Dead silence filled the super store, the multitudes of aisles vast and empty. In the clothing section, shirts hung unmoving from their silver, reflective stands. In the dairy and fridge foods section, a slight rotting smell lingered in the air as long expired food wilted in its containers. In the book aisle, no grubby hands flipped through the pages. In the toy aisles, no children whined at their parents to buy them this or pleeeeease just let them have this one toy. The customer service center served no complaining buyers who hadn't gotten exactly what they wanted. No teenage cashiers obnoxiously chomped gum as they rang up item upon item.

The only sound in the super store came from the cereal aisle, where a tall figure and a short, overweight dog pigged out on the delicacies they had found. They couldn't be blamed, of course. The mega store was completely untouched; the windows weren't missing shards of glass, the doors weren't kicked in and the shelves of food weren't turned over. Nothing was ransacked or had been ravaged through. And the best part; it was zombie free.

Stefan Everdeen gulped down a large swig of his Red Bull, as his left hand reached into the now half empty Lucky Charms box. His fat Boston terrier had crawled halfway into a bag of Kibbles dog food, its black butt wiggling and its stumpy tail wagging furiously in delight. Stefan's sparkling baby blue eyes were half mast as he feasted.

"We're lucky, Nugget. This is like Heaven for you and me," he said to the dog, chuckling as he did so. His voice had a slight foreign accent, inherited from his parents who had originally been born in Greece. Nugget backed up from the dog bag and looked up at him with large brown eyes. She smiled to be smiling as she happily chomped a round piece of dog food. Stefan laughed, running a hand through his dark brown locks. He had a small, light honey streak in the front of his bangs that he had had since birth. His tan skin contrasted well with the white V neck and dark blue jeans he wore.

Stefan knew it was quite odd for him to be talking to a dog. But he couldn't help it. After saving Blubber Nugget, Nugget for short, from a hoard of level one zombies, he had grown close to her. Man's best friend, after all. But he figured it was a good thing he had found her. He would have gone insane if he didn't have another living being to talk to, even if it was a pudgy black and white dog with too big eyes, a stumpy tail, and a short body.

A large duffel bag was strewn on the ground beside the odd pair. Stefan hadn't bothered to fill it yet; his first action in the untouched store in the middle of nowhere had been to feast. And that he had. A bag of Cheese Doodles, a package of double stuffed Oreos, and an empty Coke bottle were to his opposite side. After having to ration out his short supply of food for the last week, he had stuffed his face full of the junk foods.

The six foot three, brunette male couldn't remember the last time he had had a real meal. Scratch that, he remembered it clearly. Five years ago he had been at his house in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina. It was right on the coast and two stories. The outside was a light blue and if you stepped off of the last porch step you were literally in the sand. Less than half a mile walk and you were on the edge of the ocean, the waves tickling your toes. He was upstairs, waiting for his parents to call him down for dinner. He was only seventeen at the time.

After getting distracted by his laptop, Stefan had realized it was late night. Roughly 11 pm. His parents still hadn't breathed a word to him, and he had heard them shuffling around downstairs. With his stomach twisting in knots, Stefan had made his way down the light wood steps, creeping cautiously into the kitchen of the beach home. There he saw his parents; eyes sunken in, mouths hanging slack, feet shuffling on the ground as if they were stuck in syrup. At the sound of their son, his parents' head snapped up, their eyes burning as they looked at him. For a moment the male was paralyzed, watching as his parents drew closer and closer, arms outstretched with a hungry flame in their eyes.

With that Stefan had finally been able to move, darting up the stairs as quick as lightning. He grabbed his laptop and book bag and set off for the attic. He had been walled in there for three days before his laptop died. He had been living off of junk food he kept in his book bag and gum to hold him over between times when he ate. For the three days he was there he had searched on his laptop, looking up what had happened to his parents.

That was when he had found out about the Plasma Project. His parents, who were top notch scientists, had told him they were working on something massive, something that would change the world. And that it did. While Stefan had been shut up in the attic, hiding from his parents, the parasite his parents had been testing on had spread like wild fire. All over news sites were articles of mass pandemic; of people turning into mindless creatures.

When Stefan left his hide away, his parents were gone. He grabbed a duffel bag and loaded it with food, clothes, and a picture of him and his family before his sister had died a year prior. With that he set off, driving through back roads in his '68 midnight blue Camaro.

That was five years ago. Stefan's car had finally quit on him after two years of driving. He had salvaged gas from abandoned gas stations and cars. The engine finally gave out and Stefan had been walking all over, looking for others. He had found raiders who tried to mug him, thousands of zombies, but no one like him. No one who had made it through the global apocalypse and wasn't either a zombie or a dangerous raider.

At the moment Stefan had no clue where he was. He figured he should look for something to tell him that around the store. But for now, he'd just sit back, relax, and eat until he couldn't move.

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