I do not own 28 Days Later.

I do not own a machete. I hope I don't need to.

Selena

"They died peacefully. You should be grateful."

His face a proper picture of disbelieving indignation and revulsion.

"I'm not grateful."

Of course you're not grateful. You just woke up. You have no idea what it can be like.

Selena had woken up weeks ago.

Ten days after it started.

Woken up to the reality of what it could really be like.

They were a peaceful, generous family.

Had been, anyway.

Here, let us help you.

Let us offer our home to you.

Let us offer our food to you.

Let us pray with you.

And she had believed.

Band together, take care of each other.

And somehow, someway, we'll make it through this together.

Together.

And then everything had all gone to shit.

Mom, procuring food cans, with her little change-of-life baby Jack, hanging off her front in his thingie.

Chemist, that's what she, Selena, had qualified to be.

Schooling and studying and practising.

Before It had started anyway.

So her speciality was finding the right pills when they raided empty stores.

Painkillers, the right antibiotics.

Pep pills for when the watch got long.

Scavenge, sort, order.

Collect.

As much as they could.

For any need, any occurrence.

That was her job.

And Dad, well, his job, the self-proclaimed strapping brute, his job had been to protect them.

Fight off the Infected.

And wrap them all up in strapping brute bear hugs.

Love them.

Keep them safe.

And when it happened, it happened so fast and so brutally that she hadn't even had time to breathe.

"Mum, what's wrong, Mum, are you okay? Mummy-"

To hold them.

"Daddy, Daddy, no don't please-"

To apologize.

"Jack, oh baby, oh I'm sorry, Jack-"

To feel-

"Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god-"

Because more Infected had been coming.

And she was covered in the blood of her dead family.

Her dead Infected mother, her dead Infected father.

Her dead Infected baby brother.

She had killed them all, snatching up her father's machete in desperation.

Slaughtering them to bits before they could do it to her, turn her into one of them.

The baby last because surely, surely, he couldn't have gotten Infected, he was just a baby.

And in the aftermath, she'd had no time to grieve, to mourn.

Not if she wanted to live.

So she had run.

She'd run and run and run and hadn't slowed down, hadn't blinked twice, for anybody.

Or anything.

And she definitely hadn't slowed down long enough to feel or think or consider or dream.

She had just survived.

Because that was as good as it got anymore.

But the scrawny guy with the wounded blue eyes wasn't ready for any of that real shit yet.

So she let Mark tell his Paddington Station sob story.

Again.

While she kept quiet and still.

Refusing to feel.

Refusing to care.

Refusing to hope.

But making sure she did keep a good, tight grip on Dad's machete, her machete.

Staying sharp.

Staying ready.

Staying focused.

Waiting for the Infected to come.

Because the Infected always came.

"Jim?"

Eventually.

Okay, seriously, I love this movie.

I love the characters, I love the storyline.

I love it.

Ahem.

So thanks for reading this little backstory.

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