Shards of glass sliced through the air toward me. My hands—red, sticky, and trembling—came to protect my face. They streaked a warm wetness across my cheeks, and I felt more of the fluid trailing down the sides of my neck as I desperately gasped for breath.

Well, this isn't very good.

My stomach lurched. I felt like I had a giant needle piercing from one ear across to the other. As my vision came back into focus, the only thing I could think to do was to face the now-broken window and make my last stand against the swarm of zombies or whatever the fuck else was about to come charging through it.

But nothing happened. All I saw outside was the blue sky and the black smoke rising to meet it. A second later, I was doubled over, emptying my stomach of its contents. The retching left me lightheaded, but at least I wasn’t wearing the helmet.

I fell back on my ass, staring at the puddle of vomit streaked with blood at my feet. So... what the fuck just happened? As coherence slowly came back to me, my first thought was that one of the zombies had thrown something to destroy the window, but that didn’t explain why I was so discombobulated, or why my ears were completely fucked up. I brought my hand up to the side of my head and snapped my fingers twice. Nothing. Not a peep. I shuddered.

Then my eyes flipped back up to the window and I came to a sudden, dreadful realization. Whatever had broken it had almost certainly done the same to at least one of the windows downstairs. I forced myself to my feet, vision still spinning, and hurried to take a look outside.

It was exactly as I’d feared; the zombies were converging around the newfound opening, squirming and pushing against each other in their efforts to squeeze through into the house. My only saving grace was that in their impatient rush to get inside, they’d congested the entryway and ended up slowing themselves down while the flames continued eating at their bodies.

But that wouldn’t hold for long. I swiveled back inside—the motion nearly making me throw up again—and re-armed myself with the helmet and the hammer. Exiting the bedroom, I made my way to the top of the staircase. The house was filling with smoke as zombies slowly squeezed through the opening, joining the ones already inside. Even with the helmet covering my face, some of the smoke managed to reach my lungs. I kneeled down, breaking into a fit of coughs as I struggled to get my breathing back in order.

The presence of the zombies downstairs flushed away any chance I had of escaping the house without getting my hands dirty. It was a slim hope to begin with. I coughed again, and several zombie heads turned up in my direction as they registered the noise. Even without my ears, I could imagine their ravenous growls as their mouths opened and chomped at me.

“Alright then, you rotten bastards. Who wants to get their brains bashed in first?”

At least, that’s what I think I said. Not being able to hear my own voice as I spoke was rather unnerving.

Whatever.

The zombies began ascending the stairs. The first arrived before me with its jaw gaping open and its tongue lolling around like a stray dog with rabies. I greeted it with the full force of a hammer to the face, right between its bloodshot eyes. Both orbs popped loose from their sockets as its face contorted inward, and the creature toppled backwards down the stairs, colliding with several of the zombies behind it, knocking them all down like a row of dominos. A few of the undead managed to avoid the chaos, however, and continued climbing up toward me.

I gave the second arrival the same treatment as the first. My hammer smashed into its head, cracking it open like a watermelon, sending bits of gore scattering everywhere. A few flecks of grey matter splattered onto my visor, obstructing my vision. I wiped it off with my sleeve just in time to give a third zombie a faceful of blunt force trauma.

Still, the undead didn’t stop coming. With each swing I ended another, adding to the burning pile of bodies in front of me. But with each swing, I also felt my body growing hotter. The flames had begun spreading throughout the house, the smoke reaching an almost suffocating level. Sweat poured down my forehead, stinging my eyes to the point where just keeping them open was an arduous task. My clothes felt like they were already drenched and I was starting to feel dizzy. My mouth was completely parched. Between the heat, the alcohol, and the vomiting, it wasn’t a surprise that I was starting to get dehydrated.

I took a step back, taking advantage of a brief gap in the incoming swarm of zombies to give myself a moment of respite. I had to pull off the helmet; if I kept it on any longer, I was going to suffocate. My hair was soaked like I’d just gotten out of the shower, and the helmet practically had a small puddle of sweat inside it. Any relief I expect to give my lungs didn’t come, however, as they only met with smoke.

Alright, that was enough. I could smash zombies all day, but I was just going to join them in their burning grave if I stayed here any longer. But given that going down stairs obviously wasn’t an option, how the fuck was I supposed to get out of here?

I surveyed the lower floor, brainstorming for any bright ideas. That was when I locked gazes with one particular zombie staring up at me from the base of the stairs. Its face was different from the others; cold eyes, flickering with something that may have resembled a hint of intelligence. I knew instantly I was in trouble, but before I even had time for another thought, the creature opened its mouth and my world turned to hell.

