Hugo sat back against the wall, staring at the lifeless zombie sprawled across the stairwell landing. His bat still stuck in its skull, useless for now. He shook his head with a smirk.

  "Alright, maybe not the best idea," he muttered to himself, rolling his shoulders. Despite the setback, he felt good. No—he felt invincible. Fully geared, armored, and with a solid understanding of how to fight these things, Hugo knew he had an edge now. He was ready to take back some ground.

  But first, a nap.

  The idea of resting before going in felt strategic. Like a video game where you saved before heading into a boss fight. If things went wrong, he could always try again. His body was tired, but strangely, his mind was racing. Sleep didn’t come as easily as he expected. The adrenaline still buzzed in his veins, keeping him on edge even in the safety of his apartment.

  Lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, he let his thoughts wander. He hadn’t considered it much before, but the thought of dying again unsettled him. The resets were real, sure, but what if there was a limit? What if one day he just didn’t wake up? That thought lodged itself in his brain like a splinter, refusing to let him drift off.

  Eventually, exhaustion won out, and he slipped into a restless sleep.

  A sound woke him—something outside his window. He sat up instantly, every nerve in his body on alert.

  Shuffling noises, but different from the usual undead. Lower to the ground. Sniffing.

  He cautiously moved toward the window, peering through the gap in the curtain. At first, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. A dog. But something was wrong with it.

  Its fur was patchy, its mouth too wide open, tongue lolling as if it were overheating. Its chest rose and fell too rapidly, as though breathing wasn’t natural anymore. And then it turned its head abruptly, revealing milky white, lifeless eyes.

  Hugo’s stomach dropped.

  "Oh, shit..."

  The virus had mutated.

  If it could infect animals now, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  His mind scrambled for an explanation. He remembered the last time he had seen the news, before everything collapsed. Reports were still coming in, theories bouncing between networks. At first, the outbreak was thought to be some kind of rabies variant—highly aggressive, fast-spreading, but limited to humans. The world was still laughing nervously about it, comparing it to old zombie movies.

  Then came the leaks. A whistleblower, a scientist from a high-security biolab in Europe, had come forward, claiming the virus was man-made. An experimental pathogen designed for... what? Hugo never found out. By then, the world was already unraveling. The news stopped, the networks fell silent, and the only thing left was the chaos outside.

  But one thing had been certain—back then, the virus wasn’t supposed to jump species.

  Three weeks. That’s all it had taken to mutate. That was terrifyingly fast.

  His mind flashed back to the first days, the ones before everything fell apart.

  Hugo had been at work when it started. The lunch rush was just settling down, and the smell of sizzling meat and garlic filled the kitchen. The restaurant TV was on in the background, playing a news anchor reporting on growing civil unrest. More lockdowns were being suggested. More caution. But people were already getting tired of caution.

  His coworker, Jeremy, had been the first to point out that something was really off. “Dude, check this out.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Hugo had turned, wiping his hands on his apron, and looked at the screen. The news feed had cut to live footage—people running, screaming, an aerial shot of a city street clogged with cars and bodies. Police were trying to form a barricade, but something was wrong. The rioters weren’t just fighting. They were attacking. Biting.

  Then, the camera zoomed in.

  A man—blood covering his mouth—lunging at an officer and dragging him to the ground.

  Hugo had felt the first pang of real fear then.

  Within hours, the restaurant had closed. The streets outside had started emptying, people rushing to stockpile supplies or hunker down. The first confirmed cases of whatever this was had popped up in the city by nightfall.

  Within two days, the hospital was overrun.

  By the end of the week, society had collapsed.

  Hugo snapped back to the present, his breath slow and steady as he forced himself to focus. That was then. This was now.

  And now, things had gotten even worse.

  The zombie-dog outside sniffed the air, its head tilting as if listening for something. Hugo held his breath, gripping the handle of his knife. If it could smell him, would it react the same way as the others? Were animal zombies faster? Smarter?

  He had no idea. And he really didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  Hugo took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. He needed to get back to what he could control. The nails in his bat had been a terrible idea, and now was the time to fix that mistake. He pried each one out carefully, wincing at the effort. The bat was solid, still a good weapon, but now at least it wouldn’t get stuck in skulls.

  With his bat fixed, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and carefully made his way downstairs. The lower floors were darker, the power long since dead, leaving only dim light filtering through cracks in boarded-up windows. The corridor was cluttered with overturned furniture, abandoned belongings, and dried streaks of blood.

