PART 1
Monday, August 30th.
Day 6 of the Apocalypse.
The school is the camp’s hub, but it isn’t the primary storage site for weapons and supplies.
Storing everything there would be idiotic.
For one thing, weapons kept there would be too accessible; too many people would know their location.
Ethan couldn’t exactly post guards to stop people from entering or taking the guns, seeing as he isn’t a “leader” or anything of the sort.
Nothing has been formalized yet.
If it were, people would start arguing—after all, they technically still live in a democracy.
Not to mention the children.
They’re curious, hot-headed, driven by a desire for revenge, and so on.
One accident, and one of those kids could put a hole in their own head—or a friend’s.
So Ethan wondered: Where should all the weapons go?
Where would make a good armory?
The police station?
No way.
It has a solid structure and an armored door, but…
its location is terrible.
Since Linden County comprises three towns, the station was naturally built in a strategic spot with easy access to all of them.
Sure, it’s located in their town—the first one built in the county—but the point remains: the location is awful, and they would have to extend the security perimeter too far.
They couldn’t spare the manpower to guard the weapons there.
People would start asking questions, and Ethan doesn’t need that headache right now.
That left a spot near the school—close to the town center, which is already practically cleared out.
It’s a place that wouldn’t immediately scream “armory” to anyone passing by.
It’s a four-story building with a sturdy structure and two entrances—both with metal doors—and conveniently, Ethan has the keys.
How?
For some reason, his system includes an unlimited storage slot called [Keychain].
Literally—regardless of his actual carrying capacity—he can store an unlimited number of keys.
As a result, Ethan sets his inventory to [Auto-Loot] for any keys he finds, since he can automatically use them on any door he wants to open—provided he has the right key.
He’s been moving around, collecting items from corpses and gathering the bodies into piles for later burial or burning; he has keys for almost everywhere, and this building is no exception.
So, they brought all the weapons here.
It’s an apartment building with no living residents left.
…
“I still don’t get why we chose this place to store our stuff,” Arthur said, sweating as he helped out.
“Because we have to,” Ethan said calmly.
“There are a lot of weapons and ammo.
I don’t want some hothead trying to play tough guy—talking trash just to get a gun, then flashing it around and using ‘self-defense’ as an excuse.” He scoffed.
“If we start handing out guns left and right, scared people will have the means to hurt others on impulse.”
Arthur sighed.
“You’re the boss, so I’ll do as you say, but who’s going to stay here?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Me,” Ethan said.
“I’ll stay here for now—I’m even moving in; there’s a garage nearby.
And between us, who’s better at telling people ‘no’?”
Arthur didn’t argue.
“But later on—once our community structure improves, we start making bigger decisions, and there’s actual work to be done—we’ll have guards stationed here.”
…
What about the food?
It was stored in Ethan and Clark’s basement, as well as in the new armory.
None of those cans were kept at the school, simply because they were emergency rations.
You can’t store that kind of thing where just anyone can reach it.
Food is easy to find right now; after mid-afternoon, having stashed everything away, Ethan went back to looting houses and clearing out any trapped zombies.
He looted everything there was to take, tossing it into the pickup truck, then returning to drop it off before heading out to gather more.
Ethan doesn’t mind if the perishable food gets consumed almost recklessly—there are a lot of mouths to feed.
But the emergency rations…
people lack self-control.
There are already plenty of fights over extra portions and unnecessary arguments started by loudmouths.
Dealing with people is always a headache.
…
As night falls, Ethan smokes; he doesn’t feel as tired as he did on previous nights.
He hadn’t done much heavy lifting himself, having delegated the tasks well—focusing instead on the new armory, which Arthur was guarding.
Exhaling smoke, Ethan hears the sound of crying mixed with laughter.
The night brings many unpleasant surprises.
He drops his cigarette, crushes it under his boot, and walks over to a nearby building.
