Chapter Two:

Ruin

Location: Ruins to the southwest of SafeHaven;

Interior of a decrepit thrift store

Time: 11:10

Date: 9th of October, 2147

David woke up reluctantly to the sound of something shuffling outside of his antique furniture barricade.

He was having abstract dreams of weight and thunder.

The telltale scuffle of feet indicated there were undead wandering aimlessly outside of his makeshift fort.

David silently groaned to himself and tried to assess what went wrong. He gingerly rolled from his back to his stomach and inched towards the edge of his shelter to peek through the legs of a dresser he used as a barrier.

He scanned his surroundings.

When David had gotten into the store, it was pitch black. The building was clear of hostiles when he entered, and he made sure to barricade the door thoroughly with heavy furniture. He even checked for a back and side door and heavily barricaded them as well.

His gut told him to make a second protective shell out of the remaining desks, couches and other dense furniture before going to sleep.

David always trusted his gut, so he did just that.

He was lucky he slept silently. Those who snored didn’t tend to last long without some very thick walls.

The furniture barricade was too tall to see over and left no cracks in-between to view through, but David could see between the legs in a few select spots while he was lying down.

The furniture in front of the entrance was unmoved, yet all the miscellaneous objects in the store that were misplaced or knocked over indicated the zombies moved into the store from that direction.

The “walls” on both sides of the front door were formerly glass display windows but…

The glass was absent.

It wasn’t broken through by force in such a way that it would crunch underfoot; like if a hoodlum shattered the window, or if an amassing horde of zombies finally broke through after building up for a long period of time.

The windows simply no longer possessed any glass.

It just… wasn’t there.

In the dark David hadn’t noticed, but in the day time…

It was pretty obvious.

That explained a lot… and left a few lingering questions, but David immediately swept those to the back of his mind, as he did with all the nonessential questioning.

That was one of his tricks to staying alive. David didn’t waste energy thinking about anything he didn’t need to think about.

David needed to get out of here. It wasn’t time to establish radio contact with SafeHaven yet, but he could attempt to get somewhere elevated to see the status of the zombies building up on the walls now that the sun was out and he had rested a bit.

Perhaps he could help clear the zombies amassing around SafeHaven’s walls, or help lure them away. Maybe he could find a relatively hostile-free panel they could rotate to allow him access. It didn’t sound like SafeHaven was completely surrounded.

SafeHaven was mainly divided into four massive walls. Each wall was made up of ten gargantuan thirty meter tall, ten meter wide, and five meter thick nano-metal panels with additional nanite plating that protected against ballistics and explosives. When they were built, each panel cost well over a billion dollars, but they were worth every penny.

Now they were priceless.

The nanites constantly repaired any damage done to them, and made the walls significantly stronger by restructuring the metals into the same geometrical patterns as graphene at a microscopic scale. The walls could supposedly stand a direct blast from a sizable nuclear warhead, not that anybody would be around to see it if it did.

The panels were designed to be rotated around a shaft running through the center, to strategically allow and disallow passage inside SafeHaven. It made it so there was no main entrance to ambush, and no back door to guard or sneak through.

Every 5th panel housed barracks for military and security personnel on the third level that connected to multiple elevator shafts leading to the rest of the compound.

These special panels could selectively open a lower quadrant without rotating, to create a surprise doorway to mobilize troops and vehicles. Each wall had three of these panels. The first, the middle, and the last on each wall.

David knew the majority of the SafeHaven compound, as well as all of the functions and controls of the walls.

They were all controlled from the central tower, specifically from the command center near the top of the tower. The command center rose just above the walls, and the Grandmaster’s office was the only thing above that.

David wasn’t worried about getting back inside SafeHaven as long as it was still standing, and surely there was nothing that could take down SafeHaven’s walls.

Nothing.

David wasn’t worried about that.

He wasn’t worried about anything at all actually.

Although his situation may have seemed dire to an outside observer, David was unfazed.

Saying he had seen worse was the understatement of the century. He wasn’t even injured or trapped. He was simply waiting.

Where there should have been emotion there was not.

He felt only a lingering emptiness.

After dozily letting his mind wander, David decided it was time to take action. He reached for his backpack, which was sitting dutifully next to him, and silently slipped it on while shifting to a low crouch behind his makeshift barricade.

He picked up his assault rifle and RPG and slung them both over opposite shoulders, adjusting to the weight and discomfort.

He was focused on a grouping of feet in front of him. There were six individual feet, which usually meant there were three matching heads.

All of them stood next to each other, inches from his barricade, and faced the same direction. His direction.

David tried to imagine what was going on in their heads. They were the smartest zombies in the room after all.

They recognized his shelter as abnormal in this environment. They likely even sensed him somehow, but they had no idea where he was or what to do about their premonitions.

He counted himself as lucky they weren’t particularly aggressive. He had seen zombies wildly run into objects and destroy them, for seemingly no reason. If that had happened in his sleep, who know if he would’ve woken up or not.

These undead were just standing there, silent and on alert; pricking their ears up for even the slightest sound or movement. They await stimulus patiently. Endlessly. Undeterred by typical human feelings and desires. Immune to fatigue and boredom.

Sometimes David was a little jealous.

He slowly got into a crouch, still obscured by the wardrobes and couches. He silently moved forward and tested his body weight against the heavy wooden wardrobe between himself and the alert zombies.

David checked himself one last time. He backpack was fully equipped with his K-Pills™, water, ZK-74 assault rifle, silenced pistol, knife, machete, pickaxe, and a flashlight.

He also still had the RPG he found with 5 shots.

Food was irrelevant as long as he kept taking his K-pills™. They provided his body with all the nutrients and energy he could possibly need, at least, according to the slogan.

David closed his eyes and centered himself.

From a squatting position, David grabbed the bottom of the cabinet and yanked upwards while throwing his body weight forward.

This cast the weighty cabinet into the air, making it seem almost as if it had come to life and leapt onto the three alert zombies like a professional wrestler.

They all let out disgustingly breathy howls, air pushing through vocal chords that may not have been used in years. Their sickening triadic harmony filled the room and spilled out onto the street.

The sound would have made most men’s skin crawl, or at least made them uneasy, but David thought only of how far away the sound could be heard, and how many more zombies might be drawn towards it from outside.

He didn’t get distracted. He did not let his mind wander. He was efficient.

No gunfire could be heard in the distance from SafeHaven, which struck David as odd, but an issue for another time. He was currently next to the sole source of sound in the vicinity.

The trio remained pinned under the wardrobe, shrieking their horrific song and reaching towards David with any limbs that weren’t trapped or broken.

All the zombies in the immediate area (David counted at least 20 inside the store and more outside) hungrily approached the newfound stimulus and made various aggressive groans and hisses of their own.

Some were expressionless, and their black eyes seemed particularly glassy. Others wore visible looks of excitement. As if they had waited for this for days. Weeks. Months. Their entire lives, even.

They all began to shuffle towards him. A few broke into jogs or even sprints. David grabbed the portable pickaxe off of his left hip and the machete off of his right.

Undead already in the store began to close in around him rapidly. Many were stopped by the parts of David’s barricade that remained intact, but not nearly all of them.

He quickly dispatched a female zombie with black hair that sloppily stepped over the fallen cabinet. He sliced through the top section of her spongy skull with his razor sharp nanite-treated machete.

She immediately dropped like a lifeless doll, her face still frozen in a snarl. The dark viscous contents of her skull oozed lethargically down the wooden cabinet that now functioned as her final resting place.

David wiped her from his mind. She was no longer a threat. He lunged towards another similar looking zombie. Her hair was blonde, but otherwise their grotesque squealing faces could have been identical. They very well might have been related, before all of this.

David brought her down with equal ease. He sliced through her neck, and her head went rolling onto the floor. Her body slumped on top of the body of her sister, or cousin, or whoever it was… He wondered who could have died first. Did one of them attack the other? Have they been wandering The Ruins together all this time? At what point did they become zombies?

No distracting thoughts. David shook his head and pulled himself out of it.

More zombies started to close in, pouring in from every direction. He had moved out from his protective furniture shell to avoid being trapped, but now he was exposed to attacks from all angles.

David span around and connected his pickaxe perfectly with the eye socket of a zombie that had gotten a little too into his personal space. He expertly pulled his pickaxe out of the now-limp corpse as it fell.

Wasting no time, David sliced another incoming zombie with his machete, spilling viscera and grey matter onto the moldy vintage carpeting below. Was it always that disgusting shade of orange?

A momentary break in the onslaught gave him a second to think of an escape plan.

He really needed to exit the building and find higher ground.

It was still raining outside, which was odd for the desert-like ecosystem SafeHaven and this thrift store were in, but rain was not completely unheard of, weather patterns had been collapsing for hundreds of years now, after all.

The cloud coverage made the interior of the store darker than it would have been on a sunny day, and the rain caused the carpet to become deeply soaked in places unprotected by the rotten ceiling above. Footsteps squelched on the carpet as they approached.

The areas outside SafeHaven were indistinguishable from ancient ruins to David. He had never seen any of these buildings in the splendor a few at SafeHaven had described it. With lights and crowds of people. With merchandise, movies, games, and colorful displays.

Buildings like this one, that used to serve a purpose when society was functional, were scattered for miles across the landscape around SafeHaven. The walls of SafeHaven were, for many, the final border between life and death.

No zombies had ever been behind the walls that weren’t intentionally allowed inside. In over twenty years, there was never a single security breach. Not one.

Many types of people were amongst the thousands in SafeHaven and most of them, including their leader – the second GrandMaster – had little to no experience fighting the undead or humans (other than the occasional scuffle among citizens).

Venturing outside of the walls meant certain death for many of the scientists and business people contained within SafeHaven.

These people remained safe by leaving their protection in the capable hands of individuals like David, who were specifically trained to deal with zombies, scavengers, and any other type of hostile entity that may threaten SafeHaven.

Protecting SafeHaven was the only life David had ever known.

Life in SafeHaven with Uncle Tío and the other troops.

Killing and protecting without question.

He grew up with his purpose prescribed to him, and it was all he had.

It was all he needed, or at least, so he thought.

He killed.

He survived.

He protected.

He didn’t ask questions, he just got things done.

He was the absolute best at his job. No one even came close to his abilities. David didn’t believe this due to arrogance either, it was just an indisputable fact in many SafeHaven citizen’s eyes. He won the Blood Games nearly every time he participated. He killed enemies twice his size with his bare hands.

No matter the situation,

No matter how many enemies,

No matter what type of enemy,

No matter how intelligent,

No matter how fast,

No matter how strong,

David was practically untouchable.

David’s moment to think was over and once again, undead closed in around him with their arms outstretched and their jaws gnashing. Luckily, none were particularly agile.

David expertly dodged in between them, and sprint towards the missing window the zombies used to enter the thrift store. He swerved around as many infected as possible before charging forward and barreling his shoulder into a particularly large zombie that unavoidably blocked his exit.

It grabbed David into a bear hug upon impact, bringing them both flying onto the street outside the store. In midair David broke the zombie’s grip and leveraged himself into a more advantageous position.

When they collided with the ground the resulting impact broke its spine, causing a sickening series of cracks and snaps to fill the air.

This was, of course, accompanied by the zombie’s subsequent screech of agony.

David thought, for only a fraction of a moment, about the zombie squealing in pain. Was it an instinct, or did they truly feel the pain he inflicted? It was indistinguishable from thoughts he had thousands of times before, and he arrived at the same conclusion he always had.

It just... didn’t matter.

David used his forward momentum to roll forward after he severely crippled his assailant. He hadn’t ended its sick version of a life, but it definitely wasn’t getting back up.

He paused for a moment, then crushed the zombie’s slightly softened skull with a single solid stomp from the heel of his boot. Its wail abruptly silenced with a squishing sound.

Whether it was fully aware or not, nothing deserved to be left like that.

He examined his surroundings. There were ruins in every direction. None of it looked particularly familiar. He was quite deep in The Ruins, and all the buildings around him towered above him, even if they were collapsed.

Various signs and massive billboards rotted away, losing their colors and messages, and metal frames of car husks sat idly on the street. They slowly grew rusty and possessed ever expanding holes where the metal was missing. It reminded David a bit of the glass in the antique store for some reason.

Where would he go now?

The tallest things he could see before rain and mist shrouded his vision completely were towers at the top of a nearby cathedral.

It couldn’t be more than a few blocks away. He wasn’t sure if it was to his north, south, west, east, or some combination of the four, but he could see it and that meant he could make it.

The zombies were now pushing past the missing display windows and poured out onto the street towards David. Additionally, a few random stragglers that appeared to be formerly heading towards SafeHaven noticed the commotion and started heading his way.

If he stayed here much longer he was bound to have a party on his hands.

He broke into a brisk jog towards the cathedral. As long as he stayed careful not to get too close to any zombies on the way, he should be able to arrive at the cathedral while there’s still plenty of daylight left. He could probably lose his current pursuits on the way as well.

David made it past the first two blocks without much trouble.

He got out of eyeshot of the group from the thrift store after the first block, then mislead them away from his position by throwing a rock precisely at a loose gutter with a lot of force, which caused it to clatter to the ground and draw the newly stimulus deficient zombies towards it. Luckily, the rain and plethora of undead heavily obscured his scent or whatever pseudo-sense they use to track.

He had never experienced it himself, but a few of the other elite SafeHaven personnel that went outside the walls said some groups of zombies seemed to follow them for days across hundreds of miles based off smell alone.

In his experience, most zombies were too stupid to pursue people for significant distances or time. David was taught that zombies were drawn to whichever sensory input they had that could possibly be a meal. If they didn’t see, smell, hear, or otherwise sense a presence, they typically waited motionless until they did or wandered aimlessly looking for new prey.

However, just like living human beings, zombies were individuals. Some were different, and some were radically different.

David didn’t really know why this was the case, but he knew some zombies could still think to varying capacities. It had been a while since David encountered a zombie that appeared to retain a significant amount of intelligence. It was very rare, but it was a confirmed phenomenon to David, he had seen it firsthand.

Meanwhile, some undead seemed to possess various heightened senses or strengths, and some turned into monsters that constituted the deeply disturbing fodder of nightmares.

These undead became grotesque inhuman beasts that seemed to defy science and logic. It was nearly impossible to believe they were ever human to begin with, save for maintaining a generally human shape.

David could see the entrance to the cathedral as he rounded the third block, but he hesitated as he approached.

Two broken down car husks were parked on either side of the Cathedral’s large stone entryway. They seemed more solid than most car carcasses these days. They may have been hand selected for their structural integrity.

A few thick metal wires were tautly stretched between the cars, welded at strategic points, forming a makeshift fence.

David could see a huge mass of zombies being held inside the cathedral. Right in the middle of the horde, both pressed against the makeshift car wire fencing, stood the biggest pair of undead individuals David had ever seen in his life.

The citizens of SafeHaven called zombies like these Goliaths, and they were downright terrifying.

The Goliaths David could see in the cathedral were each larger than average, so seeing them together was particularly grim.

David held out hope they might have been past peak fitness.

For some reason when these types of victims became infected, instead of turning into the typical zombie and undergoing the expected metamorphosis into a spongy-boned flesh bag with an urge to spread their ailment, their bodies actually started to produce an obscene amount of muscle mass.

In David’s experience, they typically behaved similarly to run-of-the-mill zombies when in the absence of stimulus and had roughly the same average level of intelligence, but what they lacked in intelligence they more than made up for in resilience and strength.

Somehow, every victim a Goliath ever consumed was turned efficiently by their body into more muscle mass. Their skin was often thick and impossible to pierce with small arms fire, which David had to learn the hard way.

All of David’s experience and teachings on Goliaths refreshed in his mind as he considered his next move… He was a bit rusty since he had been on wall security for so many months. His mind went back to the presentation he was first given about them when he was a teenager.

‘Goliaths are a subclass of the undead as defined by SafeHaven. It’s important to consider the nuances of this subclass when fighting this particularly dangerous enemy.

The most important aspect to note is how they continue to grow stronger with each kill. This makes them far more formidable in one-on-one combat than any typical individual alive, or those possessed by the zombification illness. Our researchers found they reach an apex point of fitness around 700 kills, where they can have biceps as large as tree trunks and grip strengths that easily shatter bones.

Eventually, they will get too large to move if they consume too many victims indicating a lack of intentional control through their metabolism, but there have been few documented cases of this. Goliaths this far along in their progression would be largely immobile, so they aren’t exactly wandering around trying to be found.

They have been seen inside large hordes many times and should be treated with extreme caution. They’re easy to see and swarm to for smaller undead individuals.

As you would imagine, threats like this need to be dealt with, but you should absolutely NEVER engage one-on-one. If you absolutely must engage, kill from a distance. Should you find yourself caught in a close range situation with a Goliath, just try to get away, do not try to be a hero.

Your odds of survival are less than 30%, and that’s if the Goliath is far from apex fitness and you’re otherwise in optimal survivability settings.

The best solution is to call in SafeHaven support and have a specialty squad come deal with the beast. They utilize nano-napalm, which has shown to be wildly effective, as long as no bystanders are nearby to be incinerated or torn apart before it succumbs to the flames.’

As David was in thought, he realized he didn’t really know anything about how Goliaths or zombies changed. He fought them his entire life, he had an entire education solely based around them and SafeHaven’s facilities and products, yet he genuinely knew very little about them outside of defeating or dodging them.

What made them different from regular people? What made them different than him? What made them the same? He didn’t know if it was a virus, disease, bacteria or something else entirely.

He shrugged it off.

He decided long ago he didn’t really care what made them zombies, or what made them Goliaths. He just knew they couldn’t be changed back and once someone was gone, the situation was always kill or be killed.

Life was always kill or be killed for David.

David was the only member of the SafeHaven security that had ever killed a Goliath in one-on-one close range combat. His teachers adamantly voiced their opinion that his actions were stupidly dangerous and borderline impossible.

Not only was he the only one to have ever done it, he had done it over twenty times to his own recollection, and some people say he’s done it way more.

Fighting a Goliath was like fighting a hyper-aggressive gorilla addicted to steroids that made other gorillas feel insecure. Most men didn’t stand a chance against them without specialized equipment and knowledge. David knew he was special, but he wasn’t really positive why or how. He just assumed no one else was actually brave or quick enough to do damage up close like he did. He figured they just hesitated or moved too slow and got crushed or torn apart.

Funnily, the 30% Goliath survival rate his teacher described actually included David in the statistics. Without David included, the survival rate dropped down to an abysmal 1.7%.

Even with his knowledge and confidence, nothing was making this a great day to fight another Goliath in close range combat. It DEFINITELY wasn’t a day to fight two of them in close range combat directly inside a larger herd. That was basically suicide.

David sighed.

He still didn’t see any better place to find high ground. The tops of other buildings seemed to shrink away from the cathedral’s towers.

Perhaps he could find his way up to the top of the tower without needing to go in or out through the main entrance... Surely if the Goliaths were down visibly near the entrance, all the other zombies in the vicinity would have migrated towards them and as such, there probably weren’t nearly as many on the upper floors, right?

David needed to move. The sky was growing darker, the rain was starting to get a bit harder, and he had no idea what SafeHaven looked like, or what its status was.

David was across the street, crouched behind an extremely rusty car that must have been broken down for decades. Small holes like those bitten into fabric by moth larvae seemed to cover the vehicle.

He needed to get up into the prayer towers of the Cathedral.

The buildings next to the Cathedral were a few feet away and significantly shorter, but it appeared that a smaller building with faded yellow paint next to the Cathedral’s right had a roof that was a little bit taller than a third floor window on the Cathedral.

David thought he might be able to bridge the gap if he could get the Cathedral’s window open somehow.

But first he needed to get to that roof.

Thunder grumbled overhead. It was a deep and rolling groan that lacked intensity but made up for it in endurance.

David scurried across the street towards the office building, hoping not to be spotted by any of the zombies practically bursting out of the seams of the cathedral.

He arrived at the door surprisingly easily. There were no wandering zombies on the street to surprise him. It was nice when he could catch a break every once in a while.

When he checked his six he recognized two zombies had started to follow him across the street from the second block. David rolled his eyes, then took out his silenced pistol and downed them both, each with a single clean headshot.

They both crumpled weakly to the ground. The Goliaths may have seen that, but they surely weren’t smart enough to connect it to David who was now out of eyesight.

He listened for changes in the tones of the zombies voices, but noticed nothing. There would likely be shrieking or some sounds of urgency if he were spotted. The entire herd could descend upon him in an instant if provoked.

There were only the familiar faint whispers carried by the wind. That’s how David could tell a horde was nearby. Large groups of zombies made such ominous noises, as if they were communicating or cackling about their conquests.

It was their world now, forcing humans to hide from them like prey animals used to hide from humans.

David put his silenced pistol, which now contained 10 rounds, back into its holster and looked at the door into the office building. “Push” it commanded.

David tentatively pushed the door, to test if it was locked, and to see if something was immediately behind it.

To his surprise, the door easily opened up and revealed an extremely dusty and dark interior lobby. The building wasn’t boarded up or locked at all. It must have been abandoned, and no one ever came back to check on it. A promotional stuffed rabbit was trampled into the carpet, covered in dust.

Particles danced wildly in the single pillar of light cast into the room by the open door, excited by the sudden gust created by David’s entry. David quietly shut the door behind himself and stood for a moment in the silent nearly pitch darkness; listening and observing.

Just the pattering of rain and the distant sounds of thunder, until he heard a quick shuffling sound upstairs followed by more silence. Perhaps the noises were made by some small animals. Perhaps they were elicit by wandering undead trapped somewhere upstairs. Either way, it was nothing David couldn’t handle.

He only needed to find the stairs.

David reached into his backpack and grabbed his flashlight.

He point it away from himself and turned it on, showering the lobby in a cone of light that seemed to shimmer from the dust particles.

The room was unlit. There were no windows on the floor, which didn’t mean much to David except he had no ambient light, and no emergency escape routes should things take a chaotic turn.

The chairs in the lobby were tacky, the wallpaper was moldy, the floor was simply concrete under a thin blue carpet which was torn in many places, and the dust made David sneeze, twice. He always sneezed in pairs. Each time he braced for a sudden reaction, a groan or a howl, but he never got one.

Overall, the place looked pretty undisturbed. Dust seemed to constantly stir in the air and was thickly layered onto most of the furniture.

All of the interior doors were open, most of which lead into a room with a small desk, a personal computer, and a varying number of chairs.

David spotted the stairwell in the leftmost corner of the first floor. He took a tentative step in that direction.

The carpeted floor kept David’s footsteps mostly quiet, save for the soft wet squelches of his rain soaked boots. Water dripped occasionally from the curly points of his soaking hair, or from the edges of his sleeves.

He cautiously proceeded towards the stairs, diligently checking his surroundings for any hidden enemies. He was reading a lot of good indicators the area was empty, since he heard no noise and all the doors were open, but David never let his guard down. Even when he slept, he was on high-alert.

He drew his silenced pistol and held it in the opposite hand of his flashlight. He made a bar out of the arm he held the flashlight with, then crossed his shooting arm over it, like it were an armrest.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He held his breath as he arrived at the stairwell and proceeded up them, attempting to mute as much of the sound he was generating as possible.

He kept his ears perked up for any noises. He took each step slowly, and near the edge of the stairwell to prevent squeaking. All he could hear was the blood quietly pumping in his ears, and the soft sound of each of his footsteps gingerly pressing into the carpeted stairs. He needed to sneeze again, but kept himself from doing so by clenching his jaw together then breathing out slowly through his nose. His eyes watered up and he had to squeeze his nose a bit, but the feeling eventually passed.

As David rounded the top of the stairs onto the second floor his flashlight illuminated a slouching figure near a doorway that faced the interior of a small office.

The figure stood around thirty meters away from David and did not seem to notice him at first.

As if on cue, the figure turned its ugly head towards the beam of light and opened its mouth as if to say something. All of its muscles tensed up spastically, like a snake coiling to strike.

Its pitch black eyes blankly reflected the small beam of his flashlight. It appeared to be in thought, but only for a millisecond.

That was all it took.

Without hesitation, David shot a single bullet through the zombie’s skull and it crumpled silently onto the floor below.

David stayed in the stairwell, but gazed into the room the zombie was preoccupied with from the relative safety of his current position. What was the zombie looking at?

He quietly approached and shined his flashlight into the room, revealing an absolutely filthy but otherwise empty room with a single conference table. The room reeked of rot, human waste, and the strong stench of something metallic.

David was confused but didn’t give it a second thought.

Not the time to get distracted. Putting that one directly into the Chamber of Thoughts David Would Rather Not Think About.

David spent his entire life dealing with zombies, so he had a few premonitions about their behaviors that weren’t technically verified by the SafeHaven scientists.

For instance, David recognized zombies sometimes seemed to possess intelligence. He assumed the level of that intelligence was a reflection of their intelligence in life, but he had no evidence to back that up.

That undead individual he just encountered may have recognized something about this room from its past life. On the other hand, it also may have been considering eating the conference table.

The thoughts of zombies were abstract and fickle. Small flecks of consciousness seemed to remain and peek through their hijacked minds, but in mangled, fragmented forms. Perhaps some whisper of a sensation long forgotten threw this zombie into the brain-dead equivalent of an existential crisis.

Or, maybe whoever that used to be wasn’t exactly known for their remarkable ability to think and reason before they turned and couldn’t find the way out of the darkness.

Whatever it was, David needed to move on.

David proceeded up the next flight of stairs, hoping to find roof access.

He didn’t have to wait long, as he realized he just rounded the final flight of stairs.

He opened the door, which unleashed the renewed sound of rain and the diminished rays of natural light.

David turned his flashlight off and stashed it back with his equipment.

He looked around for the window to the cathedral as his eyes adjusted from the pure darkness to the overcast sky.

The roof was a massive open area that was surprisingly stable. It seemed to be made entirely of sun-bleached concrete that was remarkably intact given the state of some of the buildings in The Ruins. Not a single hole in the roof from artillery or aging.

The door that brought David onto the roof was the only protrusion from the otherwise flat slate making the roof. He could see a few planks of wood and garbage laying around that scarcely littered the surface, but that was it. No air conditioning units, no vents, nothing.

None of the planks of wood appeared to be large or stable enough to bridge the gap from the roof to the cathedral window, which seemed to be just out of the range David felt completely confident jumping.

He had never attempted a leap quite that far before. Surviving in his world often involved incredible feats of agility and dexterity. At SafeHaven, David was taught a makeshift practice that he was told was once referred to as “parkour.”

None of that training was going to magically help him jump the massive gap between buildings though.

He approached the edge of the roof across from the window.

Before he could even attempt to cross over to the cathedral, he needed to get the window open anyways.

David pressed his palms against the upturned lip of the roof’s edge and leaned forward to try to see through the window. There was a glare that prevented him from making out what was behind the glass, but he didn’t think he saw any movement.

David considered finding a rock to throw at the window to attempt to break or crack it, but immediately decided against it because of the noise.

He did not want to alert the Goliaths and horde trapped downstairs. They may not remain trapped for very long if they decided they didn’t want to be.

He considered his options.

His silenced pistol still had nine bullets, and that would surely cause less noise than a rock. Sound-suppression through nanotechnology made the pistol itself around 23dB with a silencer, which is audible, but significantly quieter than the rain. The worst sound possibly created from that scenario would be the glass shattering when it fell to the ground, and that might even get the horde’s attention drawn out of the cathedral and onto the street if David got lucky and the debris fell mostly outside.

David got the feeling the makeshift fence constructed of broken down vehicles and cables wouldn’t last very long if the Goliaths truly decided they wished to leave.

Throwing a rock might draw them upstairs when the rock hit the floor inside. He didn’t know how difficult it would be for them to access the floors above them, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. He was beginning to feel slightly fatigued, and fighting Goliaths required a lot of energy.

Besides, a gun was more fun.

He raised his sidearm and steadied it with both of his hands, aiming at the glass.

He fired a single bullet. His gun made a very hushed ~tunk~ noise and a small circle was suddenly shot out of the window in front of him, leaving a web of cracks radiating from it. The window didn’t fully shatter, but it was close.

David sighed and weighed his options.

He didn’t seem to draw any immediate attention with the bullet, but he still couldn’t see what was on the other side of the window. The window was cracked, but he still needed to hit it with something heavy in order to actually blow the glass out. A rock would probably work, but David had already decided he didn’t want to use a rock.

He thought he had a better idea. An idea that would kill two birds with one stone.

He holstered his pistol.

He did a few small stretches.

He took a deep breath and a few steps back.

He wasn’t afraid of trying to clear the gap between buildings, he finally decided.

Perhaps it wasn’t really his best option, but David hated recognizing he was scared of something. He wasn’t scared he wouldn’t make it. He wasn’t scared.

He drew his knife and machete. He held his knife backwards in his left hand and held his machete against his right forearm flatly.

David burst forward into a sprint for a few long strides before leaping up and connecting his foot with the railing. He jettisoned himself off of the edge of the office building towards the small stained glass window of the cathedral nearly ten meters away.

He assumed he would land someplace on the third floor. There was brick above and below the window, and the window only seemed large enough to match a single room, or perhaps a hallway.

David figured, worst case scenario, there were some zombies on the third floor he would have to fight when he landed. Maybe they’d draw the attention of the Goliaths, but that was something he could handle, as long as he was prepared.

At least, that’s what he thought was the worst case scenario.

But David had been wrong before.

David flew through the air for a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. He tucked his limbs together to brace for the impact.

David smashed through the cathedral window like a cannonball, shattering the glass into a rainbow of colorful shards that formed a glittery cloud around him as he fell.

Then he and the shards continued to fall further… and further…

Way past the third floor.

He kept his eyes closed for fear of piercing them with broken flying glass, but he could already tell his initial assumption was miscalculated. He adjusted midair to try to calculate a better way to fall, he wasn’t one to just land with a clumsy thud, but he couldn’t see and didn’t know how far he was falling.

He let his body guide him based off of intuition.

He tried his best to trust his gut, since it got him into this situation to begin with.

David continued falling until he hit the ground with a forward roll that tore open his backpack and ground many shards of glass painfully and bloodily into the posterior of his upper arms, neck, shoulders, and back.

David shook off his disorientation and assumed a fighting stance just in time for two nearby zombies to swing their decrepit arms at him. They both appeared to be dressed in the remnants of formalwear, perhaps it was once their church-going attire.

They may have died here, twenty years ago, right when it all happened.

David reacted on pure instinct once he recognized how dire his immediate situation was. He closed the distance between himself and the first zombie by slicing sloppily through both of its outstretched arms with his machete. David let out a ferocious roar and span around in a quick pirouette, decapitating it with a flourish of his blade. He then used the same momentum to lodge the knife in his off-hand into the second zombie’s temple.

David felt like he was significantly lighter than before.

That was not good.

Some of the contents of his backpack spilled onto the floor noisily during his spin to finish off the zombies. He heard it before he saw it.

David was too preoccupied to see what fell out, but he could tell he had lost a significant amount of his resources.

“Well… fuck.” He accidentally muttered aloud, scanning the room full of zombies.

David immediately withdrew his knife with a singular swift movement as another female zombie collided with him from behind, wrapping her arms around him awkwardly as she tried to sink her teeth into the space between his neck and shoulder.

David’s body screeched in pain as she drove the glass deeper into his wounds.

He staggered, but moved with the impact. He stabbed her through her eye socket with his knife over his right shoulder before her teeth could connect. Then, with enough ferocity and strength to make a Goliath jealous, he launched her carcass off of his back by throwing his arms back and flexing his trapezius.

Her corpse flew like a ragdoll into more approaching zombies. It staggered a few, but they largely continued to scuffle forward.

David took in his surroundings with dread.

He absolutely was not on the third floor of the cathedral.

He was a few feet away from where the altar used to stand in a large worship hall. He stood on a round wooden stage that was essentially just an elevated part of the floor, with a few wide circular steps attached to the front to allow broad access for many guests at once, to simulate risers during a performance, or to just look grandiose. Computers sat on tables covered in folders, a jarring change from the rest of the scenery.

From this stage, David was at eye level with the two Goliath zombies he had seen from the street. They were both easily over seven feet tall.

This time however, they definitely noticed him, and there wasn’t anything standing in between them and David except a few dozen ravenous zombies that also seemed quite interested in him.

The Goliaths were not about to let those zombies stand in their way either. They hurriedly shuffled through the herd surrounding them, swatting aside or outright trampling smaller and slower zombies in their way.

They were all within ten short seconds of being upon David.

Even he couldn’t fight this many enemies at once. Not at this kind of range. Not with this equipment…

“Oh right... Equipment.” David thought.

He glanced over at the gear that had fallen out of his bag, already unreachable as the feet of undead kicked about and tripped on his water bottles and ammunition.

He checked to see what he still had on him.

Five seconds now.

Oh… Well…

There was good news and bad news.

The good news was he still had his RPG and ZK-74 rifle. The bad news was he only had the one shot currently loaded into the tube. The story was the same for the one clip currently loaded in his assault rifle.

David immediately wielded his RPG, knelt down, and levelled it at the upper torso of the closest approaching Goliath, hoping to maximize the explosive’s efficiency.

He could potentially vaporize the Goliath immediately, and hopefully provide enough damage to the other that he could slip away.

He was also hoping he wouldn’t destroy the large stone Cathedral he was inside, but at that moment, it was a risk he was willing to take.

He weighted his options, but only for a millisecond before he noticed a brunette zombie wearing a church dress that was almost upon him.

“Fuck it.” David said, before firing the RPG.

He immediately used the tube to smack the skull of the brunette zombie with the torn floral dress. Smoke still streamed from the end of the tube and the contact not only inflicted blunt force trauma, but it also singed her extremely pale skin.

The tube made a thud against her head only hundredths of seconds before the RPG projectile exploded prematurely, having come into contact with the face of a tall zombie that moved in between David’s shot and the Goliath he intended to fire at.

The walls of the cathedral shook violently from the concussive explosion, but remained largely intact.

A massive chandelier swung above head and lost the last remaining glass pieces attached to its metal frame. A variety of small stones and pebbles fell from the ceiling and the rest of the windows were blown outwards onto the street.

The miscalculated shot practically disintegrated the zombie it collided with, and it immediately killed dozens more around it. It sent David, his now damaged RPG tube, and the female zombie he hit with the tube flying backwards, as well as all of the zombies and pews within the vicinity of the explosion. The explosion severely burnt the Goliath David meant to fire at and managed to knock it onto its ass for a few precious seconds.

The Goliath seemed just as staggered as David...

But he didn’t kill it. The second Goliath covered its face to guard against shrapnel and was largely unaffected, even by the shockwave. It lowered its arms and let out a violent roar as it continued to march diligently towards David.

Its forearms were covered in vicious bloody gashes.

David urgently jumped to his feet.

He felt every inch of his body ache from the explosion. He had multiple abrasions, possible internal bleeding, and his chest felt compressed. His lungs seemed somehow deflated.

His adrenaline only let him feel what he needed to feel though, and at the moment, that was mainly a sense of urgency. He couldn’t give up or slow down. He was going to make it through this.

He took a shaky breath, but it was enough to deliver oxygen where it needed to go.

David grabbed his custom-built SafeHaven ZK-74 rifle off of his shoulder, his absolute favorite weapon, and aimed it at the Goliath’s skull. It was almost impossible to kill a Goliath with bodily injury. It would keep going endlessly until someone or something eliminated its epicenter of control. Small-arms fire would seldom pierce a Goliath’s skin, much less its skull, but the bullets for the ZK-74 were absolutely massive, and specially designed to pierce Exo-suits. He had killed more Goliaths with his ZK-74 than anyone would ever believe.

The problem was, David was still dazed from the explosion, and his aim reflected that. He wasn’t going to be able to cleanly headshot this charging Goliath, and he knew it.

He fired a small burst of bullets, trying his best to make his shots count. He couldn’t afford to waste any ammo.

A few of the bullets connected and caused a cloud of dark red mist to explode out of the side of the Goliath’s face and left shoulder. Its skull became exposed in parts, and shredded skin revealed pulsating muscle fibers hiding just underneath.

The Goliath’s ear was blown off from the hail of bullets and dark oozing blood leaked from the newfound orifice. The Goliath raised its massive right arm in front of its head defensively and let out a roar. It lurched forward into a dead sprint towards David, making itself into a gigantic armored projectile. It would have been less terrifying to be charged at by a feral elephant.

David fired a few more rounds into the Goliath’s arm, scattering bleeding holes across his absolutely gigantic forearms and biceps.

Recognizing the futility in continuing, he cursed himself for wasting the ammunition. David then unloaded the last half of his clip to form a path through the scarcer population of zombies to his right. He was trying to buy himself a few seconds when he made a run for it.

He felt his torso for another clip of ammo, but found none. He looked towards the pistol on his belt, but decided it might still be useful should he actually get out of this… or should he get bitten.

He had stared death in the face countless times.

He wasn’t one to panic or make rash decisions, and he knew it was important to always have an exit strategy.

Although even he had to admit, the whole ‘diving through the window’ thing was a bit stupid. Why did he do that?

His equipment was scattered all over the floor.

The tear in his bag must have been a severe one. He still hadn’t checked.

His machete was nowhere to be found, but his knife was still in its holster. He must have subconsciously slipped the knife back into the holster on his left thigh, but dropped the machete somewhere during the chaos.

The remaining RPG shots, K-pills™, water, and the rest of the contents of his pack were scattered underfoot by the undead. A few of which were even comically falling flat on their face, which made other zombies behind them lose their footing as well.

David would have taken a moment to appreciate this, but he had a problem…

The Goliaths weren’t going to be tripped up the same way.

The burnt and bullet-torn Goliath was still charging towards David in a blind sprint with its arm raised in front of its face to protect itself.

David didn’t have time to think, he only had time for action. He needed to get up the stairs to the towers he saw outside, but he didn’t know where he would get access to them.

He looked down at his feet and saw his radio.

How did he drop that? It wasn’t in his bag. It was attached to his belt.

He didn’t have time to bend down to grab it before the Goliath would be barreling through him.

David was like a matador. The bull was charging, and he only had time to pull back his blood colored cape. The problem was, he was the target. He may as well have been painted red himself.

He didn’t think, he only acted.

He dodge rolled to his right. While he rolled, he grabbed his pistol out of its holster, and when he arrived at the end of his roll in a kneeling position, he aimed at the Goliath charging at him.

It was already severely wounded, with a cranial opening created from David’s ZK-74 shots.

David anticipated its obvious movement in a straight line and fired two pistol bullets at the Goliath after it crossed where he stood. Both pistol shots connected with the injured side of the Goliath’s skull and splattered the remaining parts of its face everywhere.

It was completely dead seconds after it crossed where David previously stood. The Goliath’s massive muscles stayed artificially stimulated and continued to carry it forward even after it was brain dead. It became increasingly less coordinated, but still trampled forward in a relatively straight line.

Muscle memory was a pretty incredible thing.

The radio crunched under the Goliath’s massive foot.

The sound of the breaking radio broke David’s heart along with it, and he was immediately filled with dread.

Genuine stomach-sinking dread. The kind that he felt but ignored moments ago when he saw the corrupt black eyes of hundreds of undead staring at him like he rang a dinner bell when he came crashing through the window.

It was the kind of anxious dread that made people terrified of their uncertain future. The kind of dread that covered the planet twenty years ago. It was the dread of a prey animal in the den of predators.

The goliath collided with a large chair and decorative candle display before smashing against the wall behind David with finality.

Now he had no supplies save for his knife, his silenced pistol with only six bullets, and his pickaxe. He had no time to recover any items or to confirm the Goliath was dead. He was already bolting through the opening he created moments earlier.

He could see through a glass doorway in the direction he was running. There were some stairs on the left down the corridor the doorway opened up to.

He figured that would be his best shot, and confidently barreled into the glass door instead of stopping to try to open it. He had already built up too much speed to bother slowing down. He’d already broken plenty of glass today, what harm was a little more?

The doors swung open violently, but made little sound thanks to the lush green carpeting of the corridor. The doors were hinged to open either way and were luckily unlocked. David counted his blessings, considering he still had many shards of glass embedded in his skin, although some were beginning to pop out and heal as he ran.

David kept sprinting towards the stairs. It was difficult to tell how far away the zombies were behind him, he dared not look back, but he swore he could hear shrieking and laughter right behind him. He couldn’t tell if the burnt Goliath was attempting to chase him as well.

He ran his fingertips traced the left wall as he approached the stairs. He used the friction to sense how much he needed to slow down to make the turn optimally into climbing the stairs.

The hundredths of seconds of difference between how fast he ran and when and where he did it could mean life and death. His body always just knew what to do. It was instinct.

David smoothly transitioned from sprinting on solid ground to climbing similarly carpeted stairs at a comparable speed. He took the steps three at a time. They were made of stone under the carpet, he could tell from the way the steps jolted against his ankles and knees. Every step was jarring to his body. His joints and bones pounded heavily against the unforgiving ancient stone.

The remaining Goliath charged down the hallway and tried to chase David up the stairs, but got stuck in the doorway. Its bulging muscles and massive stature prevented it from making any more progress.

David didn’t break stride when acknowledging this. He figured it would wriggle free or destroy the doorframe soon enough. David ascended two flights of stairs before he had reached the top of that particular stairway.

He could still hear the Goliath struggling against the doorway, bellowing deeply and making unknown crashing and smashing sounds. It was, at least currently, preventing other undead from filling the stairwell and following David’s ascent.

The third floor wasn’t David’s destination though, this was just where he meant to get to in the first place. He would still need to find another stairwell that ascended the large towers on the corners of the cathedral. There was a single metal door at the top of the stairs which David tentatively opened to reveal another corridor with the same lush dark green carpet he had seen throughout the rest of the cathedral.

The stairway was in the middle of a hallway, which continued in both directions away from David. There were windows that faced outside, but they were similarly patterned to the window David originally couldn’t see through. He cupped his hands and pressed his face against them, but still couldn’t make out much about the environment outside. Being close to them didn’t really make it any better than trying to see through them from across the street. Not only was the glass colored, but it was also fairly opaque and designed to not be viewed through. They were largely meant for decoration, not practicality, which David was told a lot of things were for back in the old world. He definitely didn’t understand.

He did know, however, that the only way he was going to see through this window was if he broke it. David pulled a shard of glass out from his shoulder and decided he would be breaking no more glass today.

He could hear the rain gently patter against the windows and felt at peace for a few brief moments. The encounter downstairs was not ideal. His arms had stopped bleeding, and upon investigation, most of the wounds he previously thought were brutal injuries seemed to be fairly superficial cuts. There were only a few small shards of glass lodged in his biceps, which he pulled out silently. Blood quickly followed the removal of the glass and David let the blood drip down his arms, since he lacked any real solutions to the bleeding. He took off his backpack and inspected it. The backpack was torn apart with one jagged cut down the right side. There was nothing left inside. He tore the backpack into strips of fabric and wrapped them around his bleeding deltoid and bicep. It wasn’t ideal but it would at least prevent his blood from getting everywhere and leaving a fresh, obvious trail for any zombies that may come across his path.

He took a deep breath and hung his head down. He was tired, and the physical pain and exhaustion from his ordeals was catching up to him quickly. He hadn’t taken his K-pills™ for the day because of the predicament he ended up waking to in the antique store, and now they were lost for good.

He could already feel his energy level waning, and he knew it would only get worse.

K-pills™ were standard issue for all citizens and military personnel alike at SafeHaven. Shortly after SafeHaven closed off their walls and recognized a surplus of labor with a deficit of food, they intentionally stopped issuing food rations and switched entirely to K-pills™ for efficiency and sustainability. David was informed it was also the healthiest option.

SafeHaven housed the world’s largest KNON™ manufacturing facility before the population became zombified. When they were in-business Happy Pharmaceuticals produced and marketed K-pills™ as a longer term solution to the world’s food crisis. They might have even worked, had the world not ended.

A commercial David had never seen nor heard, but repeatedly heard quoted once said;

“One KNON™ manufacturing plant could produce enough daily calories, vitamins, and nutrients for a population of millions for an indefinite amount of time. It’s a world we can all live in.”

They were cheap and easy to produce as well, once the initial millions of dollars were spent on equipment.

It was important for SafeHaven to have trained professionals on hand to maintain the equipment and train the youth how to do the same.

Ketone Nutrient Organic Nanites™ could only be produced by host nanites that exist in very specific conditions and were programmed with Happy Pharmaceutical’s patented coding.

The host nanite repurposes and works with biological cells in living organisms to produce specific formulas of Ketones, vitamins, and nutrients. KNON™ nanites could adapt to work with any cell that converted chemicals into others, such as cells that converted glucose into ATP, and change which chemicals they worked with. A plant cell that once photosynthesized sunlight to energy for the plant could be altered to produce ketone energy that was digestible by humans instead.

In an industrial setting like the one at SafeHaven, this was typically done with genetically modified algae in vats. The KNON™ nanites could work with any other relatively complex organic structures with high cell regrowth rates, but lab-modified algae was often most convenient and resilient.

KNON™ algae grew in two massive pools of murky water treated with graphite.

Sometimes other amorphous carbons were used, but the nanites required lots of fullerenes in order to function properly, which graphite had plenty of. The nanites would often have to internally change the structures inside cells or inside their host organism, and this required the molecular versatility of carbon fullerenes.

In the absence of fullerenes being supplied by the environment, the nanites would often start to take carbon from other parts of the organism that the nanites deemed nonessential. They would typically break down cells of the organism the nanites saw as useless for their production and repurpose them.

If left unchecked, this typically resulted in the death of the host organism. The algae that SafeHaven used was specifically bred to be able to sustain nanites without dying even under poor to abysmal conditions, but the graphite in the murky pools was always plentiful, which kept the environment ideal for the algae and the host nanites year-round so no nano-cannibalization, as it was referred to, took place.

K-pills™ were a truly integral part of life at SafeHaven. Because of the caloric surplus they created, resources could be used for more productive and profitable means.

All that time others spent farming, SafeHaven could use for whatever it liked. Planning, fighting, plundering, exploring, expanding, protecting, entertaining, mining, you name it.

Additionally, due to the manufactural nature of SafeHaven before the apocalypse, they were already capable of producing large numbers of K-pills™ on a regular basis.

K-pills™ were one of the largest unifying forces for the citizens of SafeHaven. People had many differences and disagreed with each other just like at any other society.

Death was a regular occurrence among some at SafeHaven. Some people at SafeHaven truly openly hated each other, but at the end of the day, they all lived or died because of the seemingly endless supply of K-pills™ they were able to produce and protect. Many of the citizens were willing to die before allowing outsiders to steal and use their KNON™ manufacturing resources.

Plenty of outsiders had tried. That’s what David assumed the attack on SafeHaven that currently stranded him was about. That’s what they had told him all those previous weeks.

It made sense to David, he didn’t know how people functioned without them. He knew he couldn’t.

Many encampments traded with SafeHaven for K-pills™, and their influence could be felt everywhere in the years after the events of 2124. There were rumors on the internet before the event that a single K-pill™ could last a fasting ascetic for weeks, but no one ever confirmed a report of it.

David had never heard of monks, fasting, or asceticism before, but the concept of a K-pill™ lasting so long would have been ludicrous to him, due to how quickly he always inevitably burnt through his own.

Even when he was relatively docile, he would only get ten to eighteen hours of energy.

It was dependent on how active he was, but his metabolism was practically otherworldly.

The ketone based energy K-pills™ utilized was efficient and powerful in the human body, but it burnt through most athletically inclined people (David especially) quickly and brightly. They were never banned from sports, due to the lobbying of Happy Pharmaceuticals, but they gave individuals energy similar to taking a powerful stimulant drug.

When the K-pills™ wore off, it was easy to “re-up” that energy if one had more pills, but if one didn’t, the crash was inevitable.

David had virtually zero fat reserves on his body, or even much back up energy produced naturally by his cells. He had never crashed before. He was diligent about taking K-pills™ or other forms of KNON™ at regular intervals. He didn’t know what was about to happen, personally, he had only heard second-hand accounts of K-pill™ crashes. They usually just spontaneously fell asleep like an individual with narcolepsy, but occasionally people were sent into mild comas.

David got no nourishment from his diet, because he did not have one. He didn’t even possess a concept of dining or food. He was raised on KNON™.

David didn’t understand the science behind it, but he remembered it had been explained to him before when he was young. He knew if he passed out from starvation or lack of nourishment, it was unlikely he would be getting back up unless someone found a way to get him some energy. In that time, there was no telling what could come by and kill or eat him.

Not to mention, if someone never came to help him, he could just wither away and die.

David Cypress, the most efficient zombie killer to ever exist, dying alone in a cathedral less than a few miles away from his home. Simply because he was too tired to move.

Running out of energy was not something he had planned for and the thought of it made David feel genuine fear.

In all the years he had been doing this, he had never lost all of his supplies before. He always just had easy access to a large quantity of K-pills™ throughout his life, even on long missions.

He remembered embarking on a particularly long and enlightening journey with a squadron of other death angels that took months. The only supplies they had upon their return that they departed with were their KNON™ pills, their empty guns, and the clothes on their backs.

He wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he was unable to move or fight.

SafeHaven may have still been surrounded for all he knew, and there was no telling if he would be rescued if he somehow lost all of his energy.

How would they know where to find him?

What if a wandering zombie saw him and decided to give him a little nibble?

What if the only way he would ever get up again was after he died and succumbed to the plight that had already taken most of humanity away?

David started freaking out. He collapsed to the ground and sobbed into his knees.

David’s mind blared like an alarm at him.

This was a waste of energy. This was inefficient. He wasn’t safe.

Get up.

Get up.

Get up.

He was overwhelmed and scared. He was only twenty-four years old. In so many ways he was still just a child.

He spent so much of his time suppressing his thoughts and emotions, every time one broke through they all came pouring forth at once.

He was angry and confused and terrified and sad and nauseous and anxious and hopeful all at the same time. All the negative thoughts he held back had broken out of the Chamber Of Thoughts David Would Rather Not Think About as he grappled with his own mortality.

There was just so much life left to experience. So much he felt like he missed out on.

He had never been intimate with a girl, or with anyone at all for that matter. Not that he could remember very far back, but as far back as he could, Uncle Tío was the closest thing he ever had to a parent, and the closest thing he ever had to a friend. Their relationship was complicated, but David felt respected by and trusted in Uncle Tío. Many people revered David at SafeHaven. Girls would happily throw themselves at him if he allowed himself to get close to anyone, Tío frequently assured him.

He just couldn’t open up. He couldn’t be vulnerable. He had come close so many times but would turn rigid and get confusingly angry when touched. A gentle hand touching his chest during an intimate moment would instinctively cause him to grab their wrist and assume a defensive stance. This broke the woman’s wrist, and David refused to allow any of the subsequent women sent to his quarters entry.

That was also why he had no friends. Fear was an integral part of his reverence at SafeHaven. The things he had seen and the things he had done made him different.

He didn’t feel human.

He didn’t deserve to be treated with kindness or to be touched gently or spoken to softly. He was a bullet. His existence was life-ending red-hot shrapnel that withered or burned away everything it came near. He was just some projectile fired by the GrandMaster. A dutiful and efficient puppet simply following the path of the barrel.

The scared twenty-four year old boy underneath David’s mechanical blood soaked façade just wanted a different life. A life like the old people would tell stories of before the apocalypse. A house, a job, a partner, friends.

He knew that thinking like this was just day-dreaming, energy-wasting nonsense, but anything was better than his current situation.

Anywhere was better than here.

Even if he lived through this, so what? He might get to go back to get more supplies at SafeHaven, sleep a few hours, before the GrandMaster would send him off to kill something or someone, or deal with some horde.

It was only a matter of time before David would be on the receiving end of the carnage he helped the GrandMaster inflict. A wake of carcasses followed him everywhere he went, how long before he was included in the body count?

The visions of his past and future were so thoroughly soaked in blood he could taste its metallic flavor with his mind’s eye.

He was by far the worst monster he had ever encountered.

Killing those men outside of the SafeHaven walls was a regular occurrence for him. He figured he just preemptively repressed the memories because they were so horrific.

GET UP.

GET UP!

GET UP!!

His inner voice was screaming at him, but he could feel it growing weaker.

This kind of scared him, so he slowly rose to his feet, wiping the tears and snot from his face with the back of his hand and his sleeve.

He sniffled as he started walking down the hallway to his right hoping to find an entrance to one of the towers at the end. He knew it couldn’t be behind one of the interior facing doors, so he didn’t bother wasting any energy checking them. He had to be efficient with the energy he had left.

No more crying. No more day-dreaming.

At the end of the corridor, where the hallway bent into a ninety degree angle, there was a single door propped open that appeared similar to the door that exit the other stairwell.

David fully opened the cracked door to find ascending and descending stone spiral stairs. This had to be the tower. He needed to get to the top to see what the status was at SafeHaven.

Maybe he would be able to signal them or something.

Maybe he’d get to see his home one last time before he starved to death.

David slowly climbed the stairs, already feeling his exhaustion make it more difficult to perform even the most basic of tasks. His body likely ran out of ketone energy and now was using the proteins from his muscles. He was running on fumes and sheer force of will.

The spiral seemed to ascend forever. David thought he might be losing his mind, until the stairs abruptly ended.

David found himself inside a small stone prayer room, with glass windows facing all four cardinal directions. These windows were thankfully clear, clean, and still intact.

The room was cozy and inviting. Everything was bathed in a gentle glow from the overcast sky through the windows.

There was a small area rug covering most of the stone floor that appeared extremely expensive, and a dark maroon couch against the opposite wall that matched the rug’s color scheme. Paintings of peaceful nature scenes and biblical events were scattered across the walls, and there was also a large wooden cross. The rain gently pattered against the windows and rounded out the peaceful ambience.

David felt safe and considered taking the moment to sit down on that comfortable looking couch and relax… But he knew he wouldn’t get back up if he did.

He approached the window to the north, trying to make out SafeHaven in the distance.

At first all he could see was a dark silhouette in the distance, towering over the rest of the ruins he currently resided in. He knew it had to be SafeHaven. It blended in with the mist and hazy darkness of the storm, but he knew.

Then, there was a small flash. It lit up a small part of the upper section of the silhouette for only a fraction of a second. It vanished as soon as it appeared.

Then there was another.

Then suddenly, hundreds of flashes lit up across the upper sections of SafeHaven. The flashes were short and tight bursts. They almost looked like fireflies dancing in the distance. They were the flashes of gunfire. Bullets were undoubtedly raining down upon the undead pressed against the SafeHaven walls far more heavily than the moderate rainfall outside.

Lightning struck somewhere extremely close to David and the cathedral.

The room lit up brightly and there was an immediate terrifying crack of thunder. David jolted at the sound, which he blamed on his exhaustion.

The thunder rumbled on for a long time. It was a deep bellowing roar that filled the ears and called attention to it and only it.

Eventually, that faded into the chattering of bullets in the distance.

David plopped down on the comfortable maroon couch. Hopefully the noise from SafeHaven would attract all the zombies in the area so he could get out of the cathedral with relative ease. That still didn’t do anything about the Goliath that was blocking the stairwell though. He could probably just take another stairwell down, as long as the Goliath hadn’t broken free, but he still didn’t have anywhere to go.

Once he got out of the cathedral, then what? He was exhausted and defenseless.

His radio was broken and The Ruins outside SafeHaven were massive.

Even if SafeHaven cleared the walls and immediately came out to search for him (which they wouldn’t), and even if they knew he was in the southwest ruins (which they didn’t), they would still have very little chance of rescuing him before he was beyond saving.

If David wanted to live, he would need to take his survival into his own hands.

Which wasn’t any different than normal, he supposed.

David felt the tears well up in his eyes and placed his head in his hands, covering his face.

His started to sob again while he thought about his next course of action.

He cried and cried, tapping into a deep well of emotion that never saw the light of day.

The sobbing slowed down until David’s breathing got regular.

His eyes were shut.

The prayer room was so inviting and felt so safe.

He started to drift out of consciousness.

He tried to fight it, but the ensuing wave of sleep was far too powerful for him to fight. The riptide was dangerous, and it pulled him under.

David felt his thoughts become more abstract and heavy until he was no longer able to move or think at all.

He had fallen into a deep sleep.

He didn’t know when or if he would wake up.

He was just so tired…