And now I find myself here, back at the base we should’ve abandoned forever. It can never be a place of any hope to me after all that’s happened. It’s all been desecrated and destroyed. it’s all over. We’ve lost.
I’m sitting in my room, looking out into the clouded sky. The clouds are still a depressed gray, which makes me feel even worse. When I start looking at the walls around me, all I can see are the mistakes I’ve made and the failures I’ve become.
My little girl….......I can see the art she spent so much time making. It’s happiness that testifies against the evil that constantly surrounded her and tried to devour her spirit. The drawing of me as her hero is my favorite…....I’m looking at it now and hating myself for it. It has some blood on it, on the upper left corner of the page. The smeared droplets look as if they’re trying to infect the page; the once white clouds have started turning red and pink with infection.
At the same time, this disease seems to be trying to infect the beautiful hands that made it, tainting all I have left of my little girl in my heart. It makes me so angry at everything that’s happened, and especially at myself.
I’m trying to ignore it as I take this long look at the picture. I see the hero in the middle; even though the face is all wrong, and he has a pink and green jumpsuit on, I still love it. It lets me know my little girl thought I was a good guy despite all the wrong I’ve done and all the mistakes I’ve made. I hope she could still believe that if she were here with me now.
It also makes me believe that I still have a chance to be good, even though I only see myself as evil. I’m stuck wondering if I truly have become the monster, devouring myself from the inside out until nothing of me is left.
It’s only me, the red haired woman, another woman, and five men left. We have three guns with little ammo, some forgotten food supplies, and some melee weapons. We really have nothing; the infected have won. We all know it.
They followed us back here, and they’re lurking in the shadows of the forest as I speak. Their shrieks are filling the air around us, and seem to get closer with each passing minute. I don’t want to make any sort of last stand; there’s no point. I just wanna to die already. I’ve got nothing left.
The red haired woman found this recorder and these tapes a while ago, and she documented her life on some of them. She said she wanted to tell her story to others in the future. She’s given the rest of them to me because she says I need to talk; she says I need to give presence to the pain that’s killing me. It’s festering in me like a cancer that won’t quit.
I honestly think this is stupid, but it kills some time and distracts me from the pain surging through my body. But the red haired woman told me that this is important because someone needs to know about everything that’s happened; they need to hear what real life was like from someone like me.
Why me? I’m nobody. I’m just a guy who lost himself in the midst of losing everything else around him. Now I’m just an empty shell of who I once was.
This is the final tape left, and........I guess this is the end of my story. It’s probably the end of my life too; I know I don’t have long left. I pray that someone finds this. I pray that it can make the difference I never could.
This is the end of me, and all that I am. I hope it’s just your beginning…......
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Thank you for taking the time to read this work. I hope you enjoyed it and will look forward to other works I will bring forth in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Michael Matchell, for all of his hard work and dedication.
To my family, for all of their support and encouragement.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Wilburn is a college student living in beautiful Southern California with his mother, sister, and brother. He is currently studying to become an English teacher for high school students.
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