Scenario: Man waking up to zombie attack
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Man waking up to zombie attack
No matter how many times I tell myself never to get this drunk, I still find myself waking up in the same state, my head pounding and my stomach threatening to expel whatever is left inside it.
I groan, turning over to bury my face into the pillow, but the incessant wailing of sirens break through my sleepy haze, and I’m forced to sit up.
My bed is a mess, sheets tangled around my legs and pillow on the floor, and I’m still wearing the clothes I went out in last night.
Thankfully, I at least had the presence of mind to take off my shoes before climbing into bed.
I’m not sure how much of yesterday night I even remember—last night?It must be morning now, but I have no idea what time.
I didn’t even make it to the bar last night until almost midnight, which means I couldn’t have been there for more than an hour before they closed up and threw me out.
I vaguely remember the bartender telling me it was last call, but after that, nothing.
My head is pounding so hard that it feels like the room is spinning.
I close my eyes, willing myself not to throw up.
If there’s one thing I hate more than a hangover, it’s vomiting, and even in my inebriated state, I manage to keep my stomach contents where they are.
After a few deep breaths, the nausea finally begins to subside.
My headache, however, does not.
Gingerly, I lower myself back down onto the mattress and curl into a ball with my hands wrapped around my head.
Maybe if I squeeze tight enough, the pain will go away.
I give up after a few minutes and sit back up.
The room blurs for a moment before coming into focus, and I squint against the light.
It’s brighter than I remember it being when I went to bed—I must not have closed the blinds all the way last night.
Goddamnit, I was really hoping for a day where I could sleep undisturbed by natural light or sirens, but clearly that isn’t happening.
I rub my temples, trying to will the pain away, but it doesn’t work, as usual.
When will I ever learn?
It wasn’t worth it.
Sure, the first couple of beers were nice, but I continued to drink long after that in a desperate attempt to forget, and all I did was make it worse.
I take a deep breath and brace myself before opening my eyes again, and this time, the room stays still.
After a few seconds, my vision clears and the blurriness fades, allowing me to take stock of my surroundings.
The sirens are still blaring outside, and I can hear cars honking their horns, but it’s not enough to completely drown out the pounding in my head.
I look towards the window, the source of the bright light that woke me up, and contemplate getting up to close the blinds before ultimately deciding against it—it’s easier to just ignore it than to get out of bed.
And then, as if on cue, the sirens grow louder, and a ball of dread forms in my stomach.
I sit up straighter, straining to listen, and the sound seems to be coming from every direction at once.
The sirens continue to wail, growing louder and more persistent by the second, until they begin to echo inside my skull.
It sounds like every emergency vehicle in the city is coming down my street at once, each one driving with their lights flashing and sirens blaring at full volume.
I close my eyes and squeeze my temples again, trying to block out the noise, but it doesn’t work—it only makes the pounding worse.
My head feels like it’s about to split open, and I wish I could just turn off my ears for a few minutes to make it stop.
That would be so nice right about now.
My first thought is that maybe I should call 911 for my own emergency—headaches this bad can’t be normal, right?
But then I realize how stupid that is and dismiss the idea just as quickly as it came into my head.
I’m not that desperate yet—at least not until the hangover gets worse.
I shake my head, as if that will help clear the cobwebs, before pushing myself out of bed, and I stumble over to the window, half-expecting to see police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks racing down the street with their sirens blaring.
But when I look out the window, I see nothing but darkness, stretching as far as I can see in every direction.
The city lights are gone, along with the sirens that woke me up, and everything is eerily silent, as if the entire world has stopped moving, just for a moment, until reality catches up with it again.
I blink, rubbing my eyes, but nothing changes—the city is still shrouded in darkness, and I’m not sure what’s going on or why the power went out, but this isn’t normal—not even for New York City.
It’s not even that dark outside—it must be close to sunrise by now, but without the city lights, there’s no way to tell for sure.
It feels like someone threw a thick blanket over the city, extinguishing every trace of light before anyone had time to react.
A chill runs down my spine, and for a moment, I wonder if this is what it feels like to die—a sudden change, and then nothingness, forever, until the end of time.
I shake my head, trying to push the thought out of my mind, and I take a deep breath before looking out the window again, but the darkness remains, casting a pall over the entire city.
I rub my eyes again, hoping that when I open them this time, the light will be back and everything will go back to normal, but it doesn’t happen—the darkness remains unchanged, unyielding, as if someone has pulled the plug on the entire city and taken away all of the lights at once.
I squint, trying to see through the darkness, but it’s no use—there’s nothing to see, and a cold feeling settles in the pit of my stomach.
A small part of me wonders if this is what people feel like right before they die—a sudden chill, a feeling of emptiness deep inside them—but I push the thought away before it can take root in my mind, and I turn away from the window before walking out of the room and heading for the front door of my apartment.
Before I can take another step, the sound of shattering glass reaches my ears, followed by screams of terror and desperation, and I freeze in place for a moment before taking a few steps back and rushing towards the window to see what’s going on below me.
My apartment is on the fifth floor of an old building, so I have a pretty good view of the street below me—and what I see shatters every expectation I might have had about this day or this city or this world.
People are running in every direction, their movements frantic and aimless, as if they don’t know where they’re going or why they’re even running in the first place, and some of them are being chased by others who seem to have lost their minds completely, with bloodthirsty determination burning in their eyes as they try to catch up with their prey.
I blink in confusion, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing—the people running away from something don’t seem to be in any hurry to get away from whatever’s chasing them—but it takes me a few moments to realize that they’re not being chased by other people at all.
The things pursuing them can only be described as monsters—their bodies are twisted and contorted in ways that seem to defy logic or reason, and their movements are jerky and unnatural, as if they’re not used to walking on two legs or moving their limbs in ways that humans would find comfortable or familiar at all.
Guttural sounds come from their throats as they move—or rather shamble—towards their prey, and their eyes are empty and hollow, as if there’s nothing left in them but a deep-seated hunger for flesh and blood and everything else that makes up a living human being.
I stare at the scene unfolding below me in disbelief—this can’t be real; it must be a dream or some kind of nightmare—but the longer I watch, the more I realize that it is all too real and that people are actually dying down there while I stand here and watch it happen without doing anything to help them at all.