The Last of Us

My sample ran too long, so here it is.

“Survive. That had been my father’s last demand before the clicker tore into the flesh of his neck as my mother and I made a run for it.
Survive. That had been my mother’s last hope before she sent the bullet spiraling through her skull, selfishly ending her own suffering but multiplying mine.
Survive. That had been my best friend’s last plea before I buried my machete into his skull ceasing the spread of his infection.
Survive. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last twenty years, but it isn’t getting any easier and I’m starting to get a little tired.”

Jong Jin had been one of the unfortunate many who would’ve been too young to retain even the slightest memory of what it meant to be alive before the infection it. He’d have to rely on stories his parents passed on to him, though he was more than certain they had embellished them a bit for his sake. He had only been four years old when the news first broke. Like any other case of mass illness, there were paranoids who built bomb shelters, skeptics who dismissed it, and religious zelots who claimed the second coming was upon them. But in reality, no one knew anything. Especially not that their entire society would collapse. Within two years, it was claimed an epidemic. Small, homey towns became less and less populated as people opted to move closer to larger cities, closer to military protection, and carried on imitations of the free lives they once lived. By age eleven, there was no more pretending. Everyone knew fairly well that their chances of making it through the day with a pulse dwindled each time the sun rose. It didn’t take long for the rioting and looting to begin after that.

At age fifteen, Jong Jin knew what it was like to watch the light die in someone’s eyes as their bodies followed suit. His mother taught him that as she left this broken world to join her husband who died three years prior. It was at seventeen that he realized he’d do anything to survive. He’d met a boy only two years older than himself and they fought only for each other. See a starving couple? Don’t hand over your own precious nourishment, point them in the direction of a salvageable food reserve. Forget to mention it’s surrounded by mobs of the infected. See an injured child? Why waste supplies on such a useless addition to the group that’d be dead in a year? Put him out of his misery, it was the human thing to do. The man you know called your best friend and brother is supporting suspicious scratches after a rough scrap with a stalker? Give him the benefit of the doubt. When he complains of blurry vision the next morning, split his cranium in half. He’ll understand once you see him again. In the afterlife.