Eating my experiences

CW: violence, cursing

TOME 1

It's been so long since this started that I'm not sure where it started anymore, so I'll just start from where we are. My current life is a direct dichotomy with who I was before all this. I used to be happy, I used to be stable, and I used to be loved. I worked hard to be stable. Now? now I am unable to get my medications, so my bipolar is back, my hallucinations are back, and my trauma bubbles up through every crack in the pavement. I know what you're thinking, "sounds like millions of people, calm down", well, this would be normal, if not for our dead loved ones wandering around trying to eat us.

We knew we were fucked when it first hit, but we never expected that they were blank sheets for our brains to project onto. As with any human experience, we found ourselves berried in deceit, corruption, and skewed prioritization of specific people. Life was only just beginning to go off the rails. Zombies were the least of our concern, when you couldn't trust anyone if you are mentally ill or young, you were seen as disposable. You see, we found out about 3 months into this that the zombies absorbed your brain, your thoughts, and experiences as their own when they ate you. The mentally ill, gave zombies mental illnesses, people like my friends and I were hunted and thrown to the wolves as fodder. Children...children didn't know much to begin with so the younger they were the more likely they were to be used as bait, to keep scientists safe.

I am hiding in this basement, crying, clawing at my skin, unaware of how long it's been, weeks? months? I don't know if I'd like to know anymore.

I feel lucky I grew up poor and the gnawing of my stomach no longer bothers me, but I'll never be used to the voices and screams echoing in the darkness at all hours of the day and night...if I only had Seroquel I would know what's real and what's in my head... but all psychiatric medications were sequestered in the hopes of finding out who had mental illnesses. You can live decently for a little if you out yourself to them, eat at least once a day, have a place to sleep in a locked room, but you absolutely will be used as zombie food, or as breeding stock. Honestly, it may be worth it at this point.

TOME 2

I have no plan for the future, I had friends, I had a boyfriend, but I either screwed up, they changed, or they died. I miss my boyfriend, He didn't even have to die, we were once a party of 5, My boyfriend (gabe), my best friend (alex), my other best friend (zach), a coworker (susan) and I. Well, as it turned out, susan did not know the rest of us had mental illnesses, as the cracks showed up as our meds wore off and left us in varied levels of disorder, she saw an opportunity in our weaknesses. We had found ourselves a decent spot with lots of food, and nails. We were, for all intensive purposes, doing okay, but susan didn't see it that way, she thought she deserved better than us and hatched a plan.

One day she insisted she needed to get anti-biotics, which seemed like a good idea despite none of us being injured on any level...that should have been a red flag, in all the time I had known her she was always the laziest person in the room. she was gone for 3 days, we were worried, but couldn't risk sending anyone else especially with 3/4 of us still going through withdrawal from our meds. When she came back, though, all was not well. As I cried in her arms overjoyed at her arrival, she grimaced and pushed me off her. We should have known something was off, she had fresh cloths, it looked like she bathed, but we were blind to how this situation can change someone as this situation was still so fresh.

She excused herself later, explaining that she had food outside for us, and forgot to grab it, which was admittedly the what, fifth red flag of the evening? She came in with jerky, oatmeal, a can of beans, and a gallon of water, then proceeded to make a stew out of the jerky, beans, and water. It was fowl, but it was what we had so we obediently choked it down. Soon after, we found ourselves falling asleep, relived that susan was "home" .

I awoke to the sound of heavy breathing and the sound of something heavy being dragged. I woke up in a daze that felt eerily similar to how some of my psych meds made me feel to see susan dragging Zach, who was still asleep' across the floor. I roused myself, ready to confront susan. by the time I got to her, she was nearing the door with my friend of 9 years drooling on himself.

"what do you think you're doing?" I slurred with my hand on the door frame to steady myself as the adrenaline slowly woke me up further

"Fu- What are you doing up? shouldn't you be resting?" susan hissed as she glared at me

I didn't quite know what to say as I was known to be an insomniac, so this line of questioning was out of left field, that is until I looked out the door I was standing at. Outside there was a group of predominantly men, who I recognized as gangsters used for hire to protect scientists, doctors, basically anyone who had standing as someone with a "high grade brain". They lived a few hours walk away in the closest town. My stomach dropped as I realized what was happening through my stupor. Susan was selling us to them to use us as bate. My eyes widened as I realized I would be the only one awake for a while and it was up to me.

"you drugged us" I stated flatly to which she smirked and let out a dry laugh.

"maybe, but you can't fight like this any way" I had never seen her grey eyes glitter and dance this much, it made me nauseous. I ran as best I could to the scissors I had left in the "bathroom" and stumbled back to where she was.

How did she get so far out of the house? she was already most of the way to the gangsters, who I had no hope of fighting, in this state or otherwise... I was going to have to let him die. Anguish and hatred bubbled up from me, leaving me feeling mostly sober, holding the scissors, and ducking behind the door for susan to come back in. I could hear her lazily talking to the people outside asking them to help her, to which they told her to "do her job to prove herself". knowing what I would have to do, I nervously choked vomit back down my throat as I heard her stomp my way before she bulleted through the door

The moment she was past the swing of the door I slammed it behind her, trapping her red scarf between it and the door frame. I could feel a smile creep across my face as tears streamed into my mouth. I whispered "I've always wanted to kill someone" Through the waves of saline leaving my eyes I could see the smug expression on her face fall into utter despair while she wrenched at her scarf, my hand firmly holding the door shut.

"I loved him, you know, I loved him, and you stole him to what? kill him? you bitch" my voice came out a mixture of wobbly and loud as I lunged forward and pinned her to the door with my forearm crushing her windpipe, I could feel snapping in her throat as I pushed harder and harder, her face bloating and turning red, a small stream of blood pouring out amongst the spit. I suddenly remembered the scissors, so I opened them awkwardly readying them for a plunge into her face when she swirled just enough to get free of my grasp, making me miss and stab the door. My hand slid down the scissors, cutting my palm. I let out a loud, guttural scream as I chased the now crawling, coughing and crying susan. I grabbed her long ponytail and threw her back so the back of her head hit the floor and her right knee crunched while she screamed in pain. It was my chance, her eyes, that glittered so much while sacrificing my friend, I would take them, now, take them so nobody had to see that again. I stabbed her eyes with my open scissors, deep enough the handle of them broke her nose and she let out her last twitch.

laughing, tears streaming down my face, I fell back onto my ass and hands as I felt her blood pooling around us. That's when I saw him, I saw my boyfriend, horrified across the room, how much did he see?

"G-GABE! It's not my fault!" I scurried towards him, covered in susan's blood as he backed up with horror clearly written on his face. I slipped on her blood and fell face first into the lake that was susan

"you said 'I've always wanted to kill someone' get away from me" he ran out of the room as I realized the gansters were still out front and had to take care of them first. I threw Susan out of the front door, scissors still in her eyes, in the hope that sent the right message.

"Gabe! please come back, she was going to sell us, all of us, I had to...I had to" not seeing him, I crumpled, I had just killed someone, traumatized another, left yet another for dead, and overall lost three friends in the span of a night. three I would never see again.

TO BE CONTINUED....