The next few days passed in a way that was both extremely eventful and incredibly boring.
Nothing about the situation was normal, of course.
There were zombies outside.
Mira had appeared from a game, saved my life, then died in my apartment several hours later.
The government had effectively lost control over large parts of Lincol, my reservist unit was still sitting on some vague variation of stand by and don't get yourself killed, and every few hours something exploded far enough away that neither Hana nor I could tell whether we should be concerned about it.
But inside the apartment?
We mostly waited.
There was only so much survival you could actively do while hiding eleven floors above the ground.
We ate.
Checked the windows.
Checked the locks.
Checked our phones.
Checked the locks again.
I checked the locks considerably more than Hana did.
She stopped commenting on it after the second day.
The first morning, the internet was still mostly functional.
Slow, but functional.
News sites were being updated every few minutes. Livestreams showed military checkpoints, evacuation attempts and hospitals that looked closer to warzones than places anyone should willingly enter.
I penned down whatever useful information I could, and cross-referenced it with the wallpaper map of Eden I had in my bedroom.
The government portal was still online.
So was social media.
That might have been a mistake.
Every person with a phone had apparently become an infectious disease expert overnight.
There were claims that the zombies were attracted specifically to people with Type-O blood.
Claims that they avoided religious symbols, or that covering yourself in vinegar worked.
One very popular post claimed that drinking two tablespoons of baking soda every four hours could "alkalise the bloodstream" and prevent infection.
Hana showed me that one.
"Does that work?"
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because if baking soda cured the zombie apocalypse, I think the government press conference would mention it."
She considered that.
"Maybe they don't know yet."
I stared at her.
"...Don't drink baking soda."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good."
Five minutes later, I watched her throw away the screenshot she'd saved.
On the second day, videos became harder to load.
Pictures came through eventually.
Messages took several minutes.
Some arrived in batches hours after they had actually been sent.
The reservist chat was quieter too.
At first there had been hundreds of messages.
Rumours.
Screenshots.
People arguing over which mobilisation point was still active.
Someone complaining that he'd left his boots at his parents' house.
Then our platoon commander posted:
Remain sheltered where movement is unsafe. Unit mobilisation suspended pending revised assembly instructions. Conserve battery. Do not travel independently.
After that, there wasn't much to say.
I sent an acknowledgement.
One tick. Eventually two.
That gave me more relief than I expected.
At least someone was still reading.
Hana's messages weren't as cooperative.
She sent one to her mother every few hours.
I'm okay.
I'm staying with someone from the building.
Please reply when you can.
Mum?
The first two showed as delivered.
The third stayed pending.
The fourth didn't show anything at all.
She never mentioned it.
Neither did I.
There were some conversations people had when they were ready.
Forcing them because the silence made you uncomfortable wasn't kindness.
I'd learned enough about that recently.
I also didn't tell Hana about the system.
Not properly.
She knew something impossible had happened.
There was no hiding Mira.
She'd watched a woman she'd never seen before shoot an infected inside my apartment, and afterward that same woman had somehow disappeared while Hana was cleaning herself up.
I told her Mira was gone.
That was all.
It wasn't a particularly satisfying explanation, but Hana had been through enough in one night that apparently she chose to keep quiet and not ask anything beyond that.
The system itself stayed mine.
Inventory. The gacha. Affinity. Everything else.
I wasn't keeping it secret because I thought Hana was going to betray me.
That would have been ridiculous.
She was seventeen, concussed, separated from her family and trapped in a stranger's apartment during the apocalypse.
If anything, I was probably the suspicious one in this arrangement.
But suppose rescue came tomorrow.
Suppose soldiers entered the block and asked her what happened.
The man on Floor Eleven can make guns appear from nowhere.
...I don't think anyone would believe her. But under duress, I'm not sure if I, nor Hana can lie with a straight face.
Hana didn't need to know yet. So I tested the Inventory when she couldn't see me.
The first opportunity came while she was showering.
I locked myself in the bedroom.
Opened the Inventory. Many square grids appeared. Mira's equipment remained in a few of them.
Standard Issue PZ400 × 1
Standard Issue PZ400 Ammunition × 120
Smoke Grenade SGZ10 × 4
I withdrew the pistol.
Blue fragments gathered in front of my hand.
Then weight. Real. Cold.
"...Okay."
Useful. Very useful. I checked it carefully.
Magazine. In one of the magazine, two bullets were missing.
...I almost dropped it.
Chamber. Safety.
The controls weren't exactly the same as the service weapons I'd trained with, but firearms were generally designed around the assumption that the person holding one shouldn't need an engineering degree to understand it.
Muzzle somewhere safe.
