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When you think of the end of the world, what do you see?
Maybe you think of a fiery heat-death. Some bomb that decimates the land. An abrupt, inescapable darkness. An explosion, not too dissimilar from a firework. The Earth's last hurrah, a shaky sigh of relief as she can return to obscurity. A final explosion, and then silence forevermore.
No-one ever expects the world to end slowly.
According to the newspapers, the world ended on September 27th. In hindsight, the world ended on September 25th, when the green flu caused the first airport to close.
The MODS had put up posters and pamphlets, sent out alerts internationally via televisions and radio, warned people of the upcoming epidemic. Nothing could’ve stopped the world from ending in the first week.
For Elliot, though, the world ended differently. For him, the world ended on October 3rd.
October 3rd, the day that somehow a person within the compound got infected. His hometown, everyone he knew, all destroyed in less than a day. Replaced with a hollow shell of what it once was.
The worst part? He just stood there and watched. In horror, in terror, as his father and sister got sick. As they coughed and cried and held him solemnly, as they wished him their final goodbyes. He stood there as the military herded as many uninfected people with them as they could. He didn't go, couldn’t go, he couldn't leave them.
He just stared as they shambled towards him. If he looked hard enough, he could see fear in their eyes, recognition, a part of them that still lived and breathed, that begged him to run, to escape, before they got to him. He didn’t move.
He had been content to die there, to be cannibalised by his family. Then, he could at least die in their arms, be held by them and let them hold him, one last time.
It was only, among the mayhem, something struck him, barreled into him.
“What are you doing?!” A person yelled. Loud. Loud enough to snap him out of it, to look away.
They were shaking, hands clutching a baseball bat that was beginning to splinter. Blood drenched their clothes, their face, their weapon.
“We have to move!” They yelled again, grabbing his wrist to tug him along,
Elliot's voice didn't work, didn't feel like it worked.
He stuttered out… Something. He wasn’t sure what. Something pathetic, something heartbroken, something scared.
The person understood him all the same, their expression softening in a vague understanding of his sorrow.
They helped him lock them inside his home. Covered for him as he barricaded the windows and doors. Helped him gather some of the smaller momentos. the last photo they had together, Mia’s drawings and his Dads cheap joke gifts. They stayed by his side as he mournfully stared at the door, told his family, told himself that they would be back, that they would be safe, that they would live past this. They had too.
He swallowed his vow, his sorrow, his guts, and forced himself to look away from the door. To the stranger. The stranger looked back. Their face was nervous, a hand hovering close to Elliot’s shoulder, as if they were unsure if they should touch him. They give him a look he can't decipher, somewhere between pity and sympathy maybe. A small smile tugs at the corner of their lips, an attempt at comfort, maybe. They open their mouth, then close it. Then shake their head and look at the other.
“Y-you ready to go..?” Their voice is quiet, much quieter than before.
Elliot sucks in a breath. He tries to fall back into the notions, to put on his usual face. The one he uses to talk to customers, to work through grueling shifts, to comfort his family. It feels wrong. Shattered, broken, misplaced. It feels wrong on his face, and something in him itches that he’s doing it wrong, that he should try again.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he meets the stranger's eyes. They’re still staring at him in that indecipherable way. He finally breaks his self-imposed silence. His voice sounds wrong, shaky, uneven, like it belongs to someone else. Not him, never him, he’s never sounded like this.
“There's a safe room in the pizzeria.” He says. He tries not to think about it.
The other person looks vaguely relieved. Finally, an expression he can recognise.
“Oh- Th-thank you! I’m from the other side of town, s-so…” They trial off.
Elliot hums in response. He lets himself glance at the house one last time, to take in the sound of their muffled wailing, before powering forward. Out of the garden, onto the street, intent on using the path he’d usually take to work. Faintly, he can hear the other stumble to catch up behind him.
There’s one problem they both notice on the precipice of the garden, however.
The street is overrun.
Elliot can’t count them all, not now. It looks like twenty at least, weaving their way through haphazardly parked cars. His hand tightens on his steak knife.
“It’s down the street, to the left.” He whispers.
“Lets j-just.. Take this slow.” Elliot can’t help but agree. Apprehensively, he begins walking, letting the other take the front.
If it weren’t for the moans of the infected, this could almost be nice. He wants to let himself pretend, even for a moment, that he’s not here. That he’s walking to work. That he’s covering the night shift. He can’t though, not while looking at walking dead bodies. Unnaturally pale skin that makes them look horribly ill, horribly frail. It's worse, to look at them and see people he can recognise. Faintly, anyway.
The one guy who always came in on a Thursday and ordered anchovies and olives. The sickly supplier he used to help with the boxes. The lovey-dovey couple that’d always order the same thing - pepperoni pizza and two Fizzly’s - and sit at the beach.
He felt sick, staring at them, at these reduced versions of them. Shambling, standing, crying, mourning.
At least, until one of them isn't shambling, isn't standing, isn't crying, isn't mourning. What they are, is running towards him. Hands dangerously outstretched, trying to grasp at him.
He doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what overcomes him as they tackle him, as he shoves them off, as both hands find the handle of his knife, as he puts it through their neck.
He doesn’t know what he’s done, he doesn’t feel it. He watches as they splutter, blood squirting from the wound as he pulls the knife back.
A baseball bat collides with their jaw with a thwack, and the zombie hits the floor.
He feels like he can’t move again, stuck staring at them. Whoever they used to be, a face eerily familiar that he just can’t place.
He doesn't feel it, not until he’s in the safe room with his new acquaintance. He doesn’t remember walking the rest of the way, or showing them where to go. Briefly, he wonders if he did at all.
It doesn’t matter much. He’s sat on the floor, with the stupid bottle of hand sanitizer the room was equipped with, desperately trying to get the blood out of his shirt. He tries to ignore how they looked, how it felt. They were someone, somewhere. They had a life, a family, a purpose. Maybe they were gone, but maybe there could’ve been hope for them, if he didn’t kill them so soon.
“... Hey.” A voice rings out from the opposite side of the room. Right, the stranger, coated in blood. “D-don’t use all the soap!” They chuckle, it sounds hollow, dead.
Silence coats the room. Elliots scrubbing slows to a stop as they walk towards him. They hesitate, then put their hand on his shoulder. It helps the world feel a little less blurry.
“... You’ll be o-okay.” Elliot wants to believe them. “I-I know this is h-horrifying a-and so… Unreal. B-but we’ll make it through. W-we have each other now, r-right? We’re going to be o-okay.”
Elliot didn’t know when he started crying, but he couldn't find it in him to stop. They pull him into an embrace, and the two stay like that for a while, huddled against each other. The only people they have left.