The lights flicker, mirrors reflecting the shadows fading and reclaiming of untouched surfaces. The door is bolted shut with a cheap lock, the smell of the stalls growing in its stench with the passing seconds. Yellow and brown paint the tiles in river arches, all leading to the rusted drain in the middle of the bathroom.
My boots are filled with the filth of body parts, dirt, and stained with blood. My pants is powdered with the dust of people and the broken rubble of pavement. My shirt stains in yellow guck of The Infected and my face painted with closed lids and the moving portrait of my mouth's muttering.
"They are not human, they are not human, they are not human."
I do my best to empty my mind, taking the heavy sack slug over my back and placing it in front of me. Knees bent and my butt to the floor, I throw my broken guns to the side. I repeat the words as I reach for two pistols, locking the proper magazines in. I refill the five empty slots on my frag strap, tightly securing each grenade.
"You will survive. You will survive. You will survive."
I sling the bag over to my back, standing as my hand reaches for the door. I pull a frag from the strap, ready to go.
Breathe in, out, in, out, in...out.
I unlock the lock, slowly, and open the door. The dark hallway leads me straight towards light, where the door was thrown off its hinges, out to the public street. Echoes of the screams pound my head. Sounds of bullets wheeze from the front, back, and sides. The scampering of the infected chill the nerves of my back.
Reaching the doorway, and looking out, I place my pistols out and find a tank rolling past me, blasting at the black fumes to my right. I look left, seeing military forces pushing forward with the calvary, and I join them.
When we all went into this together, we thought it was the zombies we were dealing with. The Infected, we come to find out, were definitely not though.
I am Franklin Courp. I'm here to tell you who The Infected really are.
