My sleep is entirely without dreams. My mind is undoubtedly too exhausted to bother with the task of filling my head with nonsense. I am grateful for this of course, because if I did have any dreams, it would undoubtedly have been nightmares about me getting chased around by dogs. No thank you brain, I’ll pass.

Waking up from my nest in the corner is an entirely unpleasant process. My entire body is sore, and my limbs feel like they are made of lead. Despite the corner being an entirely unsuitable location for an injured woman to sleep, my only desire right now is to go back to blissful unconsciousness.

But I have things I need to do; I need to get home. I only had four bottles of water when I left home. I already used one yesterday while I was scavenging, and the second and third were used last night. I only have enough to last me for the rest of the day and have no way to safely source more. Unless I want to drink rainwater.

If I’m going to be getting home, it needs to be today.

Forcing myself back up to my feet, I wear my jacket on my right side and drape it over the left. Zipping up my jacket, my left arm is safely secured in its sling underneath and tucked tight into my chest. With that taken care of I grab my bag. With my sling in the way it would be too difficult to put on and take off my backpack, so I simply wear it with only one strap.

Finally ready to go, I unlock and open the door to the office. Before I can step through, I have to stop and try not to hurl.

The dog’s corpse has already started to rot and smells even worse than it did yesterday. Covering my face and holding back tears, I walk through the room. Looking over the dog I notice that its mid-section has swollen up like a leather balloon as its insides have begun rotting and breaking down. This thing somehow managed to become even more disgusting in death.

It takes everything I have not to immediately throw myself out of the room just to get away from the smell. Instead, I crack open the door leading out and peek through. I have no idea if the other dogs are still out there, and I am in no condition to be chased around again.

Shining my light through the gap and looking around as best I can, I check the clearing. There’s nothing; no sound, no movement. No screaming scavengers running for their lives and no hounds baying out in endless hunger. The coast is clear. But still, I take it slow and work my way out of the room.

Walking my tired body through the backroom’s shelves, I realize just how far I ran while being chased. With the distance covered; I should not have been able to get away from the dog. Although, I guess I technically didn’t. But regardless, dogs, especially mutated dogs, run a lot faster than humans do. I am pretty sure that the only reason that I was able to get as far as I did was because of the head start I had and all the corners I took. Regardless of how much adrenaline I had pumping through me, if it had been a straight run, it would have caught me much sooner than it did.

It’s while I’m musing on my near-death experience that I come across the first body. The mangled corpse is sprawled out in one of the aisles. If it weren’t for the clothes, I would have been completely unable to identify the person.

It’s the stranger, the guy that was creeping on me before this all went to shit.

The dogs had torn him to ribbons, his abdomen ripped open like a gutted deer, his face was eaten and two of his limbs are just plain gone. Presumably taken as a snack for later.

He may have been a creep, but he didn’t deserve this. I just hope his death was quick.

Looking at what’s left of him I can’t help but think to myself, “It’s concerning just how used I’ve gotten to seeing corpses. A year ago, and I would have been a crying mess, throwing up on the floor. Now it’s just another sad mess on the floor.”

With it being the apocalypse, death has become an incredibly common occurrence. In the beginning there was the pulse. The last thing seen being done by the //World Tree before all of the satellites were knocked out the sky. Without access to the internet and radio, it’s impossible to know how the rest of the world was affected. But from what happened around here, it is clear that many people died on that day. The pulse traveled across the Earth in seconds, and everyone was hit by it.

Those with weak hearts and bodies like the elderly and sick died instantly, their bodies unable to take the hit. All electronics went out like an EMP just went off. Cars crashed, there engines disabled, and their passengers incapacitated or dead. Planes fell from the sky and destroyed everything around where they crashed.

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With the power out, it was chaos. Emergency services were down and unable to save people. And the hospitals were running on emergency backup power. If everything had stopped there it would arguably have been fine. But it only continued to get worse from there. A few days after, people started getting sick. Whatever the pulse had done to people, it didn’t agree with some. Some people’s bodies simply couldn’t take it. They would just grow weaker and weaker until one day they would go to sleep and then never wake up. People started calling it Sleeping Sickness. Doctors had no idea how to treat it, and it didn’t behave like any normal disease. Most people at the time believed that the pulse had some sort of radiation that was the cause.

