The time ran out.

The clock struck zero.

Mathew’s heart beat faster, only to slow down.

Instead of getting excited, his mind turned completely empty, ready to adapt to any and all possible situation from now on.

The time came…

And went away.

The corridor remained as silent as one could imagine.

In the middle of a massive high school, that is.

“Thank God.”

A visible wave of relief washed off Mathew’s entire self.

He plummeted down on the ground, only supporting his upper body with his arms.

“Is that all this… was about?” the officer asked.

The man still kept his hand on his gun’s holster. But he saw Mathew’s reactions.

And they were genuine.

“I guess so,” Mathew replied with an uneasy smile. But as much as he wanted, he couldn’t relax.

Because while the second clock stopped…

The third one hidden in the corner of Mathew’s vision continued to tick.

A wave of uneasiness filled Mathew’s eyes.

He then shook his head.

“So, do you want to cuff me now?” he asked, relaxing a bit.

‘Thank fucking God,’ he thought, all the strength leaving his arms.

“Now that I think about it,” the officer hesitated for a moment. “You did say that you only destroyed a cabinet, didn’t you?”

‘Huh?’ Mat couldn’t understand what the officer was talking about. He understood the words but not the meaning behind the question.

“Yeah, I only did it to confirm if what I saw in my dream adhered to the reality,” Mathew explained before releasing a deep sigh.

The entire situation tired him down to no end.

“I guess… This matter didn’t really explode in the media yet. But, since there was no real harm attempted, I could put in a good word…” the man scratched his cheek, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

He was a veteran officer of the prevention group. Not someone educated to deal with adolescents.

But Mathew didn’t smile. Instead, his face froze.

‘Those sounds…’ he thought, listening in to the lowest frequency that he could hear.

His eyes opened up wide.

‘Now I remember!’ he thought, desperately shifting his attention to the girl beside him.

“Can you hear those low sounds?” he asked, grabbing the girl by her shoulders.

It was a very low, barely noticeable beating. A rhythmic sound that one had to really focus on hearing.

Nadia’s face turned still for a moment before her pupils widened as she looked at Mathew’s face.

“What are those?” she asked, shocked to her wits.

“What are you talking about, guys?” the officer asked, puzzled by the sudden change.

“You won’t be able to hear it,” Mathew rushed up, alerting the man in the process.

“Don’t worry,” Mat added, seeing the nervous reaction of the man. “We don’t have the time for that, but you can grab any young student in the school right now,” Mathew pointed out as his expression sank.

“To do what?” the officer asked, clearly on edge.

“To ask if they hear a low, rhythmic sound beating at the very edge of their consciousness,” Mathew explained before focusing his eyes on the infirmary’s door.

The relative silence of before was now nowhere to be seen.

In the short moment when Mat’s idea occupied their attention, the infirmary turned into a mess.

“What is going on?” the officer started, moving his eyes on the care room’s doors.

“It’s starting,” Mathew replied, his face turning pale. He involuntarily took a step back, only to move his eyes on the girl behind him.

‘No,’ he thought, challenged by the reality.

With every second, Mat could recall a new harbinger of what was about to come.

The air in the school tensed up. The beating in his ears got louder.

It was exactly the same symptoms that he had experienced two weeks prior.

“Stay behind me at all times,” Mathew ordered, shielding the girl with his own body.

‘The first few moments will be the worst,’ he thought, glancing over at the officer.

It would rest on the policeman’s right call for the desperate plan to succeed. And that was a variable Mathew couldn’t allow.

“What’s going on?” Nadia muttered silently, grabbing herself by her head.

Mathew’s heart exploded.

‘For her symptoms to appear so strongly…’

His soul broke apart.

She not only would be forced to witness the apocalypse, but she would also turn into an evolved monster herself!

‘What the fuck did change?!’ Mathew thought, desperate to find a way to change this unfair fate.

‘Wait,’ he suddenly thought, as a wild idea appeared in his mind.

The doors to the infirmary started to shake, indicating the scale of the hell inside.

“What the fuck is going on?!” the officer screamed out, pulling out his gun.

“Mathew turned his head to the man.

“This is the best moment to call for the backup,” he said calmly, looking the officer directly in the eye.

And the man hesitated.

He was a veteran of a police elite squad and a former military as well. And he could recognize the eyes of someone who went through hell and back.

‘How the hell could a kid…’ he thought, only to glance over towards the doors. ‘Something wrong is really going on,’ he thought, tightening his grasp over his handgun.

“Guys, come on in,” the officer muttered.

He didn’t bother turning the radio on. Which meant that his team outside heard every last word.

‘Just like expected,’ Mathew smiled, reassured by the development.

And then, just like that, it happened.

The doors burst open. And then a single student walked out of place.

He was grabbing his own arm, but even his entire hand couldn’t stop the copious amounts of blood that trickled between his fingers.

