At around 5:49am the sun began rising over the horizon, light pouring slowly in through Jim's window.
Not a wink of sleep... Guess it wasn't meant to be, he thought as he stood up from his bed. He had put a lot of thought into what to do going foward, and figured he and Danny would have to just take it as it came and try to venture out to figure out what was going on.
He changed his clothes into something comfortable, a gray t-shirt and some basketball shorts, it was likely to be a warm day. Right as he approached the front door to go meet up with Danny a notification appeared.
*Bing*
Congratulations Survivers!
This is the first greeting from your parent Society 'The Vokrin'
You've made it through the first night after the Sparks, below we will list your world's top 5 countries by most survivors.
1. China: 456,483,291 Survivors.
2. India: 371,516,102 Survivors.
3. United States: 239,456,210 Survivors.
4. Brazil: 120,416,910 Survivors.
5. Russia: 102,404,574 Survivors.
Total Survivors: 2,477,912,111
We will be sending a representive to each subdivision we've created, your representative will be Oberon Zer.
Expect a message from your representative in the coming hours, you'll be expected to attend a meeting as an introduction to the Interface.
As a reward for surviving we are giving each individual 100 Life Points. We recommend attending the meeting before spending them, however; if the situation necessitates it, remember to spend them wisely.
Jim lost his footing a bit in shock and stumbled throught the front screen door, the actual door had remained open throught the night.
Jim slumped to his knees, his hands sliding to his sides. Barely even two and a half billion remaining. There were supposed to be some 7 billion people on Earth before this. There's no way that many people died right... Right? What about Mom, Dad, and Chris...
Jim had been intentionally avoiding thinking about his family up until now. They lived six states over. He in California, them in Florida. He wanted so badly to come to California to go to school, in hindsight it had been a terrible idea, one that now seperated him from his family.
I can't let myself dwell in this, this is a time to be strong. Jim's face focused back from a slack jawed defeat.
"Danny.", Jim said quietly looking up at the man sitting limply in chair beside him, his hands draped over the arms, his face toward the ceiling.
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A long silent moment passed.
"Danny! C'mon man talk to me.", Jim said briskly.
"Almost 5 billion people man. Gone. What the hell... What. What are we even supposed to do with that. Why the hell would they tell us that. Who even are these Vokrin fucks anyways man. Fuck this, fuck them... What about Ash? There's no way she's still alive right? No fucking way.", he muttered his face puckering into a tight lipped expression, Jim could see it, the pain and sorrow welling up inside his friend.
"No man. No. We don't know that. Calm down and we'll take this one step at a time. We gotta live through this one way or another regardless. We gotta keep going for the rest who can't.", Jim voice carried a somber tone.
"No. I don't want to... I think I'm done. If this is what we have to look foward to, killing and being killed. Fuck it. I'm done.", Danny muttered quietly, coldly.
"What? What the fuck are you even talking about man. You're just done? What are you gonna do kill yourself? What am I going to tell Ash when I find her? 'Sorry there's no romantic reuniting, but he said he was done.'?", Jim huffed in a gruff voice, "Fuck that. Stand up.", he said as he stood up.
Danny didn't move. His shoulders just shook slowly.
"I said calm down, and stand up.", Jim repeated.
Slowly Danny's face came down, his eyes meeting Jim's. He nodded slightly and slowly stood up.
"Thanks. I really didn't wanna have to explain you being gone to her man. Now let's get going we've got a long day ahead of us. I figured we could hit up the X-Mart down the road. I think people will probably be grouping there looking to scavenge stuff, worst case no ones there and we can scavenge stuff.", Jim explained.
Danny nodded along and they both turned and walked down the steps, heading North, to X-Mart.
----------------------------------------
"So... What'd you end up deciding on for power-ups?", Danny asked quietly as they walked. Throughout their walk they had seen several dead zombies, and several large blood stains trailed by drag marks. It seemed they weren't the only ones attacked by zombies the day before.
"Huh? Oh. Well I picked the Mentality perk and got a spell. It's called Power Word: Pain.", Jim responded back quietly. They had been walking for almost an hour and hadn't said a word to each other the entire time. Both knew where X-Mart was and neither had much to say in light of all the bloodshed and violence around them. Jim was baffled that they had yet to see another living human.
The house they lived in was located on the very far out fringes of town, so it was understandable that not many people were around there after the weird meteor shower, or 'Sparks', or whatever the system had called them. Now that they had journeyed pretty deep into the city proper it didn't make much sense anymore.
"Hm. After that fight yesterday I was able to unlock another perk called 'Defense Skill Tree'. It gave me access to a bunch of defense related skills for really low LP costs.", Danny said quickly with a bit of excitement.
"LP costs? What? And c'mon man you really wanna talk about this right now?", Jim responded quietly, trying to observe the mood of their predicament.
"LP. Life Points man. We're gonna be talking about this stuff a lot and I don't wanna say it every time. And yes. Yes I wanna talk about this stuff right now, because it's better than the alternative of talking about all these dead bodies, and well, absence of live ones, oh and not to mention where the fuck is Ash...", he said a bit exasperated, "We gotta figure it out anyways man, it's our new reality. One way or another.", he finished, just sounding tired.
"Look. I guess you're right. This is what our reality is now, but we can't let it consume us that's all I mean. Anyways man we're almost to X-mart, let's try climbing up the fire escape of this building to take a look around and see what we can see. How's that sound partner?", Jim said motioning to a squat apartment building just off the road they were walking down.
Danny simply nodded in response and jogged over to the ladder. Being the taller one of the two he jumped and grabbed ahold of the fire escape ladder to get it to slide down for use.
Danny climbed up first and Jim quietly looked around a bit before following up. Jim was about three quarters of the way up when he heard a sharp *Clink clank clink* from the roof.
"Danny? Danny! You okay man?", Jim shouted as he finished climbing the rest of the way up to see Danny with his back turned to him, facing the direction of X-mart in the distance.
"Yeah man. I uh, dropped my bat. I found all the zombies man. It's bad. It's really bad.", Danny muttered.
Jim walked up to Danny's side to see the X-Mart far in the distance.
"What do you mean I don't-", he started, then stopped when he noticed it.
All around the department store was a writhing mass of zombies, he had mistaken it for nothing because of the sheer volume of individuals in the crowd and the sun rising just above the building. There had to be hundreds, possibly thousands, of zombies slamming themselves against the exterior of the building.
"Fuck.", was all Jim could manage to say.