Mal’s thoughts returned gradually as they got up from their not-so-safe-anymore-house, an abandoned grey honka odyssey crashed into a flood relief channel. After crawling through a rolled down window on the passenger side, Mal rubbed their head as they grumbled to themself “shit, how far did I go back?” while rummaging through their backpack for their sports watch, eventually finding it.

”aha, now let’s see what day it is, wait… shit, it’s still broken” Mal rambled on, “fuck, when did I break this thing?” Mal asked themselves as they browsed their notes, eventually finding what they sought for.

REMINDER

I tripped on my own foot, and broke my watch on Tuesday

“You know what, I hate myself sometimes” Mal mused to themself. Mal may be resourceful enough to live in an apocalypse, but only because they can’t die, the fact that they got this far was from sheer luck.

Thinking back, Mal recalled how the doctor fellows in the past had said that they had ADHD or Attention defica- defaucet- Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder among other outlying issues.

“Man, I’d kill for an operational pharmacy right now” they said to no one in particular.

Shaking off their stupidity for a moment, Mal flipped through the pages after the super helpful watch note until they found the latest date they entered.

August 4, 2067, Thursday

I really need to pee right now, wait why am I writing this? I could just go. God, I’m such a-

“ok, so it is at least August 4, I think the collision dropped by on Saturday so I gotta get outta here quick” Mal informed the cold empty air, then began packing up their belongings: a torn sleeping bag, crowbar, cereal box rations, water bottles, a dull chef’s knife, poncho, wood ax, flashlight, trusty notebook and pen, cleaning supplies, and their dead phone.

After packing everything into their backpack, and looking like they were going on a hike, Mal finally did what they said they were going to do and trekked out. Well, they had to check which direction the collision was coming from first, so they didn’t walk into another overzealous guy with table leg or something. But, point is that they got a move on, unaware that their destination was more dangerous than their previous one.

If Mal had access to the internet or news they could of known about the Leapfrog virus that was caused by the most recent pulses of unknown energy that are better known as The Happenings, which caused the infected to violently attack anything but each other as they bound forward on all fours like if they were playing leapfrog with each other. In short, zombies. At least the collision is staying the hell away from there.

But Mal continued forward and eventually found themself in a plaza at dawn, where they settled down in an abandoned Big Brutus Pizzeria, after prying of some boards at the window, and thinking to themselves ‘why would someone board up such a good place’

After sweeping the dirt and dead bugs into the corner and rolling out their sleep wear, Mal was ready to settle down. until their paranoia kicked in, and they jury rigged chairs to the doors, and pushed an pizza oven over the window they entered from for good measure. THEN they settled down while announcing “Hello new home!” to the empty building or maybe it was to the roach that crawled out from underneath the freezer, but they said hi to the roach separately, so maybe not. Giving their new abode a last look, they attempted to sleep. Attempted