The Walking Dead Survival Rule Of The Week: Don’t get soft
By Liam O'Leary
The Walking Dead’s newest villain, Alpha, may be a cold and cruel person, but, not a stupid one. She knows that if you want to survive, DON’T get soft.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Surviving a zombie apocalypse will not be easy. Surviving in a world without common conveniences like electricity, running water, and supermarkets is difficult enough, but, once you throw millions of flesh-eating zombies into the mix, it becomes a full-blown nightmare!
How do you survive? By getting tough, staying tough, and, no matter what, never getting soft, and, this week, I’ll detail just a few ways to do just that.
First things first, people will die; That’s not an assumption, or a prediction: That’s a fact.
You need to come to grips with this. If you break down whenever someone dies, you won’t have much time to mourn, because the dead will get you, too, in short order. Does it suck that you may have to mute mourning the loss of a loved one? Absolutely, but, sadly, that is the sacrifice we may have to make if we want the chance to live long enough to mourn the dead at all.
Death is a part of life, especially in a zombie apocalypse, and the sooner you learn to accept it when it happens, the better a survivor you’ll become.
Next thing you need to learn is that you can’t be squeamish.
Don’t like the sight of blood? Well, you better get used to it, because there will be lots of it all over the place once zombies arrive. Between wounds you or other people will get, and the wounds of the dead themselves, blood will flow like wine. You can’t afford to freak out at the first sight of the red stuff.
Similarly, you may have to do or eat things that downright disgust you at some point in the apocalypse, and…you better get ready for it.
If it’s eating food that’s stale, moving, or even just stuff you don’t like, you need to get ready to eat it, because that may be the only food you find for a long time. Hell, even if you refuse to eat meat, if your choices are eating a deer someone in your group caught, or starving to death? You’d best get ready to eat up, because if you start losing strength from not eating, you will be the one getting eaten, by the next zombie you run into.
And, you’re going to need your strength, so, as much of a pain in the ass as it can be, you need to exercise, because you have no idea what you may need your body to do from one day to the next in the apocalypse.
One minute, you may need to lift a hundred pounds, the next minute, you may need to climb a tree, and the next minute, you may need to run a mile to escape a gang of zombies!
If your body gives out on you, you may break something trying to lift that weight or get dragged down the tree because you couldn’t climb it fast enough, or run out of gas, and get tackled (And, subsequently, eaten) by that gang of zombies! Your body is the best survival tool you’ve got. Keep it sharp.
And, finally, back to where we began: DON’T get soft!
What do I mean by “soft”? I mean lazy, flabby, complacent, convinced of you or your group’s overwhelming security, that’s what I mean!
Last week, I talked about how the communities in The Walking Dead were unprepared for the arrival of The Whisperers because, after so long without a major threat by hostiles, they, apparently, assumed there wasn’t going to be another.
You can’t let yourself do that. It won’t be easy, but, you need to maintain a state of readiness for all manner of threats, living or dead, that you may encounter in the zombie apocalypse. Even if you exist in relative safety, you can not assume another threat won’t come, you can not assume you can “take it easy”, and you can not allow the strength you’ve gained as you’ve survived to diminish. You must always be ready.
Surviving a zombie apocalypse will never be easy. There will be millions of people, mostly dead ones, trying to kill you all the time. Surviving in that world is not for the faint of heart.
It is, therefore, imperative that you get tough and stay that way, because, if you get soft, the zombie apocalypse will, literally, eat you alive.
This is why you follow…The Rules.
Next. TWD, Survival Rule Of The Week: Just when you thought it was safe. dark
And that’s our Survival Rule Of The Week! Hopefully, you’ve gained a little insight into all the various things you’ll need to look out for. 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!