Kris wakes up in a hospital bed. His eyes flutter open and squint in protest to the light shining in through the window. Kris is confused and disoriented more than anything. He doesn’t remember clearly the last time he’d been awake.  It’s not this that has him confused, but the fact that he’s woken up to complete silence. No nurses bustling about in the hallways outside his room, no family waiting for his awakening. Not even the beeping sound of the heart monitor is there. In fact, it’s completely turned off and still attached to him. He sits up and a sharp pain courses through his abdomen. He peeks through the neck hole in his hospital gown and sees a bandage wrapped around his torso several times. From the looks of it, it hasn’t been changed in a long time. With trembling hands, Kris reaches up to his right forearm and pulls out the IV drip and any other wires that he’d been connected to. He takes a look around the room. Except for the dry, dead flowers that sit on the table next to his hospital bed, the room is bare and cold. Kris shifts his legs to the side and slowly puts his feet on the checkered floor, his bare toes tensing at the biting cold.

Kris stumbles at first, not having stood for who knows how long. But he stands up as straight as can, and begins to walk. He swears he can hear his own footsteps echoing in the room. By now the silence has got Kris completely unsettled and his senses are heightened. Kris steps into the hallway and notices how much darker it is. The smell of rotted meat fills the air and Kris covers his nose as soon as the stench reaches his nostrils. Kris uses the wall for support as he makes his way down the long hallway. He hopes a nurse will pop out somewhere telling him that he needs to go back to bed and that his family is out getting something to eat. But no one comes. The only lights in the hallway come from the skylights; all the other windows have been boarded up.

 Kris reaches the end of the doors at the end of the hall and pushes it open. Kris gags as he discovers the source of the foul odor.  A woman lies dead in the threshold of a doorway a little ways down, the skin on her face- and flesh for that matter- is gone and whatever remains of her body is rotted and decayed. Dried blood coats the floor around her, her blonde hair matted and streaked with red. There is a sure sense of fear in Kris’s stomach now but he makes his way down the hall, looking desperately for any signs of life. He looks for the entrance; his only guide was his memory. His heart pounds in his chest as he passes another dead body, this one more decayed than the last. Kris arrives in the lobby, nauseous and dizzy. He places a hand on the front desk and coughs, pain shooting through his abdomen again. But he holds his breath when he hears a faint moan. Kris scans the room and sees no one at first glance, but after a second look, he can see a face trying to peek through the crack between the entrance doors. The metal doors are open about five inches, and that’s as far as they’ll open because they are rusty chains wrapping around the handles. Kris slowly approaches the entrance, the eye on the figure waiting outside. Initially, Kris is relieved to see another human being, but as he gets closer, he can tell something is wrong. There is no color in his face except for the splattered pattern of blood across his cheeks.

“Hello?” Kris asks weakly as he approaches the door. He squints and leans closer to the door. “What’s go-“ Suddenly, the man on the other side isn’t the only one there and three others are reaching out him, making a noise somewhere between a moan and a hiss. One of them makes a grab at Kris’s hospital gown, ripping the sleeve off. Kris yelps and stumbles backwards onto the ground and he scoots himself back in a panic. His eyes widen in horror as he watches the people grabbing viciously at air through the small opening. Kris sees that these people have pieces of flesh missing in all sorts of places- their jawlines, cheeks, necks- all missing. But they all have that same look in their eyes- blank and glossed over.

Kris gets up, shaking. He stumbles on to his hands and knees, but gets up and runs, or tries to run at least. He makes his way down the narrow hallways, his bare feet slapping against the floor. Kris looks behind him just in case, and continues to search for the back exit. He finds it, finally, and looks through the small window on the door.

Kris pushes the door open and walks out with slow cautious steps. A broken down ambulance is to his right, and to his left, Kris is horrified at what he sees. Rows of dead bodies covered in white sheets blanket most of the yard; to his relief, they are unanimated. Kris steps over them carefully and makes his way towards the outside world, unsure of what to expect.

hi there^^ question: should I make this rated M? its kinda gonna sound a bit gory- its inevitable in a zombie story. what do you guys think?