I remember the glory days. Bike rides, balls out, no brakes. Mickey Mouse sweaters. Marley singing just for me when things got real bad. Ha. Bad. If only I knew. I even remember back far enough to cartoons after school, followed with a snack, courtesy of Mom.Mom. I remember her. Especially after she changed. I remember her pain, the blood, the screaming. Being terrified for her and of her. I remember her voice. More so, her last words to me."For the love of God, DON'T LEAVE ME!"She was so desperate. I still don't know how I could leave her there. Just walked calmly away. Never looked back. Didn't shed a tear. Not a damn tear. I sometimes think that's my curse. Survival. Soaked with guilt, survival.But I strain to remember a day when something as petty as the sunrise meant more to me. A more desperate moment than the one strewn before me. It's a struggle to remember anything else before the daily fight to go on and the constant quake of fear in my chest.There's no emotion in the world after the end. Grief, love, longing...happiness. Nothing. Nothing but pure instinct. Some of the relatives, those who chose to live in communities, felt that there was no point in survival if surviving alone.My viewpoint? Don't care. You'll survive longer than those who tried to hold on to the past. Longer than those who kept family close. Then there's the roadies. Those on their own side of everything. Loners against the world all on their own. Most between the ages of thirty-five and forty.Most of us watched our families die, some of us were the ones who took them out. Most roadies lived day to day just for the sake of living. But most roadies don't have my mission.I know where SunDown started. SunDown, our outbreak you may say, started with love. And so damn much, it turned a man into a sick kind of selfish. Twisted-sick, man eat man, selfish...The world is a shell of it's former self. Josiah Leighy is doing his best to keep it going. Even if means finding the cure. And finding a family along the way.
