Lu Chen remembered the sky that morning.
The city in October was supposed to be crisp and clear.
But as he pulled open the curtains, the sky was red.
Not the kind of red from the sunset, nor the kind from the firelight.
It was a very dirty, dark red, as if someone had soaked the entire sky in a mixture of mud and blood.
The fog pressed down from the sky, low and close to the rooftops, and submerged the pointed top of the neighboring office building to just a blurry outline.
The neighborhood was very quiet.
At this time of day, usually there would be people walking their dogs, buying groceries, or rushing to work, all making a lot of noise.
But today, there were seven or eight people standing on the street, all looking up at the sky, motionless, as if nailed to the ground.
Lu Chen’s first reaction was that he hadn’t received the warning of a natural disaster.
He took out his phone and glanced at it – there was no signal.
The entire screen was clean, with no bar at all.
He had been a reconnaissance soldier for three years, and after leaving the army, he guarded an outdoor equipment store on the corner.
He always believed in one sentence: **If the signal is bad, it’s just the signal problem; if everything is not right at the same time, it means something has gone wrong.
**
He turned the window shut with his backhand and pulled out the half-worn hiking bag that had been prepared earlier from under the bed.
There were compressed biscuits, water purification tablets, a multi-functional knife, a headlamp, a roll of umbrella cord, and a waterproof jacket.
He also took out a long rectangular canvas bag from the innermost part of the wardrobe and opened it – a homemade hunting crossbow, along with twelve steel arrows.
He couldn’t get a gun, but the crossbow was something he made himself when he was discharged from the army, and he had never been willing to throw it away.
Three minutes later, he stood at the door, put on sturdy hiking shoes, and looked back at this rented house where he had lived for six years.
He didn’t know that this look was a farewell to the old life.
There was blood in the hallway.
At the corner on the third floor, neighbor Aunt Zhang lay at the bottom of the stairs, half of her neck gone, blood flowing down the steps, leaving a dark red mark on the fireproof door.
Her fingers were still gripping the railing, and the nails were sticking out, digging into the wood.
Lu Chen immediately stopped, not saying a word.
He crouched down and looked from a distance.
The blood was fresh, no more than ten minutes old.
The wound was not a cut from a knife – it was a bite, a gap made by teeth pulling out of the flesh.
He pressed his ear against the downstairs, hearing a soft, rhythmic “ka, ka” sound, like someone chewing on a hard bone.
His heart sank slowly.
He had watched many post-apocalyptic movies, but he never believed in those.
He believed what he saw with his own eyes: something that could rip a living person’s neck apart and not stop, really existed.
The sound in the stairwell abruptly stopped.
Then, a shadow, leaning against the wall, slowly climbed up from the lower floor.
It was a man, wearing a uniform, probably a property security guard.
His half chin was hanging on his jawbone, his eyes were cloudy and white, and there was a deep, bone-deep gash on his neck.
His movements were clumsy, one step at a time, bumping into the wall and sliding down, then supporting himself to stand up.
It smelled the scent of a living person, its throat made a panting sound, speeding up suddenly.
Lu Chen didn’t wait for it.
The action of raising the crossbow was fast, like an automatic reaction, the steel arrow pierced through the creature’s eye socket, drawing a small amount of black blood from the back of its head, and nailed it to the corner, never moving again.
He stepped forward, pulled out the arrow, wiped it clean on the corner of the corpse’s clothes.
His hand was steady.
**Lesson One: These things stop only when the head is blown off.
**
He didn’t go downstairs immediately.
Instead, he went back into the house, locked the door, and placed a cabinet on top to block the way.
Then he stood by the window, looking at the neighborhood.
Among the seven or eight people who were looking up at the sky, two had already fallen down, and the remaining ones were surrounding the fallen ones, bending their heads and shaking their shoulders one by one.
Blood seeped out from the crowd and gradually spread.
The sun was obscured by the red mist, and the light was pale.
The street lamps on the ground were still lit, and the date showed: October 7th.
He memorized this date in his mind.
**Red Mist Day, Day Zero.
**
At ten o’clock in the morning, the city began to scream.
The sound was not from one place, but from all directions, far and near, layer upon layer.
Horns, screams, glass shattering, all mixed into a dull roar, spreading in circles from the city center.
Then, many sounds stopped abruptly.
Lu Chen did all that he could inside the house: sealed the door gaps with tape, pulled the curtains tight, filled all containers that could hold water – the taps still had water, but the water color was yellowish, with an indescribable fishy sweetness.
He poured out this water and switched to using water purification tablets.
He counted the water and biscuits at home, estimated a number of days: enough to last until rescue, barely five days.
But he knew that there might not be rescue.
