Perry+Huang+2014

=DayZ=

I woke up on a beach. the waves crashed against the shore with an almost intimidating display of force. It was midmorning. The sun was blaring. The clouds were lightly blowing from left to right, whatever direction that was. It was a beautiful day. I could have stayed there for hours just admiring the scenery. But no matter how good it looked, no matter how good it felt, it wasn’t safe. I was unarmed, and unprepared for any confrontation, be it man or nature. All I had were the clothes on my back and a flashlight in my pocket. I took another look at my surroundings, a tactical survey for any point of specific interest. There wasn’t much besides trees and water. But out in the distance, way out in front of me was what looked like a train station or something. About a half mile away. With literally nothing else in sight, I began my trek over. I took a light jog. The grass softly swayed with each of my steps, and wavered as I left. The wind was still blowing and the sea was still roaring, but now I could hear my own breath, small, quick, but controlled, with each intake of air. After a while I noticed a dry sensation within my throat. I was slightly parched but it was nothing severe. After what had help like just an instant, I was slowly making my way to the back of the station. It looked run down, and completely deserted. there were holes in the wall, the door was hanging on a hinge, and there was a disturbing ranch in the air. So logically I decided to have a look inside. The station was rather small, or at least it felt small because I could barely see inside. there were small holes in the roof where sunshine could finger it’s way through, but other than that the room was completely devoid of light. It was a convenience store. There were shelves and a cash register, with trash thrown all over the place. I spent the next couple of minutes ransacking the place for anything that might be of use for my survival. i didn’t find much. In the end all I managed to loot was an old navy blue jacket and a small tin of breath mints. No water, no actual food, no gear, absolutely nothing. I walked out the front door thinking, hell it could be worse. It got worse. As I took my first step out the front of the convenience store, right in front of me, literally 5 meters ahead was a walker. What looked like a young women in business attire, was absolutely no young women, and absolutely not living anymore. It’s flesh was a sickly green, and under it’s breath you could hear soft moaning. Well at least now I knew where that smell was coming from. I instinctively broke into a crouch. Maybe it hadn’t seen me yet, maybe I could slowly turn around and...shit. The zed turned around first, and it just looked at me. My heart began racing, blood was pumping in my veins with enough force to stop a train. I couldn’t move. It didn’t move. I felt like I’d just been caught selling crack in a classroom. It screamed. I screamed. fuck. It lunged at me and to my own surprised I rolled to my right with dexterity I never knew I had. It fell. I heard it fall. But I didn’t look. I broke out in a mad dash with enough speed to make Usain Bolt’s 100m dash look like a warm up. It was behind me, I could hear its tortured screams. I would have shat my pants if i wasn’t so busy running. I didn’t think I’d ever stop. I ran until it hurt, I ran until I couldn’t breathe, I ran until it went black. I fell unconscious. I woke up a little while after. Where the hell was I. I looked around, I was in the middle of a town. A town. I must have ran farther than I thought. Along the street I was on there were houses on my left and houses on my right, the road seemed to split a little further up and the place was just filled with, well, houses. There even looked like some sort of apartment complex in the distance. I walked to the nearest house and sat down on the porch to catch my breath. The place looked just as deserted as the convenience store, and just as run down. But hey, it was a big place, it looked like it used to be a busy place. There’s bound to be supplies all over. I could even camp in one of these houses for the night. I might even meet a friendly face, I hadn’t seen anybody since I woke up yet, maybe...I felt a small, cold finger prop itself against the back of my head, “Get your face on the fucking ground, NOW.” Haha, you’ve got to be shitting me.