"When I close my eyes, the world just disappears!"
A burning feeling in his stomach woke Zhang Xiaoqiang up. He was in a daze, sitting up and staring blankly at the ceiling. He wasn't sure if he was still dreaming or already awake. He was so hungry that his insides were cramping. He started to feel things again. He smelled dead rats in the room, and he saw the dark sky outside the window. He also heard the creaking noise of zombies, all different sizes, walking on broken glass.
He grabbed the empty packet of instant noodles from the bedside desk, tore open the bag, and inhaled deeply. The smell of food made his mouth water instantly, as if the bad smell in the air disappeared. He crumbled the noodles and put them in his mouth one by one. He enjoyed every bite. Before he knew it, the last strand disappeared. He found a pair of scissors and carefully cut open the bag. Then, he licked every last crumb clean with his tongue. He rinsed his mouth with mineral water, swallowing the residue along with it. After finishing the rest of his water, he got out of bed and stood by the window. He watched the zombies walk aimlessly down the street. He thought about how many days his food would last. He thought about what had happened half a month ago.
Zhang Xiaoqiang was an older otaku. His parents had both died from cancer, and his sister had gotten married and moved away. He quit his job after an argument with his boss. He had opened a small restaurant in Wuhan with friends, but he lost the money he had invested. He didn't want to look for a new job, so he spent his days on Qidian. The shop his parents left him provided rental income, so he never worried about food or shelter. Life was comfortable. He'd go out once a month to collect rent and buy a month's worth of supplies, and his weight slowly crept up to around 170 pounds. He lived a simple, unassuming life.
This year, 2012, he turned 34. He didn't pay attention to all the predictions of the world ending in 1999, because he thought that was nonsense. Then in March, Japan's Mount Fuji erupted. This was followed by volcanic activity around the world over the next few months. This made people panic. They started spreading all kinds of rumors. Then national leaders gave televised statements to debunk the rumors, and many experts worked to confirm that everything was a natural phenomenon. Starting in June, the Earth became more stable. Earthquakes and volcanoes stopped, the economy began improving, pork prices decreased, some doomsday websites were closed, and life started looking better. But he kept going through life, waiting for death.
December 21, 2012, passed without incident. The doomsday forums were quiet, except for a few new people complaining about being stuck with a lot of rice and cabbage they'd stockpiled. Some had bought thousands of pounds of it. Even the price of survival rations on the market went up.
On December 24, 2012, there was a small meteor shower over the Pacific Ocean. This caused no economic damage. Then, at 9 a.m. on December 31, 2012, the world changed.
Zhang Xiaoqiang had worked all night and was about to sleep when he smelled something strange. He closed all the doors and windows, took a hot shower, sprayed his sister's old perfume all over the place to make the room smell nice, and then slept like a log. He woke up at 9 p.m., ate something, and opened his computer to look at the Qidian website. He was frustrated that most of the books he found weren't updated, and he complained to the authors. More than an hour later, he felt something was wrong. His home was on a main road in the city's water and electricity hub, far from the city center, but cars were always passing by. The sound of engines was constant. But from the moment he woke up until now, he hadn't heard a single car. Was the road under construction? Zhang Xiaoqiang thought to himself. Suddenly, a loud scream came from outside. He was shocked and started to shake. He hurried to the window without shoes to look outside.
Under the streetlight, three or four people were huddled together, crouching down and doing something. Zhang Xiaqiang took off his glasses, wiped them clean with his shirt, and put them back on. If you looked closely, you would have seen that they were eating something. The cold felt like a reminder that he was still barefoot. He put on his slippers, grabbed a rag, and wiped down the window he'd been too lazy to clean before. He looked outside again and saw two human legs sticking out from between the people. The legs were twitching. Then the one facing away from him sat down on the ground. The streetlight showed the center of the group. A man lay face-up on the pavement. His head was tilted to one side, and you could see his chest. Two squatting figures fought over his liver and lungs, shoving chunks into their mouths. The seated figure, still facing away, held a heart in both hands and chewed on it.
Zhang Xiaoqiang's legs gave out, and he fell onto the floor tiles. He felt sick, and his throat felt scratchy. He got up quickly and went to the bathroom. He vomited until his mouth felt bitter and nothing else came up. After a long while, he stood up straight, wiped the tears from his eyes, filled a cup with water from the dispenser, and sat back down on the floor. His mind was filled with scenes from horror movies he had seen before, like Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead, Cannibal Holocaust, and even Human Meat Buns.
After half an hour, feeling a little better, he went to the window and looked outside again. The cannibals had grown from three to a whole group. Beyond the streetlight, more shadowy figures slowly approached. In the dim light, the scene was eerily unsettling, making him feel uncomfortable.
He remembered the police and frantically searched for his phone to call them. He was in a panic and couldn't remember the number, sweating with frustration! Zhang Xiaoqiang took a deep breath, telling himself to stay calm. After a few seconds, he dialed 110. It seemed like fate was playing a joke on him because the phone line was always busy. He tried 120 next, but that didn't work either. He called several relatives and friends, but either no one answered or the lines were busy. He felt like throwing the phone into the toilet and flushing it away.
