My name is Paul and I don’t know how else to get this information out without being sent to a padded cell. So I figured I’d come here and try to get my story out so that maybe your world won’t make the same mistake as mine. Honestly, this place reminds me a lot of my home from when I was a kid. It hasn’t been this nice in a long time though. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept peacefully until coming to your world.
I’m not sure how I got here but I’m here now and I’m glad to be here. Part of me wonders if I died and this is somehow what Heaven or Hell looks like. That being said, I’m here now and I never want to go back to that place. I’m worried that this place could make a similar mistake so hopefully by getting this info out we can avert that disaster.
I’ll start with what I do know. I’m a human just like you and I’m also from a place called Earth. It resembles this place almost exactly with maybe a few names changed here and there. But for the most part this place feels very much like the place I remember as a kid. I remember growing up in a small town in Northern NY. I went to school, played with my friends, and lived what I assumed was an average life. That was until I turned 18.
On my 18th birthday there was something big in the news that happened. There was some kind of terrorist attack. In this case there wasn’t an explosion but the release of some kind of chemical that killed everyone that was within a 1 mile radius almost instantly. I never did find out who had done the attack. I guess it doesn’t matter now but I still wish I would have found out.
The attack took place at Times Square in New York City and was absolutely devastating. As you know Times Square is an extremely popular tourist destination. I’m not sure how many people were there that were killed but the cleanup of all the dead would have taken weeks if they would have had a chance to do it. Before any humanitarian aid was able to be given the dead started to rise.
These weren’t walkers either. They could do almost as much as a human could when they got back up. There must have been 500,000 dead that all got up at the same time and devoured NYC in a matter of a few days. All I could do was watch in horror as the news pushed out broadcasts of the carnage 24/7.
People in the city didn’t have time to react, and before they realized that these people weren’t really people anymore, it was too late. I did what any normal person would do during this time and rushed to the supermarket to get as much supplies as my broke 18 year old self could buy. As you would expect the shopping center were almost wiped out immediately. People were tearing each other apart to get just one last can of soup or case of water. There were a lot of casualties that first few days and the dead hadn’t even made it to us yet.
We assumed that the military would get this under control before it ever made it’s way 6 hours north of the city. The problem we didn’t realized at the time was that this sickness or whatever it was could be spread. Anytime someone was bitten or scratched by one of these “things” they would last maybe 12 to 24 hours and would die. Within an hour of death they would get back up and start killing and consuming any living thing they could get their hands on. Our one saving grace was that animals didn’t seem to be susceptible to the sickness.
People were fleeing NYC and were heading to smaller rural areas to hide. Some of these people were sick and within a few hours of making it up north they had died and started spreading the sickness. That’s how it was able to spread so quickly. That’s why everything fell apart so fast.
My first experience with one of these things was maybe a day or two after the chemical was released in NYC. I was held up in my house watching the news and trying to keep up with what was happening. Officials told of to shelter in place and limit the amount of time we are out of the house. They recommended we barricade doors and windows to avoid the infected. Before I had a chance to do any of this one of them was slamming on my front door. It didn’t take long for it to figure out that there was a window on my front porch and it smashed right through it. I only had seconds to get to my kitchen and grab the biggest knife I could find.
It came staggering through the window, glass sticking to its skin. It didn’t seem to even notice that it was bleeding and covered with glass. It was a man, maybe early 30’s. It didn’t notice me at first but when it did it came at me at a dead sprint. I tensed up and prepared for the impact. I swung the knife towards its head and was able to stab it directly in the eye. It slammed me to the ground and growled at me trying to bite into my neck. With my hands still on the handle of the knife I pushed with all my might and felt the knife sink deeper into its skull. The man went limp and I pushed him off me trying to pull myself together.
I didn’t have much more time to pull it together before I realized more of them were outside. I ran upstairs grabbed my rifle and prepared a go bag. There was no way I was going to make it in this house. It was too easy for them to get inside. I grabbed the knife from the man on the floor and grabbed my keys. I didn’t know where to go so I just started driving and hoped that I would find what I needed. We had a nearby military base but I didn’t think that would be a great idea for me to go to with how many other people would be heading that way, healthy or infected.
I headed east towards the Adirondacks with the hopes that it wouldn’t be as populated. I never did manage to make it that far. My car ended up breaking down halfway there after I had accidentally hit one of them. I ended up in a small town that I could tell had already been ravaged by them. I didn’t see any of them around though so I went to the closest house that looked the easiest to fortify. That actually where I ended up spending the next 15 years in.
I saw my fair share of them from time to time as the years went by. I saw even more anytime I had to go to neighboring towns to find supplies. Luckily they didn’t seem interested in anything other than humans so I was still able to hunt and fish to feed myself. I built a decent sized garden that gave me fresh veggies. I was very lucky. I had seen on the news while they were still airing it that many places were teeming with these things. They were everywhere and no one seemed safe. After about 4 days I stopped seeing the news. I’m not sure if this became a global problem but I never saw aid come from other countries. So they either left us to our own devices or the infection had spread outside the borders and the whole world had gone to Hell.
You may be asking yourself how did I get here then? I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. I don’t know if this is an alternate dimension or I just died and have no memories of it. Either way I’m happy I’m here and have no want or need to go back to that place. Please be safe out there.