Alicia POV
Waking up felt just like any other day, with the usual rush of getting ready for work.
Oddly, the usual noise from my parents and brother was missing, their morning barks and banter strangely subdued.
As I made my way downstairs, the house seemed to be wrapped in an eerie quiet, a stark contrast to the usual morning chaos.
Stepping into the dining room, still half in a daze from sleep, my foot suddenly slipped on something wet on the floor.
Instinctively, I reached out to the wall, barely catching myself from falling. Annoyed, I thought, "Who on earth made such a mess and didn't bother cleaning it up?"
As I regained my balance and took a closer look around, what I saw jolted me wide awake.
There, protruding from behind the kitchen island, was a twitching leg, with a trail of blood leading back to where I'd just slipped.
My heart skipped a beat. Maybe Dad or Mom had an accident, I thought, a pang of worry shooting through me.
But as I moved closer to get a better look, the reality that unfolded before me was far from the simple household accident I had imagined.
The scene in the dining room, a place of so many family memories, was now a horrifying snapshot of something unthinkable.
The silence of the morning, the absence of my family's voices, all made a terrible sense now, painting a picture I was unprepared to face.
I stood frozen, my gaze locked on the unimaginable horror unfolding before me. My father, his face a mask of pale, indescribable shock, was being devoured by my own brother.
The scene was straight out of a nightmare, with my father's innards strewn across the floor, a grisly testament to the brutality of his end.
My brother, whom I had grown up with, played with, and loved, seemed lost to a monstrous frenzy, mindlessly chewing on whatever part of our father he could sink his teeth into.
Panic surged through me, a tidal wave of fear and confusion.
"Why? Why is this happening?" The questions spiralled in my mind, each one more desperate than the last.
"What's going on here?" I couldn't make sense of the scene before me, of the betrayal of everything I had ever known and believed about my own family, my own home.
Driven by a mix of fear and the desperate hope of saving what was left of my father, I attempted to pull my brother away.
But the moment I touched him, his head snapped around to face me, his neck twisting in a way that defied nature.
The guttural, high-pitched screech that erupted from him was the sound of pure, unbridled terror.
Then, he lunged at me, my brother, now something else entirely. I fell to the floor, his weight pinning me down, and I found myself staring into the face that I had once known so well.
But what looked back at me was unrecognizable—the crazed, bloodshot eyes, the black veins pulsating beneath his skin, all signs of the brother I knew gone.
His relentless gnawing was met with my desperate attempts to fend him off, using my forearm to keep his snapping jaws at bay.
Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded with him to stop, to come back to me. But he was relentless, driven by an insatiable hunger that my cries couldn't quell.
In a moment of sheer desperation, my hand found something—anything—that I could use as a weapon.
With all the strength I could muster, I struck him across the head, and he collapsed with a heavy thud.
Lying there, panting and sobbing, I was engulfed in a maelstrom of emotions.
Relief that the immediate danger was over, grief for the loss of my family as I knew them, and a deep, unshakeable terror of what lay beyond the walls of our home.
The world had changed, irrevocably and monstrously, and I was left to navigate this new, horrifying reality alone.
The minutes stretched into an eternity as I sat there, trying to process the unimaginable horror that had unfolded within the walls of my own home.
When my breathing finally steadied, a grim realization dawned on me amidst the grief and shock—my mother was nowhere to be seen.
With a heavy heart, I began to search the house, each room a testament to the life we once shared, now shattered by the chaos of the apocalypse.
The absence of any sign of my mother only heightened the sense of dread building within me. It wasn't until I reached my parents' bedroom and gazed out the window that the cruel reality hit me.
The garden, once a place of tranquillity and family gatherings, was now a grotesque canvas of death.
The remains of what used to be my mother were scattered across the grass, an unrecognizable mess that bore little resemblance to the loving person she once was.
The sight was too much to bear, and a primal cry of anguish escaped my lips, a raw expression of the pain and loss that consumed me.
Everything I had loved, everything I had known, was irrevocably destroyed.
The world I had grown up in, the family that had been my anchor, was gone, leaving me adrift in a sea of despair.
