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"Prologue"

Starting writing this months ago, lost the drive. Worked out the plot details so started again.
Just throwing this up to get my ball rolling.
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PROLOGUE

I hope your not expecting a happy ending. There’s no “and they lived happily ever after” or “but at the last minute, they were saved”.
It’d be nice, I won’t deny that.
But if you want fantasy and princesses and sunsets watched arm in arm by happy, now-wiser young lovers then go to a library and take a Barbara Cartland novel or some other tome dedicated towards pretending it all works out fine and hey, you’re a stronger person having gone through the experience.
Nope. What follows is what happened. I don’t know how or why, that can be left to those with enough time and a safe place to ponder and argue about the details. All I can do is sit here and write out my story, to explain how I went from being another surly little nobody to saviour of the entire goddam human race.
Actually that’s a lie, I’m not the saviour of anything except my own hide and a few others. But given the circumstances, that’s one hell of an achievement considering.
So I’m holed up here. I’ve got this laptop, enough bottles of vodka to see me through and christ knows how many cartons of smokes. If nothing else, irony survives eh? How many times have you heard the warnings about smoking? They even reached a point where they printed stuff on the packs designed to…I don’t know, put you off?
Let’s face it, if you can get past the first choking, puke-inducing inhale then a few words stamped on the pack ain’t going to change your mind. All the finger wagging in the world, all the research, all the warnings and it wasn’t the cigarettes that got us after all. But I don’t feel smug, I just feel tired.
Hang on, there’s banging at the door, I need to take care of it before I can continue. At least I’ll never have to worry about running out of bullets.

Right, that’s that.
Booze? Check.
Smokes? Check.
Memory and strength to record this like the industrious little historian I never was? Check.

I warn you, you’re not going to like what follows. You’ll find it hard to believe, reading this back in however many years. No doubt they’ll rewrite history to give this a positive spin, or introduce some pathetic reason to not teach or speak about what happened ever again, so if you’re reading this then either I’ve been celebrated as a chronicler of events, or it’s being passed around underground and whispered about in meeting halls or classrooms.
Don’t listen to the history books, they lie. Nobody knew why it happened, where it started or even who was the first. Oh I don’t doubt there are men in concrete bunkers somewhere that know. Men that talked in powerfully quiet voices, smoke cigars and thump the table to demonstrate just how-goddam-serious-this-all-is etc etc.
I’m talking about me and you, the people that actually got caught in this thing and had to learn to fight, kill, survive and evolve.
We never knew what happened until it was in our faces, and that’s always the last moment.

So settle back, dear reader, and flick the page over to embark on what you’ll dismiss as fiction. Except you and I both it’s not. I reckon I can make it to the end before it’s all over for me. I never used to be much of a typist but, as with everything else that happened, you learn fast or you fall and are finished.
Grammar, spelling, split infinitives, double-negatives? Those are all my mistakes, go complain to Mr Childs, my old English teacher at college.
If you can find him out there. If he even remember what a college is, and if he doesn’t bite your face off before you can say hi.

Are we ready? Everyone comfy? Good, then take a nice deep breath and begin.
Go.

Well, I didn't expect my opinion of the character to be universal. To me, it comes across as arrogant and sneering. If that's the kind of character you like, then you'll like the character.

I'm not saying I don't "like" the character, as I said, it's well written. But the story so far make me feel like I'll forgive him for some later ill deeds? Well, no. That was my point, not that the character should be Orlando Bloom, running for his life with a smile on his face and his hair blowing favourably in the wind.

Ahh but it's all down to the character's perception of himself. He may be thinking that a bit of background will allow the reader to form a positive opinion of him, from acknowledgement of shared values and opinions. Therefore the character could think himself to be a likeable sort but in reality he may well be a complete ass.

Insane Bartender wrote:
> I don't really like the character at all.

I like the lead character.
He's a bit cynical and blunt, and tired of the bullsh*t the world keeps throwing at him, but most people who think about things for more than two seconds are like this, or at least have had times when they think in a similiar way.

I'll let you read Chapter ONE again, so you can pick up on the sentence about filling in the character's background so that you don't go on to hate him later in the story.

Who says you have to like the main character? Who says the hero has to be perfect?

While I'll admit it's certainly well written, the idea of giving background so that we don't hate the character seems to backfire. I don't really like the character at all. It's too much like you, and a little too much like I can be myself. Haughty and sneering down at the world.

Not exactly likeable. More of a Thomas Covenant, who doesn't care that people don't like him.

"Except you and I both it’s not."

I assume a "know" should be in there somewhere?

Anyway, very good, Goaty. The MoJo is quite impressed.

It immediatly, and I do mean immediatly, reminded me of The Yearbook by... Oh, I forget his name. I could go into the attic to find out, but I can't be bothered getting the ladder down. That book starts in a very similar way, it's like the whole town has blown up and he's left with this girl and decides to pull out a notepad and write to explain what happened so his future children will know.

For being a teenage horror story, the book was surprisingly good. I expect something as good if not better from you, Oh Goaty One.

Absolutely corking!

Though I'm a bit worried you spent last night/this morning with THIS on your mind...

Flows like a ribbon in the wind. I'd say you should definately continue/complete it...

hoho at Blank

It's good but seems to rip off 28 Days Later a bit but still cool