When many people think about how the world would end, their thoughts might turn to whatever religion is most important to their lives. The most popular way people thought everything was going to end was through some kind of holy rapture or something, others thought the end would come from the sun burning out and taking us with it. I bet all of them were so surprised to find out the end was caused by zombies of all things.
The zombie apocalypse didn’t start like in movies and t.v. shows, it started at the most unlikely yet expected of places… at a funeral. I don’t really remember much about the family but I do know what happened. It started during the eulogy for a little girl who died from cancer, someone bumped into the casket and it rattled back in response. At first everyone ignored it, just assuming the stand was a bit loose maybe. Then the knocking happened, knocking that came from inside the casket.
The little girl had come back to life albeit confused and alarmed to be in a casket, but still hale and healthy. Doctors were confounded that even though her cancer had disappeared, her bodily processes had slowed down as if she was in a coma but she was completely lucid. That little girl was hailed as a miracle, touched by God some would preach. A week later there was another resurrection, a middle aged man who had died on the operating table woke back up later in the morgue with his chest cut open. He felt no pain or fear about his situation, almost empty of emotion. Doctors soon found out that a lack of oxygen had killed off almost half his brain… yet he still lived.
Soon floods of resurrection cases started to pop up, men and women committing suicide in an attempt to meet their gods then coming back moments later with necks still slit. Old men and women on their deathbeds passing away only to wake back up moments later confused and almost disappointed. Newscasters proclaimed it to be the golden age of immortality, that the fear of death was a thing of the past. Then in the next few weeks it started, everyone called it The Rotting.
It wasn’t a gradual change or a crawling chaos, it was almost like a switch had been flipped in the bodies of the resurrected. First it was their bodies that changed first, rapidly decaying from the inside out. Previously unblemished skin turned green and gray with mold and rot, hair started falling out in clumps. Strips of flesh would begin to slough off the bone leaving the dark ichor that replaced their blood behind, the world was in hysteria. The global population was made up of over fifty percent resurrected meaning when the minds of the fallen started to erode and decay just like their bodies… the end of the world was already a certainty.
Overpopulated cities and popular landmarks were overrun first, the first ever ‘afflicted’ mob took down Australia first. Now that people didn’t have to fear dangerous animals or diseases they flocked to locations that would have previously frightened them, much like the wild savannas of Australia. The UN tried to handle the situation, no matter what we called the ‘afflicted’ they were still zombies and we tried to handle them like zombies. Massive fire fights, explosives, and quarantines were used. But no matter how many bullet holes were blown into the heads of the ‘afflicted’ they did not stop.
When the information that the UN couldn’t do anything about the encroaching zombie hoards true anarchy let loose. To be perfectly honest I’m not exactly sure what happened in the following months, people went crazy like in any apocalyptic scenario but at some point something big happened. A group of extremists broke into some government missile silo somewhere in the world and had launched every explosive they had at Europe including the nuclear kind.
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The remaining humans still surviving in Europe were wiped out in one fell swoop and only a day later they rose again as shambling skeletons… or at least that’s what I heard. As a sort of last push for humanity everyone went into hiding or underground, multiple factions had been popping up but they had more power now more than ever. First was The Militants who occupied a nearby airport after leading the undead away, at first they were one of the more orderly factions I was a part of until those in power wanted more and more until they became nothing more than tyrants.
The next faction was The Ascended, who occupied a nearby cathedral and was operating out of the catacombs underneath. Their way of life was one step away from being a cult, while I was there we were expected to pray to whatever religion of the day. The main religion shuffled around a few times a week but over time it slowly started to almost revere the zombie. I left quickly before that went any further, now I hear that they went full blood cult and they just might be cannibals… maybe.
I checked out the last faction and was actually shocked by how it turned out, they started by being called The Anarchists. The name kinda gave away what they were about in the beginning, men and women who sowed chaos and made survival harder for everyone else. In the beginning they were an obvious threat but as time went on they started to almost mellow out, they were based in the abandoned subway system. It quickly became apparent that with the threat of anyone else in their own group being fully able to turn on them with no repercussions they started to become almost peaceful.
With how peaceful The Anarchist had become it made sense that they would be the ones to fall first. They were actually attacked by The Ascended, they lured a horde of zombies into the subway tunnels then blocked off the exits so there wouldn't be any survivors. What they weren’t expecting though was their revenge, the subway tunnels sprawl underneath the whole city and that includes the cathedral. Someone on the anarchists’ side waited for The Ascended to return to base before blowing it to kingdom come.
With two factions dead and gone the Militants assumed they would be the ruling faction, besides the minor groups of survivors they had no competition. At least they assumed that, it wasn’t ever three days later when the uprising began. The people were sick of being ruled over by power hungry tyrants and wanted to put a stop to it. It was a bloody insurrection that didn’t end well for either side, in hindsight it was kinda obvious that all the fighting would have attracted more zombies.
After a long uphill battle against their oppressors the survivors were almost helpless against the flood of dead that fell upon them. Which just leaves me, the one who was there at the beginning. The one who survived everything yet fell first, living yet dead, deathless but not living. I remember the day I woke up after succumbing to my cancer, the forever little girl who was heralded as a miracle. I watched all the other resurrected turn into monsters while I stayed the same.
At the end of the world the only one left standing is the immortal who can’t turn. I used to think I was immune or something, but it quickly became apparent that I was just cursed. Cursed to watch my people die out, cursed to never grow old, cursed to never die. I was caught in the cathedral explosion and woke up an hour later none the worse for wear except for a few scorch marks on my clothes.
My fate is to walk this earth and watch the human race struggle to survive. I have the faint hope that life would recover at some point, maybe i’ll be able to watch evolution begin all over again. I’ll have to travel the earth, I need to see if there are any more humans anywhere. The biggest annoyance about this whole thing beside the whole immortality issue is the fact that I'm too short to drive.