As I curled up, shaking and cradling my legs, trying to find some semblance of comfort in the midst of the nightmare, the sound of the front door breaking open jolted me back to the harsh reality.
My eyes snapped open, wide with fear.
The intrusion was a stark reminder that the horror wasn't confined to the walls of my home—it was everywhere, and it was relentless.
The broken door symbolized the shattering of the last barriers between me and the chaotic, merciless world outside.
In that moment, I knew I had to make a choice: to succumb to the despair that threatened to engulf me or to find the strength to face the uncertain, terrifying future that lay ahead.
The urgency to escape consumed me, propelling me into action.
My room became a whirlwind of activity as I grabbed whatever essentials I could, my hands trembling but driven by the instinct to survive.
I hastily changed into more practical attire, something I could run in, something that wouldn't hinder my desperate flight from this nightmare.
Slipping out through my window, I made my way to the water pipe, an escape route I never imagined I'd need to use under such dire circumstances.
As I descended, the sounds from my room grew louder, the intruders oblivious to my escape.
That's when their voices pierced the night, a chilling conversation that rooted me to the spot for a moment in horror.
"Mike, where is she! I thought I could taste her this time now the world is fucked!" The voice was gleeful, filled with a malice that made my blood run cold.
The response was even worse, a laughter that echoed with cruelty.
"I dunno, but did you see what we did to her mother and family? Hahaha, fuck! She tasted so good, I tell ya!" The words were like daggers, each one slicing through the remnants of my shattered world.
Recognition dawned on me amidst the horror; these were the voices of men who had tormented me since my university days, their obsession now turned into something far more sinister in the chaos of the apocalypse.
Their words implied a role in the unspeakable acts that had befallen my family, a thought that was too horrific to fully comprehend.
Why? The question reverberated through my mind, a refrain of confusion and agony. Why my family? Why such cruelty?
Tears streamed down my face, silent sobs wracking my body as I continued my descent, the determination to survive mingling with a growing thirst for vengeance.
As my feet finally touched the ground, a solemn vow crystallized within me.
I promised to survive, to somehow navigate this hellish new world, and to find a way to make those responsible pay for their atrocities.
They had turned from mere nuisances of my past into monstrous butchers of my present.
And though I was alone, scared, and on the run, the resolve to one day exact justice gave me a purpose amidst the chaos.
Navigating through the labyrinth of alleyways, I kept to the shadows, my heart pounding with a mix of fear and determination.
The sights that unfolded around me were beyond the realm of any nightmare I could have imagined.
The grotesque reality of people being devoured alive by what once were their neighbours, friends, or even family members was a horror that words could scarcely describe.
Finally reaching my car, I threw myself inside and started the engine, the familiar hum of the ignition offering a fleeting sense of normalcy.
As I drove away from the chaos, the memories of my family cascaded through my mind like a poignant slideshow.
The sound of our laughter, the warmth of shared meals, the comfort found in shared sorrows—all of it seemed like remnants of a bygone era, cruelly snatched away by the unfathomable nightmare that our world had become.
The injustice of their fates, particularly the brutal end my mother met, weighed heavily on me.
A fresh wave of tears threatened to blur my vision, but I fought them back. Now was not the time for grief; it was the time for survival.
I needed to be strong, to carry the legacy of my family within me as I navigated this new, merciless world.
With a resolve forged in the crucible of loss and vengeance, I decided to head south, away from the urban death trap the city had become.
The open roads and the possibility of finding some semblance of safety in more remote areas seemed like the only sliver of hope left.
But just as the city limits began to fade in my rear view mirror, a new challenge presented itself—the engine light flashed a menacing red, an ominous harbinger of yet another hurdle in my path to survival.
"SHIT!" I cursed aloud, the frustration and fear mingling in a bitter symphony.
The car, my last bastion of escape, was now faltering, threatening to strand me in this desolate landscape where every shadow could conceal a new terror.
The road ahead was uncertain, and with the car's warning light glaring accusingly at me, I knew that the journey to safety had only just begun, fraught with dangers I could only begin to imagine.