Little Sophie hasn’t seen her parents, let alone another person in the city in months. The twelve-year old survived by foraging through the supermarkets and convenience stores for any canned food, which were now the only edible things. She still was unclear exactly what happened last winter. All she knew was that there was some sort of infection that made everyone go crazy, like zombies. She still couldn’t believe what she saw on social media before it went dead. Zombies only existed in movies; how can this happen in real life!
The smell of decay lingered in the air as though everything had died. Sophie looked up to see the warm sun in the middle of the sky. She was out of food and desperately entered every store to find only packets of candy and chips. She couldn’t live on just sugar as she was prediabetic and her doctor was adamant that she stick to strict diet. Fresh meat and vegetables had all but perished. The early survivors had raided everything that was edible in the city. Still she kept her spirits up and entered a small convenience store in the middle of the city. She was careful to not trigger any zombies who lay dormant in dark places during the day.
She slowly walked around the store to find everything had been taken. She reached the last isle and by a miracle found a can of ham and spaghetti. She quickly grabbed them and placed them in her backpack. She took a deep breath and made her way out of the store. That’s when her heart sank.
Right in front was a zombie, its eyes were dug out and was missing the left arm and was desperately sniffing in Sophie’s direction. Sophie back tracked and did her best to be as silent as possible. Sophie slowly made her way to the next isle only to find another one sniffing, but this one had eyes. They were white and cloudy but seemed to looking around for fresh meat. They locked eyes for a second before it lunged at her like a dog infested with rabies and before she could turn around, took a deep firm bite of her arm. The pain was indescribable. She couldn’t let it loose. The thing looked at her dead in the eyes, with the unchanging blank expression. Sophie knew then, it was over.
She heard the first , blind one come around the corner. Sophie took a deep breath and clenched her eyes shut and readied herself for the inevitable. Everything went black.
Suddenly, her vision came back on, with a POV display message reading:
“SO-PH1 BATTLE UNIT ONLINE”
Immediately, he sharp hot pain where the zombie was still biting completely disappeared. As if a new program had re-wired her, she punched the ghoul in the face making it let go of her arm. she could see a shiny metallic chassis instead of bloodied bones where the zombie had bitten her. Her fear had now totally subsided.
The zombie picked itself up and ran towards her raging like a crazy animal. Sophie timed it perfectly kicking it forward and aimed at it with her right arm. The heads up display read:
“ALL WEAPONS READY”
Somehow she knew to take a shot. The green ghoul’s head exploded like a decayed watermelon. Instinctively, she turn around to the blind zombie and simply shot its head off, neutralising it.
She ran out to the street to find a horde of zombies, filling the streets all growling at her as it charged.
She was ready.