The wind is so cold it hurts, but I can't stop now. I have to eat something.

My fingers wont stop shaking as I stuff fistfuls of the food into my mouth. Everything is dry, flavorless, half-chewed when I begin to swallow. But now isn't the time to be picky. I haven't eaten since last Tuesday – or what I believed to be last Tuesday. It's so easy to lose track of the days now.

My knees are numb from the snow when I turn and lock my gaze onto the assassin just in time to see him smirk, draw a serrated blade from his coat and launch it into a cannibal's chest. It shrieked a sound foreign to my ears and bubbled into dust.

My thoughts are too foggy with hunger to realize what a suicidal idea this is. The only logical thing it can formulate at this point in time is that I will die if I don't eat right here, right now. And at least a bullet to the head would be a much more desirable death as opposed to starving to death underneath layers of snow.

Tinted blood thick enough to be considered goo slaps onto the white snow, only to dissolve at the touch of such a holy shade of white. A drop of the substance is coughed up in the process and lands on my arm.

Seeing it burn a hole through my skin sends me over the edge. My eyes triple in size as I shriek and drag my twitching left arm up and down the snow, staining it black. At first the contact makes my arm spasm and sizzle farther before eventually calming and dulling down into a soothing numbness.

Then everything falls silent aside from the heaviness of my breathing. The loud screeches from the cannibals are gone, and the barely audible crunches of snow beneath boots disappear. There's a sudden shift of wind, followed by the icy feel of the barrel of a gun forced up against my forehead.

Directly in my view is the handle, pale fingers wrapped securely around them. My heartbeat races as the gun then shifts to underneath my chin, tilting my head up.

My eyes lock with those of cerulean. My breathing stops altogether as my head is tilted left and right, up and down. Why he's doing this is no mystery. It isn't to offend me, a silent way of calling me abnormal-looking. He's checking to see if I'm clean.

Either you are a cannibal or human. There are no 'ifs' 'buts' or 'whats' about it. Once infected with the cannibalia virus, you are one of them. There is no going back, there is no cure. Your forehead becomes rippled with purpling veins and your pupils are enlarged until you're irises are appear nonexistent and it's only a matter of time before you begin losing function of your thoughts and body.

You will begin to fidget. You will hate sitting still. At a week tops, the virus would have dominated all function of you and who you are and have you in the streets running miles on end for human flesh.

And even that, too, is scarce.

If you don't know what you're doing, coming face-to-face with one is suicide. You can't outrun them, period. But say you're good. Say you can run a mile, two, three. Maybe even four. But you cant run forever, and eventually your body will give out on you. Only theirs wont. Cannibals could run double, triple, quadruple even that and wouldn't even be short of breath. You'd have a better chance fighting, but that isn't saying much.

The cold metal disappears, and is replaced with icy fingers pressed against my collarbone. I'm raised by my collar. Before I'm even on my feet, vomit spills out of me. The man recoils in disgust and drops me onto the snow where I continue.

The action was completely involuntary. I didn't feel it coming, there was no wave of nausea. Just a random upchuck that proved my stomach angry with me for denying it food for all this time.

But once I begin, I cannot stop. My throat burns from the acid and the tears being squeezed from my tear ducts quickly become a river.

"Close your eyes," A voice says from behind me. "and hold your breath."

I do, and a few wretches later, it's over. A few tears drip from my chin and onto the snow as I scoop up a handful of the white stuff that escaped the wrath of my vomit and take my chances with cleansing my mouth with it.

There's the sensation of my collar tightening, and before I know it I'm on my feet again. He releases me only when I'm on sturdy feet, watches me shudder. "You okay, kid?"

I give off the vibe that I'm about to puke again, and just as it appears as if I'm about to spill, I snag the mans knife and position it threateningly.

He raises his hands, but does not seem the slightest bit intimidated. In fact, there's a hint of a smirk on his lips. "So much for a friendly banter, I guess."

