The Sharpest Lives

To adapt is to change your behavior so that it is easier to live in a particular place or situation.

That's what Ace has done all her life, and now that it's the zombie apocalypse, it's a skill that she's glad to have picked up. To survive you must adapt. It's her number one rule of life. You have to accept what is thrown your way, and if you can't change it, change yourself. Make room for it.

Make room for the pain, sadness, anger, and pure fear that runs deep in your bones, especially now that you may be a lone survivor, like she is. A lone survivor of the fucking end of the world.

Ace doesn't plan on being alone for long, though. She plans on finding her little sister, Frankie, who she last saw at the Children's Foster Care Center a few weeks ago. She went and visited her as much as she could, even everyday if she was able to, and she was supposed to be able to finally bring her home this month. Apparently Ace was not fit to be her guardian when Frankie was taken away from her because she didn't have a steady job or home and was in buckets of debt.

It was a bunch of bullshit. She was taking care of her just fine, doing everything she could for her baby sister since she was basically left at Ace's doorstep a week after she was born. Ace never wanted Frankie to ever see the inside of a foster home because basically her whole life until she was 18, she was sent from one to another, being torn from everything she loves each time. But, Ace was told that once she got herself in a good position, Frankie would be released out of the foster home and back to her. And, the best part of this story is that Ace was supposed to get her back the weekend of the week the world "ended".

But, Ace is going to get her back, no matter what it takes. She'll do anything and everything to get her back because when she sets her mind to something, she makes sure it happens. So now here she is, in the forbidden city of Atlanta where the foster care center used to be, and that was also supposed to be a refugee center.... The whole city was now overrun and now crawling with biters.

Lame-brains, zombies, undead, walking dead, biters... Which term was the right one for the rotting corpses surrounding Ace, she doesn't know, but biters is her personal favorite. Ever since she heard her neighbor calling them that, it stuck with her, but not before her neighbor got turned into dinner, of course.

God, this whole situation is just fucked up. Who would have thought that there would be an actual zombie apocalypse?? Certainly not Ace. But, now here she is; with only a few weapons, a backpack full of canned food, and some granola bars, surrounded by smelly bastards.

She says that the foster care center "used" to be here because, well it's pretty much demolished. The first few days when the outbreak started, they bombed Atlanta and you could say that that building 'caught' one of the bombs. She still checked the place out though, at least what was still left of it, and noticed that multiple buses were missing and large tire tracks led right away from the building. She also didn't spot any zombie children nearby, so she could only hope that her assumptions were right and they got all the kids the hell out of dodge in time.

Ace should have done the same when she realized Frankie wasn't here, but she desperately needed supplies. She was on her last sip of water and can't survive off the granola bars and canned beans for long. Some medicine would also be great to find, especially some type of pain killers, knowing she'd need them, too.

Ace continued her silent and slow steps, creeping up behind a large building to find it's back door. The smell of decaying flesh and death swarmed the city and was sucking the air right out of her each time she would breathe in. It was not a scent you could ever get used to and each time she did smell it her stomach did flips.

She finally spotted the tall metal door that led inside the building, and quickly made her way over. She grasped onto the door nob and turned it as quietly as possible, then pushed the door open slowly, trying to make it squeak as little as possible.

She peeked her head in and spotted two biters inside that were paying no attention to her. They were just staring off into the distance, almost like they were day dreaming... Probably about eating people.

Ace swallowed down the uncomfortable feeling their presence gave her, and started to slide her body through the crack of the door she created.
She never once took her eyes off of the mindlessly roaming biters as she moved with stealth across the room, staying on the toes of her feet.

To put it simply: Ace hates killing biters.

Because when she does she sees the person they once were. A person that got separated from their friends and family, like the two biters she was sneaking by that still had their work uniforms on. She could see their name tags on it, their names being Michael and Stewart.

Michael and Stewart didn't even get to say goodbye to their loved ones, just got the unfortunate chance of getting part of their arms bit off.

These were people with lives and families. People that had futures and had to deal with normal problems like debt or bad hair days.

But these were also people that wanted to rip her guts out. Ace understands that.
She knows they aren't people anymore and will kill them if she has to, but doesn't want to. It's not easy. It's disturbing. Especially when the sickening noise of skulls crushing reminds you of what you've just done.

And she avoids killing them as much as she can, sneaking around quietly everywhere she went, like she is now. But the first few times she did kill one, she vomited until she dry heaved after. Not only was it disgusting, but she felt as if she just killed a person in cold blood... Not something she ever planned on doing.

But, this whole apocalypse wasn't planned, so Ace did what she does best; adapt. She adapted to this "new" world, forcing herself to somehow become more comfortable with stabbing people in the head. Forcing herself to push, fight, and scavenge. Forcing herself to survive.

But surviving came easy. It's what she's been doing her whole life. She doesn't know how to just not try to survive...

With this on her mind, Ace stepped past a shelving unit that was shielding her from the biters' views, but still tightened her grip on the knife. A Strider model MK1, to be specific. It had a 7 inch blade with sharp, jagged edges at the top, and was designed for military use. This blade was amazing and she was proud enough to say it was hers.

She kept this knife tight in her grip as she looked around the floor she was on, which seemed to be almost like a souvenir shop with racks of clothes, hats, jewelry, and so on. Ace also noticed that the glass doors in the front had been smashed open by something or someone, causing the glass to crunch under her feet.

This made noise that Ace was afraid the biters would hear, so after spotting the staircase leading up to the next level, she jogged on the tip of her toes over to it.

