Another day has gone by and I’m still here. A feat for anyone that knows me but…then again…no one really knows me here. There’s not a single person who knew me before all of this happened here. Just new person on top of new person. Most of these people have been here a while and now I’m having to put my trust in all of them.

It’s been so long since I could trust like that and really mean it. Even now…I’m not sure I really mean it when I talk to people here. It’s like I’m playing a role of who I think I should be…or who I think they want me to be. It feels all so scripted. Oh…if it only was. If this was all fake and everything could really go back to the way it was before.

Back to before I had to defend myself to survive. Killing infected…zombies who used to be people… Looking at their rotting faces before I put an arrow through their head. After it’s all over, I find myself second guessing myself. But during the moment…there is no hesitation. I act without remorse. Part of me thinks I should feel bad about it but the other part rails against me saying if I start then I might hesitate. If only for one second. Then I’d become the monster someone would have to kill.

Last night…I dreamed. No…not a dream… A nightmare.

I had always been so tired wandering through the countryside that I guess I didn’t have any energy to dream before. But here…it’s not the same.

My mind goes back.

I scoped out the house. A simple one floor house. A place I had visited many times before. This home. This place holding all my memories.

My home.

I had come back here because of my family. My brother had been in town and told me to stay put at my dorm. He’d take care of our parents. Then, everything was gone. No more contact. He had told me he would bring them to my college campus… But months went by and they never came.

I had to know. I had to find out why. Why hadn’t they come for me?

The front door was cracked open. A couple of the infected were laying dead on the front porch and one more was half in and half out. I moved into my home. All the windows and doors had been barricaded. Why had the front door been open? Had the infected done that?

As quietly as I could, I moved through the house, checking each and every room. There was blood in the kitchen. But there was no dead inside. Had they gotten hurt…or worse? I followed the trail of blood through the house. I was nearly at the three bedrooms when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of the infected.

I readied my crossbow like I knew how to do. Then, I moved to the door and kicked with all my might. It slammed back against the wall and I froze. My mouth open wide in sheer horror at the image burned into my mind. My father’s body was sprawled across the bed. A clear bite on his bare arm where an infected had ripped through the thin sleeve like paper, an arrow sticking up like a gruesome exclamation mark sticking out of the middle of his head straight up towards the ceiling. His body had rotted away. He had become an infected. My mother, laying on the floor. Her intestines hanging out of her stomach as an infected ripped and pulled.

 Slowly, oh so slowly like in a horror movie. The infected looked up at me. My dear brother’s rotting face, covered in our mother’s blood, looking back at me. The blood was so thick and viscous on his chin that it was drip dripping down onto the off white carpet our mother worked so very hard to keep perfect.

My brother…no…the infected rose and came at me. Shock froze me on the spot. And just before the final moment. The moment I knew was coming. The moment I lifted my crossbow and aimed it at my brother’s rotted face…I woke up with a gasp.

I slowly sat up and looked around as if I expected to be back there. Finally, I felt something on my face. I reached up and found tears running down my face.

Tears for my father that my brother had to kill to protect my mother.

Tears for my mother who didn’t have the strength to attack and kill her own son even though he was going to kill her.

Tears for my brother who had gotten bitten fighting off my father and turned…leaving me to be the one to end it all.

I remember it all so vividly now. Even as I sit here awake on this bed writing. It’s like a superimposed image before me. The smells… The sounds… Everything. My hand felt dirty for days and weeks after it had happened. I had hid out wanting to curl up and die if that meant I got to see them again whole and pure again.

It had taken me days before I managed to pull myself back into a human who wouldn’t allow herself to be eaten…to end up like my family. To passively allow myself to die. I was going to live for them.  I can only hope that over time, just maybe, the dream will fade away again. That maybe…helping others might in turn help myself.

I applied to work for the Shelter. Once they knew I had back ground in Psychology, they wanted me to help. At first, I had thought about turning them down. I was a survivor. I hunted animals. I lived in the forest. I took care of myself first and foremost.

However, as I looked over at the woman who had just arrived. I knew that I had to help. There would be others. Others like her or worse. Those so terrified they’d need someone to hold their hand while they adjusted to being around those who wanted to help them. To not be afraid…or maybe not as afraid.

Whichever way this goes, I hope that I can actually help someone. This is what I wanted. This is why I decided to stop hiding from the world that was left. People needed help and I was only thinking of myself. So cold. So callous. But not anymore. I wanna fix that. I wanna fix myself.

I can only hope and pray that I’m not too late to fix myself.