New Beginnings Read online

  Chapter 3:

  What happened to them?

  I woke up in my bed with stabbing pain in my ribs and a migraine, but I still breathing. I felt a bandage wrap around my head and torso. As I laid there, the pain grew larger and more intensely.

  "Sestra!" I cried out, unable to move. I waited in the bed for a while before calling out again. Only having to waiting for her to not return. Panicking, I forced my body to move and in agony, I forced my hand to move off of the bed and feel the cold cement floor, then started to move my body half off the bed before I need a moment before falling to catch my breath, after I was ready, I fell off of my bed and braced my arm on the cement, so I could place my knee to my chest and slowly stood up on my own. I was unstable on my two feet, but I had to find Sestra to make sure she was alive. I slowly walked to the heavy door. With the strength I managed to draw through the pain, I struggled to open it and when I finally did, I only found the compound to be empty. Something felt off, a feeling of sorrow and emptiness, along with agony, fills me. A bark came from the base. I wondered if a stray dog had everyone inside trying to get him out. I slowly walked towards it, trying to keep my balance, until everything goes dark beneath me. I stand still, frozen on an invisible floor with the dark abyss beneath me, but the buildings stayed in place and a few more barks echoed from the base and I stepped up my pace to get to the building, only to find a German Shepard barking at the same spider zombie I was fighting. It glares at me with its yellow eyes, striking so much fear that I could only step back, but it stepped closer to me, ignoring the dog. "Shit." I cussed under my breath. I then looked down to the dog that stood in between the zombie and me. The dog then runs into the living room. The spider charges me and I turn to run away, only to stop at the very edge of the door way, looking down at the darkness. I look behind me to find the zombie spider still charging at me until I had to jump off and into the darkness. I frantically try to grab onto something, but all I grabbed was air. Finally giving up, I pictured the beautiful Gulf of Mexico in Florida. I visited it with my mother and father. The last good memory of them before coming back to Savannah and a drunk driver was driving off the highway exit. The only way I survived with only scratches and bruises was because my father took a head impact with most of the force. After that, I was sent to orphanage after orphanage until I escaped and fought every day for my next meal because the orphanage’s overseer would abuse the children and grow up inside it. I knew this and that is why I always escaped. I went back to thinking about the beautiful coast with the sun setting in the horizon. I felt the warmth on my skin and the salty breeze to calm my nerves. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was falling head first, for some reason, the sight of the ocean coming closer to me didn’t worry me. The sun beating on my bandages on my back felt nice and the breeze blowing in my face. A faint smile stretched upon my lips. I soon landed into the water and curled up into a ball so I wouldn’t hit the sandy bottom. When I swam up to the surface, I was facing the horizon.

  "You might want to get out of the water." A little girl's voice came from behind me. I turned around to find a pale girl with silver color eyes and hair standing on the beach, dressed in a black dress that came below her knees. She was holding a small sketch pad that was tucked under her arm.

  "What did you say?" I asked, making my way to the shore.

  "The water, you should get out of it." She said. I looked down at my feet and dug my feet into it.

  "But why? It's so warm and inviting." I asked.

  "Alex!" She yelled. I felt myself slipping and I became to fall back into the water and the warm water covering my face. I opened my eyes, feeling the relaxation from the water, yet I could still breathe through it. When I opened my eyes, I was suddenly standing in darkness on wooden floor, facing a door that was slightly open and letting light leak out from the other side. The water was gone, but the light still shined like it would through water. I began to step closer to the door and with each step, I could hear two voices talking to each other on the other side of the door. They sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t figure out who they belong to. When I got to the door, I could hear the voices more clearly.

  “Yeah, well what about the neighbor? Did you have fun with him?” A man’s voice yelled.

  “What does Jack have to do with anything?” A woman’s voice yelled back.

  “He’s about everything!” The man yelled back. I remember this moment. This was when I saw my father do, something. What was it? I peeked through the crack of the door and saw my father and mother that was arguing. They went silent, staring at each other until suddenly my father raised his hand and slapped her across the face, but he didn’t stop. It soon ended with blood on his knuckles and he left her laying on the ground. I stared motionless at her feet, which were the only thing I could see because the sofa was in the way.

  "Alex!” The silver girl’s voice peered my racing mind and cleared it. The door then began to fade away from me, as if it was running away. A light shined down on me and I began to float into the light. I looked up to see what was making me float so high. I saw a man standing in the middle of the light beams. He was dressed in robes and had a long beard and hair.

  “Alex. It is not your time to be here, you have to defeat your fear and return to your purpose.” He said calmly. I stared at this mysterious man, but the light still shielded me from seeing his face. I then felt like I was being pushed through time and space. I couldn't breathe! I tried to keep my eyes open, but they were forced to be shut.

