I walked slowly in the general direction of Hyde Park. I walked in a daze.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the massacre of all those people on the bridge and in the tunnel. I couldn’t help but think, ‘what if’? What if we had been forced to walk through the tunnel?

I remember the vendetta I made to Kenji as we were fleeing the harbor. We were treading water, we were exhausted. And for some weird reason I told Kenji we would find whoever was responsible and we’d make them pay. It was crazy; I knew that at the time. But I couldn’t help how I felt. I wanted revenge.

And right now, I felt like renewing that vendetta.

I shook my head. I had to stop thinking about that day. I had to focus.

I looked at the GPS device. It told me I was less than a kilometer away from Hyde Park. I checked my immediate surroundings. I was following a road. On my left was grassland that seemed to slope downwards.

I checked the GPS again. It was the Domain, a special park that was used for outdoor concerts. It had an amphitheater down one end.

I remembered being here on Christmas Eve for the ‘Carols in the Park’ concert. I went with Jack and Maria. It’s hard to believe that was only two months ago. And it’s hard to believe how much fun we had. I remember we all dressed up. Maria and I wore Santa hats and Jack dressed up as Rudolf the reindeer. He had antlers on his head and a red nose.

It was my first ever summer Christmas. I was amazed at how warm it was at night.

Kids were running around, over excited, waiting for Santa to show up. Everyone sang along with the Christmas carols.

It’s hard to imagine now, but the crowd, the people, everyone was so happy. Everyone was in good spirits. They were completely and blissfully unaware of how their lives would change forever in only a few short weeks’ time.

It’s hard to imagine that all those people are now dead or infected.

I wondered if Christmas would ever return to this place.

Off in the distance, I heard a low rumbling noise. I could feel the ground shake. I couldn’t see clearly through the dust, but it looked like a building was beginning to crumble and collapse.

A second later the rumbling stopped and a plume of lighter colored dust, that seemed to come from somewhere in the middle of the city, billowed up into the sky.

I turned away from the Domain, from one of the last happy memories of this place, one of my last happy memories before the virus took over, and continued towards Hyde Park.

I’d only taken a few steps when suddenly I heard the unmistakable pop, pop, pop of machine gun fire. They sounded like small controlled bursts.

Professional.

It had to be them.

I picked up the pace and started jogging towards the sound. The gunfire ceased. I hesitated for a split second; what were they firing at? I listened for a few minutes but the shooting had definitely stopped. Whatever they were shooting at was either dead or gone.

I started jogging again, when suddenly something hit me in the chest, a huge invisible force. I fell backwards landing on my ass and screamed in shock.

“Hold your fire!” someone shouted.

The voice sounded like Smitty.

I wanted to yell out but I was still in shock. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I was patting myself down, checking for the bullet hole. Checking for blood. Surprisingly I was fine. Completely fine. But then I freaked out as I thought, what if they decided to unleash with their grenade launchers, or that Javelin missile launcher thingy Griffin had mentioned earlier? Could the suit stop that kind of fire power? I did not want to find out.

Luckily, I didn’t have to. A few seconds later Griffin and Smitty were kneeling over me.