It has been now three years since this zombie apocalypse began. The world as we knew it has changed forever. The things that we depended on are no longer there for us. Instead it is a struggle to survive day by day. The ones that we looked to for help are now the very zombies that turn against us.

As soon as the virus had spread, we knew we had to leave our home and find safety. It wasn't wise to stay in the cities for they were the spread centers of the virus. With only my knife and my backpack and few essentials I set off, not knowing where we were going or what we would find.

We trudged north ignoring national border lines and cold weather. We found ourselves in the Arctic. It was just my wife, dog and two two kids on the journey. On the way we ran into bans of people. It was hard to tell if they were infected or not. We needed the support and supplies, but to risk talking with them would mean the risk of meeting the zombies. After we had traveled a safe distance we tried to invite ourselves into one camp. The people looked friendly but our dog kept growling. We decided to turn away and it was a good thing for out of the corner came a human who was out of the ordinary. He kept asking for a slice of hot dog. His eyes were glazed and kept singing:

Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks
Give me your dog and you won't get hacked
For it's one, two, three strikes your out
at the old ball.....

By this point I had hit him over the head with a log and we made a run for it. Further north we had to go. In spite of frost biting weather and bitter winds we made it to a cave for the night. There we found two other families who had avoided the zombie virus. These were people we could trust. They had been down here the whole time. We gave them everything we had for protection and shelter.

Outside the cave we could hear groans of the undead. There were no longer radio signals coming in. The world was not a safe place. One had to be guard constantly at the entrance to the cave while others foraged for food.

Sometimes the cave was attacked, but we never gave up hope, but we were still human. We knew that as long as we were human, we had a chance. We set traps around the area. We found the best in one another and used our special talents to endure this three year long apocalypse.

We are not the only ones. We found a network of caves connecting us to other underground groups of humans who have survived the apocalypse. Working together we expect to outlive the Zombies whose only source of nourishment was human flesh. We heard that many zombies have just fizzled out and the land that once was overrun with zombies was now open for reclamation.

It was long hard three years, but in the end we won this hard-fought battle and we are victorious. We never lost hope in humanity even in the most gruesome horrors. We survived cold and hunger, but more important our humanity survived. We can truly say we are brothers and sisters.

_{This fictional short story is inspired by the Weekend Engagement Prompt: If there was a zombie apocalypse today would you rather be turned into a zombie early or fight to remain a human?}

_{*As you could tell from the story I would fight at all costs to remain human.}

_{The first picture is a picture I took when the Zombie Apocalypse first broke out. The second picture is a cave drawing I found during the Apocalypse from a third grade ESL student.}

I WILL SURVIVE