I snuck out of the encampment with my three companions as the sky gradually grew brighter. I kept my head down and fixed my eyes on the bushes around us because I was waiting for something to happen.
I blinked and looked up. Straight ahead of me was a mob -- all the refugees were up. The sun was high in the sky, and it looked to be around 10 am already.
The woman's brother was standing right in front of me. I hid my face from him because he was looking for me earlier. He led the refugees, all of them carrying guns or some other weapon. They seemed not to notice me or the others who were following, crouched down to the ground. They either didn't notice, or they just didn't care -- everyone was looking past us, down a hill.
A hill?
Yes, the setting changed before I knew it. The level clearing in the forest was nowhere to be seen. The people were the same, but we were in a maze of suburban houses. It was as if the camp was moved to a huge fenced-off backyard in a valley. That sounds horrible.
Anyway, somehow the refugees in the camp figured that the people who had taken them in and sworn to protect them were corrupt liars. They weren't going to do any more than any other stranger would do for another person they'd just met. All the escapees were on the same page with one another, though -- over time, little groups formed in the camp as people began to learn more about each other. Eventually, those groups started talking with other groups and in no time at all, there was a true network of people that had formed.
Almost everyone was part of it, except for the "leaders," who were never around. Pretty much all they did was venture out into the city to try and find other refugees. Over time, there were less persons to be found and more inhumane creatures roaming the streets. The ones who were saved were grateful for their help, but it became obvious that the "leaders" were slowly growing more..... not selfish, but -- let's just say they looked around the camp and realized they didn't want all that responsibility. They didn't want to be held back by 500+ people. And it was becoming more obvious with each passing day that the safe perimeters of the encampment were diminishing. It was a miracle that they hadn't been found out yet.
So here was the community of refugees at the top of the hill (the area still somewhat surrounded by trees), looking down at the lone building that housed the 20 men and women they once looked up to. They now saw them as selfish, uncaring, and willing to sacrifice any of the campers to hold back a mob of raging zombies.
Their plan?
Kill the 20 who were ready to run. Don't elect a new leader for all 500, since that will just start everything over, but have someone to go to for each of the smaller groups. Keep the camp. Strengthen the borders (right now the area was closed off by nothing more than a wire fence). And then... hope for the best.
I'm not exactly sure why I wanted to leave other than the fact that I knew all this was going to happen and I didn't want to be a part of it. Maybe I had another destination and I didn't plan to stay there forever.
In any case, the four of us stayed low while the bold protestors prepared for mutiny, most of them asking themselves for the umpteenth time if that's really what they wanted to do. No one knew anything, anymore.
Then the 20 men and women walked out of the building behind me and everyone I faced stopped thinking. Everything was all emotion and motion, and everyone ran down the hill. They moved around me, and around the three others. We went in the opposite direction.
With all the yelling going on, the zombies would find their way to the camp in a few minutes. I saw a flash of zombies filtering through the streets and panicked in my head.
Back to where I was crouched on the ground, I turned to the others and urgently said, "We have to go. Now."
So while the last of the 500 refugees ran down the hill to claim the camp as their own (and consequently trap themselves in the valley -- ironic), we climbed uphill until we reached some steps. We went up the stairs and saw that there was no exit beyond.
We were trapped. I didn't know when the fence was put there, but it was apparently too high for us to climb.
I saw the zombies again, this time much closer to the camp.
"Why isn't there a way out??"
I felt like I was in the Matrix and I just found the brick wall behind the curtain. Shyit.
I turned around to see that a good number of the refugees actually answered their own questions and decided that mutiny wasn't really what they wanted. They faced the opposite direction now, their backs to the valley below. They'd followed us up the steps, trusting our better judgment. But when they saw that they couldn't even trust us to know where the hell we were going, all the rage was back.
"You mean you don't even fucking know the way out of here?" someone yelled.
Some other crazed person who overheard this cried, "You're not going ANYWHERE."
As if my leaving was going to draw any more zombie-attention to the camp than everyone else's warcries. The zombies were down the street, now.
Another brawl started -- some refugees stood up for us, and other refugees attacked them for doing so.
We snuck away while we could. I remember thinking, "This is ridiculous. No one's even attacking the right people anymore. Damn zombies, look what you've done."
I hoped the three people who'd been sane with me so far were still in the same state.
