First Line Friday: Flash Fiction

Today I am posting a little piece I wrote for The Fiction Cafe: Writer’s Group, First Line Friday.

The goal was to write a piece using the first line prompt and to keep it under 750 words.

My piece came to 486 Words.

To save his own life, he would have to kill his humanity. He had managed to survive 1 year, 3 months, 2 weeks and 3 days in the new world without killing one of them, without killing anything other than game to eat.
Times were changing, now faced with the reality that he would have to kill one of them to get out of his makeshift camp.

The virus came quickly, it seemed to take hold and wipe out populations of towns within a few days. Not many people were left now. He had always watched programmes like The Walking Dead, 24 Hours, Zombieland with a morbid curiosity. Assuming that things like that would never happen but planning his survival routine. When it came down to it, of course, his imaginary plans meant very little, he had no idea how to really survive when fiction became reality.

He survived by sheer luck, catching what he could to eat, looting shops and keeping to himself. He came across the odd person or group but avoided staying with them long-term. Survivability was better when alone. Fewer people, less attraction and less weight of others to carry.

He had found a shed to camp out in a few nights ago, surprisingly in decent shape and well protected. A few minor adaptations and it was a good place to rest for a while. However, overnight a few wandering pools of rotten flesh had come past and were now banging against the only exit. He hadn’t killed one before, naively holding out for a cure he couldn’t bring himself to kill something that was once and could possibly again be human. He knew if he wanted to get out of there he would have to kill them though, he knew they would attract more. He was trying to figure out what had caused them to stay and not go past, perhaps his scent or the ashes of the old fire. Perhaps these things were more capable of intelligent thought than he first thought.

He knew there was no danger of them breaking in so he just laid there with his stuff all ready to go, the sun peered into a small hole in the ceiling and it caught his eye. He got to his feet and carefully climbed onto the old workbench. He pushed the ceiling with both hands and it gave a little, with enough force he could create a hole to climb through. It didn’t take long considering most of the wood had started to rot but there was a hole small enough to get out of.

He pushed through his backpack and bat and heaved himself up. Carefully making his way to the edge if the roof to get down without distracting the half-human creatures. He dangled down and dropped to his feet, carefully he backed away. Once he thought he was safe he ran.

Thanks for reading.

Emma-louise x

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