I screamed. So hard it felt like my vocal cords were being ripped out of my throat. My hands clamped over my ears as I staggered back, slamming into the wall behind me. My teeth chattered, my body convulsed. I ducked down to a fetal position and shut my eyes, trying to keep my sanity from the high-pitched cacophony that was piercing into my skull.

I wasn’t going to last. I was going insane. I couldn’t think except to wonder how I could possibly end this torment. Jump down the stairs and be eaten alive? Let the fires consume me? Yes. Anything. Anything would be better than this madness. I crawled forward, ready to do whatever it took to end this torment, but just before I could throw myself down, the ghastly shrill vanished without a trace.

I blinked, the sudden cutoff so stark it took me a moment to process what had happened. My hands were still trembling as I brought them back in front of me. Fresh blood joined the darker shade that had already painted my palms, but at least the silence had returned. I still felt like I had a dozen needles piercing into my brain, but that was heaven compared to the torture I’d just experienced.

Disoriented and with eyes blurred by tears, I crawled forward to see what had happened. I froze when I saw the zombie again, gazing back at me with the same look in its eyes. It was still there. I’d thought maybe it had died in the fire, but no such luck. I gritted my teeth and waited for it to open its mouth again; there was nothing I could do to stop it from here. But it made no such movement, only continuing to stare back at me, standing still.

What was it doing? Did it need to recharge or something? Like the cooldowns I had for my own abilities? There was nothing I could do but hope so.

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I pulled myself up to my feet, then, promptly, realized I had another problem.

I scampered back as the charred upper-half of a corpse came flying toward me. It slammed into the wall beside me and fell to the carpet, lighting both, but that hardly registered on my list of concerns at the moment. The creature that had thrown it, an overmuscled zombie that looked like it had once been a Mr. Olympia contestant, came barging through the small barricade of fallen undead that had formed along the stairs.

It didn’t take a second look to realize I had little chance of fighting this thing head-on, even if I’d been in perfect condition. To top it off, I’d dropped my hammer somewhere in the earlier commotion, so I didn’t even have the weapon advantage. I retreated quickly, back into the bedroom, slamming and locking the door shut behind me. A second later, it rattled violently as a fist came piercing through it, splinters of wood flying out from the impact.

A safe bet it wasn’t going to last for long. I frantically scanned the room for any possible weapons as the beating on the door continued. The only wieldables around were the empty bottles of liquor lying all over the floor. With no other options, I picked one up just as the door came off its hinges and crashed down to the floor.

I hurled the bottle into the zombie’s head with all the strength I could muster. It didn’t even try to dodge. The glass shattered into uncountable pieces as it struck the undead monstrosity straight on its forehead and... did absolutely nothing.

Well alrighty then. Time for plan B. I grabbed another bottle and smashed it against the bedpost, creating a sharp, jagged edge. The zombie lumbered forward. It was faster than the normal ones, but not by much. Under normal circumstances, I would have tried to outlast it by keeping my distance, but with the house continuing to burn and more zombies coming, time was certainly not on my side.

So instead, I swallowed my nerves and blitzed forward toward the creature. I was just outside its striking range when I stopped on a dime. A haymaker of a fist came swinging just a few inches in front of my face, so close I felt a burst of wind from the blow smack into me. If that thing had hit me head-on, my brains would be decorating the adjacent wall.

But it didn’t. And after putting so much power into that attack, the zombie was now off-balance. Just for a moment, but it was enough time for me to strike. I shoved the broken bottle into the zombie’s face, targeting its eyes. Its eyeball burst with yellow, bubbling puss as the jagged glass pierced into it, but my weapon wasn’t shaped to go further and hit the brain. I quickly pulled the glass back out and slashed it across the zombie’s other eye, then darted back, leaving the weapon behind as a second fist came hurling for my head.

Now blind, the big zombie began swinging its arms wildly, lunging in random directions. For once, I was thankful for the smoke permeating through the room, as it kept the thing from being able to sniff me out. Despite its new vulnerability, however, I still didn’t have a way to finish the damn thing off.

Just as well. My eyes were tearing with smoke and my lungs burned with every breath. My first priority wasn’t to kill this thing, it was to get the fuck out of here.

Two more zombies came in through the fallen doorway, inflamed but still standing. Additional reinforcements were making their way up the stairs behind them. I glanced around. The windows were my only hope. The front side was out of the question, but the backyard was fenced off and likely still clear.

Unfortunately, it was also on the other side of the room, meaning I’d have to get past these three zombies first. I shifted to the side, kiting the two new arrivals until they were directly between me and the raging larger zombie. Then I started to make some noise.

“Looking for something, you oversized rotbag? I’m over here!”

