Restarting From Genesis

Merlin continued to read through the pages, the beautiful handwriting that described every detail of the events that occurred quickly began to warp in the coming pages. Some pages were almost manic scribbles, clearly showcasing the stress the old man was under. But he continued to diligently scribe his life story.

As food storages shrunk, with no end to the lockdowns in sight, several neighbours were pushed to act in their desperation.

Some families turned to abandonment to continue their lives, throwing out the elderly onto the street into the swarms of undead, merely to secure their next meal. While other families decided to escape the situation together, and when the streets seemed clear, began their escape.

There were several pages dedicated to each time the husband noticed one of their neighbours attempt to escape the city. Every single article ended the same way, the families ran into an alleyway that seemed safe, only to be ambushed moments later by the undead, surrounded and then violently consumed.

Merlin began skipping through the pages until he skimmed over a line that mentioned the young girl once more.

The pages described how before the family could even move a couple of metres from their house, they were ambushed by one of the corpses laying on the street.

One of the neighbours who had previously been killed in their escape attempt had suddenly sprung to life, grabbing the father of the family by the leg, forcing him to fall face-first into the street, only for the newly formed undead to bite into his leg.

The man's screams alerted several other undead to rise, quickly surrounding the mother and young child. The mother attempted to push past one of the undead and leap back into her house, where she believed she would be safe. Unfortunately, she was unable to muster up enough force to push the monster aside, and as a result, the undead bit down on her shoulder, sealing her fate.

The young girl, terrified at the sight before her, sprinted past the undead and towards the old couple's apothecary, where she knew she would be safe.

The next page described the loud banging the husband heard on the first floor, alongside the young girl's screams for help. But he couldn't muster himself to move from his spot in the second-story window, staring down at the girl who was slowly being surrounded by the undead that had just put an end to her family.

The rest of the page described the grim fate of the young girl in between apologies and excuses that the man had written to free himself of the guilt he felt. Like how he couldn't have made it down there in time, or that even if he had, the undead would have broken down his door and murdered him, his wife and his unborn child.

Merlin stopped reading briefly and looked around at the expressions of everyone in the building. Naturally, everyone had a complicated expression on their face.

Merlin also glanced at his stream chat, and there seemed to be an almost unanimous vote that the story had gotten rather messed up.

"How much more is there to the story?" Zankoku asked.

"It feels like we're coming to the end," Merlin said as he briefly flipped through the remaining pages, just to see how many were filled.

"Alright, might as well finish it off," Alvira said while gently placing the stash of silverware she looted from the house onto the floor.

Merlin continued to read the last few chapters, they seemed to all revolve around his wife and child.

They described how the necrotic energy in the city had become so thick that it had started taking its toll on his wife's physical condition.

The wife had begun experiencing night terrors, waves of extreme pain and shortness of breath. Alongside those symptoms, the baby inside her began kicking around violently as if it too were in severe pain. And only a couple of days later, the wife had begun experiencing painful cramps.

The husband did all that he could to assist her in any way that he could. He began giving her high doses of pain medication, while still taking their baby's safety into account. This seemed to work for most of the pain, but some instances of pain were still too much for her, causing her to scream as if she were being tortured.

The husband was forced to gag her at times to prevent her screams from alerting swarms of undead to their doorstep. Although he wasn't happy about it, he'd rather put her through this slight degree of discomfort than watch her be eaten alive by ravenous monsters.

One day, the painful cramps had stopped, as did the violent kicking of the baby within his wife.

The wife was distraught, as a medical professional, she knew what this likely meant. Her sombre tears filled the man's heart throughout the rest of the night.

Although his wife was experiencing severe depressive episodes after the presumed death of her newborn, her body's health was slowly recovering. The husband wasn't as restricted with his prescriptions, so he used the very best materials within their inventory to save his wife's life.

The wife was slowly regaining the ability to walk, with her husband's assistance, but the fact she was no longer restricted to the bed was already a good sign in regard to her recovery.

That was until the pain suddenly returned.

The baby inside her had begun moving again, except this time it was even more violent, his wife screamed out in pain, falling to the floor while wrapping her hands around her stomach.

The husband's manic scribbles that filled the following pages described that as he helped her onto her bed and checked her condition, the sight that he saw sent shivers down his spine.

Small claw-like fingers were stretching his wife's skin, seemingly reaching out for him, as if a monster were trying to claw its way out of his wife's body.

But what followed the claws had clearly ruined the already waning sanity of the man, a sight that ruined what little hope he had left for a chance of survival, or any desire to survive in the first place.

He saw the outline of his previously dead child's face pressed against his wife's stomach.

His baby had returned as an undead.