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Huge, wracking sobs filled Gwen's body as she looked down at the ax lodged in her brother's throat. The jugular had been severed, the main artery from which Ken's lifeblood gushed in a river of crimson bubbles and sickening spouts inhibited only by the rusty metal of the blade as the stream traveled down his neck to create a small lake on the floor, fed by it and a similar gash in his chest.

The house had been destroyed, twisted remnants of boards and foundation lay all around them in what used to be the family living room which was now only a mockery of what had been. A mere whisper of all the life and happiness she had been raised in, her memories stood in stark contrast to the current state of the room which now looked like it had been ripped out of a post-apocalyptic video game.

Only this wasn't a video game.

This was a horrible, cold reality.

Ken and her had been the only survivors of the airstrike, Mom and Dad lay in charred pieces all over the floor plan though who was who couldn't be determined now. A hand here, a bit of flesh there, maybe a shoe with the pale charred shinbone still peeking out of it, it helped to forget the people this carnage once collected into, it helped to forget that they were once her parents and the soon-to-be-corpse in front of her was her brother.

The wooden handle of the ax felt cold and heavy clasped in her right hand, all of her felt cold and heavy right now even though it must have been 90 degrees outside and she was panting with the exertion of the fight that had ended in the scene before her. Ken had gotten infected with the bug, he had come after her, he hadn't been Ken any longer. He had become something else. She had grabbed the nearest thing she had had and done the only thing she could: lodge it in his heart, then his throat when he had spread his arms to try grab her, to try and kill her.

A whisper drew her attention back to the bloody mass which was her former sibling on the floor and for a second his eyes met hers. "Run." he whispered as a flash of the old Ken flickered into his eye, which said "I love you sis now and forever." where his mangled vocal chords couldn't before he let out his final breath and all movement stilled, as he left Earth to join her parents. To join everyone. To leave her alone to survive this world without him.

"I love you too bro, now and forever." came a broken whisper from somewhere, it took Gwen a second to realize she had said it through her sobs. Her knees crumbled for a second, and she hit the once-was-cherry-wood floor in a rage of unnatural, dry heaves and sobs that mingled to make her feel sick to her stomach.

Everyone was gone now:

Ben,

Grandpa,

Mom,

Dad

...Ken...

They had all either been infected or destroyed and now she was the only survivor of the whole town of Bellwood, the town that had used to be her home. 'Get up Gwen,' shouted a voice from deep within her subconscious, 'get up and go, there's no use wasting any more time here. They'll find you soon.'

Yes they would, and following the voice's instructions Gwen picked herself up off the ground without another word and walked over to the corner of the floor plan where she and Ken's backpacks lay.

The ax dragged behind her, the voice instructed her to keep it in case it came in handy again and the logical part of her agreed adamantly as she knelt down to get what she needed for the journey ahead of her.

One orange and one slightly smaller green bag brought on another bout of sobbing and heaves that she could barely contain. She covered her face with her hands in an effort to block out the images of what the two of them were originally intended for.

'Get it together girl! Do what you need to do and go!' the voice screamed at her and Gwen forced her hands away from her face, to the zippers of the bags, to her supplies, and then to Ken's bag. She folded up her old backpack as the voice spoke to her with similar instructions on it's possible future uses and tucked it inside her jeans as, still kneeling, she shouldered the now heavier orange backpack.

A sense of hollowness filled her as she stood, as if she had left her emotional part there on the floor, in that kneeling position sobbing her lungs out and she figured it was for the best. Turning to go she was tempted to take one last look at her home but kept her head strictly forward-facing, she'd hit the floor and never get up if she looked behind her.

'You heard your brother Gwen,' the voice whispered, 'run.'

And she did. Gwen ran and ran through deserted streets and empty buildings as fast as her legs could carry her. She ignored the burning in her legs, she ignored the fire that was the breath in her lungs, and she ignored the whining in her shoulder where she carried the ax still dripping with her brother's blood as she pushed herself past the city limits, and past her own.

Her footsteps slowed to a walk as her feet hit the gray pavement of the highway heading out of town and she cast a look up to the murky heavens above her. "This I solemnly swear," she whispered to the polluted clouds that blocked out the sun and any blue sky that might dare to peek through it's suffocating grasp. "I will survive, I will find survivors, and alone or not I will not give up!" she raised her fist to the sky as she finished her oath like a battle cry, her battle cry, and resumed her walk out of town with a new resolve. What was yet to come she had no idea, but she would meet it head on and when the dust settled, she would be the one left standing.

She was no longer Gwen Tennyson, Gwen Tennyson was dead. Now, her name was Survivor, and Survivor would do whatever was possible to survive in this new and forbidding environment alone or otherwise.

She would survive.

Kevin

This wasn't right, nothing was right, this shouldn't be happening!! These thoughts raced through Kevin's teenage head as he looked around at the carnage that was supposed to have been Main Street, New York. The bodies that had once crowded the sidewalks and pulsed with purposes and places to be in his memories now crowded the streets as meaningless, mangled corpses some sporting bite marks and others bloody stubs where entire appendages were missing as if they had been ripped off.

It wasn't the bodies that bothered Kevin right now, murder scenes stopped bothering you once you had created some of them, but it was the sheer numbers that had Kevin stopping and staring like a lost little boy. Bodies were everywhere, it was as if a war had raged here and neither side had won, like everyone had...

Kevin couldn't even put into words just what the scene before him looked like, or what the crushing sensation inside him was like as his hopes of returning to society were dashed. Something crumbled in his chest. Something that had been supporting him through all his time in the Null-Void. Something that had been secretly directing all his movements to get here and become normal. His hope lay in shattered pieces like pointed glass as realization crashed down on him: he had escaped the Null-Void, escaped hell, just to enter another version of the same thing.

"Nooooooo!" he bellowed and slammed his fists into the edge of a building over and over again, pouring out his grief and anger into every syllable as chunks of stone went flying this way and that to scatter among the corpses and other debris lying in the streets.

His fists ached, he could almost see the foundation of the building but he kept pounding and screaming until there was no air left in his lungs and his hands refused to deliver another blow. Panting,he clung to the indentation he had made in the concrete as he tried to gather his wits or think of something.

What should he do now? Kevin didn't know but settling down became permanently put out of the picture when a haphazard mass of skin and bone came stumbling out from one of the buildings, a survivor of whatever had happened here. It took one look at Kevin and a sickening hunger filled it's features, spittle started streaming out of it's mouth and it took a few cautious steps forward, as if it was unsure of it's capacity to move with such an unfortunate body.

In the next 2 seconds it was nearly upon Kevin and reflexes were all that saved him as a rock-covered fist slammed into it's face sending it sprawling. It landed hard on top of the body of a small child but it got up as if it had only fell down, not been given a crushing blow to the mandible which was now hanging off it's face but it took no notice as it began to speed towards Kevin again. This time it's face didn't meet with a fist, this time it's face met with rock and steel supports as Kevin shattered it's skull against the building.

One, two, three times he slammed it and on the third he let go to watch it sink to the ground with no brains left in it's head at all, they were all smudged over the building and everywhere else.

Kevin knew what he had to do now, now he had to do what he had done to get by in the Null-Void: he would survive by any means necessary, all else be damned. The cosmos that hated him included.

"You wanna piece of me?" he shouted up at the sky, face contorting with rage as he raised his fist to the heavens above that seemed to get off every chance they got on forsaking him. "Come and get it!" he shouted his battle cry as he made a silent oath to himself. Forget Tennyson, he thought, I will stick it to the powers that be and survive no matter what!!