“What the hell is going on?” Mai asks in a harsh whisper as the others begin to crowd in a panic.
I tilt my head to look at my friends, my eyes red and moist from unshed tears and my voice horse from continuous vomiting. “Intense training montage turned into a funeral but I don't think they liked it very much.”
“Jacob!” Ella hisses, the moaning from outside getting closer.
“Ah right, exhausted myself trying to figure out my abilities. Wanted to say goodbye to my parents. The event started and turned them into undead so I put them down. I believe the fight drew the rest of the neighbours' corpses.” I say, listing off the events of the last hour and a half.
Ella and Sam scowl as Mai snorts “You suck at keeping watch.” She whispers
“No argument there,” I say while taking Noah's offed hand which pulls me up to my shaky feet. I give a nod of thanks and lean against the wall.
“Ah, guys they are still out there,” Ava says in a hushed fearful voice. Looking out the window we could see that she was right. 11 feral undead prowled around the driveway looking around for their prey. Our only saving grace is their simple intelligence as they look around in confusion wondering where I went.
‘They are dumb as fuck, noted.’
“We should get away from the door.” Whispers Sam before he glances at my shaking legs. “And you need to sit down.”
‘Fuck I’m getting benched.’ Making use of my enhanced respiratory and digestion system I start to continuously inhale and consume air to recover my stamina at a previously impossible rate. I feel my lungs bulge and my stomach bloat to the point of bursting before the air is rapidly processed. My veins, arteries and muscles flood with energy causing my pale skin to become flushed red and radiate heat. While I couldn't keep the pace up for long and It did nothing for the power exhaustion or torn muscle fibres it made me feel less useless.
Being able to stand up by myself I ask Ella to heal me as we make our way to the living room. Sitting on the living room sofa Ella’s cold hand touches the bare skin of my face sending a wave of comfort to my abused stomach and muscles. It didn't fix the problem entirely but definitely helped.
“Why are you so warm?” Ella asks with her hand still on my face. “Were you bitten?” She backs away suddenly as I try to piece together her sudden reaction.
“Right, the undead,” I mutter. “No, I’m not bitten, I’m increasing my oxygen levels so I don't move around like an 80-year-old man. Although they are properly moving around pretty well right now.” I Make a vague gesture to the light thumping at the door.
“Are you sure?” Ava asks to try and clarify that I wasn't going to turn into a mindless monster and attack everyone. I look around and see concern and fear etched onto their faces.
I sigh and roll my eyes as I stand up with my arms spread out and spin slowly “You can strip search me after we deal with those fuckers outside.” I say trying to reign in my annoyance.
Sam scowls “Why are you so insistent on killing everything and hiding from everyone.” Sam asks in a hushed voice before continuing on. “These are people not characters in a film, not everything is evil and out to get you Jacob, you were the one out there making noise if we leave them alone maybe they will leave and we won't have to go around trying to kill everything.”
I abruptly stop turning and stare at Sam. ‘Calm Jacob, Calm, it's been a stressful few days for everyone.’
“I know I fucked up keeping watch and we are all stressed, I am truly sorry about that but If you think I was out there brutalising my recently deceased parent's corpses because I think I’m in a fucking film then you a surly mistaken.” I hiss at him trying to remain calm.
“Jacob didn’t know the event would happen, Sam,” Noah whispers from the side. I cast him a thankful look and turn back to Sam.
“Alright guys calm down,” Mai says in a hushed tone.
I take a deep breath to centre myself.
Sam sighs “I’m sorry I didn't mean it like that but it doesn't mean we should risk ourselves just so we can kill them. We can stay here and leave them alone and maybe someday we can help them.”
“Sam,” I rub my hands over my face trying to untangle my thoughts. “While I respect your optimism they are dead bags of flesh turned into bloodthirsty animals. While I am not a doctor and definitely don't understand godly magic, those corpses did not have a pulse for at least 12 hours, then got up and tried to kill me. There was a message from a literal God saying, and I quote, “that they would drag the living into their eternal torment to share their fate”. The same God mind you that set everyone's nerve endings aflame just because he could, I can't see him bluffing.”
Silence filled the room as Sam and I stared at each other. “Jacob has a point, Sam,” Ella adds. “The first thing we saw after the wheel was a man ripping his friends apart and drinking their blood. Logon loved those guys and the wheels did something to him that seriously messed him up. It said the dead would evolve and keeping them out there or even around us is a risk.”