Finger away from trigger.
Everything else could come later.
I stored it.
Gone.
Summoned it again.
Back.
Interesting.
Then came the important test.
I picked up a can of tuna.
"Inventory."
Nothing. Again. Nothing.
Eventually:
[Unregistered Item.]
I more or less had a conclusion from the experiments. But just to be sure, I checked with a few more items.
Phone.
[Unregistered Item.]
Water bottle.
[Unregistered Item.]
My folding entrenching tool.
[Unregistered Item.]
Wallet.
[Unregistered Item.]
Apparently supernatural storage had standards.
Only objects recognised by Cyber World could enter.
This wasn't some infinite magical backpack.
Still useful, though. The pistol could sit somewhere that required no holster, no safe, and no physical weight until the exact moment I needed it. Better yet, anything stored inside seemed to remain exactly as I'd left it. Safety off, chambered, partially used—it didn't matter. When I pulled the weapon back out, nothing had changed.
Ammunition was the exception.
I discovered that after messing around with the magazines for a while.
The Inventory didn't seem to care about the magazines themselves. It only tracked the number of bullets I had remaining.
So if I stored a half-empty magazine, the magazine disappeared and the ammunition count simply increased by however many rounds were left inside.
Then, when I withdrew ammunition again, the system automatically packaged it into thirty-round magazines.
Thirty rounds gave me one full magazine.
Sixty gave me two.
Thirty-one gave me one full magazine and another with a single, very lonely bullet sitting inside.
"...Convenient."
Slightly strange.
But convenient.
The bathroom water stopped running.
I immediately stored everything.
By the time Hana came out, I was sitting on my bed pretending to check my phone.
She glanced at me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You look suspicious."
"I'm sitting."
"Suspiciously."
"I regret letting you stay here."
"No you don't."
Unfortunately, she was becoming correct about that. Human conversations were sustaining my sanity.
By the end of the second day, Hana had stopped treating me like a potentially dangerous stranger.
I guess she felt the same way as me.
That's not to say that we've become close though. It's just trauma bonding.
Polite distance was difficult to maintain in this kind of environment.
She slept in my bedroom.
I took the couch.
There had been an argument about that. ...Anyway, meals were less contentious.
Rice. Frozen food while the electricity lasted. Instant noodles. Canned tuna. Crackers. I watched the food dwindle.
Still, we actually ate better during the first two days than I usually did alone because having another person watching made me embarrassed to call crackers and coffee dinner.
Hana apparently had similar standards.
On the first morning, I caught her eating instant noodles straight from the pot because neither of us wanted to wash another bowl.
We stared at each other.
"...Don't judge me."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I'm holding a spoon over the sink."
"...Fair."
That became breakfast.
By lunch, we'd established a system.
Whoever cooked didn't wash.
Whoever finished the water in the kettle refilled it.
Whoever checked the front door last had to say so out loud, mostly because I kept forgetting whether I'd actually locked it or only imagined doing so.
Hana caught on to that one quickly.
"Locked."
"You checked?"
"Twice."
"Deadbolt?"
"Yes."
"Chain?"
"Yes."
I got up.
She pointed at me.
"Don't."
"I just want to—"
"It's locked."
I sat back down.
She looked extremely pleased with herself.
That was probably when she stopped being quite so cautious around me.
Not completely.
There was still a slight stiffness whenever one of us moved too suddenly, or when something crashed outside. Sometimes she'd go quiet for several minutes after checking her phone. Sometimes I woke up on the couch because I'd heard a sound in the corridor that probably wasn't there.
Neither of us commented on those things.
There was an unspoken agreement that if the other person wanted to pretend they were fine for a while, we would allow it.
Instead, we talked about less important things.
School. Work. Food.
Which convenience store nearby had the best fried chicken. Whether the building management had ever actually cleaned the water tanks properly. Apparently Hana hated mathematics and was considering studying design after graduation, although her mother thought it was impractical.
"Design is impractical?"
"According to her."
"Depends what kind."
"She says every parent knows someone whose friend's daughter studied design and now works in insurance."
"That does sound like something parents would say."
"You agree with her?"
"Well... maybe when you become a parent, try not to have too many friends."
Hana scoffed.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"What did you study?"
I told her.
Then work came up.
Then why I was home on a weekday when the apocalypse started.
"So you're unemployed."
"Career break."
"So... unemployed."
"There's a difference."
"Do you currently have a job?"
"...Not technically."
"Then unemployed."
"I have savings."
"Unemployed with savings."
"That is not better."
She grinned.
"Unemployed uncle."
"I'm twenty-seven."
"Still uncle."
"It's been two days and you're already disrespecting the person feeding you."
