You can hear the groans just outside of the door.
Clawing and clamoring at the thin, frail piece of wood that serves as the only real barrier between their appetite, and your life. Desperately awaiting the chance to latch their mouths onto every inch of your skin, every bit of muscle tissue, every exposed chunk of flesh. They’re willing to trample over each other for it. Risk maiming and mauling and mutilating the others…all for the glorious prize that seemed so close…
And yet…
So far.
Mocking you with their decrepit sounds of grotesque appetite; as if to say, “found you!”
Run, or hide?
Breathing heavily, you begin to look around. The way you swallow makes the gobs of spit feel like anvils dropping into the deepest pits of your stomach. Your hands shake to an almost debilitating degree, and your legs, whilst ready at a moment’s notice to carry you off in any direction at blistering speeds, shake and wobble, already exhausted from bringing you this far. Chest heaving as the nauseous feeling tightens like a knot in your gut and in your sternum. Eyes darting around nervously, focusing on everything and nothing at the same time.
What to do…what to do…
Perhaps you could quickly search out a place to hide within these walls, under this roof. After all, they know you’re in here, but where? They wouldn’t be clever enough to figure that part out. Blindly sprinting, tumbling, growling, grasping, looking, all in search of lost prey. It wasn’t clear if they relied on scent, however. You hadn’t been too keen on observing them too closely. Especially when it seemed that, within seconds, one could be converted into a member of their wretched kind. A risk you weren’t very keen on taking. No way in Hell you were going to be turned into some mindless eating machine, trapped within your own body, no longer in control of yourself. Just compelled by pure, unadulterated instinct.
Flailing about as you’re now possessed by…
By…
Too late.
No more time to think. No more time to formulate a plan, figure things out. It wasn’t like you had any to begin with, but now? Really, the only option you have left is to act. Forget trying to hide in here (of course, your chances of successfully managing to duck out of the way of these…things…was slim to absolutely none).
Dashing for the nearest door that may lead outside, you brace your shoulder and arm, ready to barrel through to the outside world, hopefully prolonging your existence a little longer, offering you a chance to see another tomorrow. Gaining a sense of tunnel vision as your mind becomes consumed by breaking through that rectangular piece of wood separating you from life itself. Here? Here was only death.
Unfortunately, the door almost gives way. Almost. So, so close…but it manages to barely stay in place.
Blood-curdling screams leave your throat in anguish as a crowd of ravenous bodies press into you from all sides.
A World In Flames 