//note this was an actual dream circa 2009 - reposted from tumblr

they told us the city was safe

my wife, 9 month old child and I filed back into the city in the afternoon. there was a glow all about the city as families entered back in to the skyscrapers they had previously occupied. For the most part the city was clean, only a few signs of a struggle could be found; broken lights, burn marks and blood stains in the street.

we looked upon our old apartment located in what used to be an upper class neighborhood; large balconies surrounded our penthouse. in the background, located across the street, we could see the darkened maze of the complex that still remains plagued. an ominous sign as the dusk arrives and the lights of the city make their way on. this one complex remains dark; still.

my wife, child and I made our way back through the throngs of building life up to our apartment. the baby quite and calm we put him to bed so peacefully. the dusk settled in through the large glass windows casting dark shadows of color across our apartment. still i looked out to see that darkened complex sitting across the street; perhaps we had come back too early, perhaps the infection was still present? but we felt safe with 60 thousand uninfected around us. we settled into the couch that overlooked the park and I held her in my arms as the baby slept in comfort for the first time in weeks.

I awoke in darkness and looked through the void as my eyes adjusted; my wife still sleeping on the couch. it was too dark…no lights in the city, no street lights, no lights shown in other apartments. running to the kitchen I looked for any blunt object I could get hands on, my brain pounding as if in a lucid fever dream, so groggy I had trouble distinguishing objects from one another. was this a spatula? what good would this do?

thundering crash could be heard from across the apartment as glass shattered. another…running out of the kitchen I made my way through the shadows towards the living room couch where my wife had slept

gone. an overturned table, i could still see the impression of her

her scream tore through me as it pierced through my head

looking around towards the bedroom I saw her clutching our screaming baby. both of them covered in blood, the infected blood…

in the background I could see limbs, and the twitching bodies of the infected on the floor, as they had crashed through the windows

there in the background, from the complex, the dead hurling the dead like water balloons into the nieghboring buildings, pumped so full of infected blood as they exploded through the windows on the people below

the adrenaline, fever dream haze, and sense of loss overwhlmed me as I crashed. clutching my head as I had once held them; my wife and child, now gone yet right in front of me

and

and the infected had, had somehow grown, somehow…gotten smarter but it was too late…I had already lost everything…as I grabbed the lamp from the corner table and looked over to my wife and child