I’m Not Dead

I can feel my body changing. It's like something inside me is taking over, and I'm powerless to stop it. I know what's happening to me, but it's too late now. I've been bitten, and I'm slowly turning into one of them.

It started with a fever. I felt hot and cold at the same time, and my head was pounding. I thought it was just the flu, but then the wound on my arm started to throb. It was where I had been bitten, and I knew then that I was in trouble. But now, with the searing pain in my arm and the sickly feeling in my stomach, I didn’t know what to do.

I tried to fight it. I tried to will myself back to health, but it was no use. The fever kept getting worse, and my body was changing. My skin tightened, like it was stretching over something that wasn't human.

I was becoming one of them. My skin was turning gray, my eyes were clouding over. And worst of all, the hunger was still there, driving me to madness.

It was like nothing I had ever felt before. I craved flesh, human flesh. I tried to ignore it, tried to tell myself it wasn't real, but my body wouldn't let me. It was like a hunger that could never be satisfied, and it was driving me insane.

I barricaded myself in an abandoned house, hoping to gather up the courage to do what needs to be done. I needed to cut off my arm before it was all too late, before I became one of those mindless things roaming the streets.

But every time I think about it, my mind goes blank and my hand starts shaking uncontrollably. How can I cut off my own arm if my motor skills are slowly declining? The pain will be unbearable, I don’t have the stomach to get it started.

But then I hear the scratching at the door, the low growls of the hellish ghouls getting louder. They're coming for me, and I know that I don't have much time left. I have to do something, but what?

I grab an old saw from the toolbox in the corner and take a deep breath. I grit my teeth and start sawing away at my own flesh, the pain makes me scream out in agony.

Blood spurting everywhere, coating the walls and the floor. I can feel myself getting weaker and weaker, but I don't stop until my arm falls to the ground, a bloody stump where my hand used to be.

I collapse onto the floor, feeling faint and dizzy. But I know that I've done what I needed to do. I've cut off the infected limb, and with any luck, I won't turn. But it was all a facade. The infection grew from my stump.

As I lie there, waiting for the end to come, I could hear the horde breaking through the barricade. They're coming for me.

The door bursts open. I can hear their footsteps flooding in.

A few of them came in my direction, and I believe I am done for. But they whizzed past me like I was invisible. I soon realized that I no longer gave off the scent of fresh meat, but a decaying corpse. With this sudden clarity, I wasn’t sure that I wanted this camouflage.

I knew then that I was lost. There was no going back, no way to stop the transformation or the hunger. All I could do was wait for the end, to become one of the mindless, ravenous monstrosities that now walked the earth.

As I feel my consciousness slipping away, I know that my fate is sealed. I’m not dead… I’m undead.