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Day ???

Carter found me a journal!!??! It’s kinda beat up and dirty and there’s a weird stain on the back cover but.. I’ve settled for less, right? And to think CARTER found this just for ME? Oh, my God… I know this ‘cause I heard him “say it” in his thoughts; maybe this is his way of saying thank you for saving his ass earlier? Maybe… He IS the only one who knows how much I miss writing (other than Tony, I mean haha..)...
I told Zo that I had no idea what to write about and she said that I should write about my life. Kinda like a memoir or audiobiography? She said I should since people should know that there were such a thing as a mind reader in this shitty world. I have no idea who would read my audiobiography but hey, it’ll give me something to do while we travel.
I guess I should start from the top, if I’m going to talk about my life and all. Um...
Even at a young age, I’ve always been able to read other people's’ minds. I remember how all the grown ups would just look at me with slight fear on their face when I questioned what they were thinking or answered a question that just kinda popped into their head. After a while, though, their fear turned into anger and my parents, God bless their souls, told me that I wasn’t aloud to speak unless I was spoken to. One may think it was cruel of them, to silence my pleas that I heard the grown ups think those things, but I found that it only made sense. No one would ever believe that their child was a mind reader. They would only brush it off as a (sometimes scary) coincidence that I had said what they were thinking. Kind of like how you and a friend sometimes say the exact same thing at the same time and then laugh. Hell, even the other kids would call me a liar when I said that I could read minds. Some would be impressed and even show excitement when I would prove them wrong, repeating whatever food or number they thought of, the others.. well, you know how cruel kids can be.
It got so bad that we had to move away and I changed schools. I was twelve when we moved away and I told myself that no good would ever come from telling people of my little secret. So I just stopped talking about it and tried to live a normal life. Things got substantially better. I got along with my peers better, found new friends (even one that followed me to college), and my parents even seemed to be... I dunno, better? They just seemed happier, with both each other and with me. Even though my life was awesome and all that, it still sucks to hold a secret for most of your life. Not even my closest friend knew what I could do.
After awhile, I learned sort of how to control my “hearing abilities”. Usually, I’m able to hear someone’s thoughts pretty easily, just a lil poke and BOOP! there it is. Thoughts are also kinda loud, you know (I guess it’s because people don’t expect someone to be listening in on them)? And it’s really hard when there’s a bunch of people together in the same room. I really hated assemblies as a kid, and public places in general. All those thoughts.. and the voices of the actual words that are coming out of everyone’s mouths... and whatever events/announcements going on... it’s enough to give anyone a migraine. But I managed to get it to where it became just background noise? This really hard to explain, to be honest, and I’m sorry, but I’m totally being legit right now! But, yeah, background noise. It really helped when I finally learned how to “shut off” all of the noise. Yay, no more headaches!! And things seemed to be going just fantastic (no sarcasm haha), like I said before.
However, that was before the world decided to go to Hell and take everyone I loved down with it.
Sometime during my third year of college, things... changed. You see, I was going to a college several hundred miles away from my and my best friend’s home town and for Winter Break we both decided that we would go home in a fun little road trip. All was great, the roads were pretty clear despite the recent snowfall, there was some fog but nothing too terrible, everyone seemed to be heading in the opposite direction, and her car was warm and full of snacks. Since we had left pretty damn early in the morning, I had drifted off in the passenger seat to catch some more z’s. I remember lazily listening to Abby’s thoughts (that was my best friend, btw) as I snoozed. She was thinking about home and how excited she was to see her sickly mom, and how she was going to drag me along to go sledding down a giant hill that she and her childhood friends called Sasquatch Hill. But, then, out of nowhere, the image of a person shuffling across the road, and she screamed, and the car lurched to the right as she tried to avoid him. I think I blacked out 'cause I don’t remember anything after that other than waking up a few feet away from the wreckage, in the snow. I found Abby in the car, she was slouched against the front wheel with glass and blood all over her. She didn’t survive the crash, to say the least. There was nothing I could do about it. My cell phone was nowhere to be found and there wasn’t a house around for miles. So, I left her. I grabbed everything I could carry, food, warm clothes, the money, and… just left her. I continued down the highway, despite the gash in my leg, and walked the rest of the way home.
I hope, wherever she is, Abby forgives me for just leaving her in the snow like that. I would’ve died if I stayed there, pretending I could’ve done something despite the fact that she was really dead (I'm still kinda confused as to why she didn't "come back" but I've decided to stop thinking about her like that...).
I eventually reached my town and found it abandoned. Everyone had evacuated because of a supposed sickness that has been floating around for the last year or so. They called it a new kind of flu or something. You know, ‘cause flus make people into undead cannibals. Yup, instead of the relatively nice towns folk that I’m used to, I instead found a bunch of Biters roaming the streets.
I’ll never forget the first time I ran into a Biter. It was back when they all were kinda new? Like none of them were decaying and falling apart. But, despite the fact that they smelled like death and were covered in blood (whether it was their own or not, you could never tell), it was still kinda easy to mistake them for someone still alive. I made that mistake and it almost cost my life. Before I met Carter and his group, I was a meek scavenger, taking whatever food and sleeping wherever was dry. I honestly wasn’t brave enough to go out into the Great Unknown all by myself. Anyway, long story short, I was dumb and I should’ve checked if he was all up there upstairs before I tried to help the Biter out from underneath a toppled over shelf at Walmart. It was silent. Nothing to be heard from a dead man, after all. But it was still creepy, you know, despite the fact he was an undead person trying to eat my face. It was just kinda unsettling to see something that was once human wander around and make noise and not have a single thought in their head.

