Nightmares; They can’t be real… Can they?
{ .Joel gasped, stirring violently awake. The moon held high, bright and mighty in the night sky, shining through the dusty glass pane. He slowly sat up, running a hand through his hair. Plagued by the same dream every night for 3 consecutive days, plagued by the recurring memory of the night his world fell apart. The night the infection hit.
He took a deep breath, moving himself to stand, crossing the cold wood floors of the old cabin where he took refuge. Flashes of the attacks split his mind like knives, quick, sharp, they burned him and cut his heart in pieces. Blood, so much blood… It stained his clothing, it marked his skin. And most of all… It covered his daughter.
He could handle seeing any part of that night. He could stomach the killing… The burning flesh… He could see Tommy shooting his friends, his neighbors, people he saw every day, a million times. But he didn’t want to see Sarah. Lying there… Cold, weak, life seeping from the wounds along her stomach, fading fast.
The worst part about all this, death didn’t choose based off age, or family, or if you were sick with some other illness and should’ve died first. No… It was all random chance. Children are supposed to grow up, have kids of their own, grow old, watch their parents pass peacefully away, retire, and live off their life happily.
No parent should ever have to bury their child.
Joel shouldn’t have to bury his child.
Shouldn’t have had. }