‘Poor guy,’ Mathew thought, unable to do anything for the man.

‘With how little I know, stepping inside that room was a suicide,’ he thought.

The man that walked out wasn’t turned yet. Which meant he was likely the first casualty of the apocalypse.

‘Poor guy,’ Mathew thought, steeling his resolve. ‘But a lucky one too,’ he added before glancing over at the officer.

“If you want me to grab my weapons, now it’s the time,” Mathew announced. Even though he wanted to appear cheeky, he couldn’t hide the worry on his face.

“There is no need for you to do anything,” the man said when the footsteps reached their ears. He fixed his composure and aimed his gun at the door.

“It will take about ten more seconds before he turns,” Mathew said without a care in the world. “You should watch it to make up your mind,” he added as he turned his eyes to the girl.

“I will save you, don’t worry,” he said, his worry exploding when he saw Nadia’s cloudy eyes.

‘It’s not good,’ Mat bit down on his lips.

‘If I managed to save her the last time by obtaining the miracle system, then what can I do now?’ he asked himself.

This was the hurdle that he didn’t expect.

When he received his miracle system two weeks ago, Mathew wished to reunite with the girl. But, outside of his last wish, this one cost him the most.

And then, just like one would expect from a miracle, Nadia just happened to appear beside him a moment later.

It was this one desperate wish that gave him enough strength to survive. Even if it was for two more weeks.

‘At the current rate, she will turn in about an hour,’ Mathew thought, helping the girl down as she could no longer stand.

“What wrong with her?” the officer asked, turning his eyes away from the door for a moment.

The rest of the police squad appeared in the corridor, all heavily armed.

‘That’s a good sigh,’ Mathew thought, smiling gently at sight. Then, he turned his face towards the doors.

‘It should start about now,’ he thought.

Then the wall crumbled.

Pushed by the force of tens of zombies, the entire section of the wall around the infirmary’s doors collapsed. And a single second later, the corridor filled with agile zombies.

The rarest kind of this species. Within the two weeks that Mat survived before, they only appeared right at the beginning.

Outside of their speed, they were no different from normal zombies. And in the time he spent hiding with Nadia away in their makeshift fortress, Mathew formulated a guess.

Mat smiled as he walked towards his weapons.

“Remember, guys,” he shouted over, noticing the shock in the eyes of the arriving men.

They heard every last word of his through the officer’s active radio. So to a degree, they knew what was likely to be the emergency here.

But anticipating something and experiencing it first hand…

“The more you get, the stronger your system should be,” Mat said, hiding his gun in his pocket and pulling out the fire ax. “And if we contain them here, we might be able to secure the entire school!”

“What is this guy talking about?” one of the policemen muttered before moving their eyes on the mass of approaching zombies.

They were agile… but within the zombie meaning of this word.

The officers still had some time to decide on the course of action.

“Stop right there!” the man that I requested before suddenly shouted, pointing his gun at the zombies.

Obviously, not a single one listened. Instead, his voice only attracted their attention, making the entire wave rush right at the man.

“Ting!”

Mathew stood too close to the gun. His hearing in his left ear went off instantly.

“Shoot them down,” the officer said, commanding his entire unit.

Mathew looked towards the zombies, preparing himself for the massacre.

And then he saw just what made that officer shoot so fast.

The nurse’s corpse walked towards them with half of her ribs area gone.

The officer has seen war. And he knew that people without half of their torse couldn’t walk up straight.

It was this one sight that made him shoot.

“Leave some for me!” Mathew shouted, rushing into the fray before the rest of the officers could start shooting.

This was the only way to save Nadia from turning.

‘If I could save her back then, that means she likely won’t turn before the first hour,’ Mathew thought, swinging his ax above his neck as he rushed forward. ‘That means I need a system capable of saving her!’ he thought.

He never learned any facts about what the systems were. It was something that just… appeared. The idea that those who killed zombies in the first hour would receive a system was… a stretch.

A simple attempt at explaining the unknown by mixing the stories up and finding common points.

There was a chance it was all for naught already, completely pointless.

‘But I’m not going to give up,’ Mathew thought, reaching the corpse of the nurse.

It used to be a lovely and kind woman, although legendary for her singlehood.

And now, even with a bullet in where her heart should be, she continued to walk towards the humans.

The key to fighting zombies lay in, stopping them from reaching you. As long as a human could remain in their top shape, they could easily fight off entire droves of zombies.

Mathew cut the zombie’s head away but didn’t bother to stomp it down.

Unable to move around, the zombie was now rendered completely useless.

But it was only the beginning.

Matt looked up towards the wave of former students sleazing out of the hole and rushing all towards him.

“Once we thin them out, make sure to take some down in close quarters!” Mathew shouted, raising his weapon above his head. “It’s only a guess, but it might help!”