It isn't an original or very creative plot so far I know. :D This is pretty much me just trying to practice on writing story structure, and being able to describe the environment to the reader. It is also very easy to write a character that doesn't make sense, and is not consistent. So I decided to use a very simply straightforward conflict, and focus on practicing my structure ect.

It had been two days. He sat in the middle of the cold floor, his mind clear. It surprised him as he realized this. It was cold, and the air smelled damp and earthy, kind of like it did after it rained, just danker, like a cave. He then remembered that he was in the basement. The only cave he had been in was in Colorado, he remembered the fresh mountain air before, and then the change in pressure, atmosphere, and quality of the air as he and a bunch of other people followed the tour guide into the cave. “The Cave of the Winds” he remembered the brochure. His mom had hated the cave, she hated the dark, the claustrophobic spaces, the smell of the air, so much like the basement now smelled. A wave of grief swept over him now, as he remembered his family. He had tried to keep them out of his mind the past few days, trying think of anything, focus on anything that would keep them off of and out of his mind. But he now knew, he was fully aware that they were all dead. His family was dead. He said this to himself out loud, barely audible. And then he broke down again, tears running down his face in torrents. He was only 16. Still a boy. Even though he once thought that this was a large number, he felt so young and helpless. He felt lost. He was tall, taller than most men, but not tall enough to stand out in a crowd. He was not naturally muscular, and his tall and thin frame made him look even weaker than he was. He had a thin face, one not particularly striking, his tear stained, dark, shallow eyes, and pale face, made him look much older than he was, like an old man.

The Sun was warm on his face, the smells of the basement were gone, the sadness and fear were gone. He lay in the soft grass staring up into the warm blue sky, white fluffy clouds making shapes of imagined things, cars, an elephant, and an ice cream cone. He was happy. “Daniel! Time for lunch!” He sat up quickly and looked over to where he heard the familiar voice. “Mom! Dad! Little sis!” He yelled with a joy that he had never felt before, one he could not describe. The kind of joy felt after you feel you have lost something infinitely precious to you, but you realize that you were wrong, that what you held dear was not lost, but found. As he reached his family, he barely noticed the tuna fish sandwhiches, with the little pieces of boiled egg and the cut off crusts, his favorite. “Guys you’re ok!” He yelled. “Why wouldn’t we be Danny?” Dad answered “I had a nightmare. Must have fallen asleep in the grass! I love you guys! Even you little sis!” He smiled as he grabbed her around the waist and hugged her tightly to himself, rendering her speechless…and unable to breathe. “What has gotten into you Daniel? Every one is doing fine!” His mom said in a pleasant voice with an edge of worry. He sat down. His family was there as he remembered them, his apparent nightmare behind him, he relaxed. He scooped himself a big glob of potato salad, and took a bite out of a tuna fish sandwhich. But instead of the satisfying taste that he expected the tuna fish tasted horrible like nothing he had tasted before, like rotting flesh. He gagged, he then methodically, unwillingly, grabbed a spoon and scooped some of the potato salad, into his mouth, it to tasted like what he imagined a rotting corpse would taste like. “Whats’s wrong honey?” his mom asked, but before he could answer, she began to cough uncontrollably, and then Dad, and then little sis. “What’s wrong?!”, “What’s wrong?!” He asked loudly, and then he began to scream this, over and over. But they wouldn’t answer. Then his family looked up at him, all three of them with dark red in-human, hungry eyes, and open mouths, blood covering their faces. His sister groaned and reached for him. That is when he ran. He ran and he ran, for what seemed like hours, until he began to pass places he thought he recognized. The small grocery store, where they always got their groceries, and the nice checkout lady, who always remembered their names. The theater where his family would watch the latest films. His school and the houses of friends he knew. Then he looked behind him and realized that there was a huge mob of people following him. He recognized his Mom, Dad, and sister, all his friends from school, the checkout lady from the grocery store, calling his name in an unintelligible gurgle. Hundreds of people he recognized and many others he didn’t even know. Actors from movies he remembered, the local weather man who always talked in a particular voiced, and smiled when he said that there was a 50% chance of rain. They all had the bloodshot eyes, the gaping mouth, the outstretched arms reaching for him. He screamed. He tried to run faster, but his legs stopped working for some reason. He tried harder. He moved even slower, like his legs were made of gelatin. He fell down on his back, staring at the mob in horror as they approached him, he tried to scream for help, to tell them to stop, to explain to them that he knew some of them, a lot of them, his family! But no words escaped his lips, as the mob descended on him, tearing at his body, he could not even muster a scream…

He woke up in a cold sweat, he felt like screaming, but he suppressed it. His mind was in a panic, as he slowly began to realize that what he had just gone through was not real, but a nightmare, all the grief and sadness that he had felt from losing his family returned, more so because of the dream. He wondered if he was still in a nightmare, if the dark walls of the basement and the cold floor he laid on was simply another figment of his imagination. He hoped so, but as he once again smelled the damp dirt-like smell of the basement, too real for any dream, he knew that what he experienced right now was much too real. He got a grip on himself, he deepened his shallow breaths and made himself focus. He did not think about his family. He knew that if he did not put them out of his mind, he couldn’t make it, he couldn’t last another day. He was hungry, a kind of hunger only felt by someone who hasn’t eaten anything for almost three days. He remembered the canned food shelved along one of the walls. He got up from where he lay and shivered. He felt blindly around in the dark. He reached the shelves and felt around for a can, not being careful, he knocked a large can of tomatoes off of the shelf, and it smashed into his bare foot. He barely suppressed a cry of pain. But he did suppress it, because he did not want to let the “things” that he knew roamed the streets, that were in the house, to be aware of his existence. He grabbed a smaller can and sat down. He began to sob, uncontrollably, the tears ran down his face in rivulets, and he could hear the small squeaks coming from his chest. “This has to be a nightmare, this can’t be real!” he told himself over and over, his voice filled with emotion and grief. He repeated this to himself for ten minutes, the same thing over and over, first loudly, and then quieter. Until he eventually was only lipsing the words, but no sound was coming out. He was losing his mind. That is when he heard the scream. And then again, and again, until it degenerated into a series of shrieks that sounded almost human. He waited and he did not move, hours seemed to pass. He hardened himself. He did not let himself cry, he knew he had to get a grip, that this was real, very real. That this was not a dream, not a nightmare.