"Shut up," I demand, but my voice quivers. I've never weld a knife before. "Where are you going?"

"...Where am I going?"

I swallow hard. "You heard me. There's no way you're just wandering in circles. You have to be headed somewhere."

"What's it to you? And- come on, you're not even holding the blade right." He snatches it back before I even have a chance to blink.

I stare at my empty hands, stunned.

"Did you want to tag along, or something?" He studies me, realizes he's hit the mark. "..Forget I ever said that."

"C-Can I-"

"No." He begins assembling his things. "I don't know if I'd be all that okay with bringing along a psycho who tried to kill me."

For whatever reason, that offends me. "It's not like I was going to."

"I figured that."

The snow crunches underneath his boots as he begins to walk off. "What if I didn't try and kill you?"

"Maybe I'd let you tag along, maybe I wouldn't."

I struggle to keep up as I lock my eyes on the back of his head, his hair whiter than the snow. "Well. . . I'm sorry."

He stops suddenly and I smack into his chest. I can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, "Keep talking."

"My body is numb from the cold,

but I do my very best to ignore it."

After a very lengthy and descriptive apology along with calling myself a series of childish names, I was forgiven. He told me his name was Dante, and I told him mine was Megan. But directly after the introductions, he thoroughly explained to me that if I ever ransacked through his food again, I'd be sporting a new bullet in my head.

I kick a can laying randomly in the void lot. Random sheets of paper struggle to keep it's place on the charcoal ground, only to billow across the gray sky, following the harsh wind. It bothers me how Dante walks so closely to the cars that appeared to be rundown for ages when it was so blaringly obvious that I am afraid of them. (He wouldn't listen when I told him I saw movement within one) But I swear, he does it solely to annoy me.

I glance up at name of the storefront."Whalemart," I read aloud.

Dante rolls his eyes. "Walmart."

Huh. Well I don't like Walmart. It appears empty and dark, and barely anything is visible though the cracked windows. But Dante doesn't care, apparently, and jams a knife almost long enough to be considered a sword between the two slide-in doors, forcing them open. He squeezes through the small space, and makes a motion for me to follow him when I don't.

I cling to his arm when we're inside the darkness. He shoves me off.

Then there's a shift of wind, and he's gone.

For a moment I'm blind, then a gentle click is echoing throughout the vast space, followed by lights, row-by-row, gleaming to life. I feel a large hand rest itself on my shoulder, the other nudging me on with the butt of a gun. "Jeez," he mutters.

The place is wrecked, and a good half of the lights were flickering wildly, threatening failure. Clothes racks were scattered randomly on the dirty tile, completely void of, well, clothes. Wires hung from the ceiling, sparks flying from the end of their torn cords. There are two levels to this store, upstairs and downstairs. Simple. The lights on the second floor refused to turn on, and I figure it best not to go and explore.

"Here we are." He sighs, standing directly in front of what remained of the food aisle. "Lets see what's left."

There isn't much. For an aisle labeled BREAD/PASTURIES it seems a little, well...lacking. We come across half of a loaf of bread that has been torn in half by human hands, a box of cereal that is verging emptiness. That is all we take, because that is all that's left.

Similar stories with aisles 1-8. Labels that tell stories of food and refreshment, only to heavily disappoint. We've already made an all-around trip of the first floor in less than ten minutes, and our cart is hardly a quarter full.

Now back at the front of the shop, Dante observes the second floor with an aura of promise.

I roll my eyes. "Dante, it isn't worth it."

"Oh c'mon."

I'm standing at the edge of the stairs leading to the second floor, cart in hand, watching as Dante jogs up the steps two at a time. The stairs lead to a hallway that stretches across the mall, but laying firmly against the extending wall is something blue and luminescent – a vending machine.

I give an irritated sigh, slowly making my way up the steps to join him. Once at the top, I carefully avoid a rippled arm laying randomly on the tile. "Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong." I say sarcastically, joining Dante by the machine.