A woman he had rescued is there, in her apartment, and a man Ethan doesn’t recognize is forcing himself on her.
He walks into the building and makes his way to the second floor, finding a door that has been forced open.
He moves forward, the sounds of the struggle becoming clearer.
A half-naked man—his penis exposed—is trying to penetrate her.
“Shut your mouth, you bitch!” he screams.
Just as he’s about to punch her, his hair is yanked, and he is dragged out into the hallway while screaming.
Thrown to the floor, he doesn’t even have time to react before Ethan begins stomping on him; the man screams, begging for mercy.
Ethan stops and looks at the woman in the room; their eyes meet.
“Barricade the door when I leave; I’m going to get rid of this trash.”
He says nothing else; he offers no comfort.
Ethan has done this so often that he no longer cares.
It has simply…
become unnervingly easy, and that is what worries him.
The bloodied man, struggling to breathe, is dragged and slid down the stairs, moaning and weeping in pain.
He begs for mercy out on the street, where Ethan simply shoots him in the back of the head.
With that, his forty-third human kill.
[Traits Updated]
Ethan raises an eyebrow and sees what has changed.
[Positive]
• Police Officer + Street Veteran → Tactical Operator: The badge still carries weight, but street training has merged with survival instinct.
Bonuses to firearm usage, situational awareness, and tactics.
• Desensitized → Hardened Reaper: Seeing blood or corpses no longer affects you.
Taking lives hasn’t become easier, merely more acceptable given the right reasons.
Immune to panic when facing massive hordes of zombies or gruesome sights.
Drastically reduces stress gain from killing.
• Vanguard Anchor: You have discovered a new purpose that extends beyond yourself to encompass what you wish to protect or create—whether for altruistic or selfish reasons, it matters not; you want to protect it, and it serves as your anchor.
When fighting to defend your base or allies, stress accumulation is drastically reduced, and your ability to control adrenaline is significantly enhanced.
• Cold Mind: Possessing an intellect far above average, you naturally lean toward logic over emotion—often the superior approach.
You are able to focus intensely, setting aside personal emotions and desires to concentrate purely on logic.
[Negative]
• Cynical + Distrustful → Paranoiac Shield: Your stress, the killing, and your mental breakdown all culminate in a paranoia driven by logic—by fleeting glimpses of the future and the knowledge that the military, meant to protect the people, could very well be their undoing.
Trusting outsiders—or even those within your own ranks—becomes difficult.
Earning people’s loyalty and trust is harder, requiring more action, charisma, or manipulation.
Conversely, you gain a greater resistance to being manipulated yourself.
• Smoker: You need something to relieve stress, so a nicotine addiction is welcome—even if it damages your vocal cords, reduces your stamina, or leads to cancer.
• Haunted Solitude: The weight of leadership, keeping so many secrets, and realizing you aren’t as brave as you thought takes a heavy toll, often driving you into isolation—sometimes on patrols that border on suicidal—though you retain the confidence to survive them.
If you go more than 24 hours without interacting with someone important to you, the loneliness sets in, causing heightened stress and potentially panic.
• The Burden of Rightness: You use logic—and the fact that you are usually right—as both a shield and a weapon.
This makes you extremely resistant to emotional concessions that contradict your logical reasoning.
You risk getting lost in your own thoughts and ideas during arguments as you strive to be right, potentially alienating those who do not share your mindset.
Ethan frowns and closes the status screen; he doesn’t like the negative traits.
Not to mention that his positive traits feel like a slap in the face—as if getting used to this hell were a good thing.
PART 2
Tuesday, August 31st.
Day 7 of the Apocalypse.
Ethan reached Level 6 and began considering his best course of action.
He wanted to get physically stronger, but a Strength of 5 and Constitution of 6 were already solid—though he did want a bit more, especially in Constitution.
However, he needed Dexterity and Agility—particularly Agility, which was lagging behind.
