After I found some viable resources, I prepared to spend the night in the store. There wasn’t much to make a comfortable bed, but with a few paper towels and some ripped clothing, I managed to make a small uncomfortable sleeping area. It wasn’t much, but it should get me through the night. Shortly after I finished building, I put the shotgun and crowbar down next to the badly made bed and went straight to bed.
As I was sleeping, I had a dream about becoming a dog. From what I could tell I was a stray in a typical city area with a lack of food, the main struggle in my dream was there wasn’t enough food for everyone and had to defend myself from other hungry dogs. It felt like it went on for years until one day I met a nice friendly human who took me in, fed me, bathed me, and gave me a nice warm home. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that something was off, there was a strange disfigured man staring out me through the window. It was difficult to tell who it was through the curtain, but I could tell that it wasn’t a typical human with the way it walked and the muffled groan through the window.
I walked around the house to see if anyone was home, but there was nobody to be found. I realized shortly that there was dead silence as the figure disappeared from the window. This made me think that it was just something to do with weird shadows, but, what came later disproved my theory. The groaning continued, but this time it came from the front door, except this time it was more violent with knocking sounds. It took a few minutes, but the figure managed to break the door down and limp in. I finally realized that this figure was a mangled human-being that looked to be dead, and soon after it grabbed me and I jolted awake.
After a few minutes of trying to process the nightmare that I had, I realized that there was actual banging and groaning. It was coming from the back door of the building, and I soon realized that it was time that I pack up and leave. I jumped out of my terribly made bed and grabbed my weapons. I realized that it would be a bit difficult to carry them together and a bit awkward. So once I gathered the rest of what I had, I walked to the front of the store where I can try and look for something to carry my items.
After a few minutes with no luck, I decided to head on out to look for something that can assist me with survival. As I walked out I was surprised to see the amount of destruction that had ensued after I went to sleep. The roofs of a lot of the buildings were collapsed, with some corners also destroyed. I also noticed a great deal of cars that were either wrecked, on fire, abandoned, or had dead bodies in them. The worst part through it all was the silence, there was nothing except for the sounds of destruction, not even a zombie was nearby.
I contemplated on where I wanted to go for around 6 minutes and decided that I wanted to head straight on and hope to find other survivors. It took around 23 minutes of walking to be able to find a decent store with the smallest amount of destruction, it was a store called “Parabulas” and sold office and school supplies. I made a sigh of relief, hoping that maybe I could get my hands on a backpack to store my weapons and other belongings. I tried to enter but noticed that the door was locked and had a closed sign on the other side which made me realize that this may be a bit harder than I had hoped. I looked around for a few minutes before deciding to break the door open with my crowbar. Once I had access to the store, I quickly looked around before finally settling on a tacky pink backpack with flowers on it. I was just glad to be able to finally have means of storage so I could travel more efficiently.
Once I was able to get all of my belongings into the backpack with the crowbar slightly sticking out, I headed out and kept on the same route as I was going. I kept on the path for a few hours until finally I could not walk anymore and was starving. I looked around for something to eat, but I couldn’t find a single thing except for the grass on the ground. I decided that it was time to start raiding nearby houses with hopes that I could find some decent food. After searching through 3 houses I managed to find 2 cereal boxes with one half empty, 3 apples, 1 banana, 4 strawberries, 24 bottles of water, 3 cans of beer, and a chocolate bar. With a sigh of relief I began packing the food whilst eating 2 of the strawberries and taking a drink from one of the water bottles. After relaxing a bit I decided that it was time to head back on the road with hopes that I can get back home while only taking a few of the water bottles with me.
I continued on my journey watching the destructive aftermath as I walk past destroyed buildings and vehicles. Within the long journey I had I haven’t seen a single living being. I continued on until started to get dark outside, luckily I was out of the main city by then and in a suburban housing area so I could easily find some shelter and possibly some more supplies for the upcoming days.