The day starts... 

The day when everything changed, When the world went silent.

The boy sleeping peacefully is suddenly shaken awake, his eyes open quickly to see his father Miguel mouthing something, but the boy has been deaf since the day he was born, ‘come on Alfred we have to go right now!’ Miguel signs. His father looks frightened but he’s never the type of man to get scared. Before the boy had a chance to sign back Miguel scoops him up into his arms and runs to the kitchen. “Miguel, what’s going on? the news just said to stay in our home! where are you going?!” his Wife Stacey screams. “It’s not safe we have to leave we can’t stay here get in the car!” he screams. He rushed into the car and sat Alfred on the seat. He starts the car, and they speed down the street seeing nothing but chaos everywhere, people on top of each other eating at their flesh as screams fill the air. “Miguel, what are those people doing? Where are we going??” Stacey screams clutching her seat in fear. Alfred’s incoherent wailing in the back trying to make words come out. Miguel snaps and turns to Stacy screaming,

“I DON’T KNOW JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME- “He begins when suddenly, “LOOK OUT” Stacey screams as Miguel looks at the road to see a child, and he swerves, and then, darkness...

  Miguel jumps awake breathing heavily. The memory has been haunting his dreams for the past two years. He gets up and walks into the restroom, splashes his face with water, and begins to cry as the guilt and pain Torments him. He falls to the floor staring at the ground, tears pour out. He doesn’t notice his wife Stacey standing in the doorway. “That dream again?” she asks in a melancholic voice. Miguel snaps out of his stupe, looks up at her, wipes the tears, and stands up, “I’m fine... just give me a second” he says in an Austere tone of voice. Stacy stares at him for a moment and then walks out and closes the door, She opens the closet where they store their supplies and food, and she realizes they are low on water and only have enough food for a day. She sighs and sits on the bed; she sees her child's bear on the bed and grabs it staring at the small stain of blood. she feels a small lump begin to form in her throat as she tries to hold back tears. She breathes slowly and clears her throat as Miguel walks into the room. “We're short on supplies we need to get more, or we won’t last a week.” She said Miguel nodded his head and they began to get ready.

  They grab a small bag that has water, the last of their food, and weapons. they wrap their arms with tape and magazines to prevent the bites from infecting them. And they head out. The building where they were hiding out was an old hotel that was best for soundproof rooms down on Washington St. in DC. Miguel slowly opens the door and looks both ways down the hall to make sure there are no infected around. He makes a hand gesture to Stacy ‘Coast is clear stay by me’. Stacy nods as to say she understands. They crept down the hall and walked towards the front doors to exit, Miguel froze as he spotted two infected, one was unintelligibly banging his head against the wall and the other made strange noises and walked in circles. Miguel looks around for something to throw to get them away from the doors, Stacy taps on his shoulder and points to a glass cup on the floor. He slowly grabs the glass and throws it to the opposite side of the room. The infected hear the crash and screech as they run to the sound. Stacy and Miguel walk faster to the door without making a sound. They exit the building and check their surroundings again looking at the ground to watch their steps.

There was a store two blocks down that had supplies and food. There were infected everywhere all making strange noises and wondering aimlessly. Miguel points to his eyes and then to the ground signaling Stacy to watch the ground. They walk a little bit further when in the corner of his eye he sees someone peeking their head out from behind the trash bin, he stops which makes Stacy bump into him then, she looks in the direction he is staring. There was a man, his face looked familiar to Miguel. His tall figure and broad shoulders... then he realized it was his best friend, he thought he lost him along with everyone else, Jack Gerardo, Jack makes eye contact with Miguel, and they rush to each other embracing like when they were children. They say no words, but they give each other a knowing nod. Stacy hugs Jack with tears in her eyes, they thought they were all alone.

They walked to the ally where Jack was hiding and all whispered in soft voices. “We thought we were the only ones left where have you been all this time?” Miguel asks. “I’ve found a group and we’ve all been staying in a rescue shelter underground; the group always votes people to go out for food and supplies, I had 3 other people, but they were, um, killed,” Jack replies. “where’s Alfred is he at your shelter?” jack asks. Stacy and Miguel stay silent and look at the ground. Stacy was about to tell him when Miguel interrupted “he’s no longer here...” he says. Jack's face was filled with sadness, he watched the boy grow up and was almost like his uncle. There was a moment of silence in the group when Stacy spoke “Your group. Could we go with you? It’s been just us and we’ve been so alone.” She asks. Miguel looks at her with a look that says, ‘What are you doing?’, he had a rule with Stacy that they shouldn’t be around big groups.  Stacy ignores him and looks at Jack. “I'd love for you to come, I’ve missed having you guys around it’s been so long..” Jack replies. Miguel interrupts, “Enough, we don’t have time to dawdle, we need to get to the store and get what we came for. Miguel stands up and walks away. Stacy sighs lightly and follows along with Jack.

They walk the two blocks down and see the store, the windows are shattered. The doors were covered in dried blood, Miguel grabbed Stacy’s hand to lead her but she pulled her hand away with an uncomfortable look. Miguel looks at her, he withdraws his hand, and they jump through the broken door to avoid the front doorbell that jingles when someone enters. Miguel watches the broken glass on the floor to avoid the cracking sounds and he points to Stacy where the glass is. She nods and carefully walks around the glass, Jack jumps after.

 Miguel looks around to see a group of infected eating what looks to be an animal in the far aisle, Thankfully they are as blind as a bat, he looks at Stacy and purses his lips while setting his pointer finger against it. He puts his hands up and signs ‘Grab the food as quickly as you can, nothing that crunches just get enough food for two more days and we will get more eventually I’m not risking us being here too long.’ They walk down the aisles as Stacy grabs as much food as she can into the small bag, Jack does the same with the bag he was carrying. Miguel was keeping an eye on the infected while they gathered food. Then suddenly a scream came from behind him. Stacy stepped on a large nail on the ground, Miguel quickly turned around to see all the infected in hearing distance dart in their direction. Miguel shouts for them to run, the front doors are filled with infected. Jack had Stacy over his shoulder as they ran to the other side, the door was blocked off. Jack looked up to see an overhead window, he pointed at the window and Miguel understood, he put Stacy down and jumped up, The zombies were getting closer, Miguel grabbed Stacy and lifted her to Jack, and he pulled her through.

Before Miguel jumps up Stacy, in a serious voice says “You know ever since the day we lost Alfred... I’ve always known it was your fault. if we had just stayed in the house, he’d be here... I’ve hated you for the last two years. When I see your face, I see my boy…I’m sorry Miguel...” Stacy slams the window shut. Miguel is stunned... the realization of what happened... his wife left him to die. She blamed him for losing their son. Miguel turned around to see over 30 infected coming towards him... he shut his eyes and all the infected jumped onto him eating at his flesh, and all he could hear was silence... the last thing he felt was pain.. but not pain from being eaten, but the pain of being betrayed by the one person he trusted and loved most… You really cannot trust anyone..