Chapter Text
Entry 7:
its been a long week and a half since ive left home. almost too long. it feels like ive been out of town for years, and as if there isn’t anything to spare, ive eaten all my food. It seems I didn’t pack as much as i actually needed; so, i haven’t eaten in 3 days, and my water is running short. whatever god that did this to toughen me up would be disappointed in me, especially since we are at the cusp of it snowing. well, me. i haven’t seen anything since ive left home. just forest after forest after tree, so im pretty tipped over. ive only talked to this and myself since the first day. but i don’t really want to
The sentence that was being written was left unfinished by a shuffle in the greenery, just a distance away. MC froze, their hand tightening on the pencil they held as it pressed firmly to the paper, almost piercing a hole through multiple pages of their scrapbook. They gulped, and with no noise escaping them, they were sure everything would be fine, even dandy if they were lucky. Maybe it was a rabbit, or a spider or something stupid like that.
They sighed slowly, not allowing noise to peep through just in case. Slowly, their pencil shuffled from the paper to their mouth, touching their cold, bare, flushed cheeks as they closed the book with barely a scriggle of sound. Their bag was next to them, but it was closed, so they felt pretty stupid as anxiety clawed at their body. MC wondered if zombies could hear very well. Last time it was too hard to tell, but they couldn’t blame themselves, since it was a bit hard to care while fighting for their own life. But in this moment, they didn’t even have the highest chance of dying of a zombie. They were worried about the water.
Water, since the apocalypse started, had become scarce. These days of malnutrition and neglect, clean water became a delicacy that only survivalists could afford. Lakes and rivers were heavy with flowing bacteria that was ready to infect anyone they could, but nobody knew why. In fact, many things about this infection nobody knew the answers to. Why its main source of spread was water, why it made people rage and go insane, or why it mainly festered during the winter. It’s not like there were many people left to figure that out, or even ways to see if anyone had pieced it together; but then again, nobody cared anymore.
Science had fallen behind, and people, even during the start of a mass extinction event, conformed to foolish assumptions of a higher being setting a curse to them. MC wanted to believe that, because then it wouldn’t be as scary as just an invisible force administering your own physical form and taking over your mind, like an experiment. Maybe then there would be answers, or a final moment of peace. Deep down they knew this was just a fantasy, but they couldn’t get themself to truly believe the reality they had to face; That all the people they knew were gone, and they were alone .
Shuffling slightly to their left, MC hesitantly opened the front pocket of their backpack. The creaking of the zipper made them cringe and resist wiggling around uncomfortably in the dirt, but they managed to slide the notebook in. Turning completely to their bag, the rustle in the bush repeated, but they only ignored it so they could focus on figuring out where to go.
Hands shaky, they pulled out their map. It was practically falling apart from the cold, but the ink was still fairly visible; at least to reading level. They exhaled warm air, causing condensation to fog up but quickly dissipate. Handing themselves their pencil, they traced over parts of the map, concluding to go across the river. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but they hadn’t seen anyone in a week, and the riverbank was a quite populated area. Maybe someone who could help was there? But they held onto no one conclusion.
The bush rustled louder. They were starting to get nervous.
Their pink hands folded the paper into a tight rectangle, and shoved it as quick as they could in their pocket, along with their pencil.
Click. Click.
MC froze dead still. It was probably them, but the atmosphere suddenly got colder as wind flashed by their cheek. It made a high pitched squeak in their ear as they questioned what the fuck that noise was. Undead ha weird noises, similar to vocal fidgets. Laughs, hums, screeches, growls…
Clicking.
As to not make any sound, they slowly tilted their head far enough they could barely see that same bush at the corner of their eye. Even more, they tilted their head, and they swore they just barely twisted their feet before the snow crinkled as their knees made contact with the snow.
Growl.
They didn’t even bother to look before they bolted in a random direction. Screw the map, they could live, and then find some stupid village. A horrifying scream was let out behind them, and they could barely stay on their feet as their vision blurred at the pure terror that was rushing through them.