"Thank you for the noodles, uncle."
I hated teenagers.
It was nice.
That was the uncomfortable part.
For a few minutes at a time, I could forget why she was in my apartment in the first place.
Then a siren would pass outside.
Or Hana would check her phone again.
Or I'd look toward the room Mira had died in.
Normality would disappear for a while.
Then eventually one of us would say something stupid, and a smaller version of it would come back.
Maybe that was how people dealt with disasters.
It was futile, and tiring to stay on edge all the time. Just by finding enough ordinary moments between the bad ones, your brain can take momentary breaks, and not collapse under the weight of everything else.
These fleeting moments of normalcy would end not long after.
The electricity started flickering. The first time, it lasted less than a second. The air conditioner stopped. The lights blinked.
My computer monitor went black. Then everything immediately returned.
Hana looked up from the dining table.
"...Power trip?"
"Maybe."
Neither of us sounded convinced.
The second time happened that evening.
Three minutes.
Long enough for the apartment to become noticeably warmer without the air conditioner running, and long enough for me to realise how much background noise modern life actually produced.
The refrigerator stopped humming.
The router went dark.
The bathroom ventilation fan died.
For three minutes, there was nothing between us and the sounds outside except concrete walls and glass.
Something screamed somewhere below, this time, even more clearly for us to hear.
Hana moved closer to the window, then seemed to think better of it.
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to open it anyway."
"Also don't stand directly in front of it."
She glanced at me.
"Why?"
I considered explaining stray bullets.
Then remembered she was already having enough trouble sleeping.
"Just, don't."
The electricity returned before she could ask.
The refrigerator hummed back to life.
Both of us visibly relaxed. Neither commented on that either.
By the third blackout, we had flashlights ready.
That one lasted almost an hour. I checked the freezer as soon as power returned.
The frozen meat was starting to soften.
"...We're eating this."
Hana appeared behind me.
"All of it?"
"Unless you want to become a zombie too."
"That's not very funny."
"..."
"How much is there?"
I pulled out two packs.
She stared.
"That's too much."
"We'll manage."
"We're seriously going to eat two packs of meat?"
"I didn't say it would be a balanced meal."
It wasn't.
But it was probably the best dinner either of us had eaten since everything started.
The next morning, the internet became unreliable.
"Damn, it's dropped to 3G..."
I heard Hana grumble from the living room. Well, I'm feeling it too.
On my PC, a webpage loaded halfway and stopped. Videos... they can't be played anymore.
On the third morning, the internet disappeared entirely.
The router remained powered.
Every light on it said everything was fine.
Nothing loaded.
"Maybe maintenance?"
Hana asked.
"Maybe."
"You keep saying maybe."
"Because I don't know."
"Can routers lie?"
"Apparently."
The mobile network held on longer.
Barely.
"I don't think there's news anymore."
Right. The news broadcasts were starting to loop.
The following afternoon, the television froze.
The news anchor's face pixelated.
Audio stuttered.
Then:
NO SIGNAL
Hana waited for a while and changed channels, but that seemed like the end for TV broadcasting.
Eventually she put the remote down.
"...That's it?"
"Could come back."
I left the television on.
Just in case.
It didn't. We settled for the radio using our phones, seems like that still worked, for as long as we had electricity to charge our phones with.
The water pressure weakened next.
That was more concerning.
I turned on the kitchen tap and watched the stream come out noticeably thinner than before.
"...That's new."
Hana appeared beside me.
"What?"
I turned it fully open.
The flow improved.
Barely.
"We start conserving."
"We already are."
"We start conserving more."
The containers I'd filled on the first night suddenly looked much less ridiculous.
I felt vindicated for approximately two seconds before remembering why I needed to be vindicated.
The toilets still flushed.
The taps still worked.
For now.
Another phrase I was getting tired of.
That evening, we used bottled water for drinking and kept tap water for everything else.
Neither of us showered.
Hana complained.
Quietly.
I agreed.
Also quietly.
By then, being slightly disgusting ranked fairly low on our list of concerns.
Food was harder to ignore.
I had originally thought the pantry looked embarrassing.
Then I divided it between two people.
Rice.
Instant noodles.
Canned tuna.
Crackers.
Some frozen meat we'd already eaten.
Protein powder.
A handful of sauces.
An onion I'd forgotten existed.
Hana held it up.
"Can we do anything with this?"
"Probably."
"Do you know how?"
"No."
"Then why did you buy it?"
"I had ambitions."
She put the onion back.
The numbers weren't immediately terrible.
We could survive several more days if we rationed properly.
Maybe longer if I wanted to start pretending protein powder counted as cuisine.
The problem wasn't tomorrow.