…Carter apparently wants everyone to go to bed early tonight. Something about getting an early start. I really want to write down one last thing before I sleep.
A few days ago (I think it was a few days anyway), we all were clearing out.. I think it was a police station. Carter wanted some more weapons and stuff probably. While everyone else was checking out what the police didn’t take with them when they left, I had gone off to explore. I hadn’t been in a police station before, so I wanted to see what it was like. I assumed that we had gotten all of the Biters, so I had left all of my stuff with Tony and all of them. You know what they say about assuming things… Anyway, I was in the sheriff's office or something, looking at papers and stuff I think, when I heard something like shuffling steps come into the room with me. I looked and, you guessed it, it was a Biter. He was clad in a bloodied cops uniform and there was a nasty looking chunk missing from his neck. I froze and stared at it, and it stared back. And, after a moment, I heard a whisper of thought come from him.

I swear on my mother’s grave that I heard that Biter think.

It wasn’t so much as a specific thought, but more of a feeling, an echo, really, of confusion. It was confused as to why I was there and what exactly happened it him. I was in so much shock that I didn’t do anything. I just stood there and listened to the whispers in its head (I actually prefer the silence, honestly) and it stared back. Then, BANG!, Carter appeared out of nowhere and shot that poor man in the head. Carter and all them know of my.. ability, but they didn’t believe me when I told them about the dead cop’s thoughts.
I haven’t run into anymore like the dead cop, those who still had some sort of a consciousness (because they need one to make thoughts duh!), I mean. I wonder if there are any more like him….

I wonder if I’ll be like that when I die.

Description
Day ???

