Chapter 7: UnDead Girl by Stephen Simpson

April 15, 2025

Chapter 7: UnDead Girl by Stephen Simpson

Genesis nodded. At first, the hunger felt imagined, as if her dad… Peter, was putting ideas in her head, but now she could smell them, and they smelled delicious just like Brandon did. She was not sure if the urge to eat her parents would fade like when she walked away from Brandon, and she knew it was for the best Peter sedated her. He said even though her body was dead, she still had self-awareness and intelligence, so she was not exactly like the zombies she had seen in movies, but it also meant that if she started gorging herself on Peter or Josie, she would never forgive herself.

Peter stepped closer to her, and she lifted her arm.

“Okay, try to stay still. You’ll feel a little sting, but I’ll try to be as quick as possible. Relax.”

If only relaxing was that simple. To say the word and automatically a body would respond. Genesis was still trying to bend her mind around the fact she had no parents, she was created in a lab, grown in a Petri dish, then transferred to a sack resembling a womb until the day she was born. Could she still use the word, born? She had no choice in leaving, to start her life over somewhere she did not have any friends.

Genesis blinked hard when the sharp needle pushed against the skin in the crook of her arm. She balled her fists and scrunched her eyes closed to keep from crying when she felt the sharp sting, as the needle pierced her skin.

Completely disoriented, Genesis tried to stay upright when she felt her knees buckle under her. She was aware of Peter’s arms wrapping around her as he caught her before she fell, but it lasted only an instant before blackness swallowed her.

Genesis slept curled up on her side and with a gentle moan, her eyelids started to flutter as she woke up slowly. The bed felt warm and comfortable. She wanted to pull the blankets up to her chin and go back to sleep. Then, like a silver bolt of lightning slicing through a dark sky, memories overwhelmed her, and her feelings of contentment shattered into raindrops.

She was dead.

She was a zombie.

Her life, to date, had been a lie.

Everything had changed.

Genesis sat up quickly. The bed she was sitting on was in the middle of a small square room and the fluorescent lights above her made the walls surrounding her appear brilliantly white. There was no other furniture in the room and across from her, there was a large pane of glass which she knew was a one-way mirror because she could feel eyes watching her every move. All Genesis could see was the reflection of a familiar stranger, the her which did not quite look like her anymore. Her eyes looked huge, and her skin was pale. Her black hair had also lost all its colour.

“Good morning,” a voice said at the same time as Genesis heard the soft, sighing noise of an airtight door opening.

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