“You have 19 more tries before you die. I have more lives, so you need to follow my lead.”
“Wow, now you are treating me as a peasant again.”
“This time, it works.”
The two ran down the stairs, taking a step in the pace of a heartbeat. They quickly reached the bottom, and without pause, they went past the scattered furniture, entering the dark tunnel once more.
Just a few seconds after, light ceased to reach the depths, casting their body in darkness. With everything they had, they kept running until they reached a wall, opening the door to another room.
“Wait!” Harley grabbed Tas’s shoulder. “There might be something here.”
“...” He looked around, confused.
“You didn’t find anything up, right? If the building’s going to fall, our goal isn’t to go up, but to get outside.”
The two looked around, the room was completely barren; nothing useful could be seen anywhere. The ground was littered with waste, pieces of furniture broken into pieces, and even after some digging, there was nothing evident.
“There’s nothing here,” Tas complained.
“Then that only means one thing: we have to get out where we spawned in.”
“Then what the fuck is the point of this secret basement that leads to the top of the building?” His eyes glowed, teeth gritted, saliva brewed inside his mouth, and he growled afterwards.
“Relax, obviously it was just a waste of time. This is a test of time, right? I have 19 more lives, or whatever, it really confuses me to say 19 when if I die 18 more times, the 19th is my death.”
“...?”
“Ah, whatever, just hear me out… we have to fight the horde of zombies. Our daggers are kept on us, we are in the same condition as we arrived; we can’t escape here. It is live or die. Fuck, it might not even a test of time, but really just fucking survival.”
“Then what the fuck do you suggest, we’re just gonna run back again? We just wasted energy.”
“If we’re gonna waste energy anyway…” Harley smirked, turning to the front with his eyes sliding to the side at Tas. In the glimpse of a second, a blade struck his chest, piercing through to the back, blood spraying from both sides. He fell, caught himself in a kneeling position, then twisted his body, lying face up, smiling.
“Oh fucking hell, I have infinite lives, not you.”
***
The two were once again back in the same brick wall room. After giving up on the route at the basement, they immediately jumped outside the window, rolling on the ground and hitting the heels of the zombies.
“Grrr…”
From a single growl came a barrage of unpleasant demonic chants. Just from what the two could see, they were surrounded by 50 zombies, all spread out by a meter or two, wandering the streets for food.
In the span of a single second, from jumping, rolling, and kneeling on the ground, Harley swung on the knees of the zombie, making it fall to the ground. Once the explosive sound rang through the city, the two rushed in front, in looks for anything valuable.
“To the right.” Said Tas.
“How do you know?”
“Think about it… I’m immortal, but that just makes lives more precious to me.”
Harley immediately understood, smacking both sides of his temple with the hilt of his daggers. “I’m surprised you even lasted that long.”
“As long as you get bit once, you’ll only be reset when you’ve fully turned into a zombie. When half of your body has turned, they begin to ignore you. Though I didn’t really attack anyone, so I don’t know if they completely ignored you.”
“So key point?” Harley laughed.
“Don't waste your fucking life.”
Harley stood on the left, while Tas was on the right. The two protected each other from their side, cutting their work in half. Soon, they were able to reach the closest building.
Behind a couple of zombies was a supermarket. Its roof had multiple parts of it chipped, broken down, and sections completely blown off in a spherical shape. All the windows were broken, and multiple racks were placed, preventing any entrance. The glass door in front was completely destroyed, now just being an empty square with glass mats.
“That shit is completely open! What the fuck Tas.”
“Stop being judgmental, we can push some racks quickly to cover it up. Some zombies do exist inside, but not gonna be much of a problem. The lights are gone, but we can't really do anything about it. I wasn’t able to check the food before I completely turned into a zombie, but it is a supermarket, it’s the best place we can look.”
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After clearing the zombies up, they passed through the entrance, glass chiming beneath them. To their respective sides, both dragged racks with their full strength. While Harley was barely pulling the racks, moving an inch every second, something rang on his mind. My strength… is no longer human.
[Name: Harley]
[Title: Outside The Box Thinker]
[Level: 1]
[Unique Trait: Liar]
[Money: 0]
[Abilities: N/A]
[Privileges: N/A]
[Power: 10]
Ughh… just seeing that title makes me throw up. I probably completed the tutorial the fastest, but then, boom, all expectations from me fell to the ground. Ugh, I don’t even care anymore.
