Zombieworld AU (1)
A/N: As promised! I'm not sure how many people saw the original bit of the game, but shoutout to @monachosis who was the first on interacting with this post!
No one expected Billy to survive, is the thing.
As one of the smaller kids on the street and with little strength to speak of, he'd never gotten to keep the nicer hideaway spots in the city.
He hadn't been able to stay in homeless shelters much either; They'd always ask why he was alone or they'd try and call social services on him.
His odds had been stark, laid out plain like that - small and weak and with no way to find a reliable place to eat or sleep.
Billy wouldn't have bet on himself either when the first wave hit.
But he does.
Survive that is.
Squished under a small pocket in a demolished building, a little lean-to he'd dug out for himself with his ratty backpack hugged to his chest and just about all his clothes on for warmth, he'd been too deep down, too difficult to reach, too insignificant a target when the whole world went to hell.
Billy remembers that first night in flashes. Remembers waking from his uncomfortable dozing to screeching tires and screams.
The bits of the sky he'd seen through the gaps between crumbling concrete and rebar had glowed a dull red, and there'd been an awful, thick stench of burning petrol in the air.
A car accident. He'd thought so simply at first.
But it had kept happening. Louder and louder and all over the place.
Desperate screaming and things breaking and this raw, savage sound in the background accompanying everything - Billy remembers that he'd thought of the dog he'd seen once, with rabies.
All slavering and thoughtless and violent to anything and everything that came close.
Just like that, but everywhere and instead of the way the dog had let him be when Billy had gotten far enough, whatever it was, was attacking everything.
Billy remembers shaking, hands clasped around his nose and mouth, with shallow vents between his fingers for air, lungs heaving rapid and shallow.
Had it been instinct, then? Something prey-like in his hindbrain telling him not to make a sound.
His heart gone rabbit-quick, slamming against his ribcage.
More and more screaming, people begging and a wet tearing all overlayed by that awful, awful savage sound filtered down to Billy.
His mind had gone blank.
How long he'd stayed like that, Billy hadn't known, but eventually the sky brightened - dull red fading to black then purples and then lightening to blue sky and Billy had stayed like that until the bits of the sky through the gaps stung to look at and everything was getting uncomfortably warm.
Billy remembers thinking later or trying to think anyway that he'd made the right choice, so to speak.
Getting out would have taken precious minutes and would have left his back to open air as he leveraged himself out.
Plus, he'd had no idea what was out there. He wouldn't have been able to help anyone.
Hiding had been his best bet.
Like a coward.
Billy had dug himself out of the building's remains, telling himself that and stepped out into a world completely changed.
