September 24, 2029. Early morning.
"Ah-!"
"Help-!"
"There's monsters-!"
Countless screams and shrieks of agony shattered the morning stillness. The entire campus drowned in desperate, ragged howls.
"Why the hell is it so loud!?"
Yang Bin was jolted awake by the screaming from below. He rubbed his throbbing head, dragged himself off the ground in a daze, and walked to the edge of the rooftop to look down.
One glance, and his scalp went numb.
The open ground in front of the dormitory was littered with mutilated corpses. The pavement was painted red.
Blood-drenched figures crouched over severed limbs, gnawing. Blood smeared across their mouths, eyes glowing a sick red, skin already rotting-the sight was enough to freeze the marrow in your bones.
Yang Bin jerked back from the edge. Even someone as mentally tough as him couldn't keep the shock off his face.
"I'm still asleep. Has to be." He shook his head and pinched his thigh-hard.
"Ah-!"
A yelp of pain. Chen Hao shot awake.
"Bin-ge, why the hell did you pinch me?" Chen Hao glared, aggrieved.
"Did it hurt?"
"No shit. Try pinching yourself."
"So this isn't a dream?"
Yang Bin's brow furrowed. He forced the fear down and leaned over the edge again.
The same scene. That hellscape hadn't changed. The image seared into his eyes. He pulled back fast, pressed his spine against the wall, and sucked in air.
"What's wrong?" Chen Hao stared at him, confused.
"See for yourself." Yang Bin's voice came out flat, drained.
"So dramatic." Chen Hao shook his head, walked to the edge, and stuck his head out.
He dropped straight onto his ass, face white as paper.
"Urgh-"
Then he was on all fours, retching.
Yang Bin didn't wait for him. He pulled out his phone and dialed 110.
No answer. He dialed again. And again. Nothing.
The gravity of the situation finally hit. He opened Weibo.
The feed was an avalanche of distress posts.
He tapped through them. The photos and videos matched exactly what he'd just seen-shambling, blood-soaked figures everywhere. People who'd been friends, family, classmates the day before, now biting anything that moved.
It had happened worldwide. Overnight. The internet was in meltdown.
Most people were calling it what it looked like: the apocalypse. Zombies. The scenes were straight out of every doomsday movie ever made.
The theory gained traction fast. No official denial had come. No government statement at all. That silence said everything.
Yang Bin scrolled through post after post. The footage was shaky-shot from behind curtains, through cracked doors, from rooftops. Bad angles, but the horror came through crystal clear.
After a dozen posts, his heart sank like a stone. He accepted it. Zombies. The apocalypse was real. Why it happened-no one had a clue.
Eventually, Chen Hao ran out of things to throw up. He lifted his head, face still ashen. "Bin-ge... what... what the hell is happening?"
"The apocalypse." Yang Bin exhaled. "It's here."
"Apocalypse!?" Chen Hao's eyes went wide. Pure disbelief.
"Check online."
Chen Hao fumbled out his phone. A few minutes of scrolling, and what little color remained in his face drained away.
"Then... Bin-ge, what do we do?" His voice shook.
"First, we find something to brace that iron door. Keep the zombies from getting up here."
Yang Bin had been through enough in life to keep his head working when everything else was falling apart.
They searched the rooftop. In the far corner, they found a long maintenance ladder some worker had left behind.
They hauled it over and wedged it-one end against the iron door, the other jammed into the base of the rooftop's perimeter wall. Surprisingly tight fit.
The rooftop was rarely visited. Zombies shouldn't find their way up anytime soon. For now, they were safe.
"Bin-ge, what next? Just hide here and wait for rescue?" Chen Hao asked.
"Rescue isn't coming." Yang Bin's voice was low and steady. "From what's online, the entire world is a mess. The government can barely protect itself right now-there's no way they're sending help in the short term. If we just sit here waiting, we starve."
"Then what?"
"We observe. Watch these zombies, figure out how they behave. Our position's good-we can see everything below. And we keep checking online, see if anyone's found a way to deal with them."
"Mm."
By now, the screaming from below had thinned to almost nothing. The screamers were probably all dead. These zombies seemed hypersensitive to sound-yelling did nothing but speed up your own death.
It wasn't just their building. Every dormitory in sight told the same story. The initial chaos of shouts and cries had faded into an eerie quiet, broken only by the guttural snarls of the dead.
"Bin-ge, where did these zombies even come from? So many people downstairs turned, but we're both fine. Are we special or something?" Chen Hao frowned.
"No idea. Maybe we just got lucky. Plenty of people didn't turn-it's not like everyone became a zombie. Two out of two surviving isn't that crazy."
As the words left his mouth, something flickered unbidden through Yang Bin's mind-the Nine Stars of the Big Dipper, and that crimson star, glimpsed through a drunken haze the night before.
He looked up at the sky. Nothing. Just ordinary daylight.
He shook his head. Must've been the alcohol.
"Yeah, I guess... Bin-ge, do you think Liu Bo and the others might be...?" Chen Hao's voice dropped, worry creeping in.
Four people shared their dorm room. Chen Hao was closest to Yang Bin, but he got along fine with the other two. Of course he'd worry.
"No way to know." Yang Bin shook his head. "Right now it's down to their luck. With both of us gone, it's just the two of them in the room. Compared to a full dorm, the odds are actually better-fewer people means fewer chances someone turned. But if one of them did..." He didn't finish.
Chen Hao went quiet. All he could do was pray. Then something occurred to him and he grabbed his phone, thumb already moving toward the dial screen.
Yang Bin caught his wrist. "Who are you calling? That woman, or home?"
"Home, obviously. I'm worried about my parents-I want to know if they're okay." Chen Hao said.
"Then don't."
"Why not?"
"You saw what's down there. The whole world is like this right now. If your parents are fine and hiding somewhere quiet, then your call comes in-the ringtone could draw every zombie nearby straight to them. You'd turn 'fine' into 'dead.'"
"Ah-" Chen Hao flinched and shoved the phone back into his pocket, lingering fear written across his face. "Good thing you're the rational one, Bin-ge."
"Send them a text. If they're okay, they'll reply." Yang Bin paused. "If you really need to call someone, you could always check in on that woman."
"Nah, forget it." Chen Hao gave a bitter half-smile. "She did me dirty, sure, but I'm not gonna get her killed over it. We broke up. She's a stranger now."
"Mm. Just messing with you. Glad you're past it."
"Relax, Bin-ge. I'm not that pathetic."
"Good."
"Bin-ge... you think we'll lose phone signal eventually?"
"Definitely. Once zombies wreck enough cell towers, these phones become expensive flashlights. So while we've still got a connection-download some porn. At least you'll have entertainment when things get boring."
"......"
"What about when the battery dies?"
"Then it's a brick."9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoaYdHh0wHz
9Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaeInMPSayd
and then Add to home screen.