text } Images May Disturb You: the blog of Georgia Mason, entry #1

[choosetruth]

My name is Georgia Carolyn Mason. I'm a licensed journalist from After the End Times. Five years ago, on a website that is inaccessible from this location, I started my blog and wrote my mission statement: to always tell the truth no matter the cost. For the past several months I've been following Senator Peter Ryman's presidential campaign and reporting on his progress. For the past few minutes, I had been running for my life after someone blew up my trailer. It turns out that cost was a lot higher than I ever anticipated. And that was just zombies and a government conspiracy. What will the cost be for telling this new truth: that I seem to have woken up in a literal fairytale?

I tested clean five minutes ago, and hallucinations have never been one of the symptoms of Kellis-Amberlee. I'm forced to conclude that this is, indeed happening and not a very strange dream. I would like nothing more than a way to send this information home so that our readers could know about this, but I've done my research. All sources indicate that is, for the time being, impossible. So, I suppose, I'll just have to start reporting here, and know that someday, should the opportunity arise, I'll be able to bring the news home.

In the meantime, if anyone here is a doctor, or even better an epidemiologist or virologist, I have some questions.

Comments

audio

[choosetruth]

It wasn't the end of the world for us. A major disaster that changed everything, sure, but... we won. Zombies are still a problem, but plenty of people go their whole lives without encountering any.

[Journalists are not part of that plenty.]

1/2

[shorthair]

[Just give her a moment here. like a long, long moment, like some minutes of silence in which she unpacks this strange box of feelings which has been developing inside her rib cage for over two years now. Something's getting chopped with a hatchet, and it doesn't help.

She's still angry and surprised and.]

2/2

[shorthair]

You won.

[It's not her world. They're not going to win in her world. They're just going to survive. It doesn't sound like this world is any better if Georgia almost died of an explosion, but it's not The End.]

And zombies are just a problem. Do you have problems with food or is that all okay too?

[choosetruth]

Not any more than before the Rising. Maybe less than then, too. Turns out that when letting people die for stupid, preventable reasons means more zombies... well, nothing like self-preservation to get politicians to actually start doing things.

[shorthair]

You even have a name for when it all happened. That's a good, accurate one too. The Rising.

[There's a pause then as she shakes her head, because she's still wrapping her head around it. They have the name walkers for zombies, but she hasn't heard anyone come up for a name for when the whole world changed.]

It's not how it happened where I'm from. We didn't win.

[choosetruth]

[Poor kid. George was too young to remember any of it. She only has the stories. Her and Shaun's parents were already adults, and as prepared as anyone could be to deal with the world changing. It would have been hardest on the kids, those old enough to know what was going on but still too young to have any adult coping mechanisms in place. George likes to think that at any age, she would have been able to take care of herself, but before the Rising kids weren't taught how to shoot as soon as their hands were steady enough to hold a gun.]

What did happen? And how long ago was it?

[shorthair]

I don't really know. I was a lot younger. It was over two years ago, and I don't think anyone's figured out how or why it started, where it came from. [Clementine had less awareness about how things worked, but it was always people trying to figure out how to survive. They lost power. They tried to hole themselves up.]

People started getting sick. My parents were in another town. A babysitter was watching me, but she got bit. The bite kills you and then you become a zombie. We didn't know it until months later, but if you die any other way, you become a zombie too unless someone destroys your brains.

[choosetruth]

So everyone's infected? [George sounds a little more eager than she probably should, since everyone already having the potential to become a zombie isn't really a good thing. But it does mean that depending on how long this kid has been here with no outbreaks, there might actually be something in place keeping that infection from spreading.]

It's the same for us. The virus is in everyone, but it's inert right up until it isn't. Dying is one way to amplify, but bites, zombie fluids, or even someone else's blood can set it off too. Bleach is humanity's new best friend.

[shorthair]

Yeah. [Clementine nods in confirmation. She's thought about it (People say you come back when you die here but as a person. If she dies, she'd come back as a zombie first, right? Someone would have to destroy her brain.)]

Dying's the only way to turn you into a walker- ...zombie where I'm from. You can get bit, but the bite kills you, and then you turn after you're dead. Even zombie fluids and other people's blood will do it where you're from? I'd be screwed.

[choosetruth]

It can, if it gets inside you. It's not the same instant death sentence as getting bitten. But it's still dangerous. That's why we have blood tests everywhere.

Has anyone contracted the infection here, in [a beat, she grimaces] Wonderland? Outside of events, I mean.

[shorthair]

Is there anything you can do if the blood tests show the virus has been set off by someone else's blood or something?

I don't think so. I haven't been here long, but people died shortly after I showed up. None of them turned to zombies. They just died and... came back the same.

[choosetruth]

You can put a bullet in your brain before you hurt anyone else.

[Blood tests don't lie. Sure, some of them are more accurate than others, but there's only so much you can argue with that blinking red light. Better to accept the truth. Less people get hurt that way.]

I've read that happens. [There's a strange edge to Georgia's voice. One of the many things about this place that doesn't make sense: the dead rising and not going on to try and eat you. It's just not how the world works, and she doesn't like it.] I haven't read a good explanation on it.

[shorthair]

That makes sense. Better to do it before it's too late.

[It's something she's done before so someone wouldn't turn even if they didn't have tech to figure out if the virus had been activated. There was only one way to do it: death.]

I don't think anyone has a good explanation for it. It's magic like everything else. I haven't actually seen it happen myself. I've only heard about it. I'd have a hard time not shooting someone in the head who was dead.

[It's just instinct, but here it's not supposed to be instinct.]

[choosetruth]

[Magic. Why is it always magic? Probably because none of this makes a damn speck of sense without it.]

So would I. Rather not take chances where zombies are concerned.

[shorthair]

Taking chances usually means someone dies with zombies. But I also don't want to put a bullet in some corpse's head and kill them for real like if doing that screws up the magic.

[choosetruth]

Is it really worth the risk? Keep that bullet and you might end up with two corpses.

[shorthair]

I don't know. I've killed walkers and people before. I'd rather kill a walker than stop a person from coming back to life as themselves. [Shooting a corpse in the head, she wouldn't usually think of them as a person, but here they come back as themselves. If she put a bullet in their skull and she screwed that magic up, it'd be like killing them.] They move slow. It's not like it's hard when there's just one.

[choosetruth]

I'd rather be shot in the head than come back as a walker. [Assuming walker is what they call the Infected. Seems like a good bet.]

[shorthair]

Yeah, same. I'll shoot you in the head if you ever die here.

[choosetruth]

Thank you, I promise I'll do the same for you.

sob at this entire conversation. zombie survivors.

[shorthair]

Thank you. I mean that. I know it's not easy to do, but it means a lot.

IT'S ROUGH

[choosetruth]

Wouldn't be the first time. The level of unprepared most people here are is extremely disturbing. I'm guessing high casualty rates when zombies do show?

the roughest ;o;

[shorthair]

I haven't been around for one yet, but there have to be. Any way we can prepare people in advance? I try to gather information on other world's types of zombies and dangerous whatevers, but maybe there's a way to put it all together in one place and tips on how to survive and then shove it down people's throats.

[choosetruth]

I was planning on writing a comparative article on the different types of zombies. Sounds like you're a good person to help with that.

[shorthair]

That's a good idea. [there's a brief moment of stumbling like she doesn't know anything about writing or articles, because she doesn't. she hasn't picked up a pencil in a long time, but she's willing to learn, and if she can kill zombies, sew her arm shut, read people and learn how to use that to her advantage, she can do this too.

she can do more than survive.]

Sign me up.