What's dead should stay dead

Submitted into Contest #60 in response to: Write a post-apocalyptic story that features zombies.... view prompt

5 comments

Science Fiction Thriller

Azel felt a jolt. And his reality changed again. He was in his chair doing his homework, and now he was in the grocery store. He was so scared and confused about what has had been happening for the past two months. Coming back from the grocery store sitting in the car, he felt another jolt this time, he found himself in college attending his class. At that very moment, Azel figured out that from time to time, jolts have no impact on his position but influences his surroundings. Indulged in his thoughts, Azel saw the word "Accident" in his notebook. 

All of a sudden, Azel was in the car with his mom, dad, and his fifteen years old sister. When he looked outside the car window, there was nothing car was drifting in the void. He realized that the real world and his unconscious world are colliding and that he has to relive the horrifying accident that put him into a coma and killed his parents, so he did that and became able to open his eyes.  

The first thing that he saw was dusky light in the ceiling of the hospital room and, then he noticed the tubes and pipes that were attached to him to keep him alive. His legs, his tongue was in the state of paralysis. However, his hands were working; he unplugged the assistance and scuffled to sit in the wheelchair. Before leaving the room, he took a glance of confusion at the other patients, then the abandoned atmosphere of the hospital added another layer of confusion and sacredness. He spent three days in the hospital and ate from the vendor machine.

Outside the hospital, him standing in the middle of the road seemed like the battle royale had just happened, and he was the only survivor, smelling the blood and gunpowder in the air. As he took some steps further, a group of people with blood-soaked clothes and ugly faces came to his sight. As he was about to give them the sign of his presence, BANG BANG two gunshots and two ugly faced men got their head exploded.

Azel screamed his guts out and then sat down and covered his head. In between the gunshots, someone grabbed him and took him away after, a while others followed in; they had guns, bags and, some other stuff. 

Azel was looking at them. But his eyes were asking questions. To add some ease, they introduced themselves as Ava, Charles, Harry, and Justin.

With a trembling sound, Azel asked, what was happening? Who were they? 

Justin scratched his head and said, come on! Get in the car.

"I am Azel, by the way, in case you all are interested," Azel added.

Ok! Hurry up, we have to go to the sheltered, Ava said.

On their way, Azel queried about those they had murdered and about the state of the city. They told him that those were no people those were; Zombies and that they had to evacuate the city because of them, and that they were in the town to get some supplies when they saw him.

"Wait for a minute, zombies..... zombies are not real. How come they are here?" Azel asked. 

"Yaa! we also used to think so, until we fought them," Ava said.

"You know I woke up in the hospital three days ago and, by your earlier statement, I figured that I was sleeping for two months, please someone here would bother to enlighten me with the whole situation," Azel said.

After being silent for a while, Justin took a deep breath and said, 

 "In the first week of October, there were two earthquakes. After that, every person in this city who had died come back. We are the policemen, and yes! had tried to do something about that, but as you know, there is no law about the people coming from dead. And after a week, those Zombies started eating folks, and nobody was dying but was rising again as zombies. So we did what we could, we took the survivor of that apocalypse and sheltered them at someplace outside the city."

"But why didn't they come after me; I was in the hospital for two months?" Azel asked.

"probably because of your vegetative state, dead don't eat dead mate," Charles replied.

Azel saw the green field, an hour after the car ride; there was a big house in the back left corner of the land, besieged by some men with guns. They went in and, after looking around, Azel saw a girl with burnet hairs. He felt relief, he smiled and went to hug his sister.

"I knew it! I knew that you had survived the accident," Azel said and rejoiced. 

They hugged and shared the tragic story of the incident. Azel told his sister about how he had come here, and his sister told him about what she had been doing here for the past two months and how her last year was without everyone. Everyone felt pleasure at that lovely reunion. 

Azel was experiencing mixed emotions of happiness that he got to meet his sister but was puzzled about the fact that he had been in a coma since the last October. Everything was quiet around him then out of the blue; there were gunshots, fire, and screaming everywhere. Azel and his sister crawled under the table. 

There, his sister revealed the truth while sobbing that the zombies were her fault. She was so alone and desperate that she choose the wrong path to deal with the grief and that she had studied the witchcraft to raise dead people, and something must have gone wrong.

"Must have? Everything is wrong about what you are saying. You know what's dead should stay dead. You cannot go against nature," Azel said he was mad at his sister, but he knew that was an act of desperate times.

"What can we do now?" Azel asked his sister.

She politely replied that She knew the reverse spell, and that was time taking, and she had to die to do the magic. 

Azel was reluctant towards his sister's self-destruction plan at first, but after analyzing the situation, he agreed with the heavy heart. 

Azel convinced everyone they made arrangements and Emmie did the spell, and then she died, and then all of a sudden, the panting on windows and the gun firing stopped, the deads were dead again.

Everybody was applauding and cheering except Azel. Everybody helped the police in cleaning the mess of the dead bodies. They burnt everyone's body except Emmie's. 

They buried it and put a tombstone which said


                      Emmie Gry, 

                 "A hero who died for us."


"Everyone considers you a hero because they don't know the truth. I love you because you are my sister; I forgive you, I love you, and I miss you. "GOODBYE, EMMIE." That was the last word of Azel to Emmie before leaving the city.


September 25, 2020 20:24

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5 comments

Keerththan 😀
08:48 Oct 07, 2020

This was really a wonderful story. I enjoyed every bit of your details. The ending is also touching. Keep writing. Would you mind reading my new story? Thanks!

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Zainab Shahid
14:31 Oct 08, 2020

Thank you for liking my story :) and sure I would read your story :)

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B. W.
20:28 Sep 25, 2020

hey ya did a really great job with this and i enjoyed this ^^ i hope that you'll continue to make stories whenever ya can. so you know what? this get's a 10/10 :)

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Zainab Shahid
07:59 Sep 26, 2020

Thank you so much:) :) :)

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B. W.
16:17 Sep 26, 2020

No problem ^^

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