_ Reanimated

I wake up with a gasp.

For a moment, I just lay there, staring up at the crumbling rooftops.

I'm alive? No. That's not right.

I sit up, realizing my movements are too smooth and too effortless. The last thing I remember is dying in agony. 

Now? I feel… light. Strong.

My hand shoots to my stomach.

The wound is gone. Not a scar, not even a drop of blood.

The fuck is going on?!

A deep, horrible epiphany hits me. 

I press my fingers against my throat, searching for a pulse.

Holy moly, I find nothing. 

I have no heartbeat. No warmth.

When you touch my chest, what you feel is silence. 

I swallow hard.

Okay. Don't panic.

…Actually, screw that—panic is very much on the table right now.

"What the fuck is happening?" I mutter under my breath.

[You have awakened as the first intelligent undead.]

Huh?! This sound… again?

I freeze.

I stare at the words floating in my vision. They're there, as real as the debris around me.

Do the letters say undead?

No. No, no, no. That's impossible.

I'm not a bloody zombie! Zombies don't think, do they?

I raise my trembling hands and what I see causes my eyes to pop out so bad, they might fall out of my sockets. 

My skin is paler, almost ghostly. My veins beneath my flesh are now darker as if something other than blood flows through them.

"This isn't real," I whisper. "This is a dream. A fever dream. I'm probably just…"

I bite my lip.

Hard.

Pain flares in response but there's no blood. Just the sharp sting of teeth sinking into the skin. I can feel pain. That's a good and that's by the way. 

I am not dreaming. My stomach twists.

I was supposed to die. They left me for dead.

And yet, here I am.

Alive. Sort of.

And the best part? I remember everything.

Santiago.

The others.

Their arrogant, self-satisfied faces as they walked away.

My fingers tighten into fists. I don't know what's going on with me, but what I am so fucking aware of is the power roaring across my body. 

One thing I know for sure is that I'm not the same person they betrayed.

I'm stronger. Smarter. Hungrier.

I gulp and realize how dry and itchy my throat feels. It is so jarring and unbearable, that I might bite into my own flesh.

"This is Santiago and the others' fault!" I cough out. 

And I will make them pay.

I push myself to my feet, tilting my head as I take in the ruined city. The air is filled with the scent of decay as usual, the distant moans of the zombies echoing in the streets.

For the first time since I woke up, I feel something real.

Power.

I smile, rubbing my palms together. "Alright, world."

I stretch my fingers, feeling the raw energy thrumming in my skin.

"Let's play."

I walk.

And walk.

And walk.

The world around me is a rotting corpse; broken buildings, charred husks of cars, twinkling streetlights that refuse to die, as if even the electricity itself is too stubborn to accept the end of the world. 

Everything reeks of decay, smoke, and blood.

The sky is an ugly shade of gray, like someone smeared ash across it with greasy fingers. The air is foggy.

It feels like the city itself is breathing… like something massive and unseen is lurking just underground, exhaling its foul breath into the streets.

And the zombies?

They ignore me.

I mean, completely ignore me.

I pass a group of them huddled around a carcass which was some unlucky bastard torn apart like a party platter… and not a single one of them lifts their head at my presence. 

Another one shuffles past me so closely that I swear I can feel the wet squelch of its rotting flesh brushing against my arm, but it doesn't even glance at me.

For a second, I think, Maybe I'm just lucky? Maybe they're distracted. Maybe it's a fluke.

But as I keep moving, trekking through streets littered with half-eaten bodies, overturned dumpsters, and abandoned military barricades, I start to realize—it's not luck.

The undead don't see me as food.

I'm not even sure they see me at all.

Realization is a bitchy chill creeping down my spine. Am I turning? Is that why? My fingers twitch as I press them against my throat again, searching, hoping for something.

I find nothing again. 

No heartbeat. No warmth. No proof that I'm anything other than a walking corpse.

Shit.

Zombies aren't intelligent. They don't think, they don't feel, and they sure as hell don't question their own existence. And yet, here I am, fully aware, fully conscious, completely in control of my body—if I can even still call it that.

I wasn't even bitten. Maybe a black zombie worm crawled its way into my body before my life could leave my body?

Is that it? The black worms are responsible for reanimation. Once bitten, the zombies insert the black worms into their victims, causing them to multiply. 

"Do zombies even analyze these things critically as I am doing?" I facepalm. "Oh, Renata, you're so fucked."

I shove the thought aside, deciding there are more pressing concerns right now. Like, for example, the fact that my stomach is eating itself from the inside out.

I have never been this hungry before.

It's not the usual type of hunger. Not the 'I haven't eaten since morning' hunger or the 'I could really go for a burger right now' hunger. 

No, this is something worse—deeper, sharper, and deadlier. My insides twist painfully, like there's something alive inside me, clawing its way out. 

My entire body feels hollow and wrong like a bottomless pit has opened up inside my gut, and no matter how much I try to ignore it, it only gets worse.

I need to eat.

I scan the area, searching for anything remotely edible. There has to be something—canned food, stale bread, hell, I'd even take a half-eaten protein bar at this point.

After what feels like an eternity of digging through trashed convenience stores and ransacked homes, I finally strike gold.

I find a half-opened bag of beef jerky sitting on a dusty countertop.

"Some luck at last!" I jump in happiness. 

I grab it, tearing it open like a rabid animal, and shove a piece into my mouth without thinking.

And then immediately spit it out.

Oh my god.

It tastes horrendous.