Waking up dead

Waking up dead sounds like a silly phrase until it happens to you. Believe me when I say that it was disorienting to say the least. Blackness consumed the cramped box I woke up in. I almost panicked until I realized I wasn't breathing and my heart wasn't beating. It was unreal. It took me a few moments to realize I was lying on my back. Direction isn't exactly easy to determine in a tight lightless box.

I pushed forward/upward against what I hoped was a lid. To my surprise, it moved quite easily. The feeling in my hands was almost gone, in fact I hardly felt anything . . . except hungry. The lid moved with the sound of stone scraping against stone. A blinding light shone through the widening crack above me. With relative ease, I pushed the lid completely off of my tomb and heard it fall to the ground with a crash and a crack. As the air filled in around me, I noticed a horrible stench.

I rose off of the cushions in my casket and climbed out, falling to the floor with an extremely clumsy lack of coordination. My reaction time was impossibly slow and my muscles were stiff, though there was no pain, only hunger. I was horribly craving something to eat, but I could not figure out what it was that I was craving. The thought of the hunger was beginning to consume my thoughts when I heard a scream and noticed what was happening around me.

There were zombies everywhere. I was almost frightened, but my heart refused to race and I felt no emotion instead. They were ignoring me, gathering toward a corner of the room, the origin of the screaming. I tried to walk away from them, but my legs weren't working right. I lumbered and stumbled and when I looked down, I saw what had become of me. My rotting flesh sloughed off of my body, my stomach was missing altogether, so that I could see my own exposed spine. I screamed at the sight, but it came out as a deep groan. I began shambling away from the other zombies when the screaming stopped, and a delicious smell wafted toward me from their direction.

My thoughts grew ravenous, and I lost complete control of myself as I shambled toward the now crouched mass of the walking dead. I could see them all huddled above a torn apart mass of indistinguishable flesh. The smell this close was overwhelmingly appetizing. I pushed my way forward without thought, tossing zombies aside with inhuman strength, making my way to the fresh, still bleeding flesh. I thrust my arms forward in ravenous desperation, grabbing a handful of warm, succulent flesh, shoving it haphazardly into my lipless mouth. I watched as the food fell through my open stomach and back onto the floor, but I didn't care. I was too hungry to think, and it tasted so good. The juicy warmth was so satisfying, I and the others tore the person completely apart in minutes, fighting over the scraps that had fallen through my body. Once everything was eaten, I stood back up, somehow feeling a little refreshed. I was still hungry, but not nearly as much as I had been.

Something changed in me after eating another human being without control over my actions or even a second thought about them. A sort of peaceful acceptance overcame me mixed with a still painful hunger to feed even more. I didn't know how or where, but I had to find another person to prey upon. I shambled away from the room I was in, and found my way outside, in a graveyard filled with even more of the walking dead, stumbling about aimlessly. Every time I tried to speak, my voice came out as a pained groan, deep and inhuman, like the sound of a soul crying out from the abyss. Others around me groaned as well. Something about being near to them gave me a feeling of being complete. Without any means of communication, I and the other zombies found our way into a group, wandering the streets together, instinctively choosing the same directions to wander.

As the hours passed, my hunger grew more and more until it was all-consuming and all I could think about was how much I wanted to eat more of that warm, juicy flesh. We found our way into a park, stumbling around a pond and finding a building. The faint scent of fresh flesh drafted in the air about the small building, and we stumbled up to the doors. I could hear screaming coming from inside, and I approached the door, pushing against it. My hands were not dexterous enough to work the doorknob, but I wasn't even thinking about that. I wasn't thinking at all, I was starving and desperate to eat. I pushed and bashed against the door with unbelievable strength. I heard a crack and another bout of screaming from within. The others around me, crowded and bashed along side me, while others surrounded the building trying to find a way in.

With one final effort, we fell through in a wave. I fell down and the others trampled over me in their rush toward the screaming people. I heard several loud bangs that something deep within me recognized as gunfire, before a quiet struggle, and then dying shrieks as several people were ripped apart by the zombies in my group. I managed to climb back onto my feet, to see the others huddled in a mass. We were in a public restroom, something inside me still recognized it, but the thought was just a flash before I was pushed forward by instinct into the huddling mass. I reached in, and grabbed a head, and with both hands I yanked it from the body, stumbling back and biting down, eating the fleshy face with mindless delight. My hands squeezed, and crushed the skull open, and the scent was unbearably enticing. I ate vigorously. The brains were so savory and delicious. They were soft and juicy. Zombies had gathered beneath me, eating the brains as they fell through me.

Even without a stomach, the flesh was almost satisfying. My hunger had lessoned, though my thoughts stayed foggy and unspecific. I just wanted to eat and eat, not stopping. I consumed the flesh in my hands, and fell down with the others for more. Within minutes, three people were consumed completely, and we rose, stumbling away for more.

I've been wandering for what seems like forever. Time is no longer of consequence, for I cannot even tell the passing of time by the rhythm of my breaths, because I no longer breathe. I shamble along with others, and my mind becomes less and less clear, while my thoughts become more and more focused on finding my next meal. It seems I have been completely consumed by my own dreadful hunger and now the only things I can think about are brains.

Braaaiiiinnss.

Brrraaaaiiiinnnsss!