued)