Two survivors, a black-haired woman and a brown-haired bearded man were escaping from the undead inside a building. After running down a dark corridor, they stopped in front of a set of double doors.
“WHY THE HELL IS THIS DOOR LOCKED?” [Survivor]
“ALWAYS LOCK THE DOORS! HOW DO YOU THINK WE’VE SURVIVED THIS LONG!?” [Survivor]
The woman shouted half-angrily and half-panically to which the man similarly answered. He fiddled with a set of keys attached to a key ring, inserted one in the door’s keyhole, swore, and quickly tried another key.
“Hurry! Hurry! The infected are coming!” [Survivor]
The woman stood watch, aiming her semi-automatic handgun down the corridor while urging her friend.
BANG
BANG
Gunfire rang loudly in the air. She lit up the end of the corridor using her flashlight. There was a single path with a corner where they had to turn right. From there, she could hear the gunshots getting closer as well as the groans of the undead and the screeching of a monster. A second later, the third member finally appeared from the corner, shooting at whatever was beyond it. He was in charge of keeping the zombies off their group and had caught up to them, but brought company.
“Just die! Die! DIE!!” [Survivor]
He fired his shotgun, pulled back the pump to load the next round, and fired again while walking backwards. However, he soon ran out of ammunition. So, the black-haired man tried to rush to his friends, but he grandly fell as something beyond the corner grabbed him by the leg.
“AH! IT’S GOT ME!!” [Survivor]
The survivor dropped his weapon and quickly caught onto the wall of the corridor’s corner. Only his upper body was visible as he was being pulled with great force.
“AHH! AHHH!! HEELLP!! HEEL-AAAAARRGGHHHH!!!” [Survivor]
Unfortunately, his resistance lasted but a few moments as his figure completely disappeared from view.
“ADAM!!” [Survivor]
The black-haired woman screamed his name in horror, but only his death cries and the sound of flesh tearing came back. She hesitated, took a step forward, then stepped back. But, eventually, she tried to go to his aid. However, a hand grabbed her arm from the side, stopping her.
“IT’S TOO LATE! WE GOT TO GO!” [Survivor]
It was the bearded man, who had finally managed to open the double doors.
“GO, GO, GOOO!!” [Survivor]
He pulled her along and they continued their escape, looking behind them one last time, at the unseen comrade they had just lost.
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On a wide road with three lanes delimited by broken white lines, many cars were abandoned. Some had their doors left opened and others were stained in dark red blood. Ryner walked down the road, avoiding the stationary vehicles. In his hand was an empty metal can of food with the pink drawing of a cat. The cylindrical container of a metallic gray color had the words “Meows Too” written on the purple label wrapped around it.
Dropping the can after finishing his meal, Ryner checked his left side. There was another road with three lanes, similarly congested by automobiles. Separating the two roads was a narrow sidewalk with streetlights place at regular intervals. Sandwiching the roads were sidewalks for pedestrians and rows of buildings.
“Graaaaah…” [Zombie]
Moreover, zombies were present, standing mindlessly in place or roaming about. One of them, an undead man with his left cheek torn off, his skin discolored and his veins swollen black, walked towards Ryner, his hands reaching out to him. However, he wasn’t the only one as four others converged on his position from the front, left and right.
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“(Oh, so this is what you did.)” [Ryner]
Ryner thought as he nimbly stepped aside and grabbed the back of the head of the undead that tried to bite him. Then, he shoved him through a car’s window on the driver’s side, breaking the glass. Afterward, he picked up a broken piece of glass and threw it at the closest limping zombie that was coming towards him. The shard pierced his eyeball, made him stumble, but didn’t stop him.
So, Ryner dropped his black backpack, spun to the right and delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. His right heel dug into the skull, broke it and crushed the insides. The zombie was knocked down, splattering red flesh and brain matter. However, three more were still moving and about to get within striking distance.
Ryner continued to spin in place, doing a full rotation once again and unleashed another roundhouse kick. He hit the second closest infected in the same spot, shattering his head, and repeated the same action with the third and fourth ones. Then, after four consecutive roundhouse kicks, he looked back at the first zombie whose head was shoved through a car’s window.
He had just managed to pull himself out while groaning eerily. Ryner swiftly kicked the back of his right knee, forcing him to kneel down, his face leaning against the automobile’s door. Following with a frontal kick, he smashed his head into the door, caving it in and crushing the undead’s skull. Taking a look around, Ryner confirmed that there was no longer any zombie in sight, at least, for the moment. As such, he put on his backpack and covered his left eye with his hand.
“You’re definitely messing with me.” [Ryner]
He said, annoyed. Floating in his vision through his right, white eye was a rectangular screen. When he had tried to access the support that was promised to him, black and red smoke appeared in his sight. It converged and formed a red screen with a black contour. On the left was a column of rectangular holes with the picture of different types of weapons, such as handguns and rifles, in each one. In the middle was the name of each item written in black and on the right was a number in the same color.
Ryner understood that the number represented the price he needed to pay to acquire said item. Moreover, he didn’t need to pay using money, but kills. For on the upper right corner of the screen was another number in black which indicated 48. He had confirmed that after killing the last five zombies, the number had jumped up by five. Just like it was agreed at the start, every undead or human killed would become a currency that could be used to obtain various items.
Unfortunately, Ryner wasn’t able to truly test it out.
“The cheapest handgun I can get costs 1000…” [Ryner]
He glared at the exorbitant prices that were in the quadruple digit, looked at the number 48 in the corner, and glared at the prices again. There wasn’t a single thing that he could buy.
“Your support doesn’t come at a cheap price.” [Ryner]
Ryner muttered and began walking again. The screen disappeared from his vision, turning into smoke, the moment he wished it. With his sight back to normal, he observed his surroundings. The abandoned cars did not have anything worthwhile to take, though sometimes, he would find useful items, like a water bottle. He would also take out any undead that he ran across and search them if they appeared to have valuables, like watches.
However, the most common objects on their bodies, such as cellphones, were out of battery, broken, or both. Wallets weren’t of much use either since he didn’t find any place where he could use the money or credit cards. The buildings had doors and windows that were barricaded or broken. Ryner could see the shuffling figures of undead through the windows in a few of them. There didn’t seem to be anyone alive.
Still, he continued to look around for survivors and for a safe place to stay. It had been a few hours since he had begun traveling through the dead city. It was past 8 PM and the sun was beginning to set. He needed to find shelter soon. Luckily, about thirty minutes later, he found something that caught his eye.
There was a four-story building, presumably one housing different stores. There were signboards above the doors on the first floor that said “Sushi”, “Pizza Pizza”, “Coffee Baker”, “DIY Shop”, “Top’s Burger” and more. Furthermore, all of the windows on the second floor were barricaded, except for one. Hung below it was a worn out white drape. Several words were messily written on it with black paint in big, bold characters.
WELCOME
SURVIVORS
SAFE
Moreover, through that window, in the dim room, a person was standing there.
“A survivor…” [Ryner]
Ryner knew he wasn’t a zombie because he was frantically waving at him while turning on and off a flashlight to catch his attention. He was possibly the first living human that he had found. So, after crouching behind an automobile to retrieve a precaution, Ryner swiftly headed towards him while dispatching any undead in the way. In front of the building was a small parking lot for customers. A makeshift barricade had been created by placing vehicles in a semi-circular formation.
At the center was a gray pickup truck, set right against the side of the building and below the only visible window of the second floor. The person inside opened the window and dropped down a rope that reached the roof of the truck. Seeing it, Ryner went over the barricade, jumped on top of the vehicle and climbed up the rope. When he reached the top, the survivor hurriedly pulled him inside the room.
Ryner landed on one knee and what immediately entered his vision was the word “WELCOME!” written in black on the wooden floor before his face. When he turned his eyes to the side, a large man was standing there, offering a hand to pull him up. Measuring around two meters, he had reddish orange hair and a beard as well as brown eyes and a light skin tone. He was dressed in brown pants, black shoes, a black T-shirt and an olive green jacket.
“Well praise the Lord! Hello, stranger!” [Survivor]
The man greeted with a wide smile on his face.
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Item of interest
Canned food Meows Too:
* Food preserved in a hermetically sealed container.
* Common in markets. Now very valuable.
* Found in a house with presumably a pet cat.
* Liver flavored.