Forsaken Dreams

There are no people. No smoke rising from the houses. Everything is empty. The dirt covered in weeds. The world here is silent. Still. Barren. For as long as I've walked along the path the moans of the Undead have been constant. When the sound is that unceasing the mind must find a place to store the incessant reminder of death. And so the moans become nothing more than a hum, a background rhythm to life.

Perhaps that's why I do not notice when the tenor of that hum changes, intensifies, harmonizes. When it echoes around me and pushes in on me until I am surrounded by the noise. Instead, I go, mesmerized by this new and yet empty place. It's different than what I grew up and raised with every single day.

It gets very windy and my long strangely hair starts to perform a hurricane dance. Great. Maybe I should cut it. But with what? I've been meaning to, I really have. For two reasons..

1. It was annoying and often got on my nerves. Especially when I was on the rooftops where it was mostly windy.

2. ...IF...I ever had to fight a zombie for my life, long hair would just be an easy target to try to defeat me with. To use against me. They would pull at it. If I would run. Yank. Pull. And where would I be? A undead or dead broken teenager.

But then again, long hair is all I've ever accomplished in life. I promised myself to grow it out when I was ten and I never cut it since, well except to trim an inch off every couple months of course.

But that as it. I'm seventeen now. I've always kept that secret, as childish of a promise it was...I have. My hair reached the bottom of my back and now.

I know for sure I have to break that promise. But some are meant to be broken, aren’t they? After all, it is just hair. And isn't that exactly what JJ did to me? Promised me forever…promised to never leave and leave anyways? I'm sure many, even millions have experienced this at one point in time in their lives. But when promises are made, are they, or are they not supposed to be broken? Are there exceptions?...

A feeling of sadness swept over me. Maybe it's time to be brave and forget about the past. It's done and dusted. I can't change it. As much as I would like to, I can't. If I could, I would have done everything in my power, mind, heart, body, and soul to stop JJ from leaving me. He had a choice. Mom, dad, and my friends didn't. For just this moment I want to think about life and nothing else.

I heaved a sigh as I knelt on the narrow windowsill and gripped it with both hands before I lowered myself down. Errg. My feet tapped blindly for my next toehold while my fingers began to tremble with the exertion of holding up the full weight of my body. Shouldn’t there a window top or trellis around here somewhere?
At last the toe of my sneaker found purchase in a deeply pitted slab of brownstone. I sank my weight into it, releasing my cramping fingers. And just then, the brownstone cracked under the weight and I fell.

I winced in surprise and annoyance, knowing that I wouldn't have much time if the zombies detected or noticed me. I didn't scream. My mind didn't abandon its rational sequence either.

I fell several feet before my hands jammed against the windowsill of a third-floor window, and I miraculously arrested my fall, saving myself from the zombies, and perhaps my skull from the slate patio below.

God, that hurt. Angry nerve endings throbbed in my palms, but my heart beat out its same steady rhythm. Air entered my lungs in the same measured breaths as always.

That's why I, Kaelee Bree was different. A freak of nature. I knew a normal person would be afraid, but for some reason, I wasn't. Was it because I didn't care if I lived or died? Or that if I became a zombie that I would not ever have to face such pain and sorrow, these damned, pathetic, useless emotions.

Or simply was I not afraid? Afraid of what comes after. What comes next. I knew in my heart, that I should be afraid. That I should feel fear, because who else would pursue this goal I made for myself? Again, I wasn't. It felt like something was missing from my genetics but I wasn't sure exactly what it was.

I knew before I said I was scared, that I was afraid of the Returned world and being one of them, but how could that true after what just happened and what I’ve been through?

Something moved on the other side of the window and I squinted to get a better look.
Oh, crap. It was Megan