Staring out the window,

the skies are blue,

everything seems to be

in its rightful place.

But then I look around me,

and I realize that nothing is.

leaves fell to the ground that day

as i made my way

away

away

away

wind harassed my already unkempt mane

i am no longer sane

i no longer feel pain

so just bring on the rain

let it drop

drop

drop

i feel the wetness on my cheeks

nothing but rain these past weeks

fall has come

by winter i'll be numb

leaves fell to the ground that day

as i made my way

away

away

away

from you.

I remember when we used to

Sing and talk over each other in the car

When we'd forget to fill up the gas

And the next stop was way too far

Those were the days

When our biggest fear

Was traveling without our phones

Or running out of cheap beer

No need to think 'bout jobs

'Cause we barely got through school

So we kept driving without a destination

'Cause we thought it was 'so cool.'

My favorite kind of night

is when we don't catch a wink of sleep

and talk until morning breaks.

From meager gossip to

meaty conversations,

we got everything covered.

Never ending banters and jokes

is what makes me love you most.

Where are you going

child? Wandering around alone

in the thick of night,

without a friend, without a light

to guide you back home.

Where are you going

child? Getting lost is not a

worthwhile cause.

What will you do when

you've gone too far away?

Today started out just like any other day. I woke up late as usual and ended up missing the first half of my morning class. It's all good though, I would probably have been sleeping through the whole thing anyway. But then things got ... interesting. I guess you can say that I broke a few of my own personal records today. I probably ran more in the span of 24 hours than I had for the past 2 years. And I thought I was pretty fast too. Then, I got to shoot a gun and hit the target on his (its) head, which is something I'd never done before. Oh and I met a couple of new friends. 

Now you might be wondering what brought all this on. Well you see, just as the bell rang to signal the end of class. Everyone was on their phones, and rushing out of the room in a chorus of panic. I figured it was either a campus alert or they might be serving free food at the quad today. I noticed the girl beside me was sleeping, or so I thought she was. She had her head on the desk and I figured as someone who understood just how boring the professor was for an 8 am class, I would be nice and wake her up incase she had somewhere else to be. But when I moved to touch her, her head suddenly snapped up, and there was clearly something wrong with her. Her eyes were rolled back, and she started muttering ... no growling at me. Before I realized what was going on a gunshot rang, and then there was just blood or whatever substance it was all over me. That was how I met Markus. 

Markus said that this was happening everywhere in Seattle this morning. And now the rushing and panicking started to make sense. There's been 3 of these man eating monsters (I suppose I should just call them zombies) on campus today and he's shot all of them, but he doesn't know how much longer it can be contained before a full on apocalypse starts. So he throws me a gun, and tells me to dump all of the contents in my book bag, because we're skipping class today. I panicked for a moment because I didn't know how to shoot, and I wasn't really looking forward to dying via zombie bite. Markus reminded me that all I have to do is shoot them straight at the head, and that I wouldn't be dead by zombie bite, I would just turn into one of them. 

As we stepped out into the wet and grey Seattle atmosphere, we could see people running towards us, and it wasn't long before we started running as well, but from what I dared not look back. Everyone was screaming, people were falling over and pushing each other, and no one had a clue where we were headed. It was complete pandemonium. I noticed that as we got further, the growling increased in numbers, which was not a good sign. It means that more humans have been turned, and we need to find a hiding place real quick. 

Just as my legs were becoming numb, Markus dragged me to one of the libraries, we held the door open for as many people as we could, but we had to lock it up at some point. I don't think that I could forget their voices that were slowly drowned out by growls. But I didn't have a lot of time for personal reflections, as Markus commanded us to find something to block the doors, and cover up all the windows. We still don't know how smart they are, so if they don't see us or hear us, maybe they won't know where we are. They probably couldn't even figure out how to open a doorknob, to be honest with you. 

There were probably 20 of us in here, and so we rallied all those who had a weapon of some sort. We split into pairs to scout the area in case there were any survivors, or zombies in here. 

I was stuck with a jock named Jared who had a football helmet on and happened to have a baseball bat with him. I wasn't sure whether he was a football player or a baseball player or both, but I didn't think it was time for me to ask those questions. Jared and I went through all the rooms and bookshelves on our side, and didn't really find anything. That was until we heard noises from the ladies room. From what I could tell at least one of them was (still) human. We carefully opened the door standing back to back, making sure to be quiet, so we weren't seen. There was a girl lying motionless on the ground right next to the doorway, and another one cowering under the sink. As soon as I saw the creature I pulled my trigger and it was dead. I didn't realize I had great aim until today... Then I felt Jared jump back behind me, and I turned around to see what was going on. The girl that was on the ground had clearly been bitten and was now in full on zombie mode. In our haste to save the girl under the sink, we didn't notice that she was turning. I tried to shoot at it, but my bullet landed just shy of its forehead, and as a result did not kill it. Jared, with his football armor, stepped forward and took a hard swing at its head. That seemed to confuse it and he hit it two more times in the head until it was on the ground, and I took that opportunity to shoot it square in the head. 

After making sure it was dead, Jared, Mae (the girl) and I made our way back to where everyone was congregated. Markus and the others had apparently found two guys, and they were all waiting for us. We decided to raid the vending machines and ration all the food we had, seeing that we might be here a while. The library became our base for the night, and a bunch of guys were trying to use the computers to find out what was going on outside. At least half of the country was plagued by these mutts, and flights were being stopped to contain the epidemic to a local scale. We all decided to stay in the library and try to train and make weapons of some sort using all the wooden desks and chairs we could find, as well as anything else we could find in the library. 

It is now night time, and we have just finished an evening chat session. Some of us called our families to find out if they were fine. Some were alright, some didn't know what was going on at all, and others didn't reply. Soon we began talking to one another, and getting to know each others' stories. We would probably end up being family anyways if we make it out of all this alive, so why not get a head start on the ice breakers. I've decided to turn in for the night, but sleep evaded me as I thought about the zombie that I killed today. I've been telling myself for the past 30 minutes that they weren't human anymore when I shot them. But I still feel guilty about it. I sure am glad I didn't dump this diary out of my bag this morning. At least now I'll have a record that I survived the first day of the zombie apocalypse. Hopefully I make it out alive. If not then I hope someone does so they can find this later on and figure out what happened to me. 

we are all broken 

waking up in the morning 

to find the mirror has been 

s h a t t e r e d 

perfection isn't real

just a different way of 

be 

   nd 

        ing things 

the sooner you realize that 

the sooner you open

your eyes to see 

that we are all b ro ke n

throwing punches only makes 

more c  r  a  c  k  s 

the cuts on your fists 

only sheds more b l o o d 

we are all b ro ke n 

pieces on the floor 

we are all b r o k e n 

can we ever be whole ?