The only world she’d come to know was the one of pain, suffering, survival, and hunger. Especially hunger. When she’d awoken, the first thing that she could even comprehend was the unquenchable desire to feed. This sensation was all-consuming, quickly overtaking all other senses until it was all she knew. This was the first thing she’d come to know and should have been the only thing she’d come to understand. It wasn’t until she’d fed for the first time that she was able to regain any semblance of sanity. And that small semblance changed so much more than she would ever realize.

When she first saw the world itself there was a strange stir inside of her, a weird and foreign feel in her newborn life. While the first thing she’d felt was hunger, the thing that connected her to every other being like her, the second thing was the sensation that separated her by worlds from her brethren. Wonder. This new, inescapable feeling overpowered even the hunger that had consumed her so feverishly in the beginning, the feeling that should have directed everything she did. But now, she felt a new urge, one that drew her away from the others. She felt longing, want and curiosity all at once, this swirl of oddly familiar yet brand new senses driving her to take her first steps away. So she turned.

She gazed towards the large towering figures in the distance, stared at the strange brightness that glistened off of the churning creature below. The creature never stilled as it pounded against the cliff below, spanning so far into the horizon that she could not see an end to it. This constantly shifting thing captured her attention more-so than the brightness that had led her eyes to it in the first place. She then became aware of sound for the first time.

This massive body was loud, the roaring and splashing and mesh of so many different, yet similar sounds. She was fascinated by this too. So she leaned down to touch it, pressing against the barrier holding her back. She reached, stretching towards the raging monster below, just as her brethren reached for their food behind her. She felt confusion and irritation when she was unable to touch the thing below her. She continued to reach, gradually leaning more and more over the irritating wall. As she stretched down towards the raging monster below, there was a bump from behind, one of her brethren having been flung into her. She fell. And suddenly she was surrounded.

Everything was spinning and churning, sucking her down and spitting her back up again. Her brain wasn’t processing anything, couldn’t process anything. This unwitting dance between girl and monster continued, the monster having taken the lead in the deadly joining of limbs and relentless waves. She closed her eyes as she was jostled around, eventually succumbing to the darkness.

---

There are muffled shouts as the body is discovered on the beach. It had looked strange enough to warrant a closer look, one that revealed an unconscious zombie. The undead creature was quickly loaded into the back of a secure vehicle and driven to the San Diego Biomedical Research Facility. An armored escort led the vehicle through the streets, bashing several other zombies that had attacked out of the way. Alarms blared as the gates to the facility opened, allowing them in. Several guards on towers watched, making sure no unsavory creatures tried to get in. The gates closed and the trucks pulled into the facility, main doors shutting behind her.

The new specimen was carried into a stark white room with a one-way mirror. This way it could be observed, and it would be none the wiser. After the door was sealed, the scientists outside of the room bustled around, preparing various machines and the like for when the creature would wake. Despite all the preparation and eagerness to see the specimen, no one had noticed when it had woken up, nor when it started walking around and looking at the walls, ignoring the corpse it was supposed to feed on. It took a surprised shriek from one of the scientists to get the rest of them to pay attention and to see what their specimen was now doing.

---

To say Adelaine Morgan was fascinated was an understatement.

Since the start of the apocalypse, She had yet to see anything quite like this. It was a zombie, of course, but this creature in front of her was most certainly the strangest specimen of it's kind. Since they had brought it to the research center, it hadn't shown a single act of hostility or aggression. It hadn't even made for the rotting corpse left for it in the cell for it to feed. Rather, it just stared at the two way mirror with an almost intrigued expression.

When her father suggests that it knows they are watching, she disagrees. 'No,' she thinks. 'It's watching itself.' The curious mannerisms show as it approached the mirror, focused on something that they couldn't see. 'It's reflection.' The creature was showing signs of self-awareness now.

None of the previous specimens had shown any interest in the mirror until they could smell human flesh behind it. At that point, they had become volatile and aggressively began to throw themselves at the glass. Most had to be put down or restrained after they reached that point. But this one...This zombie was observing and studying the mirror intently. And finally, it moved its hand. It was a slow process, watching the decaying creature try to raise its arm, but it succeeded and it gets its hand on the glass. It seemed to be transfixed as it did this, watching what the pair couldn't see very intently now.

Adelaine turned to look at her father, hoping to glimpse what he might be thinking. His face was stonier than she'd ever seen it.

Cadmus Morgan was unhappy. That was more than an understatement. The zombies aren't supposed to have self-awareness, and the one in front of him now appeared to be gaining that and much more at an alarming rate. If there was a chance that one could regain humanity…It would change everything. It didn’t matter if his own curiosity demanded he study this further, he had a job to do.

He knew that the total eradication of the creatures could be put off even longer if it turned out that they could become intelligent life again. The zombies needed to go, and that was just how it was in his mind. As intriguing as the specimen was, the world needed the zombie threat gone. There was no saving them, even if they reverted back to a human state. How would one justify the cannibalism of their own kind? And how many more might kill themselves in horror of what they had done? The zombies had to go, and that was final.

Adelaine noticed when her father stiffened. It startles her because she'd hardly ever seen him look so tense. When she looked back to the specimen, she released a startled gasp. The creature had moved its hand from the mirror to its face as if it was finally realizing that it was staring at itself. The father-daughter duo gawk as it watched itself before something even more unusual followed. It opened its mouth and released a strange and inhuman sound. Its first attempt at words.

Adelaine herself watched in awe as it continued to make an effort to speak before it finally spoke something intelligible within the slurs.

"M-meee..."

The soft creaking of the voice was like a gunshot in the dead quiet. Adeline stood in dumbfounded silence as her father moved somewhere out of her vision, shouting something to another scientist. It was all muffled noise to her; she was focused on the zombie in front of her. To hear it speak...it just proved that at one point, this had been a human.

The creature itself looked halfway through decay and corruption. Remnants of hair dye showed that the zombie once had bright purple hair, although most of the color had faded away, along with the normal hair pigment. Its hair had eventually stopped growing out, leaving a pale, whitish shade behind at the roots. Its eyes were the most disturbing however, milky white orbs that looked partly bloodshot.

It was reaching for the mirror again when the guards burst into the room and grabbed it by the arms, careful to keep away from its mouth. Its face was contorted strangely as if it was trying to look afraid. 'Or angry.' Adelaine thought.

The air was pierced by an inhuman screech. 'Definitely not happy.' Adelaine ran towards the control panel, only to be blocked by her father. He shook his head. "Leave it." He said nothing else as they dragged the howling specimen away. She watched silently.

"What will they do?"

Her father stared after them, face hard and steely. "I don't know. I'm not sure about anything anymore." He turned to look at his daughter. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now.” The scientist in him was screaming to observe and learn about this thing, while the paranoid realist wanted to destroy it before the word got out. There’s were so many questions, so many things to consider. And the infallible doctor had no answer.

At what point did curiosity become obsolete? When did exploration come second to the sense of safety? When did terror become the only thing to rule? His voice came out in an almost inaudible whisper.

“I don’t know what’s right anymore…”