Outside the window, a crowd had gathered. The dead man had turned into white bones scattered at their feet. Many lay on the ground, licking the bloodstains. People kept getting knocked down, but then they'd get back up and fight others until they got knocked down again. The screams sounded far away and wouldn't stop. There were small fires here and there, which made the distant night sky as bright as day.
He felt sad to see the city he grew up in turn into a devastated, post-apocalyptic landscape. Lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag, he felt a little better. He sat down at his computer and opened the news page. The screen was filled with headlines that read, "Virus Outbreak." He learned that infected people with viral symptoms had been discovered all over the world. These people were found in places as far apart as Alaska in North America and Argentina in South America, as well as on the African continent and Eurasia. There were infected people everywhere, and the entire world was in chaos.
The posts explained how the outbreak was spreading.
At around 10 a.m., people all over the country started to panic and attack each other. The infected population grew quickly and spread. Before the national emergency response plan could be activated, the virus became a catastrophe, shattering the entire administrative system. Because of how quickly it could happen, you never knew if your family, colleagues, or friends might suddenly go crazy. If you were bitten or scratched, you would mutate into a creature that would attack others within 45 minutes.
In Europe and America, the virus is called "Destruction of the World." In China, it is known as the World Destroyer, or the D-virus.
You can get infected by breathing in the germs or by touching something that has the germs on it and then touching your own body. People with the infection are more aggressive. They are 1.5 times stronger than the average person. They move at the same speed as a normal person, but they can't lift as much weight. Teeth and nails become sharper, and they can penetrate regular clothing. Some of the things you can see that give this condition away are: pupils that are not reacting, not being able to see well, walking in a stiff way, and arms that are stretched out to the knees. They have a stronger sense of smell and eat flesh and blood. Any injuries from scratches or bites can lead to more mutations. People with infections are very active, so they cannot be hurt in the usual ways. Only destroying the central nervous system or severing the cervical spine (neck) can kill them. So far, there haven't been any new mutations seen in people with the infection. Preliminary estimates indicate an infection rate of ninety percent. If anyone sees this post, please survive. As long as you live, there is hope.
As long as you're alive, there's hope. Zhang Xiaoqiang repeated this to himself. He now understood that the people outside the window were all infected. He didn't know if he had been infected or when he might turn. But he was afraid of death and of being eaten by the infected people who had turned into zombies. The thought of his arms being torn off and his intestines ripped out and fed into a zombie's mouth filled him with terror. He paced around the room, lighting a cigarette to calm himself and think about what to do next. It was no use trying to get help now. The zombies downstairs were waiting to eat him. Zhang Xiaqiang sat down at his computer to make plans. Tap water was no longer safe to drink. It was hard to tell if zombies were in the water treatment plant's tanks. Luckily, he was lazy at home and rarely boiled water. He preferred to order bottled water delivered to his home. He still had one and a half barrels of water, so he wasn't worried about having enough water right away. The food was the real problem. The thought of food made him jump to his feet. He collected the rent on the 10th of each month and bought a month's worth of groceries at that time. Today was only the 1st, meaning he had food for just ten more days. He was too scared to turn on the lights. He used only the flashlight on his phone to look for food in the house.
After spending a busy half-hour checking all his food and supplies, he realized how messy his place was. He was lazy and never tidied up. He didn't even know what he had. Zhang Xiaoqiang's entire stockpile consisted of: He has 17 packs of instant noodles, about 12 pounds of rice, two pieces of cured pork weighing roughly 8 to 9 pounds (his country uncle brought it; it's a bit fatty, so he doesn't usually eat it), 21 eggs, 2 jin of noodles, 0.8 bags of salt, 1.5 buckets of bottled water, 16 packs of cigarettes, and countless porn DVDs (understandable for a homebody). There are no fresh vegetables. He rubbed his stomach and thought that he could last a month if he cut back.
It's important to keep food safe. His family lived in an old house built in 1997, after the old street was torn down. The apartment on the second floor had two platforms, one inside and one outside. The outer platform, which was almost 400 square meters, was a space for the community to use together. Two buildings are connected to it by a flight of twenty-five or twenty-six steps. The steps are used by neighbors to get to the building. Some people grew vegetables on the platform, while others grew flowers and plants. His father and several neighbors had fenced off the back yard to create private courtyards. His computer room, which was built within one of these courtyards, offered a view of the street through its windows. He went to the front hall to check the security door. He used duct tape to seal all the door and window gaps. He covered all the windows in the front hall with newspapers and drew the curtains.
After he finished, he sat down again and started thinking. Electricity wasn't a problem. The two hydroelectric dams in this city should keep things running for months. The internet might go out soon, though. He should download some materials and study at home to increase his chances of survival. This made him want to do something.