Young Writers Society

You've probably heard this story before: a mysterious disease starts spreading among Earth's population. Those who get infected start acting weird, and it's not long before you have a whole horde of zombies running amok. There's a few survivors. There always are. And they're doing their best at surviving and discovering how to stop the infections for good.

But there's just one slight problem.

Those stories are just that - stories. You're not supposed to be whisked from your time and world into a place where zombies are real. And that's not the only thing that's changed, either. Your clothes suddenly match any good zombie apocalypse story. You might even have a weapon on you.

Whatever the case is, you're here in this mostly abandoned city. There's zombies, of course. But there's people too. People like you. And if you want to get back to your home, you'll have to survive this forgotten landscape.

And, of course, avoid getting bit.

Everything ached. It had been a long time since he had hurt this badly, but he could survive. His head felt slightly off balance as he got to his feet; he vaguely remembered being hit by a pipe by one of the men he had been tracking down. Rude. The trauma was probably the reason for his lack of memory, but it didn't explain how he had suddenly ended up here. He absentmindedly allowed the wound to regenerate. It didn't take any longer than usual despite hurting so much, thankfully.

Where was here, anyways?

He looked around and almost immediately frowned.

He must have hit his head harder than he thought he did. He was in some sort of abandoned city, long reclaimed by nature. More specifically, he was standing next to a dull, faded yellow school bus.

It's been some time since I've seen one of those, he absentmindedly thought.

He could have been brought here when unconscious, but he was rarely knocked out for all that long. And he could have been magically transported here, but there was no city in ruins like this. No city that didn't reek of radiation, at least.

Besides, this place felt American. The store across the street had a name in English, too. Last time he had checked, no American city had succumbed to some disaster and been abandoned like this.

He tapped his foot against the ground. A habit of his that he had never been able to break, no matter how hard he had tried. He was thankfully in the shadows of the bus right now; if there was anyone nearby, they wouldn't have seen his head reshape itself.

Now, what was that smell? It was a vaguely familiar one, but he hadn't smelled it in what felt like an eternity. It was something that called to him, something that...

He pushed the thought away.

It was time to figure out just where he was.

He stepped out from the shadows.

Ricky woke up, he was sleeping in the burned out shell of a car. Strapped to his waist were the two hatchets he kept with him, good. His knife lay in the driver's seat and he grabbed his spear from the floor. He flipped closed the knife and stuffed it in his pocket before placing the wooden spear in the leather straps on his back. Than he heard it, footsteps. He stopped moving, were they human or zombie? They moved at a rather moderate pace. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10.
Human, definitely human. Zombies tended to walk slower. He slowly peeked through the shattered window. There was someone in the distance. Their hair was pink, a very bright pink. How does one stand out so much and survive a zombie apocalypse? Ricky didn't know, but he intended to find out.

Ricky started to walk towards the person "excuse me" he called out.

Nemthas Frac awoke a fair distance away from the other two. Co sat up slowly, blinking in the dim light. Co appeared to be in a garage of sorts, though the transport models were far too old to possibly be usable anymore. What model was that? Nem didn't recall anything with wheel being in use on any nearby systems.
Where were Kartik and Nita? They'd been beside cos just a moment ago, creeping through the alley toward their target. They were nowhere to be seen now.
Nem got to cos feet slowly, wincing and looking down at coself. This wasn't the outfit co had been wearing! These were dull-colored combat clothes, nothing like the flowing garments co preferred. However, there was a small pistol clipped to cos belt.
"That's good, at least," Nem murmured, unclipping the gun. Again, this was not a model co was familiar with. It looked old, but in good condition. After a moment of fiddling co found the clip and opened it, finding the magazine full.
Nem kept the gun out, taking a step toward the garage door, which was open just enough that co could squeeze under. There was a barren, brownish light seeping in from the door. Nem took a last look around the garage to see if there was anything of use and found an electric light source, from the look of it. Like a portable beam. Co took it and what looked like a chisel, then took a deep breath and crawled under the garage door.
Nemthas emerged into an ancient city, dilapidated over time. It looked a lot like old Earth cities co had seen in old flip-throughs, but this one was nowhere near as elegant and shining. It was rotten-looking, and as co ventured forward into the street co saw a few heaps of what could only be the remains of a half-eaten being.
What had done this?
The sound of a voice startled Nem, and co raised the gun immediately in that direction, posture tensed and finger poised on the trigger.
Far off, co could see the source: A young human, perhaps a male, was approaching something out of Nem's line of sight, calling out. Nem's brow furrowed, and co went tentatively after the human. Perhaps they knew what was going on, what had happened here.

He wasn't alone.

He resisted the urge to frown or pout. His instincts were usually better than this. He should have known he wasn't alone before he saw the person who had just spoken. He should have also have known he wasn't alone before he heard someone else moving. Time had dulled his instincts. He absentmindedly reached a hand up to the back of his head and touched the area he had just healed a minute before - it had definitely been a rude awakening.

