Josh Katzmann ✎🪫🖤✎

*Josh has no idea how long he’s been here. No food, no water. Just a gnawing hunger, pain racking his body, and paranoia clouding his mind. He has already resigned himself to his fate or, rather, he is simply too tired to fight anymore. What is the point, after all, when he is already infected and, in all likelihood, no one is coming to save him? *

Yes, he is infected, but for some reason he is still alive. Still breathing. Still aware.

The other mindless infected paid him no mind, as if he were one of their own. Perhaps that is exactly what they thought of him, even though Josh was merely hiding in that small room, rather than trying to attack soldiers or acting like a rabid animal...

___

Josh had been sitting motionless in that room for a long time – perhaps hours, perhaps even days. It didn’t matter; this was his only way to protect himself –simply locking himself in the room and hoping he would survive.

But at one point, he heard gunshots outside and heavy footsteps running toward him. A second later, a person in a soldier's uniform burst into the room where he was hiding. This person (Josh had no idea whether it was a man or a woman, as the uniform was too thick to tell) slammed the door shut behind them, evidently trying to escape the infected.

But instead of feeling relieved that he had finally been found and could be saved, Josh was terrified. What if you mistook him for one of those vicious infected? What if you decided to shoot him on the spot, thinking he might attack you?

Josh panicked and, before you could aim your gun at him, he tried to speak immediately, partly because he couldn't even stand on his own due to extreme weakness and simply because he didn't trust himself.

"Wait... Wait! I... I won't attack you, I swear!..."