“So this is what became of it huh?”

While standing before his now ruined home, precisely his family home, John couldn’t help but feel nostalgic and sad at the same time as happy memories from the past flooded his mind.

Step! Step! Step!

The fence surrounding the home is already ruined and had all fallen on the ground as John walked through the ground littered with dried leaves and various debris lying around. He arrived before the front door of their home that had miraculously remained standing even after the walls around it had already collapsed.

Bam! Crash!

John reached out his hand towards the doorknob and just as his fingers touched it, the door suddenly fell towards the other direction, which was immediately followed by the house suddenly collapsing on its own, raising a cloud of dust everywhere.

“Hahaha! I guess you were waiting for me huh?”

As the dust slowly settled, John is seen laughing bitterly while looking at the scene before him, his eyes slightly watery, probably from the dust or…

“I’m home” John uttered softly with a nostalgic smile on his face.

John remained on his spot and kept standing there for a while, reminiscing the memories of the past.

“I wonder if my family is still around or if they managed to escape during the initial chaos?” John muttered to himself as he left the land of his former home and started wandering around the small town of Bacarra, his hometown.

He went around the Municipal Hall, to the old sinking Bell Tower, all the way to his old high school.

“It sure is surprising that the buildings that survived again, are those buildings that were built during the Spanish Colonial Era” John chuckled while standing on top of the Bell Tower, and he came to this place since by standing on top of here, he would able to take in the sights of his hometown, well most of them.

“What now?”

Staring into the distance while sitting down with his feet dangling over the edge of the tower, John feels somewhat lost, he doesn’t know what to do at this point since everything he has been looking forward to coming back has disappeared.

Everything..has disappeared.

At this point, he just feels empty.

“Ahhhh!”

“Pu..putang inaaaaa!”

Bang!

A piercing scream from out of nowhere suddenly broke his reverie, startling him so much that he fell off the tower while cursing on the way down, and created quite the explosion as he slammed face-first into the cold hard ground.

“Geez, what the hell was up with that scream!?” While holding half of his face that had first intimate contact with the ground, John slowly sat up from the ground while the dust and small rubbles fell off of his body.

He fell from a height of over one hundred meters, but it was clear that John didn’t even suffer any kind of injury or even a scratch at all!

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Sadly, there was no one around to witness this unbelievable scene.

Shaking off the dirt on his body, John slowly stood up and closed his eyes as he spread out his senses around the surrounding area.

Opening his eyes that were filled with confusion, “What the heck is happening? My senses can cover more or less two hundred meters, how come I’m not detecting the breath of a human? That scream earlier was clearly of a human being!”

Swoosh!

John hastily got up from the ground and bolted towards the direction that he assumed was where that scream came from, and on his face, there was a clear sign of excitement.

Running through the chaotic streets filled with abandoned cars, dried leaves, and many other things, John soon arrived before a huge house, or more precisely a mansion.

“Alando’s Mansion?” John recognized the building since its the only known mansion in town.

John knew he arrived at the right place since there are currently three zombies feasting on a body in the front yard beside the fountain.

Walking past the large gate that was left ajar, John made his way toward the three zombies in hurried steps with increasing speed!

He sprinted on the last few meters and kicked one of the zombies to the side, before grabbing the second zombie by the back of its neck and throwing it towards the third and last zombie before walking over towards them as he stomped on their heads.

After killing the three zombies, John walked over to the corpse and inspected it.

It was the mangled corpse of a woman with her eyes still wide awake, eyes that were filled with pain and despair as she slowly got eaten to her death.

One can only imagine what she must have felt as she watched herself get eaten alive.

“You should have run faster, I could have at least saved you” John murmured to himself while looking at the mangled corpse with a hint of sadness on his face.

“Does this place really have no hope left? Do I really need to leave?” John sighed to himself and walked over towards an open ground and started digging on it as he at least wanted to bury the dead woman.

After placing a cross he hurriedly made over the grave with the following words, Grave of Unknown Woman, John quietly stood there looking at the grave while thinking about something.

“Is there a chance…that they are actually hiding in some underground bunker or something?”

He didn’t think about this earlier since the line of thought he had before was that “Since the other countries had built walled cities, then shouldn’t the Philippines have one like that too?” that kind of thought and due to that, the idea that survivors had hidden below ground didn’t come into his mind until now when he was digging that grave earlier.

“If there really is an underground shelter, then it should be nearby since the scream only lasted for a few seconds” John murmured to himself as his head slowly turned towards the mansion near him that occupies an entire street block.

“I’ve never been inside this place, but with how big it is, it should have something like an underground bunker right?” with that, John slowly made his way towards the front door of the mansion and went inside as the large doors opened with a creak.

Standing by the front door, John didn’t see the beauty or grandeur of the home, but only the chaos that was left behind by the people who probably once stopped by here looking for shelter.

“Hmmm…”

Closing his eyes, John once again spread his senses, but this time, instead of spreading it outwards, he directed it below as it penetrated through the floors all the way down till it surprisingly hit something that made him raise an eyebrow and his eyes snapped open immediately.

“I guess that’s to be expected from a place like this”

John made his way toward the back of the mansion, where he arrived inside a bedroom-sized storage room after walking past the dirty kitchen.

Inside, he saw that there was a large [_] on the floor, which obviously leads to somewhere below.

Tap! Tap!

“Anyone in there? Open up” John calmly said while tapping his foot and it created that muffled sound when you tap on something hollowed.

“...”

But there was only silence after that, but John was patient, so he once again opened his mouth with a little tiny bit of threat laced within his words.

“If you don’t open up, I’m going to destroy this place and we’ll see how you’ll get out of there after. I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see that happening, right?”

“...”

But like earlier, nothing, not even a creak.

This time, John became a little annoyed as the edge of his lips started twitching, “Oi, does It sound like I’m messing around?”

Meanwhile.

Inside an unknown room, there are currently three people watching someone on a lone monitor.

“Are we gonna keep ignoring him? He knows that we are here you know, and if we keep this up and he leaves and tells the others about this place, then we’re certainly going to get ourselves in trouble” said the only woman inside the room while looking at John through the monitor.

“What do you think priest?” asked the man towards an old man in priest’s garb while sitting on the chair facing the monitor.

But the old man with a head full of white hair just kept staring at the monitor with widened eyes with his hands slightly shaking, and it looked like he didn’t hear what the other two people with him have said.

“Father, are you okay?” asked the woman worriedly when she noticed his hands were shaking.

When the woman lightly nudge him, the old priest finally snapped out of it and he said, “Ah? Y-yes, let him in”

The man sitting on the chair finally turned his head around to look at him and asked with a questioning gaze, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, It has been years since I’ve last seen him, but I know that young man”

“Alright,” the man only hesitated for a few seconds before quickly agreeing. He picked up the radio lying on the desk and spoke on it.

“Open the door and let the man in. Keep a close eye on him”