21st of November, 2023.

A few days ago, it started snowing.

Was it two days ? Three ? Four ? I’m not sure anymore, I’ve lost track of time.

Yunjin said it would be nice to start and keep a diary, since I’ve already been writing about some of my days, and I had brushed off the idea at first. “It’ll distract you”, “you’ll think about something else”, “help you get over it” she said, maybe by that she meant that it would look like time will pass less slowly when she’s gone…she's scared to  she doesn’t like to leave me alone. 

I can manage myself though. I’m grown enough. 

I’ve been trying to tell her so many times, but she doesn’t believe me listen. She gives me the same old sympathetic smile that struggles to turn her eyes into crescents like they always did. She just looks so tired and I wish I could help more. I know she doesn’t want me to know, but I’ve noticed how she got thinner : she keeps making me eat every supply she finds in her awfully long excursions outside by saying that she already had her share or that she just wasn’t hungry anymore. She barely takes care of herself and I can’t help but feel like a burden useless.

I’m spending my days cramped up in this small cabin in the middle of nowhere, waiting for her to come back late looking as if she was about to faint and I just can’t help but feel useless.

 I feel lonely, I miss everyone. 

She doesn’t want me to step outside, forbid me to do so. She even gave me a gun “just in case something happens”, it looks rusty, surely is filled with dust because I’ve never used it and I do prefer to keep in hand the pocket knife she brought me once. What will happen ? No one knows we’re here, nothing knows we’re here. 

Today I looked out the window, and it reminded me of the first time I saw one of them.

I still can hear it.

My heart raced with a mix of fear and some kind morbid curiosity. Outside, contrasting with the bright reddish leaves, I saw a figure stumbling down, walking in what looked like a bothersome way. Its movements were jerky and erratic, moving in an thoughtless manner.  From this distance, it was hard to make out details, but the silhouette appeared human-like, albeit twisted and contorted. Its clothing hung in tatters, swaying with each unsteady step. As it drew closer, I could see patches of sickly gray skin, moldy and diseased, protruding from beneath the torn fabric. 

Something was terribly wrong with its face. What once might have been human features now resembled a grotesque mask of decay. Its eyes, vacant and milky-white, stared blankly ahead, devoid of any sign of life. Strands of wiry hair clung to its scalp, tangled and unkempt. 

But it was the sound that I heard that sent shivers down my spine— a guttural moan that echoed through the empty streets, a sound without any humanity. 

My fingers trembled against the cool gl