[Progress: 100%]
[Infinite Time System successfully bound to the User!]
[Detecting enemies close by.]
[Initiating Emergency Quest!]
[Emergency Quest:
Survive the Zombies for the next 4 hours
Total number of Zombies: 5
Zombies will break into your room in 2 hours!
Reward: Unlock the System's Basic Features!]
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[Emergency Quest:
Survive the Zombies for the next 4 hours
Total number of Zombies: 12
Zombies will break into your room in 24 minutes 12 seconds!
Reward: Unlock the System's Basic Features!]
My eyes slowly open as I regain consciousness.
"What the f-?!!!!" I almost cussed out loud before I covered my mouth and looked at the screen in front of me.
A transparent blue coloured hologram, with words written in a lighter shade. Mesmerizing to gaze at. Futuristic to a certain extent.
What in the world is this? I questioned as I observed the screen, trying to touch it as my hands passed through it. It reminded me of something similar, something that my otaku friends used to joke about.
A game character's screen? Is it something similar?
I looked at it, fascinated a little. It amazed me as I continued passing my hand through it, wondering how it functioned. Touching it… well, I couldn't feel it. It was an odd sensation, or perhaps the lack of one.
To be able to see it, yet not be able to touch it. The more I couldn't feel it, the more I wanted to. It was… disturbing.
Though as I looked at the text, reading through it.
"Let's see. Survive the zombies? They will break into your room in 24 minutes?!!!!!" I shouted out loud, before covering my mouth tight shut.
My eyes almost popped out of my sockets as I read the text again and again, wondering if it was a dream. And then I looked around to see if anyone was looking at me. A little relieved that nobody was around.
Even though it was all too real to be fake, it was still too mystical to be reality as well.
There was a lot to consider.
My heartbeat rose; I could feel the thumping of my heart. If I concentrated, I could even hear it. Putting my right hand on it, I slightly rubbed the chest area. Calming myself down, I focused on what I should do next.
Is there any way to confirm this? I questioned until I recalled something important.
Remembering that missile attack, turning to the side as I saw through the window, at the horrible sight of buildings burning in the distance, helicopters flying around while a huge portion of the distant city was gone where the missile had landed.
"Shit," I cursed out loud as I felt goosebumps all over my body. For a second, I felt numb. The shock, mixed with anxiety and fear, was draining the color out of my face.
As if reacting to what I was looking at, I got off the bed.
"Shit!"
And the weakness that I felt taking the first step made me feel like dying. I checked around to find a stick neatly placed beside my bed.
Did Eva put it here? I thought as I picked it up, and forced myself to limp towards the edge of the window wall, trying to get a better look at the whole thing.
One step at a time, I reached closer to it. My hands touched the cold glass while I looked down on the road far below at whatever was visible from this height.
"Holy mother of…" I couldn't help but curse as I saw the city burning, the crashed cars, and people running like ants everywhere I could see. Some were slow; others were fast. It was as if hell itself had descended upon the world.
If it were a dream, it was quite a nightmare.
Who launched a new expansion pack?
I tried making a joke as a usual habit of mine, but I couldn't laugh at it. There was a lot to consider, most importantly, my parents and my sister.
"Mom… Livia…" I mumbled, hoping they were okay. Wishful thinking, but still I hoped.
Dream or not, getting out of the situation takes priority. I decided to follow through on the quest first. The best thing I could do was save myself first before thinking about others. An alive Michael could do a lot more than a dead one.
"So, how do we avoid the zombies?" I asked myself that first question. I looked around the area.
While the walls against and in front of the bed were metallic, the door and this window were both made up of see-through glass.
Will this glass wall and the glass door be able to hold against the zombies? I don't know. Though deep in my heart, somewhere in the corner, I knew. This will fucking shatter in an instant. Well…
On the bright side, at least I'll see them coming before they get to me. I sighed.
I needed to think of something. And think fast at that.
[The Zombies will break into your room in 15 minutes 18 seconds!]
Moving closer to the glass door, I first tried to get a better hold of the situation. If the zombies were quite far, I could run… eh… limp away from them at a steady pace. I looked around, but with the visibility I had, I could barely see what was outside. The front room was empty, while the adjacent ones were hard to see.
With that out of the way, the next thing was to get out and see it more properly.
Gulp.