He released his hands from the rack, slouching down and picking up the dagger, fighting the zombies incoming.
“Hurry up, Tas!”
“Fuck you!”
In the process, he left Tas with the task to pull the racks while Harley had it easy, facing a few zombies with not much needed effort. Then, suddenly, the ground shook slightly. The building they came from cracked from below, a rift climbed itself to the top, stopping, and branches of cracks released from its side.
In just a single second, the building collapsed. The scene was then shielded by a giant circular mouth rising from the ground, its teeth built like a monolith. Another second passed, it closed, meeting in the middle, pulling back to the ground, leaving a crater.
“Well… I just saw a fucking massacre, I knew this wasnt just a zombie apocalypse.”
While the zombies walked right into Harley’s blade, like having their hair cut by a barber, Tas was working with every bit of his energy at the back. “Get the fuck in!”
“Okay!”
With twenty zombies behind Harley, he squished himself through the tight gap. As soon as he entered, it closed. “We need to add more.” He immediately went to another free rack, dragging it across. “You're not even gonna help me?”
“What did you think I’ve done to move these two so fast?!” Tas replied, lying on the ground, breathing loudly with his hand tightly grabbing his chest.
“Complaints.”
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!”
***
After entering the supermarket, the two’s stomachs instantly grumbled. After shutting the entrance, light only passed like small and thin flashlights from random locations at the top. The two relaxed their eyes for a few minutes, staring blankly at the dark, constantly hearing the banging of wood and growling of zombies.
Fortunately for them, the zombies were not as strong as they expected. Soon they stopped banging the walls, turned silent, and gave up on their hunt. They were mindless enough to even stop once their prey was out of sight.
Once the two could barely see in the dark, they ventured deep into the supermarket. While looking for food, touching every racks there were, occasionally having gum, sticky liquid, soft solid, dark enough for you to think it was poop, and other expired food on their hands.
“This is a lost cause, Tas… I don’t think there is any food here.”
“Then what the fuck do you suggest? We haven’t even looked at every nook and cranny of this place.”
“I don’t wanna say it.”
The two walked deeper into, soon reaching the last corner they could explore. Suddenly, just like a traumatic experience, the ground once again shook, and the ceiling immediately collapsing above them. Thankfully, they noticed it quickly, jumping out of the way. However, the shaking would soon make the other parts of the supermarket collapse.
The falling wall from the corner revealed the outside, and the zombies immediately noticed their presence. “Escape?” Harley looked at Tas.
“Ob-fucking-iously.”
“You know… cursing is supposed to be my thing.”
“Cry about it.”
“Wow, says the depressed crybaby.”
The two didn’t have enough time to fight verbally once again, they knew exactly what situation they were in. Without wasting any more seconds, they exited from the broken wall, fighting their way through the horde of zombies.
However, before they could celebrate escaping, unfortunately, the supermarket behind them collapsed. In an instant, Harley’s mind was reminded of what he had seen earlier: a giant mouth swallowing the tiny house and the building beside it.
Reaching a few meters away, a giant white cone rose from the ground, followed by a wall of brown flesh. “Okay, I get it now.” Harley stood still, watching as Tas tried to slice the mouth apart.
Despite the great help they have been getting from the freakishly sharp daggers, they broke upon the impact. He hit it again with the other… the result was the same. Then, out of desperation, with not a single bit of hesitation, he began to fight with the wall like a child, swinging his arms like a fan, and tears began to fall from his eyes.
“Tas, it’s no use. Also… are you crying… crybaby!” Harley gasped, his head gliding backwards with an open smile.
Tas turned around, his eyes already swollen, tears dropping from his chin. “I can’t help it, okay!” He yelled on the top of his lungs, sounding like a screeching goblin. “It just drops on its own! I’ve gone insane-!”
The mouth closed, and the light brought upon by the bright stars above disappeared. In a split second, the light turned into darkness, then brightened up slowly into a dim grey luminance.
“Anyway, I figured it out; it is a survival floor. There’s no food, Tas. We are the food.”