  "Have to remember to tell Sestra! Gotta remember! Remember!" I yelled in my head to tell her what I saw. I then woke up back to the spider zombie in the office building. The dog barking at it, and then running into the living room. I still remembered, just have to get out of this place. It hissed at me and I looked up at it, feeling a new found courage I didn’t have before. I then felt more control in my body, I then thought about what the man said. I have to defend my fear, right? It then charged toward me grab the sword! A voice in my head yelled at me. I then quickly reached down and when I did so, I felt my right hand getting a warm sensation and my left feeling a weight to it. I brought both my hands to the front of me to block its leg and found that my left hand had grasped a red sword with part of a gun that had four barrels around the hilt of the sword. In my other was a fireball. I griped the ball and hurled it into the spider's face. It screeched in agony, slamming into walls and hit the ceiling, then collapses into ashes. I looked to my hands to find that the sword is gone, along with the fireball. When I tried to summon them again, there was nothing. I sighed, then jogged to the living room door, but when I opened the door, I found that it wasn't the living room, instead it was a white room with a white table and sitting at the end of the table was the white little girl sitting with a sketch book. I walked around the white room to find drawings on the wall. They looked like they were telling events of my life in great detail.

  "There memories. I drew them myself." She said.

  "Where am I?" I ask, still looking through the drawings.

  "You’re in your memory hub." She answers. I then looked at her.

  "Who, or what are you?" I asked, walking to her at the table.

  "I am your spirit, a part of your soul. I live in this world and you live in the other." She answers with bitterness. I noticed it right away and wondered why, but I brushed it aside and then noticed something on her neck. I pushed her hair aside to get a better look and found a black mark on the back of her collar bone.

  "What’s this?" I asked.

  "The darkness that was inside your heart before you were close to death." She answered with a tone as if I should have known that already.

  "Am I dreaming?" I asked, taking a seat next to her.

  "Alex, you’re in a coma." she answered with empathy. The news shocks me.

  "How do I wake up? I need to know if Sestra is ok!" I yelled excitedly. The room went dark and I was falling into the abyss again, only every time I exhaled, my breath wouldn't co
me back. I looked in front of me and saw the silver girl’s eyes staring at me through the darkness while I held my breath, hoping it won't go away. I looked below me as I flailed about, and found a light that quickly intensified below me until it engulfs my body and I jolt awake in the real world and saw Sestra jump off the side of my bed from me suddenly coming back to life. Still gasping for air, it quickly filled my lungs and I started to calm down. Once I was calmed, I noticed Jensen beside my bed, staring at me.

  "Mister, what's the matter?" He asked.

  "Just a very bad dream." I said. I then sat at the side of my bed and rubbed my face. That’s when I looked at Sestra and I noticed she had a German pistol in her hand, my German pistol.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, staring at the gun. Sestra looks up at me as she turns pale and has the look as if she seen a ghost. She then threw the pistol beside her. No come back she signed with tears coming into her eyes, then jumped up and hugged me. I wrapped my arms around her. I then realized that I had stopped breathing and she was going to end my suffering. I sigh and leaned my head against hers as she starts to cry on my shoulder. I look down to find Jensen staring up at us in that eerie stare and silence, I then saw that my chest is bandaged when Sestra had released me. I then felt a bandaged around my head, just like my dream. When I tried to walk, pain shot throughout my body, making me sit back down on my bed with Sestra having a concern look on her face. I sigh with annoyance as the pain slowly dies down. When it ended, I stood up again and dealt with the pain enough to walk to the door with Sestra to lean most of my weight on her. I then gave all my weight to a wooden frame beside me. I look about to see that the guards were busy working. It was morning and the sun was just waking up itself, but the morning birds were awake. I forced myself to walk to the base and Sestra helped me get there while Jensen followed close behind. She opened the door into the base and continued until we got to the living room where I sat on the sofa.

  “Ok little one. Now you sit over there on the chair because I got a story to tell about my dream and you have a story to tell me about what the hell happened when I passed out.” I said and I began to tell her about the dream I had. I told her everything, from when I woke up to when I was gasping for air. They both listened intensely. When Sestra told me what happened when I passed out, she said that she took my rifle and saw that the spider zombie was going to eat me until she shot the back of its back. It then screeched and came after her. She put the rest of the clip into the zombie until one of the bullets went into its head and collapsed on top of her. After that, Nathan and James ran up to the compound and got John to form a rescue party while she used the rest of hers and my bullets to keep the rest of the zombies away from us. When they got there, there was a massive pile of normal zombies outside the door and when the rescue party climbed over it, they found her, breathing heavily with her trying to pull the trigger with the empty rifle before realizing that it was them. She was also sitting in front of me, trying to protect me and covered in zombie blood. I then spent three weeks unconscious and everyone was debating whether to keep me alive or put me out of my agony. Sestra would stand in anyone’s way who decided to end me. Our medic would stop by every now and then to check on me. John soon joined us in the living room.

