Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Rise to the occasion
By Liam O'Leary
Disasters (Like losing people) will occur in a zombie apocalypse. When they do, you must rise to meet them, just as everyone in Fear The Walking Dead must.
How you respond to a zombie apocalypse is key to surviving one. This might seem obvious, but, allow me to elaborate: When you realize that you’re in a zombie apocalypse, are you going to curl up into a ball and just let the dead eat you? Or, are you going to try do everything you can to survive?
You see, in disasters, whether they’re zombie-related or not, we need to rise to the occasion to meet said disasters head on.
Why, specifically, do I say this? Well, if you caught the Fear The Walking Dead midseason finale, you know that ::SPOILER ALERT:: Madison is dead. This means that, as of this moment, Alicia, Strand, and Luciana are without any sort of leader. They have no anchor, no guide, nothing.
How will they respond to this?
Granted, I know Morgan is going to become the main character of the show, but, in-show, how are Alicia, Strand, and Luciana going to respond to losing Madison? Will they simply float around like ghosts, not necessarily out to kill like they were for the first half of the season, but, no longer able to be the people they once were? Or, will they try to remember what Madison did for them and attempt to carry on what they think she would have wanted?
While Madison’s death is, obviously, just a part of the show, that idea, that you could lose someone that important to you in a zombie apocalypse is very real.
Whether it’s your group’s leader, a mentor, someone you look up, or even a parent or an older sibling, you could easily lose them to zombies, hostiles, or another hazard the apocalypse could cook up. How would you respond?
This brings me back to my point: Whether it’s a zombie apocalypse or an altogether different kind of disaster, you need to rise to the occasion. You may not think you can, but, if you plan to survive, you have to try. You need to cast off your fears and your apprehension and do what you need to to survive.
“But…how?” You might ask. Well, for a long time, I’ve suggested trying to recruit the most skilled people you know before the apocalypse to be in your group, if you can, and this is why. Ideally, you can learn from these people.
If you know a soldier or a marine, learn how to use and maintain weapons from them, or hand-to-hand combat, or both. If you know a hunter, learn how hunt, gut, and skin animals from them. Car guy? Maybe he can teach you how to fix cars.
Get the picture? You need to learn skills so that, should the worst happen, you aren’t left helpless.
Speaking of “the worst”, what if you are the person who knows how to do all of the important stuff in your group…and you die? How is the rest of your group supposed to go on?
Well, if you teach them what you know, that may not be quite so much of a problem.
If you have a useful skill in a zombie apocalypse, you need to teach that to someone else in your group if possible. Even if you die, your knowledge can carry on in whoever you teach it to. Your group will still be able to take on the challenge of the apocalypse because they didn’t lose the knowledge you possessed.
Frankly, everyone needs to be ready to do just that: When a person in your group dies, regardless of who they are, you and your group have to carry on.
It’s easy when we lose someone, especially in a zombie apocalypse, to just chuck it in and give up. Easy as that might be, however, you have to realize that doing so is death. If you just give up the fight because you’ve lost someone, you’re inviting death. Kind of contrary to the whole “surviving” thing…
It’s when we lose people that we might most need to rise to the occasion. It’s cliche, but, honestly, think back to whomever it is you lose and ask yourself: Would they want me to give up? I would hope the answer is no. They would probably want you to survive. That survival requires you to shake off your loss (Difficult though I know it to be) and march forward.
A zombie apocalypse will not be easy, especially if we lose people important to us along the way. But, if people are willing to teach, and we are willing to learn, we can carry on. When disaster strikes, if we plan on surviving, we must force ourselves to rise to the occasion.
This is why you follow…The Rules.
Next: Fear The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: How far is too far gone?
And that’s our survival rule of the week!! Hopefully, it’ll help you give you that mental edge that will prove so crucial once the dead start eating everyone.
If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!