While sneaking away, I noticed there was an opening in the fence after all.
('Cause that's gonna keep the zombies out. Good job. This camp is pointless.)
So we squeezed through the gap and left everything behind. Somehow we were able to stay out of sight while I saw zombies attempting to scale the fence and tear away at the breach.
And then they flooded into the camp.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Zombie Apocalypse: Part I
If there's any dream I want you to read about, it's my zombie apocalypse dreams. They're insanely good!
And while they can be like any of my other dreams where things don't make sense, a lot of these scenarios are actually likely to happen if there was such a thing to occur (ex. - refugee camps, people praying, people deserting or betraying others, being paranoid).
Not only that, but this dream is different because I dreamt it more than once. I didn't realize it until certain things happened (I knew what to do in some instances last night because I remembered I did the wrong thing when I dreamt it before, and died). I'll have to interject some comments from my previous dreams for it to make sense.
I wrote my own dream last night, almost literally.
That doesn't make sense to you right now.
Just keep reading. :)
It started at nighttime. I was with a handful of other people, most of them older than me by a year or two. None of them wanted to go first, so I quietly led the way down the dark alley. I had a weapon, but this is the part that would never work in real life: I had a Micron pen (best kind there is, btw) and used it as a sort of gun.
I took the cap off and held it in my left hand, with my thumb over the metal clip (the trigger -- it was like a button). I held the pen itself in my right hand, with the pentip facing outward (the barrel). Even in my dream, I thought it was odd, and I sometimes confused the two parts and had trouble with coordination. But it worked out fine.
So there we were, quietly inching our way down the alley. I kept my eye on all the dark shadows and corners and watched bulky dumpsters, waiting for the lurking shapes to emerge. I didn't know how quick they were.
Not too quick, thankfully. They weren't comically slow, but they weren't faster than a normal person would jog.
I shot left and right, while others behind me did the same, aiming far ahead and behind. We were trying to get to the other end of the alley that led to a brighter street.
Nothing too interesting happened other than that, in this part. We reached the end of the alley. But when I looked around, I only saw three more people with me. There were definitely more than that when we started out. I looked back into the shadows, but couldn't see anything. I heard what I imagined was wrestling -- shuffling, occasional grunts...and I wanted to go back, while we still had time.
"Come on!" someone said impatiently, "We have to keep moving. If they're okay and they get out, they know where to go."
I turned around to see that we found a scouting team for the refugee camp that we were trying to get to. There were several other camps along the outskirts of the city, hidden in the woods. Not the best spot for them, but all right.
This was one of those camps.
I heard a young man next to me point out that most of the refugees there were black, and he told me he never grew up learning his native language. He tried to practice it as we walked towards the camp. I could hear the entire camp praying together and singing something about how "God is good."
After that, the people in my group went to sleep. I didn't.
Everyone was cramped side-by-side -- there were more than they could handle. There was one plain building with one floor, which was easily filled. Those who stayed there were lucky to have walls around them. Everyone else, including myself, was given a spot under one big canopy made of wood. There were two levels where people slept, but they were so close to each other that the only way to get to your spot on the bottom level was to crawl on your hands and knees. It was a very claustrophobc space -- if you were in the middle, there was no way you would be able to get out before everyone else moved.
I noticed that and started thinking about what might happen if...
But then I got deja vu. In a dream.
I fell asleep.
I woke up in the camp to hear people screaming. Mixed with those sounds were the gutteral shouts of those that we'd been trying to avoid.
I was in the middle on the lower level. All around me, peope were being dragged out by bloody hands. I tried to fight, but.....
[so the script this time told me to stay nearer to the edge on the second level.]
Something else in the back of my mind told me that this was also unsafe.
I was lying down next to a woman who I thought was asleep.
"It's almost time to leave," I reminded myself. The sky was beginning to lighten.
[I saw, in the script in my head, that she wasn't really sleeping, and that I would realize it later.
She didn't want to do this anymore, she decided. So she wrote a letter and kept it in her pocket. When everyone went to sleep, she stayed up and ate something that put her to sleep forever. Her brother would see her in the morning but wouldn't be able to wake her up.]
I quietly crawled away from the sleeping refugees and woke up my companions. They all looked around them and saw that the sun was just barely beginning to rise, and nobody else was up yet. But they listened to me and we began to leave the camp.