Sam breaks eye contact and stares at the floor deep in thought. “I don't want to go around fighting either but I think dealing with them is the best course of action.” Says Noah in a low unsure voice.
“I don't want to kill anything,” Ava says in a worried voice causing Mai to nod along in agreement.
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Sam POV
I watch Jacobs' usually calm face morph into a visage of increasing annoyance and while I understand where he is coming from I just can't go around killing people. Jeremy said the wheels would come soon and maybe they would change the people back and I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I ended up killing them. Just because he has lost hope doesn't mean he needs to drag the rest of us down with him, instead, we should raise him up.
Looking around the room I see the torn expressions of everyone in the room before looking back to Jacob who now looked to have calmed down with his bored expression masking his thoughts.
“We are so going to die,” He snorts before sitting down and asking Ella to continue to heal him.
“We aren't going to die” I argue back, starting to get fed up with his attitude again. “We are in here and they are out there, They can't get to us Jacob, we are safe.” I try to reason with him as he starts to rapidly tab his finger against the arm of the chair.
Jacob lets out a long sigh and relaxes into the soft cushions of the chair. “If we talk normally they will break through the glass in under a minute and we will be forced to fight regardless. If we were to stay in here and be quiet they might not come in but we can't go outside. We become reactive instead of proactive and when those wheels start to spin again we will be utterly fucked.” He says in a calm voice like he isn't talking about us all dying.
“We could leave them away somewhere” I say looking around for support.
“We would have to navigate streets filled with undead to lead them away.” Says Noah as he peaks out of the window “And we would just make a ticking time bomb until they are evolved enough to break out of wherever we put them.” He continues to mutter.
We continue to argue back and forth for the better part of an hour. Jacob and Noah wanted to “deal” with the infected While Ava, Mai and myself wanted to lead them away somewhere. Ella on the other hand was on the fence.
Jacob was adamant that they would try and kill us no matter how much I tried to convince him. Mia reasoned that he was trying to understand what happened with his parents but that only seemed to piss him off again.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Eventually, Noah and Jacob left to break into the neighbour's house and drop shock puts onto the infecteds heads from the windows of the top floor. They left one alive which Jacob managed to melt into the ground which led us to stand out in the bloody driveway looking at an infected person covered in brain matter and blood trying its hardest to rip its foot out of the hard tarmac. It snarled and snapped like an enraged beast, trying to rip into our flesh, its slow movements doing nothing to hide the sheer hatred and hunger.
I gulp as I turn to Ella. “Can you heal it?” I ask hopefully. She looked at me like I was an idiot before sending a glance at Jacob. Seemingly understanding her request without any verbal confirmation he grabs one of its outstretched arms and uses his whole body weight to force it to the floor and onto the ground, encasing it in tarmac as Noah knocks it over the head with the flat side of his Javelin.
I cringe as they further harm the body but decide not to voice my opinions. Ella kneels next to the body as Jacob pins its head to the floor with his steel-capped boot. It snarls and spasms on the floor as Ella does her best to inspect and heal it with her powers. We all stand in silence as she tries to heal Jacobs' neighbour. I had high hopes at first until Ella suddenly jumped away from the body and violently vomited on the driveway, adding to the vile mix of grey matter and blood.
“Oh god, oh god it's wrong, so wrong…” She manages to get out before vomiting again. Ava goes over to hug her shaking form as the rest of us watch in trepidation. “What's wrong, can you heal them?” I ask her hoping to get an answer before more of the sick show up.
“There's nothing to heal, just pain and a cancerous decay feasting off dead flesh.” She stammers out just before a siking wet crunch sounds off behind me. My head snaps in its direction to see Jacob pulling a chisel out of the body's skull and wiping the blood on its clothes. Before I could voice my complaints 5 more of the bodies shamble down the street towards us, no doubt drawn in by the commotion we had made.
Without wasting time Jacob and Noah ready their weapons and head off to meet them, Noah climbed onto a car and ready his javelin while Jacon circled around the small group with a machete in his hand.
“Wait…” I try to call out but the fight had already begun.
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Noah POV
Several days have passed since the dead have risen and while it was a struggle at first we managed to clear out and secure the surrounding area with barricades in strategic locations. Jacob drew up plans and maps of the local area with locations for barricades, kill zones and escape routes within the cul de sac. He also produced a schedule based around training, looting and securing the area, allowing us to efficiently manage our time. Since I have been training for athletics and karate since I was eight years old I created the bulk of the physical training regimen with bits and pieces of different martial arts and yoga being added by others. The hour-long morning and evening sessions are helping everyone get into shape and learn how to defend themselves through hand-to-hand combat.
These sessions along with our new adaptive bodies and Ella's healing have allowed us to rapidly progress. Although watching Jacob insist on doing everything in multiple layers of jumpers, a mask and a backpack full of wights was painful to watch. Especially as he kept passing out and vomiting, but I guess his new almost unlimited stamina and newfound focus allowed him to keep going.
He has changed since the wheels and especially so since the dead rose up. Jacob was never really the sharpest tool in the shed, often outspoken and slightly strange in more ways than one but he was always dependable and had a cold calculative aspect that would occasionally overrule his seemingly childish personality.
Now that the world has rapidly changed he has changed with it. His rapid adaptivity and slightly unhinged nature may have left the rest of us slightly flatfooted but it has carved us out a small safe haven for us to prepare for the upcoming trails. And I will be damned if I will be left behind, I’m not an idiot, I know he took us to his house so we wouldn't have to deal with our own family's corpses. Although he did mess up on the night watch he went straight back out there to deal with the issue he made with me there right beside him.
‘Although maybe I’m giving him too much credit.’ I think while watching Jacob run away from Ella with a sharp knife in his hands yelling about making his skin cut resistant while Ella is trying to confiscate sharp objects and saying he needs more than two hours of sleep.
While we have all been trying to improve our adaptive bodies Jacob continues to take it to the extreme every chance he gets, causing Ella much annoyance as she needs to almost continually heal his self-inflicted injuries.
They continue to run through the recently mutated grass that evolved in a set event that caused the rapid mutating of plant life, making them grow faster and stronger. This along with the newly mutated animals has made the local nature reserve increasingly more dangerous and profitable with a source of fresh wood, vegetables and meat. But that was a project for the future, it was a 5-minute walk into undead territory and we still need to train our powers to deal with the rabid packs of pets that have escaped and now call the woods their home.
Luckily we were able to find some pets for Mai to add to her hive mind before they mutated and became too strong for her to control. At the moment she has a white albino rabbit called Twitch and a yellow-headed grey budgie called Sunshine. We did find more but Mai couldn't handle the mental strain of adding anything else to her “unity” as she likes to call it.
Sunshine has allowed us to survey the area at a rapid pace while checking on the walls made from melted cars and furniture that Jacob has made in an effort to train his powers and add a layer of defence. Twitch on the other hand has removed the need for a night watch as her enhanced hearing alerts us to anything approaching the area. But that doesn't stop us from trying to condition ourselves to need less sleep.
Ella got most of her power training by healing Jacob but also helped repair our bodies after working out, allowing us to grow stronger and faster at a rapid rate. Ava continues to practise her water manipulation and production by making sure we had a large reserve of water for drinking and cleaning.
While Sam was still against the idea of killing anything he still trained his powers by scouting and trying to change others' senses. He could do it given enough time, producing a weird feeling of energy entering your body and slowly altering one of your senses. With this revelation, we each took turns being his guinea pig to help him develop his powers and to learn how to fight off internal invasive energies.
As for me? I just ended up beating myself with hammers and knives until my crystal skin got stronger. It was painful and went against every instinct I have but the results were noticeable and my fear of pain lessened considerably.
Once we all finished our power training for the night we went back to Jacobs dining room for dinner where we discussed the latest set event announcement that happened earlier this evening. “So we have a 10-week tutorial?” asks Ava in hopes to clarify the oddity of this set event.
“Looks like it, considering how much we’ve gotten done over this week, the tutorial should allow us to kick ass!” Mai says after swallowing a spoon full of curry. She, like the rest of us, was sitting around the dining room table eating fresh produce that was stored in our inventories allowing them to be edible despite their due dates.
“Yeah, we've already set up a house in case it's super cold and tents for any increase in temperature,” Sam says referring to the house where we have lined the walls with mattresses to keep heat in. The insulation also doubles as a sound muffler in case we can't make any noise for whatever reason. There is also a room where the mattresses are wrapped in tin foil and there is a wood burner that has a chimney going through a melted part of the room to remove smoke in case it gets really cold.
Another precaution we could easily manage in such little time was to make a crude raft in the driveway made from large black bins with their lids melted slightly to produce an airtight seal. There are even small melted holes in various doorways that allow access to certain houses and locations in case we were shrunken down somehow.