They were eventually proven right when the mutations began. Animals would just start attacking everything and anything around them. Their bodies becoming disfigured and enlarged. People’s beloved pets were suddenly being driven into a frenzy and attacking their owners.

Not all animals were affected by this. Some would remain untouched and stay normal. But more than enough was changed that it became a serious problem.

As if all these things weren’t enough, the end of the world simply continued to get worse. The monsters started showing up after a couple of weeks and would attack any places that tried to use modern tech. Electricity, gas engines, guns, and communication equipment would always get swarmed by monsters. People learned quickly to not bother and the only ones to still try nowadays is the military. Even after a year of this they are supposedly still trying to fight off the monsters. Luckly for us civilians, that means that most of the monsters are busy fighting the army, rather than going after scavengers.

Finally, there were the earthquakes and the storms. About a month after the monsters started showing up, the earthquakes began. For almost an entire month the ground would shake and shift. Barely a day would go by where there wasn’t a rumble. Building couldn’t take the constant abuse, and many would collapse under the constant shaking. On the other hand, the storms have lasted much longer. Barely a day goes by where there isn’t rain or heavy cloud coverage. After a year and a half of it though, the storms do seem to be calming down some, but a clear sky is still a rare sight.

Long rambling aside, corpses used to be a common sight for a while. At one point you literally couldn’t walk down the street without tripping on someone’s corpse. Anyone who has lasted this long is sadly used to it.

While musing about this I finally make it to the exit. Peeking through the door, I check and see that it’s all clear. Even the corpse of the guy that got taken down outside is missing. The dogs must have left back to their den and dragged their food with them. All that’s left is some scraps of bloodied clothes and a long streak of blood heading West. Luckily for me, home is East of here.

It’s with much satisfaction that I finally step outside and breathe in a lung full of fresh air. The air in that place was not exactly pleasant, smelling of dust, mold, and now the stench of fresh death. With fresh memories of yet another near-death experience, I am more than happy to be leaving this place behind me.

All of this for a couple cans of food. Gods, I just want to go home and sleep…

Willing my sore body to move forward, I start my long walk home. It took me about two hours to walk here originally, but now it’s going to take much longer. Every step I take is a fresh shot of pain as my body continuously reminds me of my injuries.

Both of my legs are stiff as boards as I’m pretty sure that I must have pulled some muscles in them while being chased. Several muscles in my abdomen and back feel bruised, probably from being tackled by two hundred plus pounds of murder pooch. The back of my head has a big welt on it and makes me feel like a cracked open egg.

The worst injury obviously goes to my arm. If someone were to tell me that it is full of a colony of angry fire ants right now, I would honestly believe them. Every step I take sends this colony of pissed off metaphorical ants into a renewed uproar. Sending more waves of pain up my arm and into my already sore head.

Finally reaching the end of the shopping plaza, I look out at the road that I’ll be dragging myself down for the next couple of hours. It looks nothing like it did a year ago. Cracks and fissures run through its surface like the lines of a spider’s web. Grass and all sorts of plants have claimed these spaces as their homes along with the roots of the many trees growing through the area.

So many trees. It’s only been a year and a half, but these things are popping up absolutely everywhere.

Even as I pass by the flipped over wreck of an SUV, I can’t help but look at the tree that has somehow managed to grow through it. Sprouting out of the road, through the passenger window and out the driver side window, and already standing about a meter taller than myself. Of all the places it could have grown, it chose quite a weird one.

At the rate these things are spreading, this road will probably be long gone in another year or two. Reduced to nothing more than a broken path through the foliage.

All things considered, it’s not too weird that plant life is going nuts. If the animals can mutate, then why can’t the plants? Also, considering the fact that the Earth now has a fucking //World Tree of all things! There’s honestly not too much nowadays that can be truly considered weird.

“At least the trees aren’t growing legs and trying to eat people…” I say to myself as I stare warily at a tree that has chosen the bed of a collapsed truck as its home.