With his new negative traits, he realized that—paranoid or not (even if he didn’t see himself that way)—he would face greater difficulties dealing with people; thus, he needed Charisma to compensate.
Yet, above all else, his attention turned to Intelligence.
He decided to max it out; the more intelligent he was, the easier it would be to handle problems, find solutions, and move forward.
It would make him colder and more logical—but honestly, given what the world was becoming, clinging to logic was better than becoming emotionally accustomed to this new reality.
He knew what this might turn him into; he was afraid, but if he wanted to survive, this was the path.
Ready to invest all his points…
[9]: 9 → 10 Intelligence.
With that first point spent, he achieved what he needed; his mind snapped, something cracked, and something seemed to rebuild itself.
His mind simply shifted—it was strange, yet oddly gratifying.
Memories surfaced constantly, with perfect clarity; he relived not just the images, but even recalled scents and voices…
He remembered everything with uncanny precision.
Even things he had overlooked at the time—even his earliest days of life, nursing at his mother’s breast, and the traumas he had instinctively suppressed as a child that were now resurfacing.
It all hit him at once, yet curiously, it didn’t affect him negatively.
It had always been there; if it hadn’t changed him back then, it wouldn’t change him now.
Reaching an Intelligence of 10 granted him a perfect memory and superhuman reasoning capabilities.
As for the odds of any human being born with such intellect—well, Ethan isn’t exactly a math whiz, even though he knows he could become a genius in the field if he simply read enough about it.
Chuckling, he puts that thought aside, sighs, accepts the changes, and then selects Constitution, praying for a 2-point boost.
[8]: 6 → 7 Constitution.
[3]: 7 Constitution.
His entire body shudders; a warm, vigorous energy floods through him, his bones crack satisfyingly, his lungs expand, and his fatigue vanishes completely—though his hunger and thirst intensify.
Clenching his fists, he feels stronger and more energetic than ever.
He calmly checks his status.
(Author: Time for something quite… long!)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ETHAN WALKER ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Survival Level: 6+4 (21 / 28)
EXP: 838
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ATTRIBUTES ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Strength: 5 / 10
• Constitution: 7 / 10
• Dexterity: 4 / 10
• Agility: 3 / 10
• Perception: 7 / 10
• Intelligence: 10 (0 / 3)
• Willpower: 10 (0 / 3)
• Charisma: 4 / 10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ CONDITION ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Health: 100%
Hunger: 46%
Thirst: 55%
Fatigue: 0%
Stress: 6%
Fear: 3%
Pain: 1%
Status Effects: Excited(I) Anxiety(I) Cautious(I) Rested(II)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ TRAITS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Positive]
• Tactical Operator
• Hardened Reaper
• Vanguard Anchor
• Cold Mind
[Negative]
• Paranoiac Shield
• Haunted Solitude
• The Burden of Rightness
• Smoker
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ SKILLS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Combat
• Aiming – Lv.5 [1000]
• Reloading – Lv.3 [250]
• Unarmed – Lv.1 [50]
• Axe – Lv.3 [250]
• Blade – Lv.1 [50]
• Blunt – Lv.1 [50]
• Long Weapon – Lv.1 [50]
• Short Weapon – Lv.2 [100]
• Maintance – Lv.1 [50]
Physical
• Fitness – Lv.5+2 [1000]
• Lightfooted – Lv.2 [100]
• Sprint – Lv.2 [100]
• Nimble – Lv.1 [50]
• Sneaking – Lv.2 [100]
Survival
• First Aid – Lv.4 [500]
• Foraging – Lv.2 [100]
• Fishing – Lv.2 [100]
• Trapping – Lv.2 [100]
• Farming – Lv.4 [500]
• Traking – Lv.2 [100]
Crafting
• Blacksmithing – Lv.2 [100]
• Carpentry – Lv.4 [500]
• Cooking – Lv.2 [100]
• Electrical – Lv.2 [100]
• Knapping – Lv.2 [100]
• Masonry – Lv.2 [100]
• Mechanics – Lv.4 [500]
Others
• Leadership – Lv.1 [50]
• Intimidation – Lv.1 [50]
• Persuasion – Lv.1 [50]
• Piloting – Lv.3 [100]
• Biology – Lv.2 [100]
• Mathematics – Lv.2 [100]
• Chemistry – Lv.2 [100]
• Physics – Lv.2 [100]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ SPECIAL ABILITY ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Radar Sense [Epic] – Proficiency Level: 4
• By closing his eyes, the user can perceive the surrounding environment through sound, vibration and movement.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ MISSIONS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Eradicate the Plague
• Progress: 557 / 1,000,000
• Reward: [Unknown]
[Image] →
PART 3
His upgrade brought significant changes, though not as drastic as he had expected.