Since the other option was to wait for my death in this room, lest the zombies would break the glass door within an hour, I believed moving out was the best chance I had.
Slowly, I opened the door.
-Bang!
-Bang!
-Bang!
It was then I heard a loud noise coming from the edge of the hallway, from the metallic door with the sign [Emergency Exit] placed above it. It was blocked by a chair carefully placed against the handles. Beside it, at the top of the elevator, the [Out of Service] sign displayed on the digital interface.
-Bang!
-Bang!
-Bang!
I wanted to move to the other room and check for other survivors, but what I saw next made my heart almost jump out of my body.
A zombie in there was eating a body, feeding on it like dogs, while I just held my breath, trying not to make a single sound.
-Bang!
-Bang!
-Bang!
[Zombies will break into your room in 13 minutes 12 seconds!]
This hospital building, the Meria Central Hospital, had two towers from the 10th floor onwards, which once again connected at the top, at the 25th floor.
On the 20th floor of the East Tower, where I was, there were 5 private rooms, each lavishly built for the best comfort of the patient. Being the top scorer, I had some privileges I could use, also the reason I was here despite being from a poor family.
Anyway, my room was just beside the emergency exit, with another room on my right, just after this one. Opposite to me, there were three more rooms, exactly similar to the one I was in.
The room opposite the stairs, and the one in front of me, were empty. The one beside me had a patient, but he had been in a coma for almost a decade now. As for the last one, the one on the right corner… I don't think he was alive anymore.
"Uncle got zombie-ka-dabrad…"
I mumbled as I looked around, trying to remember the other rooms this floor had. There was a waiting area beside the coma patient's room, an open garden just opposite the waiting area, and a nurse station on the far left from here.
My best bet is to get into the nurse station and hope to make it out alive from there.
Limping one step at a time, I passed the room where the zombie in a patient's uniform was eating another one dressed in the nurse's uniform. On my left, the patient in a coma was still asleep, unaware of all the chaos that the world has been plunged into.
Should I call him lucky? I pondered as I continued walking towards the nurse station.
The garden and the waiting area were both empty, making me wonder if the survivors had entered the nurse station as well. It also made me contemplate whether the nurse station was safe. If it weren't…
I was fucked.
[Zombies will break into the lobby hallway in 11 minutes 4 seconds!]
Reaching the nurse station as my heartbeat kept on rising, I tried entering the room.
It's locked. Shit. I cursed before lightly knocking.
-Knock! Knock!
"Is anybody in there?" I said in a low but audible voice. Carefully observing the surroundings, I saw that the timer still stayed the same. Only when I confirmed it was, I sighed in relief.
However, the nurse's room did not open.
I gulped before wondering if I should go back to my room. Though honestly, I don't see any benefit in doing that.
-Knock! Knock!
I tried again, but no result.
[Zombies will break into your room in 9 minutes 22 seconds!]
I believed that someone was inside, most probably seeing me through the cameras. If they had wanted to open the door, by now, they would have done so as well. That… or they were all dead inside.
My body was getting weaker, as I could barely hold myself. I felt cold, a numbing, tingling sensation that meant that I could pass out any moment now.
Will the zombies reach me before my body gives out, or will my body give out before the zombies reach me? It was honestly a coin toss.
"Now what?" I questioned, as I was pretty sure that no matter what path I took, I was going to end up dead now.
-Bang!
-Bang!
-Bang!
"All right. Let's try one last thing," I mumbled as I limped back, this time towards the waiting area. It was an open lobby with steel chairs for the patient's guardians to stay during the night. It also had a mini cafeteria with a coffee machine and a bunch of amenities in the corner.
In the far corner of the waiting area was a public bathroom. Unlike the other glass rooms, it was obviously made of concrete. And for now, that was my best bet to go and hide.
While it also meant that I would be locking myself inside a closed building, I didn't want to die yet. I didn't want to give up yet.
Not until I see my parents again. Not until I make sure my sister is okay.
One step at a time, I walked around the chairs and reached the men's washroom, before closing it from the inside, and then as I slipped against the door, falling on the ground, I could feel the weakness taking over my body. I closed my eyes slowly, wondering what I should do next.
[Time left until the Quest ends: 2 hours 1 minutes 7 seconds!]
[The Zombies are going to break into the bathroom in 3 hours 12 seconds!]
Those were the last things I remember before I passed out in the bathroom.