Auralia Clark felt selfish standing over her father’s grave. She had been 8 years old when the M35.6 virus had been released. Before the power went down, the news was calling it the zombie apocalypse. Elsewhere in the world, zombie preppers with their stocked safe-houses and their custom shot guns were screaming “I told you so” at their nay-saying friends. Lia didn’t like this. She and the rest of the rational world knew that this was no zombie apocalypse.No corpses climbed out of their graves. No one called out for brains. M35.6 was a virus, a plague upon mankind.

89% of the world had been wiped out by some scientist’s pet project. Her next door neighbor, Jack, sat in the second row of the funeral. His wife had been one of the first to be infected. Mary, crying in the back of the room, had been doing her residency at a nearby hospital when the outbreak hit. She hid in the supply closet for 3 days, deafened by the sounds of death and destruction just beyond her barricade, before someone finally found her. So, of course, Lia felt selfish. Her father had survived it all only to die 12 years later at the hand of some idiot test-driving an abandoned sports car. His death had been relatively peaceful compared to so many others.

When they first walked out of the bomb shelter, Lia thought “This is it. We survived. Nothing can kill us now. We’re invincible.” She had yet to see the carnage around them. She didn’t yet know that her mother would never be found. But now Lia was alone. She and her father had moved miles away from their home in hope of a fresh start, but now their new home was more like a prison.

Whatever it might hold, Aurora, Colorado was her true home, and she knew that it was time to return. It took her only two days to pack away what was left of her life, and a third day to find a working car, before her trip could begin. All that was left was to make the drive and pray that there was anyone left in Aurora.