When the world ended, I was alone in the woods.

It was my third day out camping with two of my friends, and we were supposed to head back to the city the next day.

“Something’s wrong with that person,” Maya said, looking uncertain as we watched this figure sway and stumble towards us. They moved slowly, as if to the beat of a funky, disjointed rhythm. Georgia and I rushed towards the individual while Maya hung back, afraid for some reason. Georgia was a trained nurse, while I had only taken a first aid course before. Two seconds before reaching the man, I noticed the overpowering smell. That of rotting flesh, of a person already dead.

“Georgia–” was all I managed to get out, pulling at her arm as I myself skidded to a stop. But it was already too late. She slipped out of my grasp and reached the man, her overwhelming compassion and desire to help others guiding her to her own premature death.

“Are you okay?” were Georgia’s last words right as the man lunged at her. Horrified screams tore from both our mouths as he ripped into her neck and blood sprayed across the forest floor. Georgia clawed at him ferociously, trying to get him off her. Snapping out of the shock, I scrambled around, looking for anything to attack him and get him off her. Finding a hefty stick, I reared back and swung at the man with abandon. I clipped him in the head, which succeeded in knocking him off of her momentarily. But the guy seemed to have inhuman strength, and he just continued his assault on Georgia as if I had done nothing more than swatted him like a fly. Georgia’s screams seemed to be getting weaker and weaker as she lost energy to fight. I swung at him again, bashing his head and back multiple times.

He raised his head to gaze unseeingly at me.

The man had no soul left in him, that much I could tell. His face was completely disfigured and had gross fluids leaking out of cracks in his cheeks and forehead. He reeked. I had never felt so scared in my life.

I hit at him with a sudden rage for what he was doing to my friend. By accident, the stick finally went through one of his eyes and he barely let out a grunt as he slumped down onto it, a gulping fish gutted and speared. I hastily dropped the stick and rushed to my friend to pull her out from under the man collapsed on top of her.

By that time, her breath was extremely shallow and I could barely see the rise and fall of her chest. “Georgia?” I tried weakly, as I swept her hair from her face. Her eyes were closed and she was only murmuring now. “Georgia, stay with us.” In a panic, I looked around me for Maya. “Maya, where are you?” Maya should be here, helping us. But, scanning the woods around me, I could not find her. She had disappeared.

Pushing down the fear and anger, I quickly removed my jacket and balled it in my fists, pressing it against Georgia’s neck in an effort to slow the bleeding. As I assessed her injuries, I could tell that the crazy man had scratched her arms as well and slashed her face. She was fading fast.

I needed to get help. But, there was nobody around. Where was Georgia’s brain when we needed it? She was the one who knew how to fix things. She was the one who knew how to mend people and dress wounds. This was completely out of my hands.

Somehow, in the midst of all this chaos going on in my brain, I heard a twig snap behind me. I whirled around, thinking it was Maya–but it was another woman, one who was hobbling on what seemed to be a broken leg. Where had she come from? She was ten feet away from me now and gaining surprisingly fast, but I recognized the same stench wafting from her as that other man who had attacked Georgia.

“Georgia, we have to move,” I began, but then realized it was impossible for me to shift Georgia faster than this woman was moving towards us. She looked hellbent on reaching us, and I could hear a low moan drift from her mouth. Her red hair dangled over her face, obscuring it from view.

I had to think fast. Grabbing Georgia’s hands and placing them over the jacket so that she hopefully held her own bandage, I scrambled to my feet and tracked backwards away from the encroaching woman, scanning the ground for more sticks to defend us. Luckily, the woman diverted away from Georgia and followed me. If I could just lure her away from Georgia…