I cleaned my knife on the bottom of my old ratty jeans. Discoloured blood pooled on the floor in front of me. My boots were now stained with the dark liquid.

There had been two of them.

At first, after throwing open the door and forcing myself to the other side, the disfigured child lunged forwards and went for my arm. I swiftly dodged it, going to the left towards the lockers. It hit the metal door with a loud bang and pushed off. It came back towards me and grabbed my arm with its small, cold hands. I wrenched my arm from its grip and went in for the kill, placing my forearm across its collarbone and slamming my knife into its skull from the front, burying it into its brain. As the knife went through the young child's skull, I could feel the remainder of its life dissolve into nothing as its body slumped to the ground.

The second one caught me off guard. It was bigger than the other and came at me from around the corner, both of its hands locking onto my shoulders as it growled and lunged for my throat. I threw my arms out ahead of me just in time and pushed hard on its chest. The once young man was now a husk of who he used to be. The maroon and yellow basketball jersey he sported signified that he had once gone here. 

Even though he had, I didn't recognize him now. His neck had been where he was bit, a chunk of his skin missing and dark teeth marks were there as proof. That must have been painful.

The thing's grip was tighter than I anticipated. It pushed me against a locker and tried using its weight against me.

I leaned to the left, forcing it the way its weight was heading, using its momentum against it. I slammed it straight into the locker, switching our positions. I held it back against the locker with my right hand, then quickly raised my knife in my left.

I aimed for its right temple and swung my arm as hard as I could. It stopped moving and I pulled my knife clean out of its skull. The body crumbled to the ground against the lockers, landing next to the other. I shook my head, backing up. My body shuddered from what I had just done. It had been a while since I had last dealt with one of these.. beings. I scanned my body for any bite marks and surprisingly, I survived the encounter without being bitten.

My breathing was heavy, and I heaved for a few seconds. I could feel the adrenaline pulsing through my veins. The muscles in my body tensed and relaxed after a few seconds.

After cleaning the rotting flesh and blood off my knife, I tucked it back into my boot. Standing up straight, I let out a breath I didn't realize I had been holding.

Finally, I thought. I quickly walked up to my locker at the opposite end, twisting the lock combination in, not wasting a second. It popped open and the door carefully swung open as I assisted it in attempt to reduce the noise. 

I was beginning to become a bit paranoid, but in this day and time, everyone had to be in order to survive. I reached into my locker and grabbed the flimsy book from the top shelf inside. There wasn't much else in the locker aside from a pair of gym clothes that had been shoved under the bottom shelf and a few textbooks. The locket hung from the hook on the right which was easy enough to remove. I placed the pendant around my neck and carefully tucked the book into the back of my pants.

My ears picked up slight shuffling down the hallway that connected to mine just ahead and I stopped moving. Peering down at the dead things' eyes, my heart dropped.

Blue orbs stared up blankly at the roof, belonging to the once young boy.

They reminded me of her eyes, her laugh, her face... It was like tearing open the old scars that had already started to heal. Shrieks broke the silence as the tears welled in my eyes. I sprinted towards the door, throwing it open.  I ran down the stairwell and continued down to the main floor. Looking back for a split second, the trail of bloody footprints left behind from my boots smeared across the floor.

My boots finally gave out and sent me falling to the ground in a heap. I looked back, about nine or ten of them running after me. They slammed into the walls, fighting to be first to get to me. The remaining paintings on the walls fell, the glass shattering and scattering across the floor. Their screams echoed through the hallway as more of them came around the corner at the end of the hallway. I scrambled off the ground and kept running.

I sprinted past the tables, hearing those things run into them and shriek from behind me.

I threw my weight into the front door of the building, throwing it open and letting it slam shut behind me. I kept running until I reached my car. They would be behind me shortly, the front door a push-to-open from the inside.

Bodies smacked into the door one after the other, forcing their way out of the building. The latch on the door behind me clicked open as the bodies threw themselves at it.

I pulled off my small backpack and launched it into the car, hopping in behind it and slamming the door as they swarmed around the vehicle. I gripped the steering wheel with my left and threw my right wrist forwards as I started the engine. It took a few seconds for my car to react as I floored the gas pedal. They were banging on my car, hands all over the windows, trying to get in. The darkness grew as they surrounded the car, the light slowly fading from view. Jaws clicked, teeth clattered and moans echoed into the little car. 

My car lurched forwards, sending the few that were in front of the car to the ground. The car continued to smash through the crowd of them until I had a clear path. My car struggled going over the bodies but it got up to speed. The tires spun a few times, sending body parts and fluids flying back. There was a squelching sound and a few snaps of bones before the car finally met solid pavement.

More of them from around the block started to swarm behind the car as I drove away. I could smell the stench of rotting flesh that clung to the car and gagged as I sped onward. Keeping my left hand on the wheel, I reached back and pulled the book from my pants and tossed it into passenger seat to my right.

I fled through the school zone, shaking from what had just happened. As I panicked, I glanced at the speedometer but realized it no longer mattered; there was no limit in this world. It was no longer about obeying laws and finding yourself a well-suited place in society; it was about doing anything and everything for survival. Our survival.

I zoned into the drive ahead of me. The path to survival ahead was unclear, unknown to any of us. All of this was still so new, but it almost felt as if it had been going on for years. No one had been prepared, and it was the main reason why there weren't many of us left. I sped off towards the outskirts of town where I would rejoin the last of the survivors, and potentially humanities last hopes of survival.