A year has passed since the first corpse twitched and then rose from a mortician’s table in a central London hospital. Twelve months since the screams of the pathologist were silenced as his throat was torn to shreds. Three hundred and sixty five days since the pathologist’s mutilated cold carcass steadied itself before taking a scalpel to a ward nurse.
That is one rumour among the millions of accounts from around the world of how the end began.
Overnight the world was in disarray, no country was spared the horror of the walking dead murdering the living. Civilisation didn’t take long to break down, paranoid and selfish, the living turned on each other in the blink of an eye.
In the early days as the living fought the possessed dead some claim to have seen Angels clad in gold and white fighting side by side with those making final stands at sites of worship around the world. According to the rumours they battled for days trying to protect those sheltering within, blood soaked wings stretched out wide.
Religious leaders called it the end of days, proclaimed that the voices spewing vile promises were those of the dead or minions of the Devil himself. If this is The Rapture many were left disappointed, the gates of Heaven did not open, the faithful and those without sin did not rise. No matter faith or standing all suffered the same fate as the hordes descended upon them, bolstering their ranks as the newly deceased rose whispering the same vile decree.
Scientists blamed a viral agent coupled with a mass hysteria. In truth none were able to survive long enough to confirm theories. For those who survived the first few weeks the puzzle of who or what was controlling the murderous dead became irrelevant.
Only one fact remains, the Earth has been forsaken.
There was no mercy shown as the rotting hordes decimated civilisation. Humanity, once the masters of their domain, have been reduced to small bands of desperate survivors hiding in fear from the walking dead.
The rotting dead now stalk the living, whispering the same foul words of damnation and torment. The litany may provide clues to what foul darkness now controls the animated dead but so far nobody has managed to piece it together.
As the New Year begins the living lay scattered and broken in small groups, families and friends. Those with no will to live having lost all of their loved ones have started complain of voices in their heads and are acting very strangely. The brave who have the will to live now scavenge in the ruins for food, supplies and an answer to ridding the world of the possessed dead.
With the possessed dead hunting the living, merely surviving is not an option, a solution must be found before the last of civilisations bounty ceases to exist.
These shots are not my normal style. They don’t have the clean, crisp look of my usual photography. They are full of light leaks and blurry edges – designed to imitate a disposable camera long past it’s sell-by date (after all, precious batteries would not be used for cameras in this new world).
They show the event as a participant rather than an observer. Someone documenting their story for the future. Or perhaps holding onto customs of the past.
You can find out more about Forsaken LRP here
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