> Zomtopia:
Chapter 1: Where It All Began
November 11, 2851 AD
Zombie-occupied Seattle (Referred to as reliving Seattle by its people)
Interview of Rosie Edmunds, age 154
College Professor
Zombie
Our first story began in the west half of Seattle after a war between the humans and zombies of the settlement took off. This caused them to erect a caged wall with barbed wire between them, each side still fighting for control as bad blood raged through both sides for longer than either person on the side was sentient enough to remember.
There was military on both sides of the wall; one had a uniform with the initials of ‘New Living Seattle Army’ plastered on a black bulletproof vest underneath it. The other side had a green combat-based armor that appeared to be a part of their bodies more than worn pieces of shields, reading ‘Human Liberated Seattle Army.’ The two looked at each other with immense tension as if a ceasefire was the only thing keeping them from spilling blood. They had their weapons to take each other out on standby and could go off within a fraction of a second upon command. The atmosphere was heavy with unease across the divided and barricaded Seattle . Tensions like these had been rampant for three centuries now as the constant battle for control of the city reached a ceasefire to avoid more bloodshed. Nonetheless, uncertainties would always arise due to their natural tendencies.
But, the near-war happening in the divided metropolis of Seattle is not where this story began. Instead, we cut to a normal person not involved in the conflict, the first of many whose accounts and stories will be covered in this book. These were the accounts of not the world but the common man and woman, living and ‘Living.’ We moved on to a newly reconstructed Seattle University, a place of higher learning even before the zombie creation event. We focused on a woman being recorded in one of its rooms. The camera was small and attached to a helmet worn by the zombie cameraman, who recalibrated and adjusted it on a screen that was placed on a glove that he wore.
The woman wore a blue skirt with neon-glowing lights of different colors sewn into it and a turtleneck sweater with strange trendy symbols made from LED lights. This clothing was something that would have seemed futuristic in the 2020s when the virus first started. Yet now, this style of stitch felt like it was a decade or two behind in fashion. This woman was older in age, even by zombie standards, since even though they were immortal, the concept of aging was still not lost on them. Looks wise, if she was alive, she would be comparable to a high-class woman in her late 30s to early 40s; of course, being in her 120s was close enough in comparison to a human.
Her skin showed signs of clear decay, some parts of which were masked by makeup, and others were highlighted further with makeup. The cheeks still had blush on them to make her seem alive, but the eyeshadow and mascara were only just a reflection of just how dead and lifeless her eyes were: motionless and white in color. It was clear that the woman was what many humans today and way before the wartimes called a zombie. Unlike the typical zombie caricatures of the early 21st century, however, she didn’t shamble around; she wasn’t covered in blood and guts either. This woman was sentient and incredibly intelligent as well; she composed herself as somebody belonging to a higher class and standing. She had the walk and tone of a scholar and a teacher. It was obvious, given how she looked and conducted herself, as she was a professor.
She sat in a university in Seattle, one that had been around since before the 21st century, but its name was lost to time because of the war. As she lit a cigarette and smoked it, she tied up her straw-textured blonde hair . It was natural human hair, but it dried out as if any virility had been drained from it . The smoking did nothing for her already dead lungs as she mostly inhaled it for the sake of the flavor on her half-dead tongue. Her foot tapped impatiently on the floor, and she let out a slow, gravelly voice, saying, “.“Can we please speed this interview along?”
She impatiently checked the screen implanted in her hand. “It's late, and my husband is waiting at home with our two-year-old daughter.”
The 20-year-old behind the camera looked towards her. He had next to no decay on his skin, but his eyes were blank white. While younger zombies had less decayed skin, this one seemed to have used cyber ware to make it look more alive.
“Right… sorry, Professor Edmunds, I’ll speed it along,” he said in a more human-like voice. However, it was something that sounded like it came from a filter/speaker in his throat more than anything, as if his voice was the result of cybernetic implants. “It’s good to have you back after your maternity leave. Everyone missed you. It was a hard three months with the substitute who took your place. ”
The entire room was full of an entire production team made out of the five undead who worked behind the scenes. One young girl in her late teens was recalibrating the lights in her room through a similar glove on her hands. Her hair was not straw-like but more real-looking as cybernetic implants for hair were plugged into her scalp.
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“Lights are ready to go,” she said in a high-pitched voice, which was the result of her having a voice filter in her throat, too. One that served to make her sound cuter and higher in pitch. These voice filters were used by the zombie youth in Seattle as part of the latest fashion that would make them sound either more human-like or would just serve to change their voice like the girl did to make herself sound cuter. It was seen the same way as older people viewed younger people's fashion in the 21st century (pre-virus). It was a fashion that was popular with youngsters but really something that the older people approved of.
