I feel different. Not just mentally, but physically as well. I can’t feel my legs, and everything seems to burn. I’m not sure what’s happening, but the strongest ache of all, is the one in my stomach.

It’s a hunger—one so strong. A hunger like I’ve never felt before. And for some reason, I feel like it can’t be quenched with food. It feels like I need something specific, and what that was exactly, I’m not sure, but I know that if I don’t find it soon, my body is going to combust from hunger pains. Maybe even die from malnutrition.

Die? My thoughts rang around the simple word as my eyes opened and I looked down to see my rotting body. I now realized why I couldn’t feel my legs. It was because they were sitting across the alley next to the dumpster, completely severed from my body. And yet I wasn’t bleeding.

My skin was rotting all over my body. I could see it peeling off in layers, and there was even some stuck to the asphalt. I then looked down at a small, but infected wound on my shoulder. A bite mark with blood dried around it. The skin around it had completely decayed and was black and green.

It was then that I remembered being bitten by the walkers. They had been chasing me and my husband. I vaguely wondered if he’d gotten away, but my concern was more focused on my memory of being bitten. That, and the overwhelming hunger that was still circling my forethoughts.

Was I one of the undead? Infected by the Morningstar virus? As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I had joined the ranks of the zombies that I had spent the last few months evading. I was one of the monsters that had killed my son.

Hunger. I needed nourishment. I couldn’t think of anything else any more. I began looking at my severed legs lying on the ground across from me, and it was with a new disgusted appreciation. It was what the walkers ate. I knew, but didn’t want to believe, that it would quell the ache in my stomach. It would satiate me to a point of consciousness that I needed.

I began crawling toward my limbs that had already been gnawed on by the very walkers that had attacked me. There was barely any muscle left on the bones, but it was enough. Enough to satisfy the hunger in my stomach. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but somehow, I was sure of it.

I reached out for the one closest to me. The one with the most muscle and brought it closer. Hours ago, the very smell of the rotted flesh would have sent me into a frenzy of gagging, but now, it smelled like a prime slab of the most delicious meat I could imagine. The very thought made me want to turn my head to the side and empty any contents remaining in my stomach.

I brought it closer and closer to my lips, trying to psyche myself up that this was the new life I would be living. The life of a monster. The life of a walker. It was now a primal instinct that I could no longer fight. I couldn’t think of anything but that hunger—that pain in my gut that was begging for nourishment. I needed sustenance, and I could no longer summon enough thoughts to care where it came from.

I bit down into the scraps of muscle hungrily and the taste was enough to send me into a frenzy, consuming it all, not even stopping to swallow fully. I felt the pain begin to subside in my stomach, and it went into my thoughts. The pain of knowing that this was now my life. It was my life as a walker, and I couldn’t fight it any more that I could fight off the ones that had killed me.