The others are quick to validate and praise our work over the past week and while it has been incredibly impressive I still can't help but feel nervous. It's hard not to, in less than 12 hours the first random event will plunge us into unknown danger. Looking around I can tell they feel the same fear of the unknown that I do but don't want to ruin the atmosphere and morale. They have tells, Ava asking questions she already knows the answer to, Sam not being able to stop rubbing the back of his head, Mia biting her nails, Ella glazing at everyone with her blue eyes darting around and Jacob, has a wide grin is fixed on his face, his eyes filled with nervous anticipation and excitement, his fingers dart around his own hands and his legs bounce to a rhythm only he can hear as he tries to burn off his rapidly increasing stamina and distract his hyperactive mind.
Noticing my staring he tilts his head in my direction not dissimilar to a confused dog before winking at me with a wide grin on his face. I roll my eyes and return the conversation. After we finish our respective dishes and tidy up we get ready for an early bed so we can be ready for whatever tomorrow throws at us. Going up to the spare room I undress and get into bed, almost instantly falling asleep form the day's exhaustion.
Floating comfortably in the inky blackness of sleep I'm suddenly torn away from the sweet embrace of sleep and forced to look upon the dreaded wheel alert that abruptly fills my vision and ears.
[Congratulations on surviving for this long! I, Jeremy, am very proud of you! But now isn't the time for pleasantries, now is the time that we have all been waiting for! The spinning of the event wheel! So without further ado let the fun begin and let the wheels spin!]
That's the last thing I see before my vision is replaced by a sickening swirl of colour that will determine whether or not I will survive the coming week.
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Captain Alexander POV
The last few days have been a fucking nightmare. While I may have gotten an ability to manipulate the weather it barely does anything and the world has gone to shit. Most of the higher-ups died as soon as the first announcement happened, taking most of the chain of command with them, leaving us to scrounge up the pieces to try and make a semi-competent force. Which is hard enough to do without the undead and rioting let alone with the rioters having new chaotic powers.
In an attempt to try and regain order, the Lieutenant Colonel ordered the establishment of safe zones to keep the people from rioting or adding to the number of undead. While a decent idea on paper the new randomised power allows for crime to run unchecked as we can't prove which one of these little shit stains tore apart the wall into the food storage or find said food as everyone has a personalised inventory. While we have other food stores as well as, food and water being stored in a few trusted individuals inventories will still lose a large percentage of our recently gathered supplies.
Causing the last few days of food gathering to go to waste and for everyone else in the newly established safe zone in an old university campus to lose weeks of food. This will cause more rioting which will get the attention of more undead which will cause more death and fear which will cause more rioting.
It could be the start of an endless circle if we didn't handle it carefully. Sadly the people here didn't much care for the military making relations strained. ‘Yet they still demand our protection and help’ I sigh as I look over the map looking for a place that would have enough food for the residents of the university. The emergency lights powered by the diesel generator we brought with us were just enough to see the notes scribbled down on the map. A wood rapidly growing into a dangerous ever-expanding forest filling up with mutated plants and animals laid towards the northeast. While we could go hunting and gathering I don't think there would be enough to feed the 1000+ plus people of the university.
It wouldn't be worth the risk. Especially with the mutated humans to the north, a name that was given to those that changed into something else from one of those blasted wheels. We've only spotted a few of them but past encounters and reports from the Major told us they were hostile and extremely dangerous. They appear to lack empathy for their fellow humans, multiple enhanced factors and/or abilities, plus the undead don't attack them unless provoked.
The northern mutated humans have been seen herding the undead into a large horde around what appears to be a secondary school and large superstore. We've witnessed a female of unknown age with wings for arms carry off survivors towards their base never to be seen again. There have also been reports of a 2.5M male with a singular large eye lifting cars and taking them back to do who knows what. Although we suspect they are making barricades and stockpiling fuel.
‘So the noth is out of the question for now and the West is open fields with nothing of note.’ I look at my watch to see that it's 4am on the day of the first event wheel spin is meant to happen. ‘Can't take away resources from the city's safe zone so the south is out of the question. Which leaves the east. Fewer fields with a few hotels and hospitals. That should give us enough of a surplus until the crops…’
[Congratulations on surviving for this long! I, Jeremy, am very proud of you! But now isn't the time for pleasantries, now is the time that we have all been waiting for! The spinning of the event wheel! So without further ado let the fun begin and let the wheels spin!]
“Fuck.”