The last thing I remember was the rain.
A cold, endless drizzle tapping on the windshield as I drove through the dark. The kind of rain that feels like the sky is mourning something. The road was empty, slick with oil and shadows. The radio crackled with static between stations—just enough noise to keep the silence from swallowing me whole.
I blinked once.
And then it was gone.
No screech of tires. No flash of headlights. No pain.
Just absence.
Emptiness so complete it felt like floating in the void between thoughts.
Then—breath.
Sharp. Wet. Desperate.
I coughed and choked, spitting out a mouthful of black mud. My body convulsed. I was face down in the dirt, limbs twisted, soaked to the bone. My first thought was that I'd survived the crash.
My second was that I wished I hadn't.
The air was wrong. Thick. Metallic. I could taste rot in it, like blood that had dried long ago and still clung to the wind. Every sound was muted except for the thundering of my own heart.
I pushed myself up slowly. My hands sank into the wet earth, trembling. My vision blurred—tears or blood, I couldn't tell. The trees around me were skeletal. The sky above was bruised gray, the kind of sky that pressed down instead of looking up.
I was in a forest.
But not one I recognized.
No power lines. No signs of civilization. No birds. No insects. Just the creaking of wood and the distant echo of something... wrong.
Then I heard it.
A groan. Low and wet, like something caught between a breath and a death rattle.
Another joined it.
And then another.
I turned, slowly, too slowly, as if my body was still unsure whether it should move. Through the trees came three figures.
Human shapes, but... wrong. Unnatural.
The first was a woman, or what was left of one. Her dress was soaked in blood, half her face gone, revealing the yellowed teeth of her skull. Her eyes were clouded, milky white.
The second dragged its right leg behind it, leaving a trail in the mud. Its head was cocked at a sickening angle, bones jutting from its neck like snapped twigs.
The third looked like a man who'd once worn a security uniform. Now it was a loose-hanging thing stained with old gore, swinging as he lumbered forward.
They groaned again. Loud. Hungry.
Walkers.
I didn't think. I knew.
My breath caught. My chest tightened. This wasn't a dream.
This was The Walking Dead.
But that's impossible.
I staggered back, slipping in the mud. My leg hit a rock and I crumpled. My shoulder lit up with pain, sharp and hot. I bit down on a scream, the sound catching in my throat.
They were close now. I could hear the wet smack of their feet. I could smell them—sweet, cloying decay mixed with iron and bile.
This wasn't TV. This wasn't fiction. This was real.
I scrambled to my feet and ran.
Branches clawed at my skin. Roots tried to trip me. But fear pulled me forward. I ran like a man chased by death itself—because I was.
Eventually, I found a road. Cracked asphalt, weeds bursting through it. No signs. No cars. Just a long stretch of desolation.
And in the distance, rising from a hill of twisted trees, a church.
It looked abandoned. Half the roof had collapsed. The steeple was blackened with fire. But it was shelter. Or at least a place to die inside instead of out here.
I staggered to the door and pushed it open. It groaned like the Walkers did. The hinges resisted, then gave way, the wood scraping against the warped floor.
Inside, everything was dust and ash.
Pews rotted where they stood. A cross lay shattered across the altar. Candles had melted down to nubs. Blood stained the carpet. Fresh enough to still be red in some places.
Something bad had happened here.
I didn't care. I collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. My body shook uncontrollably. Cold sweat clung to me like a second skin.
I looked at my hands. Covered in mud. Scratched. Bleeding.
This was real.
This was happening.
I'm dead.
I whispered it aloud, voice hoarse and broken. "I'm dead."
But that wasn't right. Death was supposed to be... something else. Peace. A void. A goddamn tunnel with a light at the end.
Not this.
Not a world where the dead walk and the living hide behind walls and barbed wire, praying for one more day.
A sound snapped me back.
Movement, behind the altar.
I froze, every muscle locking in place.
Slowly, I reached down and grabbed a piece of broken pew. A jagged splinter of wood, long and sharp.
It wasn't much. But it would be enough to stab into a skull.
The groaning was faint, weaker than before. I rose to my feet, creeping around the altar, ready to strike.
There was a body.
Slumped against the far wall.
Male. Middle-aged. His gut had been torn open, intestines spilling out like wet ropes. He clutched something in his hand—a rosary.
He hadn't turned.
I checked his eyes. They were open but vacant. Not the cloudy white of the undead, but the dry glass of someone who'd died waiting for salvation that never came.
I took the rosary from his hand. Not out of faith. Out of respect.
Maybe he believed it would protect him.
Maybe he died praying for a miracle.
And maybe I was the closest thing he got.
I found a backpack in the corner. Mostly empty. A knife with a chipped blade. A flashlight without batteries. A can of peaches with a dent in the side. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Better than nothing.
I took the knife and wiped the blood off on the dead man's sleeve.
As I sat down again, my mind reeled.
How was this possible?
Had I been chosen? Punished? Was this hell? A trial? Was I in a coma somewhere, trapped in my own delusion?
Or worse—was I just gone, and this was the next step?
I used to watch this world from the safety of my couch. Lights off. Blanket up. Cheering when Daryl made it out alive. Yelling when someone did something stupid. Laughing, sometimes.
None of it felt funny now.
Now I was the idiot without a plan.
Now the Walkers weren't actors with makeup—they were monsters, real and relentless.
Now survival wasn't just a plot point. It was the only goal.
I curled up that night on the floor of the church, the knife in my hand. I didn't sleep, not really. I just faded in and out of awareness, every creak and gust of wind jerking me back into the nightmare.
I thought of my family. My sister. My dog. A girl I'd left behind when things got too hard.
Were they even real anymore?
Did they exist in this world? Or were they lost in the one I'd left?
Morning came. Dim light through broken windows.
I was still alive.
Still here.
Still wrong.
I stood up slowly, joints stiff. My stomach growled, but I ignored it. Hunger was familiar. Fear was becoming a friend.
I stepped outside into the gray morning.
A crow watched me from a dead tree, head tilted.
In the distance, I saw smoke.
Not fire. Just a column of it rising slowly, steady, human.
People.
Maybe help. Maybe danger.
Maybe both.
I tightened my grip on the knife and started walking.
Because in this world, you didn't wait for answers.
You hunted them down.
Or you died trying