16:00
April 9th, 2017

The rain poured down like a waterfall. Triss was wet, tired and hungry, barely able to see five feet in front of her. The raincoat she had slung over her back was now waterlogged, just like everything else on her, having only provided a shield against the water for the first few hours. Her legs ached from having walked since the sun rose, begging her to stop for a break. But she couldn't. Every time she did, she'd fall asleep. And then the nightmares. The horrible onslaught of nightmares. Always the same picture, Triss beating her dad's head in with her baseball bat. She collapsed at the thought, heaving up what she had eaten the night before, the vile taste filling her mouth. She stayed there on her hands and knees, her tears invisible in the rain.

"Why?" she thought. "Why me, why is this happening to me...?" She coughed up the last of the horrific substance that had once been her dinner. She continued to cry out her fear, her confusion and her anger, her hands now soaked in mud. She'd never cried so hard in her life, pouring her emotions into her tears.

And then she stopped. She looked around, the rain still poured to the ground. But she couldn't cry. No more tears to cry, no more emotion to stand in her away. She stood up, her eyes no longer showing sadness and confusion. No. Her eyes showed anger, power and a burning determination to push on, to let nothing stand in her way. SHe picked her cap up off the ground, putting it on her head causing water and mud to run down her face. She didn't care anymore.

She looked ahead, the silhouette of a reanimated just barely visible in the distance. Her grip on the bat tightened, a red stain still visible on the front of it. She ran at it, her heart pounding in her chest, willing her on with the rage of her father's death, no remorse for the poor soul who turned into what stood before her. She crack of her bat against its skull was sickening, but it brought a grin to her face as the rotten insides poured onto the ground in front of her, the body collapsing to the ground. She raised the bat above her head, slamming it repeatedly into it's body, blood splattering on her clothes and face, fury in her eyes.

*****

07:00
April 11th, 2017

Her nightmares had been less frequent since her encounter with the reanimated. The blood had since dried on her face, but she had no intention of wiping it off. In her mind -however intact it still was- it showed that she wasn't to be messed with, that she'd fought and survived, unlike hundreds....no, thousands like her. She had taken shelter in an old warehouse and had found a few batteries and a small gas can which she had transferred into a plastic bottle and stuffed into her bag. The last can of soup she had found a week earlier was cut open in front of her, cooking on a small fire. The smell and heat combined relaxed her nerves, if only a bit. 

Beside her, her climbing harness was sprawled out as she had taken to hanging herself on the ceiling supports to sleep at night, not trusting the integrity of the doors or the people that hadn't turned yet. It was surprisingly nice to sleep in mid air however. She rather enjoyed the feeling of floating, a false sense of security if you will.

After finishing her breakfast, as odd as it was, she carefully re-wrapped the rope and tucked it into her bag along with the harness, before taking one last look around for anything useful. She had spotted a guitar in the corner the night before, but thought nothing of it until she had woken up this morning. Perhaps it would be good for her to have a pastime in these conditions, to ease her mind off of the current situation and calm her nerves at night. She strapped it to her bag and moved on, leaving another building behind as she had done many times before.