Dust was fond of the cold. It reminded him of the castle that the group have been apart from for as long as a year. Desolate AUs didn’t do anything but make him feel empty, active AUs made him nervous, but half dead AUs made him plain sad. Zombies always seemed fictional, and he just never thought that those star-fucks would conveniently beat them so hard they ended up in an AU that reeked of rotting corpses. Given their generally lucky situation of having powers that could take out a village in a swoop, they survived the first few days.
That was when they had powers though. Before things hadn’t started to resemble the future. The cold, desolate, future.
Now that the future was the present, the group, and especially Dust had started to worry. They had no clue how to get past this, and although none of them wanted to admit it, they weren’t done being alive. They all would rather kiss ass than hit the deck. All of them had found a sense of purpose, per se, and after their many traumas.. They couldn’t let it go. Not now.
That was true for Dust, too, but..
Those first freezing days of slowly losing their magic was the hardest. They were weak, and Dust saw less and less of papyrus. When he did, his brother was like a blank fog, and disappeared in the first few minutes. Through squatting in icy trees, he hoped to god that Papyrus was just messing with him, or just mad at him and he would come back. When he didn’t… Dust had never been so outraged with himself.
Nothing good came out of that. Just panic. But they couldn’t afford to be panicking. He shut it off. It took him a while, but his soul needed it.
Dust raised his axe, and swung down on the piece of wood. His eyes fell blank when it was chopped completely in half, almost so hard the wood shot splinters from its outer most layer. The axes wood on his bones felt raggedy, and he didn’t doubt it would give a human splinters. Tossing the wood to the side, he picked up another short log and placed it on the tree stump in front of him.
Though, right before his hatchet came down on the wood, he heard a sound he wish he never heard.
Screech .
Panting, they ran as fast as they could. MCs energy was lowering drastically, and after running halfway through the forest, they were starting to think they might not make it. They were dizzy. So, so dizzy. MC couldn’t tell if they were going to run into a tree, or fall into a river. They could barely usher up the breath to figure out where to go with a zombie right at their ass, and their backpack weighing them down so severely.
Closely in the distance, they recognized an opening where they had just a ting of hope of escaping from. With a hopelessly joyous boost of energy, they booked it quickly to the opening.
Run. Run. Run—
That was the moment they learned to always pay attention to their surroundings.
MC hadn’t realized how close the zombie was to them, and it screamed as it tackled them swiftly to the freezing snow ground. Managing to turn onto their back, MC yelped and flinched. The terror they were feeling was not a familiar terror. It was a raging, bolting, violent terror that made them dip so low as to do anything to get away from whatever was causing it.
Barely keeping its arms in place and it away, they kicked their legs along the snow, hoping they could fight it off.
With what seemed like no second guessing, they pushed the zombie off of them long enough for them to pull out their dagger, stabbing it mercilessly in the upper neck. The zombie struggled, trying to scratch and fight back, but it could only gargle as its infected, dark blood pooled down its lips.
MC didn’t even think. They hadn’t taken the time to look into its eyes. Despite the obvious zombie like behavior an physical symptoms, it looked..
Alive. Like they had forgotten it was once human.
Behind its eyes were terror similar to what they had felt, only the fear in it had forgotten irrationality. A single tear twisted in the zombies pupil, piling up in its socket. But before it could spill, its last consciousness faded, and then it was dead.
They shuttered, slouching forward as the lifeless body fell to the ground with a crinkle of the snow. Maybe it was the running, or the adrenaline pump, or the fact MC hadn’t eaten in days, but their brain laid dizzy with fog.
The blur of cleaning their dagger off was collided with walking aimlessly out of the opening they previously couldn’t reach, and walking disoriented until they reached something that smelled of wood and dirt.
MC wasn’t conscious enough to call out, even if they wanted to, nothing would come out of their mouth.
Just as water mixes with oil, malnutrition and adrenaline levels away fro each other, but if you mix them together, it causes a mess.
Before they could recognize that, their body fell to the ground, muscles aching and no consciousness with absolutely zero guarantee of living.
The skeletons would find them useful, though. Healthy human meat was a delicacy.