I'll have to continue this later. If I try to write this all in one sitting, it'll take all day.
More updates to come!
::edit::
PS -- This is considered the first scene, out of...five or six. Don't worry, I jotted it all down this morning so I won't forget it :)
And while they can be like any of my other dreams where things don't make sense, a lot of these scenarios are actually likely to happen if there was such a thing to occur (ex. - refugee camps, people praying, people deserting or betraying others, being paranoid).
Not only that, but this dream is different because I dreamt it more than once. I didn't realize it until certain things happened (I knew what to do in some instances last night because I remembered I did the wrong thing when I dreamt it before, and died). I'll have to interject some comments from my previous dreams for it to make sense.
I wrote my own dream last night, almost literally.
That doesn't make sense to you right now.
Just keep reading. :)
It started at nighttime. I was with a handful of other people, most of them older than me by a year or two. None of them wanted to go first, so I quietly led the way down the dark alley. I had a weapon, but this is the part that would never work in real life: I had a Micron pen (best kind there is, btw) and used it as a sort of gun.
I took the cap off and held it in my left hand, with my thumb over the metal clip (the trigger -- it was like a button). I held the pen itself in my right hand, with the pentip facing outward (the barrel). Even in my dream, I thought it was odd, and I sometimes confused the two parts and had trouble with coordination. But it worked out fine.
So there we were, quietly inching our way down the alley. I kept my eye on all the dark shadows and corners and watched bulky dumpsters, waiting for the lurking shapes to emerge. I didn't know how quick they were.
Not too quick, thankfully. They weren't comically slow, but they weren't faster than a normal person would jog.
I shot left and right, while others behind me did the same, aiming far ahead and behind. We were trying to get to the other end of the alley that led to a brighter street.
Nothing too interesting happened other than that, in this part. We reached the end of the alley. But when I looked around, I only saw three more people with me. There were definitely more than that when we started out. I looked back into the shadows, but couldn't see anything. I heard what I imagined was wrestling -- shuffling, occasional grunts...and I wanted to go back, while we still had time.
"Come on!" someone said impatiently, "We have to keep moving. If they're okay and they get out, they know where to go."
I turned around to see that we found a scouting team for the refugee camp that we were trying to get to. There were several other camps along the outskirts of the city, hidden in the woods. Not the best spot for them, but all right.
This was one of those camps.
I heard a young man next to me point out that most of the refugees there were black, and he told me he never grew up learning his native language. He tried to practice it as we walked towards the camp. I could hear the entire camp praying together and singing something about how "God is good."
After that, the people in my group went to sleep. I didn't.
Everyone was cramped side-by-side -- there were more than they could handle. There was one plain building with one floor, which was easily filled. Those who stayed there were lucky to have walls around them. Everyone else, including myself, was given a spot under one big canopy made of wood. There were two levels where people slept, but they were so close to each other that the only way to get to your spot on the bottom level was to crawl on your hands and knees. It was a very claustrophobc space -- if you were in the middle, there was no way you would be able to get out before everyone else moved.
I noticed that and started thinking about what might happen if...
But then I got deja vu. In a dream.
I fell asleep.
I woke up in the camp to hear people screaming. Mixed with those sounds were the gutteral shouts of those that we'd been trying to avoid.
I was in the middle on the lower level. All around me, peope were being dragged out by bloody hands. I tried to fight, but.....
[so the script this time told me to stay nearer to the edge on the second level.]
Something else in the back of my mind told me that this was also unsafe.
I was lying down next to a woman who I thought was asleep.
"It's almost time to leave," I reminded myself. The sky was beginning to lighten.
[I saw, in the script in my head, that she wasn't really sleeping, and that I would realize it later.
She didn't want to do this anymore, she decided. So she wrote a letter and kept it in her pocket. When everyone went to sleep, she stayed up and ate something that put her to sleep forever. Her brother would see her in the morning but wouldn't be able to wake her up.]
I quietly crawled away from the sleeping refugees and woke up my companions. They all looked around them and saw that the sun was just barely beginning to rise, and nobody else was up yet. But they listened to me and we began to leave the camp.
I'll have to continue this later. If I try to write this all in one sitting, it'll take all day.
More updates to come!
::edit::
PS -- This is considered the first scene, out of...five or six. Don't worry, I jotted it all down this morning so I won't forget it :)
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