...As the adult, I started thinking about the day after tomorrow. And the day after that, and after that...
Every meal reduced the amount of time we had left to decide.
On the fourth morning, I laid everything remaining on the dining table.
Hana stood opposite me.
"That's all?"
"Mostly."
"Mostly?"
I opened the cabinet.
"Salt." She stared.
"Okay. That's all."
"Three days without doing anything stupid."
"How many with doing something stupid?"
"Depends how successful the stupid thing is."
She looked toward the window.
The convenience store was visible from here.
Barely.
Three minutes away under normal circumstances.
It might as well have been on another island.
I had watched people run through the road below over the last few days.
Fewer each time.
The infected remained.
Some wandered.
Some simply stood until something caught their attention.
A few bodies had stopped getting back up.
Not enough.
"Convenience store?"
Hana asked.
"Eventually."
"There's food there."
"Probably."
"Probably?"
"If nobody already took it."
She crossed her arms.
"So we should go before they do."
This girl... did she forget how terrified she was when chased by one of those?
"...We should also avoid dying."
"..."
I looked toward the building corridor.
That was the first problem.
Reaching the convenience store meant leaving the apartment.
The lift was dead.
Even if it somehow started working again, I wasn't getting inside a metal box whose doors could open onto any floor without warning.
That left the stairs.
The last resident messages we'd received before the internet disappeared had included several variations of:
INFECTED IN STAIRWELL A
and:
DON'T USE B
Very encouraging, people.
I checked the peephole.
Empty corridor.
"Mister, what are you doing?" I felt a hand hold on to the hem of my shirt.
"...Relax, it's a small test."
Hana seemed to have let go. I took a deep breath.
I opened the door slightly and listened.
For a while, nothing.
Then something scraped against concrete somewhere far enough away that I couldn't tell which direction it had come from.
I shut the door.
Hana watched me.
"Bad?"
"Unclear."
"That's worse."
"Yes."
We spent the next half hour discussing alternatives.
Window.
Rejected immediately.
Balcony.
Same issue, except with a more scenic death.
Connecting apartment?
No.
Service stairs?
Same problem as regular stairs with worse lighting.
Then, while standing in the kitchen, my eyes landed on the small metal access panel beside the utility area.
The rubbish chute.
I stared.
Hana followed my gaze.
Then stared too.
"No."
"I haven't said anything."
"You don't need to."
"I'm thinking."
"Stop thinking."
"That's usually not recommended."
"You're thinking about going through the rubbish chute."
"Not through."
I pointed.
"Beside."
Her expression suggested that distinction had not improved matters.
Older apartment blocks in Lincol had a central refuse chute running vertically through the building.
Residents opened a small door, threw rubbish inside, and gravity handled the rest.
Simple.
The part residents normally didn't see was the maintenance space surrounding it.
I'd seen ours opened once when something got stuck several floors below and the entire stack started smelling like a seafood market in summer. Behind the wall panel was a narrow service shaft.
And, if I remembered correctly—
a ladder.
"It goes to ground level."
Hana stared at the access panel.
"You want to climb eleven floors down next to garbage."
"When you describe it like that, it sounds unpleasant."
"It is unpleasant."
"Less unpleasant than zombies."
She opened her mouth. Then closed it.
I smirked.
We removed the maintenance panel. That took considerably longer than expected. Apparently whoever installed it believed future technicians should have to prove themselves worthy. Thank god for a screwdriver I kept in one of my PC component boxes. Eventually the final screw came loose.
I pulled the metal aside.
Warm, stale air rolled into the kitchen.
Hana immediately covered her nose.
"Oh my god."
"Yeah."
"That's disgusting."
"That's rubbish."
"People throw diapers down there."
"I know what goes into rubbish."
"And food."
"Hana."
"And—"
"Shut up. Please."
I shone my torch inside.
Concrete.
Pipes.
The metal exterior of the chute.
And beside it—
a line of ladder rungs descending into darkness.
"...Huh."
Hana leaned around my shoulder.
"Oh."
"Good news."
"How is this good news?"
"There is, in fact, a ladder."
I checked the space.
Narrow.
Very narrow.
Enough for a person.
Probably. Ugh.
There was no obvious movement below.
No sound beyond faint echoes from the building.
The ladder looked old but intact.
I grabbed one rung and pulled. It held.
Again. Still held.
"Okay."
Hana immediately shook her head.
"No."
"We need food. The stairs might be worse."
Hana was silent.
"The route goes directly to the refuse collection room. So..."
My words trailed off, as I met eyes with Hana's glare.
"If you fall, I'm not coming down."
...
Before doing anything, I started preparing what we'd actually need.