Fading Fragments

Premise: This story follows Naomi as she wakes up to a world gone, and in its place the walking dead roam. Can she survive? Will she find her loved ones? And most importantly, will Naomi be able to cling on to the fading fragments of her life as she embarks on this journey?

Authors Note: Hello everyone! Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Years. This story pretty much adopts the same beginning as The Walking Dead and 28 Days Later, but I'd like to think that once we get past the opening it sort of goes off into its own. It's from Naomi perspective, and contains many characters from the second generation of Skins, as well as zombies/walkers/dead - whatever you like to call them!

Disclaimer: I do not own Skins at all.

Rating: M, due to the use of language and its graphic nature.

Now, on with the story!

Chapter One - Tick, tock, tick

Is this really happening? Am I really lying in a hospital bed… How the hell did I come to be here? As I sit up, I notice my gown and the instantaneous pain that throbs in my shoulder.

"Ahh, fucking.." I stop once I look at the revealing area, staring at the bandage that covers a visible wound sustained there. I pull the gown lower from my shoulder to get a better look at it, as if not believing it exists.

"What the fuck.. What happened…" I look around the room; it's far too quiet for my liking. Usually Cook's use of profanity and vile noises fills up the room, but right now, it's a distant thought. I look to the bare walls, the silence overbearing, and it's only then that I notice that the clock which hangs on the wall opposite from me, is dead. No rhythm, no sound, only stillness. I observe the room further, seeing my mother's cardigan on the plastic chair beside the bed.

"Mum?" I move forward to pick it up, gingerly stretching out with my injured arm to grab it. I bring it to my nose to sniff, but it smells considerably odorless. I look to where the window is, noting the natural light that shines in. I see only sky, which tells me that I must be above ground level, much to my dismay. As I divert my eyes yet again, I see a plant, which in itself is not uncommon in hospitals; but the sheer sight of its death is. I narrow my eyes, the brows lowering to contemplate how this plant has come to die, seeing as it takes time for it to decompose like this.

"Mum.. Effy….. Cook?" I turn my head, feeling, for the first time, rather scared.


I must have zoned out because the next thing I know, the cardigan is now on the floor and I'm lying on the bed with my legs to my chest, as if attempting fetal position. My eyes watch the hands of the clock, waiting, hoping, and just praying that it might resume its state of existence, yet I know it will not. I know that beyond that door, the life that I know has changed. I'm not entirely sure how, or whether it's something I can even figure out, but what I am certain of is that I am alone. My mother, my friends, my reality is no more. They wouldn't just leave me here, for this amount of time, if there wasn't something wrong. It just doesn't make sense. I try to understand how I came to be here, and I grasp fragments in my mind of the event, or at least I believe it to be. I was out with Cook and Effy, just walking down the street. Then we were about to enter a shop, I'm not sure what store exactly, but I was at the front, and as I made way inside I saw a shadow and felt an impact. It immediately burned me, accompanied by this indescribable bang, making everything ring, blur, and turn to complete darkness, yet not before I heard the screams of my friends.

A while later, I feel myself sit up on the bed, willing for my eyes to absorb my surroundings and wake up from this daze. It seems to work when I feel my legs swing over, and my focus turns to the floor, assessing everything around me. I slip into some slippers that are positioned under the chair, and pull on the cardigan that was on the bed. I wrap it around me tight, almost clinging to it. Something tells me it's all I have left. I then force myself to stand, using the bed as leverage. It feels weird, and I stumble slightly.

"Fuck sake." After a while of trying to convince the muscles to work in my jelly like state, I move my legs, finding the strength to walk delicately across the room. I brace myself against the door, and swiftly hold the knob and turn. It doesn't budge. I frown, unable to understand why the door won't open, that is until I see a key on the floor, as if slipped underneath for me to have. I bend down, supporting myself with one arm against the wall, and pick up the key. I then tentatively, with shaking hands, put it into the lock and turn it. This time, reaching for the doorknob and twisting it proves a much harder action to execute. I stand there, as if frozen.

"Fuck sake, Campbell, get it together.." I then without further hesitation turn the handle and push it open, my eyes immediately registering the carnage that awaits me. I move of this confinement and into the hallway, as if trying to prove that this is real, that if I place myself into this situation, that it will suddenly become a reality for me. It doesn't.

"Jesus." I note the array of relics that scatter the ward; varying from small objects like gloves and stethoscopes to large hospital equipment like wheelchairs and gurneys. It's a wreck. Yet what truly stuns me, and which forces me into a state of vehement denial, is the touches of blood that stain the whiteness of a once sterile environment. I say touches, when really, I mean spreads: multiple red smears on the floor, walls, and even on the counters of one of the nurse's station. It's enough to make me hyperventilate on the spot, even though I'm not exactly the squeamish type. It's like some sort of horror, one you don't realise you're starring in until you're just thrown into the action. And what further unsettles me is this motionless setting. It's calm but it's not tranquil. It just is, and it's absolutely terrifying. It's not even something that could be achieved in a horror film, at least, not for this long, and not without some sort of spectacle or action sequence, surely. What the fuck am I saying?

After I manage to regulate my breathing and somewhat desensitize myself to what I am seeing, I gradually move. It's with great effort, for my legs have yet to establish it's typical strength, but I make do. After wandering around for a while, I find an alarming set of doors chained together, carrying some graffiti.

Do not open, the dead roam.

What the fuck.

"What the fuck." I could not refrain from verbalising this thought, for it makes absolutely no sense. How can the dead roam? Dead people are dead, they need blood and a heartbeat to be alive and roam, so the idea that they 'roam', is a rather ludicrous one. I can't help but slightly snicker at this, until I see a hand appear inbetween the doors. I permit the small scream from my lips as I jolt away from the doors, too shocked to mute my voice for the hand continues to dart through, reaching out blindly with raw and gnarly fingertips.

"Jesus Christ." I move backwards as the doors clang together, holding back this person who insists on trying to get in. The hand continues to move around, but I turn away, unable to take it anymore. I walk down another hallway, another staircase, another ward, another foyer, and I hope that an exit will be made possible for me, because this is feeling a hell of a lot like some labyrinth. I can only hope that I find a resolution.


It's sometime later until I find a door that proclaims to be an exit to this empty place. I never thought a hospital could be so bare, considering how many people injury themselves, and the amount of people that work to stabilise these traumas, and yet I am the only being present. My mind continues to ponder what the message from the doors could mean, and what could really be on the other side. I make my way to the exit and lag, if only momentarily, before I open the door with a shove. It opens to reveal a desolate world, one without traffic, without human buzz and activity. It's distorting, confusing, and as my eyes look around, I fail to understand why it is that I am alone, and that no one, not even one single human being is here with me.

I walk out and look down the street, taking in the empty and seemingly abandoned cars, the countless bags that haunt the sidewalks and roads, telling me that life was here, that it tried to fight, and yet did not survive. These bags now lay unclaimed, with these streets barren and lonesome. The only thing that helps me to breathe right now is the gentle breeze that passes me by, succeeding in blowing the branches of a tree that stands a couple metres away from me. It's a beautiful sound – it's the only sound, apart from my erratic heartbeat.

"Where.. the fuck, is everybody?"


Well that's it for now, folks. I apologise for any errors made, clearly it wasn't me, haha. Thanks for reading!