Carter found me a journal!!??! It’s kinda beat up and dirty and there’s a weird stain on the back cover but.. I’ve settled for less, right? And to think CARTER found this just for ME? Oh, my God… I know this ‘cause I heard him “say it” in his thoughts; maybe this is his way of saying thank you for saving his ass earlier? Maybe… He IS the only one who knows how much I miss writing (other than Tony, I mean haha..)...
I told Zo that I had no idea what to write about and she said that I should write about my life. Kinda like a memoir or audiobiography? She said I should since people should know that there were such a thing as a mind reader in this shitty world. I have no idea who would read my audiobiography but hey, it’ll give me something to do while we travel.
I guess I should start from the top, if I’m going to talk about my life and all. Um...
Even at a young age, I’ve always been able to read other people's’ minds. I remember how all the grown ups would just look at me with slight fear on their face when I questioned what they were thinking or answered a question that just kinda popped into their head. After a while, though, their fear turned into anger and my parents, God bless their souls, told me that I wasn’t aloud to speak unless I was spoken to. One may think it was cruel of them, to silence my pleas that I heard the grown ups think those things, but I found that it only made sense. No one would ever believe that their child was a mind reader. They would only brush it off as a (sometimes scary) coincidence that I had said what they were thinking. Kind of like how you and a friend sometimes say the exact same thing at the same time and then laugh. Hell, even the other kids would call me a liar when I said that I could read minds. Some would be impressed and even show excitement when I would prove them wrong, repeating whatever food or number they thought of, the others.. well, you know how cruel kids can be.
It got so bad that we had to move away and I changed schools. I was twelve when we moved away and I told myself that no good would ever come from telling people of my little secret. So I just stopped talking about it and tried to live a normal life. Things got substantially better. I got along with my peers better, found new friends (even one that followed me to college), and my parents even seemed to be... I dunno, better? They just seemed happier, with both each other and with me. Even though my life was awesome and all that, it still sucks to hold a secret for most of your life. Not even my closest friend knew what I could do.
After awhile, I learned sort of how to control my “hearing abilities”. Usually, I’m able to hear someone’s thoughts pretty easily, just a lil poke and BOOP! there it is. Thoughts are also kinda loud, you know (I guess it’s because people don’t expect someone to be listening in on them)? And it’s really hard when there’s a bunch of people together in the same room. I really hated assemblies as a kid, and public places in general. All those thoughts.. and the voices of the actual words that are coming out of everyone’s mouths... and whatever events/announcements going on... it’s enough to give anyone a migraine. But I managed to get it to where it became just background noise? This really hard to explain, to be honest, and I’m sorry, but I’m totally being legit right now! But, yeah, background noise. It really helped when I finally learned how to “shut off” all of the noise. Yay, no more headaches!! And things seemed to be going just fantastic (no sarcasm haha), like I said before.
However, that was before the world decided to go to Hell and take everyone I loved down with it.
Sometime during my third year of college, things... changed. You see, I was going to a college several hundred miles away from my and my best friend’s home town and for Winter Break we both decided that we would go home in a fun little road trip. All was great, the roads were pretty clear despite the recent snowfall, there was some fog but nothing too terrible, everyone seemed to be heading in the opposite direction, and her car was warm and full of snacks. Since we had left pretty damn early in the morning, I had drifted off in the passenger seat to catch some more z’s. I remember lazily listening to Abby’s thoughts (that was my best friend, btw) as I snoozed. She was thinking about home and how excited she was to see her sickly mom, and how she was going to drag me along to go sledding down a giant hill that she and her childhood friends called Sasquatch Hill. But, then, out of nowhere, the image of a person shuffling across the road, and she screamed, and the car lurched to the right as she tried to avoid him. I think I blacked out 'cause I don’t remember anything after that other than waking up a few feet away from the wreckage, in the snow. I found Abby in the car, she was slouched against the front wheel with glass and blood all over her. She didn’t survive the crash, to say the least. There was nothing I could do about it. My cell phone was nowhere to be found and there wasn’t a house around for miles. So, I left her. I grabbed everything I could carry, food, warm clothes, the money, and… just left her. I continued down the highway, despite the gash in my leg, and walked the rest of the way home.
I hope, wherever she is, Abby forgives me for just leaving her in the snow like that. I would’ve died if I stayed there, pretending I could’ve done something despite the fact that she was really dead (I'm still kinda confused as to why she didn't "come back" but I've decided to stop thinking about her like that...).
I eventually reached my town and found it abandoned. Everyone had evacuated because of a supposed sickness that has been floating around for the last year or so. They called it a new kind of flu or something. You know, ‘cause flus make people into undead cannibals. Yup, instead of the relatively nice towns folk that I’m used to, I instead found a bunch of Biters roaming the streets.
I’ll never forget the first time I ran into a Biter. It was back when they all were kinda new? Like none of them were decaying and falling apart. But, despite the fact that they smelled like death and were covered in blood (whether it was their own or not, you could never tell), it was still kinda easy to mistake them for someone still alive. I made that mistake and it almost cost my life. Before I met Carter and his group, I was a meek scavenger, taking whatever food and sleeping wherever was dry. I honestly wasn’t brave enough to go out into the Great Unknown all by myself. Anyway, long story short, I was dumb and I should’ve checked if he was all up there upstairs before I tried to help the Biter out from underneath a toppled over shelf at Walmart. It was silent. Nothing to be heard from a dead man, after all. But it was still creepy, you know, despite the fact he was an undead person trying to eat my face. It was just kinda unsettling to see something that was once human wander around and make noise and not have a single thought in their head.

…Carter apparently wants everyone to go to bed early tonight. Something about getting an early start. I really want to write down one last thing before I sleep.
A few days ago (I think it was a few days anyway), we all were clearing out.. I think it was a police station. Carter wanted some more weapons and stuff probably. While everyone else was checking out what the police didn’t take with them when they left, I had gone off to explore. I hadn’t been in a police station before, so I wanted to see what it was like. I assumed that we had gotten all of the Biters, so I had left all of my stuff with Tony and all of them. You know what they say about assuming things… Anyway, I was in the sheriff's office or something, looking at papers and stuff I think, when I heard something like shuffling steps come into the room with me. I looked and, you guessed it, it was a Biter. He was clad in a bloodied cops uniform and there was a nasty looking chunk missing from his neck. I froze and stared at it, and it stared back. And, after a moment, I heard a whisper of thought come from him.

I swear on my mother’s grave that I heard that Biter think.

It wasn’t so much as a specific thought, but more of a feeling, an echo, really, of confusion. It was confused as to why I was there and what exactly happened it him. I was in so much shock that I didn’t do anything. I just stood there and listened to the whispers in its head (I actually prefer the silence, honestly) and it stared back. Then, BANG!, Carter appeared out of nowhere and shot that poor man in the head. Carter and all them know of my.. ability, but they didn’t believe me when I told them about the dead cop’s thoughts.
I haven’t run into anymore like the dead cop, those who still had some sort of a consciousness (because they need one to make thoughts duh!), I mean. I wonder if there are any more like him….

I wonder if I’ll be like that when I die.