Nowadays, the world's motto is bite or be bitten. As the world was cruel before all of this, it’s now barbaric, coarse, and horrid. It’s full of assholes who think that they can do anything since the world has gone to shit. Me? I’m one of those assholes. I just keep my pride and superiority complex to myself… For the most part, anyways. Before continuing on this journey, you should probably understand what I mean by all of this. 

5 years ago, it was cheerful. Maybe if all of this didn’t happen I’d actually give a shit once in a while. Anyways, My parents had been tired of my antics, so they sent me to a boarding school. I wasn’t hurt by it. I didn’t want to be there as much as they didn’t want me there, so being sent to a boarding school was actually a blessing in disguise. This prestigious school is none other than the infamous Royal Cross Academy, known for their not-so-kind behavior towards the children and their so called “rehab-for-the-troubled” program. I think at the time I was just tired and wanted to be alone.. Which is still somewhat true. Even so, one can only stand being lonely for so long, even if it’s what their heart craved the most before it was constant.

I remember there were crashing sounds. I can recall how the teachers gathered us in a room, and only one teacher stayed. The one teacher all the kids adored, and the one teacher who adored all the kids, Ms. Margret. But for a reason I shall never know, she cherished me more than most.

We were there for hours.. Days, even. My teacher was getting desperate, she saw how we were becoming more and more malnourished. So after preparations.. She left the room. That's the day we learned that some people are corrupt, and will turn on you any second a sign of danger comes. I say this because those teachers I mentioned earlier? They left us. And that danger? Ghouls. Ghouls are these flesh eating monsters that should be dead but.. Aren’t.  They left us with almost nothing other than enough to keep 15 kids from starving or being dehydrated for a few days at best. 

Ms. Margret knew that this wasn’t going to get better by itself. She knew she had to show us to survive. She had to show children from ages ranging from 6-11 how to shoot, garden, which herbs we could eat. I was the oldest among the bunch, she put more responsibilities than she should have on a 11 year old, but she didn’t have many choices. I mainly did things like guard the door when she went to watch the younger ones, or make and grow all the food. Although, inventory was her job. She’d both collect herbs from the ground and harvest foods from the garden.

Although, one day she came back from the garden and something seemed.. Wrong. When we found out what had happened, it was too late. She had been bitten, but she took herself out before she hurt the children. She left each and every one of us a letter. Everyone got such heartfelt things, I had felt envious. I say this because she only left me 1 sentence. “I will leave everything I left off to you.” 

And so.. I took care of everything. The harvesting, the food, watching the kids.. But it wasn’t enough. After all my effort it ended horribly in the end. Some kids had gotten into a fight, and one ran outside. I tried and tried to find her, but it was too late. When I found her.. She was long gone. I went back in shambles. But that was only the start of things. I came back and they were dead. The weird thing was, some of the kids' dead bodies were gone. I promised myself I would find the missing kids bodies and give them a proper burial. Or if they were alive I’d give them the safety I wish I could’ve provided earlier.  

I moved on in a cycle over the years. I felt like I was reliving the days over and over again. Then there was an accident. I was bit. I waited and waited to turn, though after two days I closed my eyes I took what I thought would be my final breath. But.. nothing happened. I stayed the same. After days of waiting, nothing happened. And while I may have been lucky now, I’m not sure if I’ll be lucky later, so I still stayed away from those things. 

Nowadays, I go on trips every few weeks trying to find the kids, coming back every few days to rest and take care of the place as best as I can. I’m coming back from one of these trips as of right now. 

Walking down the road, I walk into what I can only assume was a convenience store. When I open the door it makes a jingle sound. I walk up and down the aisles. I open my bag and stick my arm out, knocking everything on the shelves into the bag. After filling up the bag with enough chips to last me three days at the minimum, I zip up the bag and make my way out, the door jingling behind me as I walk outside. I look around, seeing if anything has changed from my last trip.. Nope. I’m not that surprised, but one can hope that they’ll see something new in this apocalyptic world. Maybe just one sign that there's still some kind of civilization out there. The smallest bit of hope that the civilization is filled with kind souls and not people like raiders or gangs. Although for the most part, that hope in me died a long time ago. I try to not think of the accident and try to focus on the crunching of the leaves. They’re turning yellow and red. I don’t know much about the seasons but I know enough to know that it’s going to be Fall soon. I’m not a fan of cold weather, but it makes the Ghouls slower. 

I walk up to the gate, pulling out a key. Just as I’m about to unlock the lock, I see that it’s broken. “The hell..” I mumble. Pulling out my gun, I keep myself low and start walking slowly to the door. I reach for the door knob.. It’s unlocked too. Granted, the whole lock is busted. I’m going to have to fix it with something, then. I can hear talking inside. I slowly open the door, and to my luck.. It creaks. Believe me when I say it’s never done that before. Immediately the chatting from inside comes to a halt, then shuffling is heard. If they want to go unnoticed.. They’re really bad at it. I slowly walk inside, only to be greeted with my head to bump into a barrel of a gun. 

Sighing, I look up at who is holding the gun. It’s a man.. He is the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Admittedly, I haven’t seen many people since this whole thing, but still. His golden blonde hair was long and silky, tied back in a loose bun. He’s wearing a sweater that goes a bit past his waist, he pairs the sweater with baggy jeans that go down to his ankles. His eyelashes are long, which compliments his silver eyes. Wait- I need to snap out of it. This man has a gun against my head. 

I look behind him.. He’s not alone. There’s 3 other people behind him. 2 of them look identical. Twins, I’m assuming. There's a girl standing next to the man.. She’s wearing an eye patch. I wonder what happened. “What should we do with her?” The girl with the eye patch mutters over to the man with the gun. I scoff, “What should you do with me? You’re threatening me in my own home.” 

The two of them exchange glances before looking at me again. “Also, I don’t appreciate the gun to my head. Not the warmest welcome after coming home from a week long.. Trip.” 

The man with the gun sighs, putting the gun away, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to threaten you.” I scoff. Not trying to threaten me? He pointed a gun at my head. “Oh trust me, I felt threatened.” I say flatly, walking over to the middle of the room, observing the room. 

They moved things. Just how long have they been staying here.. Do I even wanna know? I sigh, muttering, “You guys moved so much shit.. I had it organized before you guys came here.” 

I hear a scoff from one of the twins, it’s the female one. “Organized is the last thing I’d call that mess of a pile.” I give her a side eye, her voice is obnoxious and could make my ears bleed if she talked at the right frequency. 

“Who are you guys- actually, I don’t want to know. Just get out. Collect your stuff and just go.” My voice is flat and indifferent, I hope they catch on that I am dead serious. “Excuse me but-.. Do you mind if we stay? I mean we-” I cut in before he can finish, “I do mind. A lot. I don’t need strangers here when I leave every 2 weeks.” 

They exchange glances, before the blonde one opens his mouth to speak again, the eyepatch girl cuts in. “Please? I promise we mean no harm.. It just looked safe here and it looked abandoned.” I raise an eyebrow at her. She does realize she called, the place I’ve been taking care of for years, abandoned. Not exactly what I’d call a compliment. She continues on anyways, “We won’t be much of a bother, we could even watch after the building while you’re away.” This thought didn’t occur to me earlier, but her voice is… Quite soothing. I sigh, shaking my head. “Fine. I’ll consider it. I’ll let you stay for one week and if that goes well I may let you stay.” The girl smirks, holding her hand out. I shake her hand, “Deal.” She says.