  "Glad to see you are finally awake! It was touch and go for a while there. Sestra insisted that she would give you mercy and take you out, but you never turned so we kept an eye on you. You missed a lot. Sestra had to go on missions without anyone knowing what she meant. Can I speak to both of you in my office?" He said. Sestra and I looked at each other with concern. We then followed him into his office on the second floor. Sestra and I sat in the chairs that stood in front of his desk.

  "So, what's going on?" I asked.

  "I don't want to alarm you two, but our resources are becoming limited in the town. There’s three other enclaves in Savannah that we are competing with the rest of the resources in the town. I fear that we may have to fight to survive as the three others may come to us and steal our resources." He said.

  "Four survivors coming in on the north side!" A man yells from outside. I looked up at John.

  “Go on. Grab some ammo from the stash and get going.” He said. I nod and lead the way. After grabbing some ammo, we walked to our rooms.

  “I’m glad that when I was unconscious, my bones and wounds healed.” I said through the metal wall. I grabbed my weapons and noticed my cloak had a giant rip down the middle all the way off the cape.

  "The zed! There's too many of them! We'll be overrun!" Another voice comes from the distance. I look to Sestra who walked to in the doorway and she was dressed in her combat uniform, just the same outfit she had on our earlier mission.

  "Their getting closer! We need everyone at the gate!" John yelled from the fence. I looked back into my room and noticed the sword that was from the warehouse. I grabbed the sword and tied the sheathe to my waist so it was out of my way and I could use it if I had to. We then walked to the gate together, ready to take on the horde. A line began to form of guards and the rest of our people at the fence and John stood behind us.

  "Do not hit the survivors! Alex, take out as many knees as you can!" John yelled to me and so I crouched down with my sniper rifle barrel through the fence.

  “Yes sir!” I yelled back to him.

  “Together everyone! Open fire!” John yells and the once quiet morning was filled with gun fire and the hollow screams of the zombies running up our large hill. I was focused on taking out the zombie knees and one lucky shot caused a zombie knee to shatter and the others behind it started to trip over them. Charles and Sestra took three steps to the side to make more room for my shots and I spotted one of the survivors. They were wearing white coats, the same a doctor or scientist would wear. We usually hear these guys showing up every now and then in different places. The gates open and the scientists run through and collapse from exhaustion. The fence started to bend from the zombies pushing on their dead in front of them and the gatekeeper struggled to close the gate. I then stood next to Sestra as we continued our defense. We killed as much as possible, but when my kill count reached 800, the fence was so bent that the zombies were able to crawl over it and collapse either on our people, or where near them. Sestra and I looked at each other and knew that we will be overrun soon. Suddenly, the scientists started throwing grenades over the fence and when the grenades explode, it only thinned them out, but a few flew over the fence where it is permanently bends and many people got splashed with the black blood from the zombies.

  "Retreat into the base!" I yelled as I felt the adrenaline pumping through every part of my veins and muscles, letting me ignore the pain as I ran as fast as I could into the base and held the door open for the others. Sestra was just behind me and rushed in along with John. I then saw a zombie charging towards the door, but I slammed it shut before he could get in. Half of the members, along with all four scientists got in through the other doors around the compound and the zombies caught the other half as they tried to flee to their bedrooms. The screams were horrifying to hear. The zombie punched through the door window and tried to grab me as I struggled to hold the door closed by sitting against it. Its hand couldn't reach down to me, but I could feel it reaching down to my hair. Sestra then stood in front of me and shot it point-blank range with her pistol and continued picking off others before they reached the door until she ran out of ammo, then she sat beside me to hold the door close. A woman named Lisa came and sat on the other side of me and helped close the door. Screams filled the air, along with the hollow breaths of the zombies, I struggled to keep it together, but I had to for Sestra and everyone else. I wanted to help those outside still, but I couldn’t come from my spot. The zombies soon surrounded the building now, clawing at the boarded windows trying to break through them.

  "Guard the side and back doors! You two, to the back. I'll try to hold the side door with the scientists, come on!" John ordered, then ran to the door. I sensed that he was panicking f
rom the tone of his voice and the way he ran past us. He looked at me and his panic flashed through his eyes.

  "We can't hold this position forever!" One of the guards yelled, holding the back door.

  "Neither can us!" Lisa yelled.

  "I'm thinking!" John yelled as he and a white coat held the door as the other two were trying to kill as many of them as possible.