"Hello~" Oz said, scanning the first of the newcomers for weapons. They were in some kind of old destroyed city. The others could have been brought here against their will like he was, but the first of them - the one he could see more clearly at the moment - really did look like he fit in here. He had a wooden spear on his back and a bulge in his pocket. Hmm. Too small to be a gun, but maybe just the right size for a knife? A taser was also a possibility, but he was sure those would have made a bigger bulge.

"I'm Oz," he offered. "Short for Oswald, but it's a terrible first name and I hate to use it. Do you know where we are, by any chance? I just found myself here, so I'm more than a little disorientated right now. The last thing I remember, I was standing in a warehouse."

He thought for a moment, then peeked around the first of the newcomers. "If you don't know, maybe the person behind you does."

Ricky nodded "yup, we're in Af...." than he scanned his surroundings. Something wasn't right. He noticed the American flag, burned and on the side of a building. And where was his squad? "I...thought..." he was snapped out of it when Oz directed to his attention to someone approaching the two of them. The person had a gun, bad. He unsheathed his spear. "Stop" he called out to the armed person.

Waking up her head hurt and throbbed hard. Groaning she sat up, their hair was messy and her back was sore. They pulled themself into crisscross-applesauce. She realized she was on the roof of a big yellow machine. 'Huh? Where am I... Last thing I remember I was with my friends...' They thought to themself. Shaking their head they looked over the edge and gasped, 'Other people!'

"Hello?" they called out to the people.
They then noticed a bow and arrow made of wood and picked it up, with some spare arrows that were on the bus, the rest of them and the quiver were on the ground.

Nem paused, eyeing the human. They were definitely male-presenting. Co lowered the gun but kept it ready, just in case. "What business do you have here?" co asked. "I mean no harm if you don't." The human had been approaching what appeared to be another human, and both were looking at cos now. Nem bristled slightly; this wasn't a friendly by any means and if it was populated entirely by humans, co would be the odd one out. A third one, this one appearing to be female-presenting, was perched atop a long yellow transport near the human with pink hair. This only unnerved Nem further. An entirely human population was rare these days, which meant Nem might not even be in the Oligarchy's galaxy anymore.

Ricky offered a smile "alright if you mean no harm, tell me who are you?" He placed his spear back in it's sheath, but still kept a good distance away, just in case.

They noticed that the bus has an open part on the top, putting the bow on their back and holding the arrows in her teeth their used their left hand and swung down into the bus. Noticing a definitely not human thing in the bus. It walked towards her slowly they realized what it was and she shot it with the bow.

The thump of the body alerted the closet person to the murder of the creature. They sweatdropped and took a deep breath.

Alex dribbled forward and backward. He took a shot. It dropped into the goal. That day was almost like any other day.

Almost was included because there was one part of the day that wasn't like any other day.

Alex swayed left, then swayed right. He faked a shot and dribbled to the left. Then, he scored again.

Breathing deeply, Alex grabbed his basketball and stuffed it in his handheld bag. he was ready to leave the gym when suddenly, he could see nothing-- or namely, he didn't know if he saw anything. A moment later, he landed feet-first on some cracked concrete, in the middle of a ruined city.

And he did the most sensible thing someone would do in that situation.

He screamed at the top of his lungs.

Dala whipped their head around at the kid screaming and covered his mouth with their hand. "Shush it! There are crawlers here and I don't want to die."

After that, they went back to the bus and pulled the arrow from the zombie's chest. They walked out and grabbed the quiver and stuffed it full of the last arrows.

Things were starting to click.

They had started to click when Oz saw the wariness the few he had seen take notice of each other. They continued to click when he heard the thump of something that reeked of death and rot from inside of the bus. And they fully clicked when he heard someone mentioned crawlers nearby. He hated listening to that side of him, but his instincts had been right when they had made him stay quiet.

Oz took a step forward, slipping in between the two that had been talking earlier.

"I don't think anyone here means any harm," he said, talking to both the pair and the others that had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Oz didn't bother to check for magic in the air; he was sure it would be there. It was the only way to explain their sudden appearances. "I have a feeling we all ended up here against our will. I'm Oz, by the way~ Short for Oswald, but that's a dreadful first name and I never use it."

He gave a smile that he hoped was comforting. It had been awhile since he had to give one of those - he had never really gotten the hang of it.

"I think we might be in a zombie apocalypse," he said, "if the person on the bus is anything to go by. It might be a good idea for us to stick together."

As he spoke, he scanned the group - and the horizon. It seemed like the zombie on the bus was the only one nearby. He was sure others were slightly farther away, but they didn't have to worry about them for a moment.

Ricky nodded "wow, two zombie apocalypses in one day, that has got to be a record" he joked.

"My name is Dala. I'm good with a bow if that helps? I may be one-handed but my shot is true." They held their hand out to Oz. "Also I'm sixteen and I may look like a female but I use they/them pronouns so please respect that. I also have a switchblade if that helps."