The zombie in the room fades away too, disappearing in an instant. Just like that, the room is silent except for Ren’s and my frantic breathing. I paused, unsure what to do. Looking around, I double check but no, the zombies really are gone.
“They’re…gone?” Ren asks aloud, mirroring my thoughts.
I turn to the kids, kneeling down to check on them. None of them are hurt, but now that things have calmed down, all of them except Theo have started crying again. I can’t blame them; I want to start crying myself. I try to find some words of comfort, but now that the threat is gone, my mind has gone blank. I open and close my mouth before shaking my head in defeat and pulling two of the kids into a hug.
“Hey, you okay?” Ren asks, coming up behind me and carefully putting a hand on my shoulder. I shrug noncommittally, sniffing as my eyes start to flood with tears.
“I know, that was scary,” he says as Greyson and Kena cling to him. Kneeling down with me, he gives them a smile.
“You guys were so brave! And you know what? You won the game! We all did!” he told them, hugging the two kids.
The game. I quickly pull out my phone and look at the screen. A new blue message has replaced the old one.
Congratulations! You have completed the Tutorial!
All survivors have been granted their first Skill!
Work to unlock your skill and find weapons before the next challenge starts.
No monsters will spawn until the next challenge begins. Other items and collectibles will be introduced as rewards for the next challenge.
Good luck, Warriors!
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Just as before, the message won’t go away, leaving me unable to use any other features on it. Frustrated, I shove it back into my pocket, before immediately pulling back out to read again.
What the hell was going on? It was like we’d been dropped into a video game. Or rather, our world was turned into one. The concept wasn’t completely foreign, if it was a book or movie. But this stuff didn’t happen in the real world, where science and logic ruled.
Except…it did. I couldn’t deny the fact that zombie monsters had appeared, attacked, and vanished, just like a level of a video game. Angrily I rub my eyes, trying to make it make sense.
“Maisy,” Ren calls to me.
“What?” I mumble back, my brain still going in circles from the contradictions.
“I know this all seems crazy,” he says, gesturing vaguely around to the mess of a room. “But whatever is happening…we need to get the kids somewhere safe.”
His words broke through to me and I nodded. He was right. The most important thing was keeping these kids safe. They were relying on us.
“But the zombies are gone,” Theo pipes up. “Isn’t it safe now?”
“We don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I don’t entirely know what’s going on. I can’t even use my phone,” I show him, tapping the screen randomly as a demonstration.
“What does that say?” Greyson asked in a shaky voice, pointing at the permanent blue box taking up most of the screen. I glance up at Ren, who shrugs as if saying, ‘It won't hurt them to know.’
I read it out to them, assuming they won’t really understand most of it anyways. After all, they’re children who just went through a traumatic experience. But Theo’s eyes light up as I finish and a big smile stretches his face.
“Wow! It’s just like a game for real! And now we all have skills? So cooool!” Fist pumping the air, he does a little dance.
“I know it seems fun,” I try to curb his enthusiasm, “but it’s also dangerous. Remember the monster? We don’t know when they will come back.”
“But it said,” he protested. “There’s no monsters for now. We should go explore!”
Our eyes meeting, Ren and I consider what to do. We could stay in this room and wait, seeing what happens next. But with our phones unable to call or search, I felt like a sitting duck. A daycare wasn’t exactly the most fortified place.
“There’s a grocery mart down the road,” Ren says. “We could at least try looking around.”
“But..” I pause, remembering the screams from earlier. The sounds of terror still rang in my head and I rubbed my arms. “How will we get out of the building?” I see Ren’s face pale as he realizes the same thing.
“We could go out the window…?” he pauses, eyeing the stinking putrid blood still smeared over the broken shards. Both of us remain silent for a moment before Kena breaks the silence.
“Ms. Maisy, I want to go home,” she whispers, tugging gently at my shirt.
“I’ll go look around,” I tell him, gritting my teeth and steeling myself. Ren starts to shake his head but I stop him.
“Ren, you can’t even kill a spider. How are you going to be able to handle it?”
I see him swallow and his face somehow turns even paler. He closes his eyes briefly before nodding with a heavy sigh. “Just…be careful, please,” he pleads, grabbing my hand. Giving his a squeeze in return, I do my best to give him a confident smile.