In the afternoon, the neighborhood completely quieted down.
Occasionally, a zombie passed by downstairs, moving stiffly, swaying due to the wind.
They were very sluggish when not eating living things, like a group of unstrung puppets.
Lu Chen leaned against the window and counted them, finding a pattern: **They find people by sound and smell.** When someone shouted, the zombies in the vicinity immediately turned towards them.
He noted this down as well.
Just as he was about to endure until nightfall, he heard something – the other building, on the second floor, someone.
Not just someone.
There was someone still alive, desperately trying to hold back their voice for help.
The voice was that of a woman.
Very short, very restrained: “…
Is anyone there…
Please…
Take a look…”
Lu Chen followed the sound.
On the second floor of Building Two, a window was open slightly, a woman in a white coat curled up behind the window.
Her face was terrifyingly pale, her left arm was wrapped in a torn fabric, blood had seeped through, but she didn’t say a word, just very carefully, one by one, looked out.
It was a doctor.
Her white coat pocket was attached with a hospital ID from No.
1 Hospital.
His heart was squeezed by something.
Between Building Two and Building One was an empty space, usually a flower bed and exercise equipment.
Now, four or five zombies were swaying there.
To get there, one had to pass through them.
Reason told him: don’t go.
One more living person means one more mouth, one more exposure.
This was the first lesson of the end of the world.
But the woman didn’t cry or shout.
She was injured and still desperately, unwillingly looking out.
He recognized that look – it was the look of someone still wanting to live.
Lu Chen stood behind the window for a long time.
Then he put the hunting crossbow at his back, inserted the rope hook into his bag, and muttered a curse at himself.
“Lu Chen, you just can’t stand this.”
He opened the door and went downstairs.
He didn’t go through the main door.
He slid down the drainpipe along the exterior wall of the balcony to the first floor, using a row of air conditioning units and a low wall to reach the fire escape on the side of Building 2.
Most of the zombies had been bypassed by him, but there was still one runner – much faster and more agile than the others – who burst out from behind the flower bed.
Lu Chen sidestepped and the steel arrow pierced through its throat, with such force that it sent the whole thing tumbling.
He didn’t shoot a second arrow and took off running up.
The window on the second floor was opened by him with a push from the fire escape.
“Keep quiet,” he said, lowering his voice as he jumped in, “Follow me.”
The woman was stunned for a moment.
She was younger than expected, with clear eyes and a pale face that betrayed a refusal to give up.
She quickly glanced at the crossbow behind him, the rope around his waist, and the quick movements, but asked nothing and merely nodded: “My left arm artery is a bit damaged, but it’s already bandaged.
I can run.”
“Good,” Lu Chen handed her his jumpsuit as he pulled her behind him.
He pushed the window shut with his hand, using his shoulder to hold it in place.
The “tyrant” raised its hand and slapped the window, causing the frame to warp.
“Quick!” Lu Chen pulled her behind him and pushed the window shut with his hand, using his shoulder to hold it in place.
The “tyrant’s” palm hit the window, sending wood chips flying and shattering the glass.
A pale hand reached in and grabbed the window ledge.
At that moment, his right shoulder felt the pain of bones being shaken numbly.
He held onto the window, but his mind was racing: This palm strength, this density, he couldn’t withstand it.
He had to find a way.
**He had to become stronger.
But now, he might not even be able to survive this day.** **
Just as that hand was about to drag him out of the window, his vision suddenly went dark.
Not a fainting spell.
It was something deeper, rising from the very core of his body, from the crevices of his bones.
Cold, heavy, like a drop of extremely concentrated ink, dropped into clear water, spreading in circles, staining his entire body.
He “heard” his own blood flowing, heard the woman’s rapid, ear-piercing heartbeat behind him, and heard the low growls of the corpse cluster downstairs.
He “saw” a tiny, still world in the darkness – empty, like an unfinished room.
**Another dimension.** A thought, out of nowhere, entered his mind, as if it had been there all along.
He didn’t know why he knew it, but he did: From today on, this space is his.
And his body, starting from the sunrise of tomorrow, will become stronger each day on its own.
Outside the window, the tyrant pounded on the window again.
This time, the window frame completely cracked.
Lu Chen grabbed the woman’s wrist with his other hand and they both fell into the inner room.
He pulled over a desk and firmly pushed it against the deformed window, turning around and speaking in a strained voice to her:
“Hold on until dawn.”
The woman looked at him and didn’t ask why.
She picked up the half-broken steel pipe on the ground, held it in her hand, and stood behind his right back.
“Okay.” She said, “Together.”
Outside the window, the sky was a dirty red.
The two strangers inside the window, neither of them knew, the night they had endured was the first night of a new era in this world.