We charged off the boat, with our guns in our hands. The frozen air hit us just as we were just stepping onto the snow. Bullets rained from the frozen land, like hail. The enemy knew we were coming.

 

“We have to keep fighting,” I say hoping to inspire my fellow troops. “For our country!”

 

As we began to tire, we noticed that the enemy had pulled back half their men. This was curious since this was one of the few battles that could change the tide of the war. We were quite surprised thinking that we were about to win, though the enemy had wiped out almost a fourth of our forces. Just as we thought things were going our way, we heard a rumbling in the distance. The enemy pulled back their forces completely. They were in a full retreat.

 

“Everybody down,” said a soldier to my left, “It’s an avalanche!”

 

As the rumbling mass of snow and ice drew closer, all we could see was white. It covered everything, even the enemy base. Nothing was safe from the devastation.

 

As I awoke I began to push my way through the snow to get to the surface. When I did, I found that others had managed to do the same, but everyone else was gone.

 

“Thank God you’re alive,” said a soldier. “I am Private Richards of the U.S. Army.”

 

“Who is in charge here?” I barked, giving them a false sense of courage. “I demand to speak with the leader!”

 

“That would be you sir,” said another soldier “Private Ryan of the U.S. Army!”

 

“And who are you soldier?” I said addressing the last trooper “What's your rank?”

 

“I am Lieutenant Miles of the U.S. Army sir!” he said. “And who are you sir?”

 

“Me?” I asked. “I am Captain Johnson of the United States Grand Army.”

 

We searched for hours trying to find others. After 5 hours of searching, we found someone. We brought her out and from the second we did, I knew she wasn't gonna make it. Her skin was blue and her eyes were half closed. We all knew now that she could not be saved, but we did not give up hope.

 

“Start a fire,” I said. “Do all we can to keep her warm.”

 

We gathered sticks and lit a fire, after an hour of sitting by it she still felt cold. We took off our coats and wrapped her in them. But right when we took them off the temperature was just beginning to drop. We knew that we would not survive the night without the heat of our jackets so we decided that it was too late to save her, she had been cold for too long.

 

“You know what you have to do,” she said, “just get it over with and leave.”

 

“I...I can’t,” I said shivering in the cold. “There is still hope that we can save you.”

 

The she looked into my eyes, and a strange sensation came over me, and it was not a good one either. It was as if I knew what was coming next. She grabbed my side where I keep my knife, took it out of its case and with her hand shaking wildly while she did it, she held it to her heart.

 

“Do it,” she said with a scared look in her eyes “or I will!” Her voice cracked as she said this, then she began to cry.

 

I took my knife from her hands and held it firmly. I pushed the knife into the right side of her chest, tears ran down her face as she cried out in pain and she began to bleed. Blood soaked her clothes and she began to lose consciousness. As she drifted off in my arms I knew this moment would haunt me for the rest of my life. We set her aside and continued on, but we could still hear the snow settling from her limp lifeless body hitting the ground.

 

We walked for days, trying to get to the top of the mountain where the enemy base was and I had to keep reminding us all that we still had a mission. Our mission was to conquer that base. We had no idea what was waiting for us but we did know that it was not gonna be easy. As we continued on we began to weaken. The small amount of food in our backpacks began to dwindle even less. Our coats no longer kept us warm, and we had no shelter from the wind to build a fire. We were stranded in the middle of the arctic.

 

We were only a day’s walk from the base now. When we finally arrived, we decided to wait a day before doing anything so that we could get our strength back before the fight. We found a place near the entrance in an abandoned room that look like it had been uninhabited for years.

 

The next morning, there was a huge noise outside the door to our room. We grabbed our guns which had thankfully thawed out and opened the door. As we did, we were attacked by what seemed to be a zombie. It wasn't smart or fast but it was strong we shot it 20 times before it finally dropped. I saw a patch on its arm, it was a Nazi symbol. As we moved on we saw more of them, not wanting to waste ammo or bring attention to ourselves we avoided them. We finally came to another room filled with bottles and vials.

 

“This must be where they made those-those things,” said Miles.

 

He was right. On each and everyone of the bottles there was a logo printed on the side N.Z.-1, the name of the virus. Now, all we had to do was find an antidote and a way to get back to base without being killed. We gathered as much of the chemical as we could and continued on to try and find a amory, where we could get better guns and ammunition. When we finally did find one, it was crawling with zombies.

 

We tried to fight our way through but wound up retreating to a nearby room. Thankfully, no one was injured. We tried to radio for help, but to no avail. All the radio channels were jammed.

 

“We’re all alone men,” I said “don't expect help any time soon.”

 

“Great, just great,” Ryan said “so we’re stranded in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.”

 

“Pretty much,” said Richards. “I guess this is the end.”

 

“We will not give up men,” I shouted. “We will fight till the end, if it must be that way.”

 

We looked around the room to try and find some sort of clue for the antidote. When we finally found it we gathered our things and headed out to make it. Fortunately we had a map. Unfortunately the resources were on the other side of the base. We decided it best to split up. Two of us, Private Ryan and myself headed for the armory, leaving Private Richards and Captain Johnson to gather and mix the antidote ingredients.

 

With no way of communication, we decided to rendezvous in the middle of the base in two hours. Making sure to plan every detail. Hopefully, the U.S. Army would think something was wrong and was sending help our way.

 

As Ryan and I ran down what seemed like an endless hallway where at the end of which was the armory, we noticed that there was not a zombie in sight. We thought this curious because just hours before this very hallway was crawling with them.

 

Then we realized it and we looked at each other and both said at the same time “The antidote!”

 

We turned around and headed the other way as fast as we could go. But by the time we got there we knew it was too late. As we came up to the pack of zombies, we noticed that two were not like the rest. Two of them had U.S. Army uniforms on just like ours. It was Miles and Richards they were infected and heading straight for us. We pulled out our guns and began to fire into the hoard of zombies.  There seemed to be an endless waves of zombies heading straight for us. We retreated back to a open hanger, and just as we did we heard a buzzing and the sound of men yelling. It was the United States army! They had figured out we were missing and they sent a whole platoon of men to us. They mowed down the zombies and let down a rope ladder for us to climb into their helicopter with.

 

Ryan told me to go first so I did, but when he started to climb right after me a zombie jumped onto his back and they both fell to the ground with a thud. Ryan tried to jump onto the latter but it had already flown out of reach. Then the surrounded him jumping at him from all sides. Just before he was swept away from the platform, he threw me a crumpled piece of paper. Then he was gone.

 

Once I was safely on the helicopter I un crumpled the paper and read it. It had three legible words written on a piece of crumpled paper. It said:

 

The antidote is

 

And the rest was blotted with blood.