She did her best to go up as quietly as possible with out making the steps creak. Luckily, she managed to get to the second floor without attracting the two biters down the stairs.

The second floor was completely different than the first, looking like a regular office place. It was deserted and was starting to creep her out a little, especially when she imagined this once being filled with busy average adults, buzzing around to get their work done.

It was almost like this was a dream, or a movie that she'd watch on TV. She wished so desperately this was just that, but every time she pinched herself or splashed water on her face, she was still alone, running away from dead things.

At least this floor might have some food or water, maybe even some more weapons if she's lucky. All she has currently is her wonderful knife, a hand gun she had recently found, a pocket knife, and another one of her personal favorites; brass knuckles. She doesn't use her gun much, in fact it's at the bottom of her bag, because if she even thinks about letting a shot off, she's got a whole city of biters on her ass. She's also not sure who in the world still has brass knuckles anymore, but she's not complaining... You can never have enough weapons now.

Ace doesn't really have a primary weapon, she never really thought she would need to have one, but she does know how to shoot and all that good stuff. She did archery one year as a kid and one of her foster dad's, the stereo-typical big meaty white guy with tattoos up his neck and a weird mustache, lived in a shady neighborhood. He liked to have his property protected, and since he left Ace home alone most of the time while he went out with his wife, she was that protection. He taught her how to shoot a gun as well as defending herself and attacking others. Sure, she was scared as hell of him at the time, but now she was thankful because if it weren't for him, she wouldn't have been able to pursue her career and survive now.

Ace wanted to thank him, even though it had been multiple years, but she technically owed him her life. She wonders if he his alive? If anyone of her previous foster parents were alive? If anyone was alive?

She snapped herself out of these depressing thoughts, not needing to think about that right now, and started to search through drawers and desks in this office. She came across multiple bottles of water, some bags of chips, protein drinks, some Tylenol, cough medicine, granola bars, peanuts, and even a few novels. She smiled to herself widely, but then quickly got rid of the peanuts, knowing she was pretty allergic to those.

Ace felt like a small weight had been lifted off her shoulders at finally having some decent supplies, but a whole different weight came back on when she heard shuffles and multiple groans coming from the floor above her. She was just going to sneak back out of here and try her best to avoid them like she always does because it's a pretty good technique to survive, but she heard something else that caught her attention from outside the window, probably on the roof... Something human...

It was almost as if it was grunts of pain or sharp yells...

Don't go up there. Even if it is human, they're probably dying. Just leave. She thought to herself. She should just leave, but the noises were confusing her. If someone was getting eaten they would be screaming much, much louder, but nothing like that was coming out. She knew it would be safer to turn around, but there was a mental switch inside her head that immediately had her jogging over to the stairs, running up them with a tight grip on her knife. She had a thing about not letting people die...

This next floor was a little more office and eating space, but the back side of it was the kitchen. She kept her ears and eyes pealed and focused as she followed the noises. There were a few biters that had wandered over to her, but she quickly pressed her back against the wall and snuck past them like some weird James Bond type shit.

When she turned the corner that was nearing the sounds she quickly cursed herself for this stupid plan. "Shit," she hissed and stepped back, pressing her back against the wall again, letting out her heavy breaths. There was a whole group of hungry, vicious biter banging and growling at a metal door while being squished in the narrow staircase leading to the roof. Turning back now would probably be the smartest decision, but if it wasn't noticed, she's not too smart.

They were trying to get through a door that obviously must have had something living on the other side, trapped on the roof. "Fuck," She groaned and pulled her backpack off her shoulders, was she really doing this? Yes. She wasn't going to let the probably first living thing she's seen since this started, be killed. It was just a person after all.

Ace unzipped her backpack and started rifling through it until she gripped onto one of the books she had stuffed in here. She quickly put her pack back on her back and stood up straight again, letting out a huff before she chucked the book across from her, knocking over multiple things on the shelf it hit in the process. She turned away and ran in the opposite direction, ducking under one of the desks as the biters started taking off in the direction of the noise.

When all of them got away from the door she noticed a glass vase on top of the desk she was under and quickly snatched it, dumping out the dead flowers inside. She ran as quietly as she could back to the stairs she used to get up here and chucked the bottle down, causing it to bounce and shatter all over. As soon as it did that, she turned and sprinted back to the metal stair case leading up to the roof with the living thing behind the door.

Before running up to the roof, Ace took a quick glance back and saw the biters all stumbling down the stairs, leaving it almost empty up here. She wiped the sweat of her forehead and took off up to the door, only to realize it was chained and locked with a padlock. She mumbled a bunch of made up words in anger and grabbed onto the padlock, inspecting it. Why was she doing so much for someone that she had never even met before and could possibly be dead?

She yanked two of her bobby pins out of her hair and got down on one knee, stealing quick glances behind her to make sure it was safe as she picked the lock. It was a talent Ace just picked up over the years of being a delinquent and had grown significantly good at it. She was about to start getting dizzy from taking so many quick glances behind her for biters when she finally heard the 'click' that made her let out a relieved sigh and pull off the lock.

She yanked off the chain that was holding it closed, tossing it to the side before shoving the door open and stepping out, her eyes squinting at the transition into the bright sunlight. She shut the door behind her and stepped over to where she saw a figure sitting on the ground, mumbling something incoherently, until he heard Ace and turned to face her. Her jaw dropped at the sight of his pale face and the stump that was now his right arm, no longer having a hand.

"Hey sugar tits, wana give me a hand?" He slurred out, chuckling at him self.