Ethan had braced himself to turn into a block of ice—emotionally numb—yet as he gazed at the corpses, the blood, and the entrails, he still felt it.
He felt just how wrong the world had become.
But he understood…
he hadn’t been born with this intellect.
Perhaps he would change over time, but it wouldn’t be a radical shift; his thirty-one years of life had already molded him into who he was today.
The boost to his brainpower had merely refined what was already there; it wouldn’t transform him overnight.
Ethan realized that dwelling on it wouldn’t help.
He simply focused on the task at hand.
The power grid was flickering increasingly, and something was worrying him; after a quick word with his team, he headed out to investigate.
…
Harrison Memorial Hospital.
Ethan climbed a nearby building, sat down, and kept watch.
Further ahead lay the hospital where Rick Grimes was staying, and the chaos there was palpable.
Smoking a cigarette, he watched military personnel coming and going.
The reason he was here, right now?
Simple…
to kill people.
Based on his memories of the series, he surmised that the hospital would be formally abandoned around the time the power failed.
It had started flickering badly earlier that day, so he knew the blackout was imminent.
That meant it had to be today.
And just as predicted, as Ethan scanned the area with his binoculars, he spotted a police cruiser; Shane Walsh stepped out of it.
One thing Ethan found curious about Shane was that he looked like the actor from the series—and yet, he didn’t.
He lacked the large ears and that massive nose.
This Shane looked like a generic soldier.
Not that there was much to say about it.
Shane entered the hospital.
Ethan shouldered his rifle and closed his eyes, expanding his senses but focusing them in a straight line.
Since reaching an INT stat of 10, his control over [Radar Sense] had improved drastically, allowing for much finer precision.
“My next focus will be Perception… I wonder if I’ll gain some kind of ‘Sixth Sense’?”
Ethan practically has that already thanks to [Radar Sense], but that’s not the kind we’re talking about here.
…
Time passes; Ethan listens to the military personnel discussing the so-called Operation Cobalt.
Some soldiers have doubts, but they ultimately agree to the plan.
Donning gas masks and weapons at the ready, they begin to kill.
The hospital—a sanctuary—turns into a slaughterhouse.
It isn’t just a matter of dealing with potentially infected people; the number of zombies has grown so large that containing them has become impossible.
Now, the soldiers are shooting at everyone they see.
From his elevated position, Ethan takes a deep breath; he doesn’t use a scope—he doesn’t need one.
The entire world is mapped out in three dimensions within his brain, rippling like waves with every vibration of sound.
His finger rests on the trigger.
In a hospital room, a terrified elderly couple is visited by a soldier.
Just as the soldier is about to pull the trigger—without a moment’s hesitation…
*Pow!*
The soldier’s head snaps back, and blood sprays everywhere.
Flashes of gunfire light up the hospital.
Amidst the constant shots and screams, Ethan realizes he is practically invisible in the chaos.
This allows him to pick off more of the bastards.
It doesn’t matter if they are soldiers merely following orders; they are still people mindlessly slaughtering everything in sight.
His bullets tear through the windows, striking the soldiers advancing down the hallways as they barge into rooms and conduct hasty searches.
