I never mind lookout duty. I like to watch the infected roaming about and try to piece together what their lives were before they turned. Most of the time it's just guesswork but every now and then I'll see something that looks like someone I once knew or an obvious story pop up.
Like the other day when I saw an older woman and an child walking hand-in-hand, or rather their hands had been fused together with a thick crusty layer of the pus that oozes from every orifice on the infected. They were both dressed fairly well and somehow still wearing party hats.
I imagined their last day as that child's second birthday celebration - one they had to move indoors once the sirens went off and one that ended abruptly when one child with a weird bruise on their arm and a snotty nose took a sharp turn for the worse and attacked everyone in sight.
The mum grabs her baby amidst all the chaos and they make a run for it but little does she know, the kid's already been infected. Not by a bite but by holding hands with the infected kid a while back. Germs and children are a deadly combination and one that exists right under our noses.
When mum finds out that her kid is infected she's heartbroken but ultimately decides to stay no matter what happens. She doesn't want her little boy left alone in the world and much as she doesn't want to lose herself to the infection she doesn't want to lose him even more.
As the symptoms hit and the boy starts to flail and writhe in agony she dries his tears with a kiss to his cheeks and seals her own fate. She holds him through the worst of it and encourages him to stand again when he feels a bit better. There's always a lull before it hits in full force.
It was actually touching to think this might have happened and to see them still holding hands. In spite of all the death caused by the infection, people still cared for their own. I spent a good three days watching them walk about and it made me smile for the first time in what felt like years.
And then the mother caught her foot in a pothole and wrenched her arm forward to propel herself out of it. The pus connecting their hands broke with a sickeningly wet crunch and the kid went flying in the other direction. She kept on walking, oblivious to the little grey hands reaching out for her and the hauntingly human crying of the child she left behind.
Like the other day when I saw an older woman and an child walking hand-in-hand, or rather their hands had been fused together with a thick crusty layer of the pus that oozes from every orifice on the infected. They were both dressed fairly well and somehow still wearing party hats.
I imagined their last day as that child's second birthday celebration - one they had to move indoors once the sirens went off and one that ended abruptly when one child with a weird bruise on their arm and a snotty nose took a sharp turn for the worse and attacked everyone in sight.
The mum grabs her baby amidst all the chaos and they make a run for it but little does she know, the kid's already been infected. Not by a bite but by holding hands with the infected kid a while back. Germs and children are a deadly combination and one that exists right under our noses.
When mum finds out that her kid is infected she's heartbroken but ultimately decides to stay no matter what happens. She doesn't want her little boy left alone in the world and much as she doesn't want to lose herself to the infection she doesn't want to lose him even more.
As the symptoms hit and the boy starts to flail and writhe in agony she dries his tears with a kiss to his cheeks and seals her own fate. She holds him through the worst of it and encourages him to stand again when he feels a bit better. There's always a lull before it hits in full force.
It was actually touching to think this might have happened and to see them still holding hands. In spite of all the death caused by the infection, people still cared for their own. I spent a good three days watching them walk about and it made me smile for the first time in what felt like years.
And then the mother caught her foot in a pothole and wrenched her arm forward to propel herself out of it. The pus connecting their hands broke with a sickeningly wet crunch and the kid went flying in the other direction. She kept on walking, oblivious to the little grey hands reaching out for her and the hauntingly human crying of the child she left behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment