I found solace.

I found solace in the storage room of this decrepit chicken farm building. The stench, as unbearable as it was, was no match for the smell of the city I'd left a couple weeks before. Stepping over the thousands of rotting chickens was actually pretty close to the way I left town. The only difference was that I was stepping over friends, family members, neighbors, and other people that never managed to make it out...alive.

Luckily, zombies aren't a fan of chicken, so everything here is actually dead. That means I didn't make it soon enough to be able to grab a walking dinner though. That was the only reason for walking this far. I'd known this place was here from my mom showing it to me on our way to the zoo once. She said something along the lines of "son, this is where chicken from the store comes from." I'd always thought that was cool. I knew where my food came from. She never mentioned that we were eating birds crammed into a dark building by what seemed like the millions though. I always knew, but you'd think she would have mentioned that at some point. She always did try to protect me from the truth. That's how she died after all.

Had she not lied to me the day she "left to buy water" I probably wouldn't have let her leave. She wasn't planning to buy anything. Even if she could find some there wasn't a chance in hell we could have afforded it. Of course I knew that, but she swore to me that nothing bad would happen. She wouldn't let anything bad happen to us no matter how bad things were outside the house. I honestly have no idea where she got it, but she got a lot of it. I'm not sure I really want to know.

Normally she wouldn't let me anywhere near the door, but when she got home she had no choice but to have me help her carry it in. All 7 cases of it. 168 bottles of liquid diamond as far as everyone was concerned. It was enough to keep us both alive for a little while longer. If we didn't find food it wouldn't matter much though. I kept telling her to let me leave the house, and help her find food. She always refused. Every day she left she came back a little bit weaker, but she always had something for us to eat. Yet again, she always refused. She wouldn't eat a damn thing til I did. It pissed me off beyond words, but I always ate so that she would. It turned out to not matter though.

When she didn't wake me up that day I knew something was wrong. I blamed myself at first, but I knew she'd be upset by that. I still wish I'd done something to stop it though. I found her sitting on the steps staring off into the distance. I said "mom, is everything okay?" Normally she would have turned around, and replied with "everything is just fine, honey." Today, she didn't say that. She just sat there. Staring. It didn't take me very long at all to become an absolute emotional wreck.

She died keeping watch, and protecting her son. That's probably the way she would have wanted it, but I wasn't ready to let her leave. How would I keep myself alive when she would never let me outside the house? I was so mad at her for that, but I knew that she never planned to let me leave her sight. She never would have abandoned me. I just wish that she would have realized that she wasn't invincible for a couple seconds, so that she would have taught me something. I learned from watching her, and I remembered things that she'd shown me before the outbreaks started. She just never taught me how to deal with living without her. She protected me from everything but her motherly love.