When dead lungs force air out of a dead throat, man does it sound horrifying. When dead eyes sweep upon you and somehow they can still see you, damn it's bone hollowing. For fucking real, dead means what, when the dead aren't dead?

Doom, the answer is doom.

I was at a mall of all things the day the world ended. Well, when it ended for me at least. I heard there were accounts of the end way back as three years prior to that day, but for me it ended on Christmas Eve. The one year I decided that the mall would do over Amazon.

It was exactly four in the afternoon. My mind had a thought to look to my left for some reason and I found a clock post by chance. The Valley Highland Mall was really old but even for me the clock was such an antique. It was right in front of the H&M and I was thinking how the red knit sweater in the window would be great for my holiday office party, so I took a step forward and, whamp!

Onto the floor, with the wettest of sounds, a human fell right in front of me. His head crack opened and blood splattered onto my lady loafers. My own blood became numb. Numb to the point I could have sworn I was flying somewhere in the stratosphere looking down at myself instead of in my body.

I dropped my bags and bent down as fast as I could while pushing my fear and unfamiliarity with such a situation back. I pulled what was his skull back together and applied pressure. My adrenaline kicked in and my voice just struck out as loudly as it could.

"What the fuck do I do?!" I could feel everyone's eyes on me. Two men went down on their knees right beside and all I remember really about them is how calm they both were.

One said, "Exactly that! Don't let up the pressure."

The other said nothing, but picked up the wrist of the man for a pulse. After a minute he let out one sigh and my hands just knew. I could let up, the man was dead.

I sat back and looked at my hands. The man's blood was cold now and it smelled horrid. My eyes were hot and I knew I was crying but I wasn't ashamed. People crowded and one of the men even tried to pick me up to get me out of the way but for some reason my mind told me to look up.

There in plain sight was the reason the man fell. There in plain sight was a drooling, foggy eyed dead guy in a pretzel clerk uniform. He looked as if was trying to catch the guy just as he was falling but the thing was he was still trying to reach him from above. He suddenly disappeared for a second but at that moment of wondering what I saw or who that was, an odd moan caught all of our attention.

Like as if nothing happen, the man who fell shot up from the ground. His fractured skull came clean off as the fast movement jerk it loose. His hand reach for what was now his exposed brain and he started to scratch at it.

Ever imagine a dead man speaking of regret? Well, you wouldn't need to nowadays. No, nowadays everyone knows.

The dead do speak of their regrets.

But don't hear them talk. Bash there heads clean through or shoot the mouth. Just don't hear them talk.

"I-it's de-dea-dead uh-uhahh. I ju-just ww-wanted a-a.... Agh," the man kept digging into his brain as he tried to speak and the rest of us couldn't move or look away because somehow this was just a bad dream, a bad dream we were all having.

The voice that he had was wrong. It was deep and at times screeching. But the worst was the absence of air in it.

"A-am de-dea-dead?" The man turned around at a normal speed and I found foggy eyes locking onto mine.

At this point, everyone started to scream. From above came the sound of breaking glass and screams. From somewhere down further a shot rang out and quickly enough it was followed by a cascade of them.

While chaos and fear started to sweep through the mall, I stayed on the floor and looked straight into the eyes of my first zombie. I wanted to get up and run too. I wanted more importantly to wake up.

But I stayed and cried. Not because of the fear, but because his eyes held more than death. Something it turns out worse than death. Those eyes held sadness and along with that he wouldn't stop repeating the depressing question. Through the frightening tone there was something I couldn't ignore.

"A-am de-dea-dead?"

I couldn't ignore the fatigue in it. I couldn't ignore that pain in it. How unfair to know you are dead but to have no peace. He started to just twitch suddenly and soon he ran off to the right and bit a woman.

-To maybe be continued.....
......