I sigh. "Can we please leave? I doubt you have any-"

He slips a dollar from his wallet and waggles it in my face. I groan.

He slips in the dollar.

Seconds pass, and the machine spits it back out.

He pushes it back in.

The dollar juts out.

He sighs dramatically, straightens the dollar against the edge of the machine, and slides it back in.

The bill sticks out stubbornly.

"Oh wow," I mutter, quickly making way to the shopping cart at the bottom of the stairs.

I stumble and nearly trip upon hearing a loud crash, and turn to see the vending machine cut clean in half and dripping with soda. Dante reaches in, grabs a soda, and catches up to me in a few strides. "Here," he says upon reaching me.

We're at the bottom of the stairs when I give him a funny look, then stare at the drink firmly grasped in his hand.

His pale fingers tug at the pop-top, and a strange liquid sprays into the air, followed by a light tan substance bubbling and slightly overflowing the newly-made hole. My eyes widen and I take a step back. "Is that safe to drink?" Before his passing, Dad had told me stories about soda, most of them being how great it taste. I can't say I have the slightest clue what he was talking about. But this, this looks like acid.

He gives me a look, and presses the rim of the cool can against my bottom lip.

I furrow my brows and take a sip, only to spit it back out onto the tile. It tastes sour and bitter and sugary and- and I don't know what else. All I know is that it is possibly the worst liquid combination known to man, and that my mouth is probably overflowing with bubbles created by the drink and my own saliva.

I force down the soda that hid stubbornly in the corners in my mouth with difficulty.

Dante gives me a long stare. "How could you not like soda," he moans, snatching the beverage from my hands.

I burp and swipe at the corner of my mouth with my sleeve.

I'm dead tired and the soles of my feet are aching, but I don't tell Dante this. Truth be told, the concrete feels as if it will crumble beneath my feet and, even with Dante walking beside me, I don't feel the slightest bit safe traveling on it. But then again, it's either this, or take our chance with the monsters down below.

Dante had told me to remain silent when we took our first steps onto the highway. I asked why, and he explained that there were cannibals beneath us. Hoards of them. I didn't want to believe him at first, but now that we are actually walking the distance on the lengthy road, I can actually hear them; their meaningless shouting, their feet colliding with the dirt below them as they ran at their inhuman speeds.

I look over the ledge and my stomach does a flip-flop. The cannibals were grouping together, making way towards something behind a ruined car with a menacing swagger – like a pack of wolves intimidating a prey in plain sight. They are cornering something, no, people – a mother and a daughter. The next few events fly by in a blur. The cannibals are on them in seconds, and my stiff legs melt down into jello upon hearing the female scream, followed by the cry of her small child. The mother is torn from the girl and is quickly engulfed in mouths as they tear off chunks of her skin.

The child's screams are silenced by a knife to her head. She falls to the ground, unmoving.

My pace stops altogether as the mother's cries increase, and the nerve-wrecking sound of flesh being torn rips through my ears like a blade. My features run pale as the mother lay limp, blood gushing from her torn open chest and spurting from her now missing arm. I look away, grimacing. Dante grips my arm and tugs me away, telling me to cover my ears, but I don't listen. I focus on the sound of the terribly unfortunate human below us as she suffers the worst possible death there is, being eaten alive.

I kneel over and heave up my stomach's remains.

I hear the heavy thud of footfalls, followed by a pair of dark boots planting themselves beside me. "I'm surprised you aren't used to that yet," I hear Dante say. I feel myself being lifted and placed onto cold metal that crisscrossed beneath my bottom. "I'm sure they don't want to be helped at this point," he silences the plea ringing in my thoughts.

He's right. The woman is probably torn to pieces by now, and he and I both know she is still alive, but has lost the will to scream. "...Why don't they kill them first," I think out loud. I shift uncomfortably against the food placed randomly in the cart, awaiting Dante's reply.

There is none.