<span id="docs-internal-guid-a550f74f-7fff-ef8e-e3f2-9327f2c263f0"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:2.4;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My name is Cassi Morris, and I am the last person left on Earth.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It all started one very normal day, I was driving my mom’s old red Volkswagen Jetta which she gave to me for my 16th birthday. I just so happened to be coming home from Langdale High, where I have been going for the past 3 years. I am currently a senior, and have been driving myself home for 2 years already, so this was nothing new or out of the ordinary. I had the radio on. Listening to WEAQ, the local rap station, when an obnoxious beep like that of a severe weather warning. Instead, a loud, deep voice clearly stated, “Attention citizens of Wolford County, we are under a state of emergency. Zombie-like creatures have began to make their presence known. Officials say it is a virus being spread, and it works like rabies. Those that have a bite that drew blood are infected. Here’s our governor on the matter.” As our governor’s voice rang out through the stereo, I zoned out and dark thoughts zoomed through my mind. Zombies? How? Where? Why? When? Am I in danger? Is my family? Am I going to die? Is my family alive? The last thought prompted me to, without thinking, push the accelerator as far down as it would go. This sudden move made the car speed off down the road, and the clutter on my dash speed down onto the floor.. I eased up a little, but not enough to make a change in the increasing speed. I saw my house coming up on the right, when I realised my brakes didn’t work.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I was furiously pumping the brakes, hearing somewhere that if a static failure occurs, that I should pump the brakes repeatedly to re-create friction and restore the brake power. Then, the worst happened. My brake pedal stopped going down. It must have been jammed, and I was in a sticky situation. By now, in case you were wondering, my foot WAS off the accelerator, and the vehicle was beginning to slow on its own. I am very glad that our road had a hill going UP and not DOWN at the end of it. It was just like a runaway ramp for semis, only when I got to thop and started to stop, I started to slide down again. I made sure my seat belt was buckled, and then I sat there and prayed for my life. Luckily, the world was on my side for the second time today, and the Jetta’s wheels remained straight and we made a gradual stop 10 yards from my front yard. Mission accomplished. I jumped out of my car and ran to my house, unaware of the changes that had already begun.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> As I was walking up the sidewalk, I realised our neighbor’s yard was in a state of unusual destruction. Being as she is an 87 year old retired widow, she has nothing better to do than water her flowers and make sure her yard is in order. It sounds a little obsessive compulsive to most, but to me it makes perfect sense. As I walked by her house, I got an uneasy feeling as I saw what I was hoping were not axe marks where someone had began hacking away at the corner of her house under the bay window. It looked like they never got a chance to finish. My house was even worse. The windows were broken, the door had a hole in it, and there was pieces of the house in the front yard, which was utterly destroyed. The grass was torn up, like a group of 100 sumo wrestlers had played football in it while wearing ice skates. That uneasy feeling turned to that of absolute dread and shear terror. I was petrified, but I pushed the debris away and stepped inside. What I saw was even worse than outside.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> All the furniture was smashed and knocked over. There was leaves in the living room that had blown through the window frames. As I rounded the corner to the kitchen, I saw something sickening. There, beside the table, lied the body of my mother. I ran over to her, crying and screaming at her to wake up, even though I knew very well there was no point, because the dead cannot hear. She had a large gash on the back of her head running the whole way from her right ear to her left ear, exposing part of her brain, which was now splattered on the floor beneath her. Rigor Mortis was already starting to set in, so this didn’t happen too long after I left for school. It takes 2-6 hours for it to set in, so this could have happened right after I left, when I was drifting off to sleep in 5th period English class with Mr. Anderson, or anywhere in between. We learned about this phenomenon in 9th grade Science. It is not a pleasant one. After the weight had settled over my shoulders that my mother, my very own mother, was slaughtered, I turned and started to scale the staircase.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I reached a standstill at the mouth of the hallway. I walked down the beautiful hardwood floors, splattered with the blood of one of my family members, who is unknown to me at this point. I turned to enter my little brother’s room, and there his small body lay, sprawled across his floor, his blank eyes and expressionless face stared at me. I will never forget that face. He was only 6. His death would have been a little more clean, but NOT in any way, more peaceful than my mother’s judging by the bullet wound that went from his lower back through his ribcage and lungs, and out his right side halfway up his chest. This would have left him there to bleed out as his lungs leaked their remaining air out into the world, giving him the task of dying a slow and painful death while he is scared, confused, and worried. I couldn’t think about that, and I had to move on. I looked all through everywhere and my dad was nowhere to be found. I had to get to my neighbor’s shed.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I jumped over the fence separating our two yards and landed not-so-gracefully on my face in the mud. I quickly pulled myself up and started making my way to her shed. The heavy door opened with a creak, and this is where her organization pays off. I grabbed her shovel, handheld garden rake, her rifle she taught herself how to shoot after her husband died, and her husband’s machete he brought home from Vietnam that she alway kept hanging above the door. Then I remembered her designer Cutco 36 piece knife set in her kitchen. I ran to her back door and went inside. I had to go through the living room and the playroom for her grandkids to get to the kitchen, and I will say, her house was in no better shape than ours. I raided her kitchen of anything useful, and didn’t dare try to look for her, afraid of what I might find.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.7999999999999998;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Acme; background-color: transparent; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> So, now I am currently on a tour of North America. I have been to Mexico, Central America, the entire US, and I am on my way to Regina, Saskatoon in Canada. I have found no other for of uninfected human life, and have almost zero confidence that I will. I grew up in Regina, so it’s special to me, and I am trying very hard to make it there. The first group of wandering zombies I came across, it went a little something like this…

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Which last words are you talking about? Being the last person on earth or meeting the zombies?