The world didn´t end with a bang.
It ended with silence.
The protagonist woke up in his bed, lying on his back, the familiar ceiling above his head and an uncomfortable pressure in his chest, as if he'd held his breath for too long. There was no alarm, no phone vibration, no traffic noise filtering through the window. Only stillness.
Too much.
He blinked.
And something appeared.
And something appeared.
It didn't float in the air or glow like in the stories he'd read. It was there, superimposed on his perception, clear and indifferent.
Status: Active
Compatibility: High
Stability: Confirmed
There was no immediate emotion.
First came analysis.
He sat up slowly. His body responded well: no dizziness, no pain. Too well. As he moved his hand, he noticed an unusual precision, as if every muscle obeyed with mathematical accuracy. It wasn't strength. It was control.
He stood up and walked to the bathroom mirror. The reflection was the same: soft dark circles under his eyes, a slender build, small scars on his knuckles from calisthenics and metalworking. Nothing supernatural. Nothing heroic.
"…So it's real," he murmured.
He didn't finish the sentence.
The scream came from outside.
Not one. Many. Overlapping. Shattering.
Then thumps. Something hit a door. Glass shattered several blocks away. Alarms began to blare late, uncoordinated, like a wounded animal trying to warn another.
The city had awakened.
He approached the window cautiously and barely parted the curtain.
The street was full.
People running. People falling. People who no longer ran like people.
Clumsy movements, yes… but determined.
Open mouths. Clenched jaws. Empty eyes.
Zombies.
But not like in the movies.
These weren't dead. They moved with brutal urgency, colliding with each other, knocking down those who didn't react in time. Some screamed. Others simply attacked.
And then he saw the worst.
A man, still human, shoved a woman to gain space. She fell. Three of those things pounced on her. The man didn't look back. He ran.
"…More humans…more monsters," he whispered.
The phrase wasn't moral.
It was logistical.
The System made its presence felt again, not with words, but with minimal information. It showed him the essentials: his body could move better than it ever had, but it wasn't invincible. There were no magic weapons. No instructions.
Surviving was his responsibility.
He went to the kitchen. He didn't look for food. He looked for tools.
A heavy knife. An old backpack. Water. Gloves. Sturdy clothing. The makeshift workshop in a side room offered him something more valuable: metal worked by his own hands. Not weapons. Not yet. But materials.
As he geared up, a bang shook the apartment door.
One.
Two.
Three.
The wood creaked.
He took a deep breath. There was no paralyzing fear. There was focus.
When the door gave way, it wasn't a horde. It was one.
A former neighbor. Or what was left of him.
The body was twisted, as if the muscles had forgotten their original function. He lunged forward with disorganized force. The protagonist reacted without thinking: he dodged half a step, used his body weight, pushed the head against the door frame, and plunged the knife into the base of the skull.
The body fell.
Silence.
His hands trembled.
Not from adrenaline.
From understanding.
He had killed someone who, hours before, had been human.
He stepped back, closed the door with what was left of it, and sat on the floor. He breathed. He counted.
He waited for the feeling to pass.
He didn´t cry.
He didn´t vomit.
That scared his even more.
When she got up, she did so with a clear decision: not to stay.
Leaving the city was the only logical option. Outside, the dense vegetation was changing, yes, but fewer humans meant less reprocessing. Less chaos. More room to maneuver.
Before he left, the System displayed one last line, discreet, almost invisible:
Record updated.
Nothing more.
No approval.
No condemnation.
Just confirmation.
And so, with a backpack slung over his shoulder and the city screaming around his, he began her ascent.
Not toward power.
But toward survival.