With that, drones that flew around the room and contained lights went on with a flash. T he interview began; a man with fully rotted-away skin in a formal suit sat in front of her. He was in his late 50s and, as such, he didn’t look as dead and decayed as her. In fact, he looked more like a human man in his early twenties. His hair was white and very artificial-looking, revealing that it, too, was a cybernetic implant. His whole look, along with the suit and the cybernetic hair implants, was meant to make him seem like an old-time TV host. The man tapped his throat to start a speaker in his throat, have his voice boom out, and sound a little smoother so that it could fit better for a recording.
“So Professor Edmunds, thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for our segment on remedial re-living history,” the interviewer announced as he took a seat in a leather lounge chair in front of her. There was an air of excitement in his voice. “This interview is going to be on the university's website on the Seattle System connectivity network so the people of Re-Living Seattle can see all over their devices.”
“Happy to be here, Toby. It’s not every day that you can show off a PHD in Re-living anthropology, now is it,” the woman joked as she sat down on a chair right in front of him and put on a friendlier, more stage-like tone of voice for the interview. “I mean, besides teaching classes, of course.”
“So, here we have the professor about to explain the history of all reliving kinds,” Toby said, pointing toward her. I feel like that’s going to be a lot to point out. How’d we get from being a virus to being a split-off colony in Seattle?”
“Well, we can't just start at the Seattle settlement,” she pointed out. “No, no, we need to go back to the 2020s, back when there wasn’t a moon colony and when cars stayed on the ground. Way before we made technological advancements that seemed like pure science fiction.”
“Way before the first re-living, right?” Toby asked. “I thought the source of the virus was lost to time, so how would you tell us this?”
“Right, back when re-living were feral, un-evolved roaming creatures. Before the different settlements and the husker colony on the moon,” she clarified. “While some say the virus that caused us to evolve came from a fungus, others say it was man-made and was a failed experiment to give humans super immunity to disease. It did work, though. W e can’t get sick after all since the virus was made to work as our own immune system that lets us avoid any disease . But there was one small problem they had with it..”
“And that problem was?” Toby probed further, wanting to get a clearer picture for the interview of this documentary.
“It sort of killed the original host,” she replied. “But not really, since it was less killing the original host and more making a new entity- one that had the memories of its original host and was more a new being that was the virus and the person combined. It’s not that the person dies; it’s just that they become something completely new.”
“I assume that’s why we can’t equip cybernetics hooked up to our nervous systems like non-reliving humans can. Since while the virus keeps our brain alive, the nervous system has rotted away,” Toby pointed out. “Please elaborate on this for our viewers.”
“So, there are, of course, two different kinds of reliving,” she clarified. “One type that was born via artificial cloning of dead skin cells, such as you. The other one was human until they got bitten, such as me. I still remember being a woman on the living side of Seattle; I technically am that woman, but I’m also somebody new.”
“And how does the process of all that work?” Toby segwayed further for the interview.
“Re-living saliva has incredible healing properties due to the virus we are made from,” she answered. With this virus, we can heal incredibly fast, and any human we bite heals, too, as the virus begins to take over. Take away a chunk of flesh? They still live after being turned.”
“Who knew one stray virus gave us what we needed?” Toby shouted, feigning amazement. “Not only does it make us heal fast, but it gives us constant access to the adrenaline hormone.”
“And from that virus, we were given the building blocks of our foundation. One bite of a human's body, and they could evolve like us, with our saliva healing them instantly. After a few wars, a few humans got carried away and were fully eaten. Eventually, we established our colonies and evolved. Math, science, and history became known to us. That brings me to the centuries of being mindless and evolving to gain technology and reach where we are.”
“I'm sorry to cut your lecture short, but I've received grim news: the re-living Colony in Stockholm has had a series of terrorist attacks,” a man from outside the two fields of vision interrupted, cutting the broadcast.
“Cyber attacks or physical attacks?” the professor asked about receiving the news in Berlin, as the way information traveled in this new world would probably have been days after the attack. "One can be recovered from the cyberattacks; however, they are gonna screw over the re-living net-prowlers of Stockholm."
The air was heavy with anticipation since Stockholm was one of the biggest zombie colonies, one where human consumption was still very much legal. The attacks on Stockholm coming from what many believed to be a group of human rebels that lived there meant Seattle could be next.
“Both,” the man behind the camera responded as he appeared to be looking up information on what happened and its direct specifics. “Turns out it was both gunmen and hacker-based attacks by a bunch of human web prowlers.”
What he showed next was a diary given by a person who was a Gunner in one of the attacks. The diary was apparently written as a dying account of a young 20s human rebel by the name of Hansel Armerhouser.
“Read it out,” the professor commanded.