Monsters

It caught us all by surprise when the dead first rose. In an instant they washed over the world, a rotting wave of undeath that outnumbered the living a million times over. Those of us who survived could only run, flee from the monsters at our heels.

Soon though there was nowhere left to run and all we could do was prepare to stand and fight. We built our walls, loaded our guns, and readied ourselves to meet the shambling hordes coming to consume us all.

But it never came to pass. No desperate last stand of the living against the dead, no army of hungry corpses come to devour us all. Instead, we watched in astonishment as the dead turned and ran. As fast and as far as their broken limbs could carry them, they ran.

When we followed, curious and confused, they only continued to flee. Again and again, it happened, entire swarms shambling away whenever we drew close. Even when we managed to corner one it didn’t attack, only tried to get away however it could.

So went this strange apocalypse. The living abandoned our walls for open ground, no longer defenders but lethal hunters. Far and wide we roamed, following our putrid quarry wherever it went, making the world safe again one corpse at a time. And always they ran, even as it became clear they could never escape. They just kept running.

At first, we just tried not to think about it, taking the boon at face value and choosing not to ask questions. But curiosity proved too powerful, the strangeness too strong not to be pondered as we went about the business of reclaiming the world. We thought and we wondered until eventually we arrived at the only conclusion that made sense: the dead were afraid of us.

They were afraid of us because once upon a time they had been us, the living, and still remembered what they had been capable of. What we were still capable of. They remembered what the living had done when we were the teeming hordes covering the earth. They remembered what we do to things we don’t understand, and to things we understand all too well. They remembered what it was to be alive in all its terrible, horrible, bloodstained glory. Of course they ran from us. Wouldn’t you run from monsters?

END