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<i><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#00ffff"><i>The year is 2019. The virus has infected the world for three years. Less than 1% of Earth's original population remains. To begin, it is early morning. The sun rose at 7:20 am and will set shortly after 6:00 pm. It is early January.</i><br/>
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<i>_________________________________________________</i><br/>
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<b>Aaron Damien-Lewis | 29 y/o | Male | seeking Survivor Colony</b><br/>
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_________________________________________________</span></i>​</div><br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff"><i>"No."</i> </span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#00ffff">Aaron breathed, twitching in his sleep as he always would. The same damn dreams haunted him, and they would until the end came knocking at <i>his </i>door. Whenever he was exhausted to the point, he'd nod off with his HK 416 rifle tucked in his arms, cradled like a newborn babe. Around him lay spent brass casings charred black from gunpowder and the resulting eruption from being fired off from the short stroke piston and rotating bolt action weapon. They lay scattered about the dry cracked floor like an alcoholic's obsession with bottles and beer cans. Outside the doorway lay various traps; bear traps to maim and a baseball bat with nails driven crookedly through the oaken shaft. It was stuck to the ceiling with a trip wire to the mace-like contraption.<br/>
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At the base of the stairs, hung from the ceiling was a bundle of grenades. He'd modified flash bangs to emit UV light which posed a great threat to the mutants. Though, as he slept, he wept for the faces he saw, he knew, he loved profoundly; his father, mother, younger brothers and baby sister. Most died quietly, thankfully. But two became ravenous ghoulish monsters. They didn't even move like human beings anymore, let alone look like them; skittering up walls and upside down from ceilings; splintered wood, plaster, and drywall digging in under their nails tearing them. He remembered seeing them for the first time; infectious pustules covered their pallid palpitating just under the skin. Red, glazed eyes stared back into his blue ones. The once red veins became a necrotic black, and that haunting screech the released before they were frenzied like piranha.<br/>
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It had been a scramble to get down the stairs and his old gun rack where he removed a black combat Model 870. It fired 3" deer slugs. He fired at the creature look eerily reminiscent to his brother who rebounded off the wall where the first landing with a leap-frog movement to the ceiling. Releasing an ear-splitting yowl wherein another came running. It hit a bear trap, it's foot now mangled It wasn't going anywhere with that clamped around its leg. It hollered and screamed for pain.  The one Arron had the rifle trained on galloped toward the back door until a well-placed slug tore it from the ceiling. It crashed to the counter flopping and writhing with a fist-sized hole in its shoulder. Blood splattered every which way; the dishes, the blinds the stove and of course, the floor was awash in blood.<br/>
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It was screeching and howling and clenching its barely-there limb. Then, as the dawn poured in through the cracks it began smoldering; its skin was burning due to the light pouring in from the shattered glass pane. It hurried to its feet, scrambling the get away from the UV exposure. As the creature ran past Arron caught a glimpse of its face. It was Benjamin!<br/>
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</span><br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff">"Ben!"</span><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#00ffff"> He would yell out, but the person he once knew was dead and gone. It shuffled into the dark, dank confines of the basement. <span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff">"Cecil?"</span> Aaron called out, but all heard was lumbering upon the stairwell. It was getting closer and closer. <span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff">"No,"</span> Aaron muttered beneath his breath. <span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff">"No, don't do it, Ben! Don't! Please!"</span> He begged but the mindless thing he'd become wouldn't listen.  Nails clawing at the door </span><br/><br/><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#00ffff"><br/>
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Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...Scratch...<br/>
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Then the clawing stopped, it was followed by a howl that had Aaron's heart racing. Suddenly the door was slammed into by something. It was so forceful it caused the frame to shake. Another ramming saw the wood splintering around the frame. By this time Aaron had readied himself, steeled his resolve when the door flung open and the wounded monster that was formally his little brother took a buckshot blast to the face. Its visage disappearing in a haze of red mist bits of bone, flesh, and muscle. It stopped immediately and tumbled back down the stairs.<br/>
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Heaving his breaths, he began sobbing uncontrollably. He had just shot his little brother. Or what used to be. He clenched the 12-gauge pump-action in his arms and choked back a sob before he shut the door and knocked over the armoire to seal the door shut. Still heaving, he hurried to the back door only to see an ashen sculpture formed from what used to be his sister. "Cecilia!" He barged out the door and drew close to what remained of the charred monstrosity. Her leg was ensnared in a bear trap set out for cougars. That must've been What Ben was hearing and was trying to get to her. These...things, they seemed to sense when another is in trouble. It then dawned on him: Life, it had changed.<br/>
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That being said, he couldn't be the only one who made it, could he? The thought scared him shitless. The only person left alive in a world of creatures such as these. In a touching moment, he gently touched his sister's face, a tear rolling down his cheek as she collapsed into a heap of ash on the ground. He decided right then he would live, if not for his own sanity than for their memory.  Grabbing the shotgun, he headed back into his home. Aaron immediately went from room to room clearing each before he hit his parent’s room. He cracked the door ajar just a bit. They were still in bed, but that didn’t mean it would stay that way. He rushed in, cocking the Remington 1100. When he took note they seemed devoid of any and all signs of life, he slacked his arms. It seemed confusing to be relieved that they were dead already.</span>