2) Predicament

Circumstance has forced Peter to leave the safety of the apartment and try his luck in this new world.

Peter’s stomach growled like a wild dog. He could very well claim to be as hungry as one. Rubbing his belly idly, he glanced down from the mountain as the sun’s glare became too much to handle. Deciding that he had got enough fresh air, he re-entered the apartment.

It was a small abode, consisting of about three rooms, if you could call the bathroom the size of a room. The only furniture within had since been used to block the door, or utilize as a place to display his meagre supplies. Upon the coffee table which was acting as his temporary storing area, he had what was left of his 7 day seclusion in the abandoned apartment: a leather jacket, two bread knives, an empty cooler bag and one sachet of cat food.

Peter grimaced at his meagre supplies and after staring longingly at the cat food, he pounced. The feeble plastic packet was no match for his superior ripping abilities and he opened it in a matter of no time, devouring the remainder of what was supposed to be his lifetime rations.
After downing the raw meat, he realized how stupid it was of him to actually believe that he could stay in this building forever. He was already a sheltered and gluttonous pest without any acknowledgement for how to survive, he shouldn’t have expected to last for even the week that he did. In fact, even he had realized this after the power had gone out five days before, but inexplicably, he had survived and even thrived. The food had lasted for a week and he had managed to go to bed warm every night. He doubted that much of Cape Town could say the same. 

Even after the screams and gunfire had stopped, Peter had still not encountered another person. No one came knocking on the door and no one had attempted to break open the trellis door on the ground floor. His constant vigilance also made sure that he knew what passed down the street, and unless he had missed something, the street had remained deserted. 

His stomach still rumbled, the cat food not coming near to abate his hunger.
“Damn my physiological desire for sustenance,” Peter found himself muttering to no one in particular. He had found himself doing that quite a lot �" even before the outbreak. It was one of the many things which made people believe that he an eccentric, something which he fervently declined of course. He talked to himself because no one else deserved his conversation; it was as simple as that.
He stood up from his kneeling position and let out a sigh, he was still feeling hunger pains which no matter how much he cursed, they didn’t seem inclined to leave. That really did irritate him. When he told something to leave he expected it to leave.

As his irritable stomach continued to growl, he started softening up. It wasn’t really its fault after all. So he patted it down and proceeded to massage it till the pain was a bearable. After the sharp stabbing pain was merely a side thought, he assessed his situation.
“No food, no electricity and no fuel. Damn good predicament I’ve gotten myself into.”
He shook his head, not really meaning the last part. Nothing really was his fault. Regardless, he needed to concoct a plan.

Obviously, he needed to leave the apartment, no matter how much he didn’t want to. There was no soil to farm, and he was hungry now, not nearly patient enough to wait for crops to grow. As he had also made sure before, the apartment building was empty of food. Even it wasn’t, he would still need to start planning to leave. He didn’t know what he was thinking, believing that he could stay there forever. Did he even want to? It was incredibly drab, after a few weeks he surmised that he would probably want to go get eaten by zombies through sheer boredom.

No matter how much he dreaded the prospect, Peter knew he would need to leave the confines of his apartment. It wasn’t even a question of eventually, if he planned to get a meal and appease his stomach, he would have to do it today.

There were problems; of course, he lacked a means to defend himself, besides the two bread knives he had found. The leather jacket may be able to make him harder to chew, but he also severely doubted that that would stop a determined infected. There had to be something more in the apartment which he could use. 

So he began scavenging once again, but this time with a bigger idea of what he would need. While searching he found a smallish, but no less useful backpack as well as two belts, both of which he decided to bring along. You couldn’t have too many belts after all.
Besides these finds, however, he didn’t find anything which could be utilized as a weapon superior to his current load out of twin bread knives. 

After about half an hour of searching he let out a disappointed sigh. It was then which he noted that the pangs in his belly were back. He knew what he would have to do. Weapon or not, he would have to venture outside of the apartment and start facing what the world had become. Hell, it couldn’t be much worse than what the world was before. 

Author's Note

Pre-Draft. A short bridge between the Apartment and Street scenes.