Their bodies drop.
His kill count hits fifty, granting him an extra level-up point; Ethan chooses [Dexterity] and pours everything into it.
[8]: 4 Dexterity.
[4]: 4 → 5 Dexterity.
[8]: 5 → 6 Dexterity.
Ethan shudders; his entire body cracks and his joints strengthen, his reflexes sharpening, while the three-dimensional map in his mind becomes even more refined.
A helicopter carrying medics departs from the rooftop.
Ethan ignores them and sizes up the furious soldiers who had intended to flee on that very chopper.
There are seven of them; the leader speaks: “Continue the operation—exterminate potential pathogens.”
As the words leave his lips, Ethan kills him, and the squad descends into chaos.
They scramble for cover.
Ethan knows exactly where everyone is, and with every shot, another man dies.
He misses occasionally—his aim isn’t flawless—but within five minutes, all seven are dead.
Ethan spots Shane running toward his car, only to collide with a soldier who stumbles.
The soldier looks ready to kill, drawing his pistol.
Just as Ethan prepares to intervene, Shane acts fast; he tackles the soldier and wrestles for the weapon until the pistol goes flying.
The soldier shoves Shane away and lunges for the gun, but a shot rings out, and he collapses.
Shane now has the weapon at his waist.
‘Quick thinking.’ – Ethan smiles with a touch of coldness.
Shane realized that trying to draw his own gun would have been a death sentence; fighting to take the soldier’s weapon was the better move.
Ethan would have done the same.
As Shane escapes, Ethan watches people getting bitten and helps end their suffering.
It brings him a measure of peace—a small comfort amidst so much death.
He gives people a chance to flee—some go to retrieve their families before driving off.
Ethan provides cover, taking out the crazed, terrified soldiers as well as the zombies swarming and infesting the area.
The soldiers retreat; they know there is a sniper, but they don’t know his location.
Ethan has already killed the few who did.
As time passes and the gunfire ceases, Ethan stops shooting as well.
The hospital is in chaos, but…
as people flee, the zombies inside are drawn out.
Ethan checks his kill count: 81.
It has more than doubled in a single day, and he’s gained three more levels…
[10]: 6 → 7 Dexterity.
[1]: 7 Dexterity.
[4]: 7 Dexterity.
[9]: 5 → 6 Strength.
[9]: 6 → 7 Strength.
[7]: 7 → 8 Strength.
[10]: 3 Agility.
[1]: 3 → 4 Agility.
[1]: 4 → 5 Agility.
It was a massacre, yet it secured Ethan four levels and a massive boost to his attributes.
But Ethan can’t hold it back; he vomits.
That was the price of this upgrade: thirty-eight lives.
He clutches his chest, telling himself it was necessary.
That the soldiers deserved it for following such a genocidal order.
That he saved dozens of people—he hadn’t killed them out of ambition or a desire for greater strength.
That even though he benefited enormously from the slaughter, their deaths were inevitable given their infected state.
Gradually, he calms down, managing to focus on logic and suppress his emotions.
He comes to understand that his actions—however extreme—served the greater good, regardless of whether he personally benefited.
And the pain he feels—the intense emotions, the guilt—is all welcome; it proves he still cares.
Once calm, Ethan wraps up Day 7 of the apocalypse, heading back to the city on his motorcycle.
<><><><><><><><><><>
The roar of Ethan’s motorcycle echoes across the dark, deserted roads leading back to Linden County, slicing through the absolute silence of a world where city lights have gone out forever.
Day 7 ends in the total darkness of a fallen civilization.
With eighty-one kills on his record, revitalized physical attributes, and the Atlanta hospital—now a morgue—left in his wake, the deputy sheriff returns to his stronghold.
The first week is over.
The true apocalypse begins now.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><><><> Would you like to see more of my work, or support me so I can continue writing?
3$ = 10+ Chapters <><><><><><><><><><>