Said rotbag turned its head toward me and flared its stained teeth. I stuck my tongue out, though it obviously couldn’t see me anyway. It charged forward blindly, ramming into the first smaller zombie, then tripping over as it collided with the second. I slipped to the side to avoid falling duo, then sprinted for the window before any of them had the chance to recover.

I jumped on the window sill, unlatched and pulled the window up. It was about a fifteen foot drop down. I’d survive, but not without breaking something, and that could prove fatal with Mend still on cooldown. I needed a landing spot. There was plenty of grass, but maybe woodchips would be better—it was the stuff they used in playgrounds, after all. Then I noticed something around the center of the yard. The trampoline! It was too far to make it normally, but if I—

Something snagged my jacket from behind and pulled me down. I twisted around on instinct, snagging my elbow into the side of the assailant’s head. Bone cracked under the blow as the zombie’s grip loosened, but it was too late to keep the flames from its body from bridging on to mine, setting my jacket on fire.

Before I could tear it off, a second zombie came charging. I jabbed my foot into its stomach, knocking it back, but several more were coming up behind. No more time to dawdle. I whirled around and climbed back on the window sill, leaping off it without hesitation.

Flames licked the side of my face as I flew through the air. Roughly three-quarters of the way down, I reached into my reservoir and channeled the energy inside into Double-Jump. For a split second, my feet suddenly felt like they were touching solid ground. I reflexively leapt off the pseudo-surface, making a second jump into the air.

That still left me a good distance away from the trampoline, but I had one more trick up my sleeve. At the height of my second jump, I dug into the energy again, activating Quick-Roll. Despite having nothing to push off of, my body lurched forward instantly, tucking into a ball as it did. A second later, I was upright again, just as my feet touched down on the trampoline.

It all went as smoothly I could have hoped. Up to that point. Then I realized my forward momentum was still going, and after two jumps and a roll, it was going pretty hard.

I ricocheted off the trampoline and flew forward with my legs flailing. I barely had time to tuck my head and shield it with my arms before I crashed into the fence, rebounding off it and landing on my back, completely dazed.

My vision was swimming. I tried to stand up, but collapsed back down again. Time to tack another concussion to the tally. At this rate, I’d start developing CTE fast enough to make a cage fighter jealous. And why was it so fucking hot...

Oh, right. I was still on fire. I hurried to tear off my jacket and shucked it away, then began deliriously rolling on the ground. Luckily, my T-shirt was soaked in sweat, which kept it from catching alight too easily. Unluckily, the rotating motions combined with my mild traumatic brain injury resulted in me puking bile all over the ground again.

I wasn’t having the peachiest of days.

Somehow, I managed to wobble back up to my feet, struggling to keep my legs under me. I glanced up at the window I’d just jumped from to see a zombie staring back at me. A half-second later, it decided to mimic my actions by also ejecting itself out the window.

As poorly as the jump had gone for me, it went even worse for the zombie. It lacked my abilities, or even a basic understand of physics, which resulted in it slamming head-first into the ground instead.

The corpse twitched twice before it stopped moving. I laughed. Maybe it just delirium, but I’d never seen anything funnier in my life. I laughed even harder when a second zombie followed suit and promptly met the same fate. I laughed a little less when a third zombie did the same thing, landing on top of the other two, cushioning the fall enough that it took an extra few seconds to die compared to its predecessors. By the time the fourth zombie added itself to the pile and a fifth one showed up at the window, I realized I was still in some shit.

Time to get the fuck out of here. I was about to turn around to do just that when one of the zombies in the pile began to stand up. My gaze caught on its, and suddenly, I realized I recognized this one.

Ah, fuck.

I sprinted forward. Stumbled more, really. My legs were still too uncoordinated for me to make it in time.

So, I relied on my abilities again, activating another Quick-Roll. Despite my disorientation, my body moved on its own, making a smooth motion into a somersault that was so quick I’d already arrived at the zombie a second later.

My fist shot forward the moment I came out of the tumble. The zombie had just begun to open its mouth when my knuckles met its throat. A brief, high-pitched screech resounded in my head, but that was it. The zombie collapsed with its mouth flapping open and shut uselessly. I stomped on its throat, cracking and shattering whatever was left of its windpipe. I gave it one more stomp for good measure, then scampered back as another zombie dropped from the window, bouncing into the pile. This one was barely even harmed, and already starting to pick itself back up to its feet.

I glanced back to the screaming zombie. It was still alive, rolling around and trying to get back to its feet, but with its vocal cords crippled, it wasn’t much of a threat. I didn’t need to finish it off; I’d let the fire take care of that. I turned around and bolted for the fence.