The arrival of the prompt couldn’t have come at a worse moment for Zain. He was still in the middle of deciding what to do, and it seemed like the system was trying to steer him in a certain direction.

‘Damned system, so you want to push me in a certain direction, don’t you? The first human’s I see, and this is your suggestion!?’

Zain had taken a step back but still had the kitchen knife pierced through his heart. It had gone pretty deep from one side to the other.

‘Only someone like Buke would have been able to push a knife through someone this easily, but at least I can tell from his face that he did this because of fear.’

Reaching into a bandage that Zain had brought with him, he started to wrap the wound around his chest a few times, and it looked like he was struggling.

“The bandages were to make it harder for those guys to bite me,” Zain smiled while he left the knife and continued to wrap around the area. “Let me tell you one thing, it’s a good thing that you don’t study well because you completely missed my heart.”

Zain smiled because it was a lie. Buke had done well. The only thing was that Zain’s heart was no longer working anymore. Looking at the kitchen countertop next to him, Zain pulled out another knife.

It was then that Buke snatched the frying pan out of Skittle’s hand and shouted, “You going to kill us, you damned Zombie!”_.

Holding the knife, Zain whacked the pointed bit of the blade in his body with the handle of the knife, breaking it clean off. Then continued to wrap the rest of his body.

“It’s best to keep the blade in. Otherwise, I might bleed to death, but damn, it hurts.” Zain lied again.

“What is wrong with you?” Skittle said, pushing past Buke. “Look, he’s talking fine and acting normal, so he’s clearly not one of them.”

Buke had to admit that from how Zain was acting, he didn’t seem like the others.

“But, he still could have been bit. Maybe he’s turning slowly like in those movies and just hiding it? He could put us both in danger!”

“Right now, I’m more scared of you. I can see how you would have stabbed anyone who walked through that door, never mind it being Zain. We have to get him to a hospital.”

[System message]

[You have received a deep wound]

[Would you like to use your energy to heal the wound?]

Although the system stated this, Zain felt no different from how he was before Buke stabbed him. He could still do the same things, and it didn’t appear the system had an HP bar either, but that was probably because he was already dead.

‘For now, there’s no point wasting my energy, and it seems like with Skittle believing I’m a human, Buke will come around in a second. As more time passes, they should believe me, but I have no idea what this even is. A virus or what and how long it takes to turn people.’

[You have selected ‘No’]

[The User may use his energy at any time to heal the wound]

[Warning, if more wounds are inflicted on the User’s body, and you choose not to heal them, the body will deteriorate quickly.]

‘I should have known that it would work like that. It could not have just been all upsides.’

[Body state: 97 percent]

“Let’s not go to the hospital. Depending on what happened, I guess the hospital might be the most overrun place, and besides, I’ll be fine as long as we get to a small shop or something. I just need a few supplies, and I can deal with this myself.”

Finally admitting he might be wrong, Buke clenched his fist and walked forward.

“I’m sorry, Zain, I… didn’t know. I just saw you from behind, and with the bandages—“

“It’s okay, Buke. I would have done the same, and I’m just happy to see that you were protecting Skittle.” Zain interrupted. He couldn’t really be angry at Buke because the latter’s instincts were spot on.

“Can you guys explain to me what happened? I passed out in my room and then woke up to all this.” Zain said.

“We don’t know much about them ourselves,” Buke explained. “On the way back from classes, we were coming to the dormitory, and suddenly we heard screams from behind us. That’s when we saw a group of ‘them’ running after the other students, jumping on them and biting their bodies, especially the necks.

“Skittle said that they looked like the videos he had seen and started to call them Zombies. We didn’t waste any time and ran into the dorms, but it looked like they had already somewhat gotten inside.

“They were behind, and in front of us, we were surrounded, so we had no choice but to enter and lock ourselves in.”

“I tried to gather information, and reports were coming in that attacks were popping up all over the place. Small ones.” Skittle explained. “We stayed inside, thinking that maybe the army would come or something, but then the strike came.

“Small rocks, not too big but looked covered in flames, came from the sky and struck the city. They destroyed buildings and created shockwaves when they crashed.

“After that, the internet, phone signals, and electronic devices seemed to no longer be working the way they usually would have. It felt like…it was the end of the world.”

In truth, Zain would have liked to get a little more information than he had done. Especially, more details about the zombies, their speed-strength, were they like him but just crazy. Anyway, there was one thing in the story that stood out.

‘The meteor strike came after the zombie attack, not at the same time. Does that mean the two events are unrelated? Can two world-changing events happen on the same day? The zombie attacks, if real on the dark web, have also been reported for weeks.

‘Just what is going on, and why is this system encouraging me to make more zombies? It doesn’t make any sense.’

Just then, turning his head slightly, Zain could hear something down the hallway. One step after another, it sounded like someone was running, but the most crucial thing was Zain could hear distant growls.

“Get ready,” He said to the other two, lifting his wooden stake.

*****

Please remember to vote with your stones for the WSA 2022. Thank you.