  He moved cautiously, ears straining for any sound. Then, he spotted movement—two zombies at the far end of the hallway, partially obscured by shadow. One was hunched over, gnawing on something. The other stood motionless, as if waiting.

  Hugo’s pulse quickened. He had the advantage of surprise, but he needed to be smart. Bait one, take it out fast, then deal with the second.

  He picked up a small can from the floor and tossed it further down the hall. The clang echoed through the silence. As expected, the hunched zombie jerked its head up and stumbled toward the sound.

  Hugo gripped his bat tightly, waiting as it shambled closer. Just as it passed the nearest doorway, he swung hard, catching it across the side of the skull. The impact sent it reeling, but it didn’t go down. Snarling, it turned toward him, arms outstretched. Hugo took another swing, this time with more force, and the second hit sent it crashing into the floor, motionless.

  He barely had time to catch his breath before the second zombie lunged from the darkness. It was faster than he expected. Hugo barely managed to sidestep, raising his bat in defense as it clawed wildly at him. He stumbled back, nearly tripping over the first corpse.

  With no room to swing, he shifted his grip and drove the end of the bat straight into its face like a battering ram. The zombie staggered but kept coming, its jaw snapping inches from his arm. Desperate, Hugo swung low, smashing its knee. The moment it buckled, he brought the bat down on its head with everything he had.

  The silence that followed was deafening. Hugo stood there, panting, his arms shaking from exertion.

  Two more down. But there were plenty more to go.

  He approached the apartment closest to the stairwell. The door was locked, just as he expected. He retrieved his screwdriver and pry bar, repeating the same method he had used before. It took a little effort, but with a few careful tugs and a solid push, the lock gave way.

  The apartment had once belonged to a family. He could tell from the scattered remnants of a normal life—a toy car abandoned in the hallway, a framed photo left on a table, a child’s drawing pinned to the fridge. But there was no one here. The family had left, and they had taken anything valuable with them.

  The living room was sparsely furnished now, but the space was still lived-in, the kind of place that had once been filled with warmth. A few open drawers and missing electronics told him they had left in a hurry, taking what they could carry.

  Hugo made his way to the kitchen first. He opened the cabinets, scanning for anything useful. Most of the shelves were empty, but he managed to find a few forgotten cans of food—a small victory. In the pantry, there was a bag of rice, half-full, and some salt. Not much, but he’d take what he could get.

  Moving into the bedrooms, he found the master bedroom stripped almost entirely bare. The closet was open, a few scattered hangers left behind. The bed had been hastily pulled apart, as if someone had been searching for something in a rush.

  The child’s room was similar. The bed was unmade, and a few stuffed animals remained, their owners long gone. A small bookshelf stood against the wall, filled with children's books. Hugo hesitated, then reached for one. He flipped through it absentmindedly before putting it back. Not useful, but a reminder that someone had lived here. That people had dreams here, plans.

  Now, it was just another empty home.

  He exhaled, adjusting his backpack. At least he had found some food. He had what he came for.

  He made one last sweep of the apartment before heading back to the hallway.

  After looting the last apartment, the sun had dipped lower, casting long shadows through the cracked windows. The building was getting darker, but Hugo decided to push his luck and try one more door.

  He approached another apartment, this one near the stairwell. Like the others, it was locked, but he knew the drill by now. He retrieved his screwdriver and pry bar, wedging them into the frame. A few precise tugs, and with a sharp crack, the lock gave way.

  The door creaked open, revealing a starkly different sight from the last home. This wasn’t a family’s residence. The place was practically empty, almost barren. The furniture was sparse—just a single camping chair, a mattress on the floor, and an old TV with a cracked screen. Whoever lived here hadn’t had much to begin with.

  Hugo stepped inside cautiously. The walls were bare, no pictures, no decorations. A pile of empty food wrappers sat near the mattress, and a few discarded beer cans were lined against the wall. It was clear—the tenant had lived simply, maybe scraping by just before everything fell apart.

  He moved through the small apartment, checking the kitchenette first. The fridge was empty, long since defrosted, but in one of the cabinets, he found a few cans of cheap soup and an unopened bottle of water. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  The bedroom, if it could even be called that, had little more than the mattress. No dresser, just a pile of clothes in the corner. Hugo rifled through them, but there was nothing useful. The only other thing of interest was a flashlight, and a box of matches.

  He let out a quiet exhale. "Better than nothing."

  After one final sweep, he packed what he could carry and made his way back toward the door. The building was getting eerily quiet now, the kind of silence that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  It was time to head back before he pushed his luck too far.