The world was rapidly fading into a cold blur of grey and red, and Summer could feel her grip on her own mind slipping away completely.
Her fingers twitched without her permission, no longer obeying the frantic signals sent from her brain as a heavy, dead numbness spread outward from her chest to her fingertips and toes.
It was an appalling feeling to watch her own body turn into a complete stranger while her consciousness remained trapped inside, like a helpless spectator locked in a dark room.
Every natural reflex was disappearing, replaced by an artificial silence that crept into her bones and silenced her beating heart.
The absolute irony of the entire situation was almost painful to bear.
Summer had spent years preparing for the end of the world, transforming her basement into an underground fortress packed to the ceiling with canned goods, water purifiers, medical kits, survival tools, and defensive gear.
She had spent almost every single weekend running physical drills, practicing hand-to-hand combat, learning how to hunt, and studying every hypothetical apocalyptic scenario imaginable so that she would never end up as helpless prey when societal order broke down.
She had planned for nuclear fallout, economic collapse, natural disasters, and viral outbreaks, buying extra equipment instead of going on vacations or hanging out with friends.
Yet here she was, standing in the middle of a chaotic downtown street, turning into the very monster she had trained so hard to survive without ever getting the chance to use a single item from her carefully hoarded supplies.
All those years of relentless preparation, all that saved money, and all those personal sacrifices were completely wasted in a matter of seconds.
Just ten minutes ago, it had been a completely ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
Summer had been standing in the middle of a busy city intersection, dressed in her neatly pressed traffic police uniform with her white gloves on and a silver whistle held lightly between her teeth.
Her job was straightforward, and she took pride in keeping the daily commute moving smoothly through the downtown district.
The sun was bright in the sky, the afternoon air was warm and smelled of vehicle exhaust, and the only thing on her mind was finishing her shift on time so she could stop by the local military surplus store to pick up a few extra boxes of long-term emergency rations.
She had been thinking about where to store the extra rice sacks in her basement, debating whether she needed to reorganize her shelving units to make room for more water containers.
Then, without any warning, the sky simply broke open.
The bright blue afternoon vanished in a split second, replaced by a pitch-black darkness that swallowed the sun whole and cast a shadowy gloom over the entire city.
The sudden, total loss of light panicked drivers across the five-way intersection, causing an instant cascade of screeching tires, blaring horns, and minor fender benders within seconds.
Summer had immediately pulled her flashlight from her belt, her duty training kicking in as she stepped forward to manage the gridlock, direct drivers, and clear the road before the panic worsened.
But before she could take more than three steps, the black vault of the sky above tore wide open.
Gigantic, glowing tears split through the atmosphere, stretching across the dark clouds like cracked glass filled with strange, shimmering violet light.
A heavy, low humming vibration shook the pavement beneath her boots, rattling the glass windows of nearby skyscrapers and setting off dozens of car alarms at once.
A moment later, something began to fall from those glowing tears.
It was not rain, hail, or debris from an explosion.
A horrifying, dense waterfall of giant black bugs cascaded downward from the tears in the sky, crashing hard against the asphalt, smashing through car windshields, and raining down onto the pavement below in an endless torrent.
The creatures were shiny, hard-shelled, and each the size of a large dog, bristling with dozens of spiked legs and writhing, razor-sharp mouthparts that snapped hungrily at the air.
Pure chaos erupted instantly as drivers abandoned their vehicles, screaming in terror as they tried to flee on foot in every direction, running over each other to escape the terrifying horde.
Summer drew her service pistol with trained precision, her heart slamming violently against her ribs as she backed up against a stalled bus and looked upward to assess the incoming threat.
She checked her stance, thumbed off the safety, and prepared to fire at the nearest monster.
Unfortunately, she happened to be standing directly underneath one of the largest tears in the sky.
As the terrifying swarm poured out from above, a small, translucent variant of the bug seemed to flicker out of thin air, teleporting directly in front of her face.
Before she could pull the trigger, swing her arm, or even raise her hand to defend herself, the tiny creature shot straight up her right nostril with unnatural speed.
A violent, burning sensation flared through her sinuses like molten metal, immediately followed by a wave of freezing cold that rushed straight into her brain.
Summer dropped her gun, the heavy metal weapon clattering uselessly against the pavement as she collapsed to her knees in the center of the ruined intersection.
Dark spots swirled across her vision as her core body temperature plummeted into sub-zero territory.
Her blood felt like liquid ice, rapidly freezing her veins, numbing her internal organs, and systematically shutting down every nerve in her body until she could no longer feel her own skin.
As her consciousness began to fragment and recede into darkness, she watched the street descend into a living nightmare.
The people around her who had been stung or bitten by the falling creatures were changing almost instantly.
Their skin turned an ash-grey color, their veins bulged black against their pale flesh, and their eyes clouded over into milk-white voids devoid of any human intelligence.
Their bodies jerked violently with supernatural force before they turned around and threw themselves onto the uninfected survivors who were still trying to run away.
Screams filled the air as blood splattered across car hoods, sidewalks, and shop windows, the newly turned monsters tearing relentlessly into the screaming crowd like wild animals.
Summer felt her own jaw grow slack, her breathing coming to a complete stop as her heart gave one final, heavy thud inside her chest and died completely.
Her vision blurred until there were only distorted shadows of blood, violence, and running human figures left in her fading field of view.
She could feel the last remnants of her human thoughts drifting away, dissolving into the overwhelming coldness that was taking over her body.
Yet, as her human life slipped away into the void, a faint, twisted thought drifted through her dying mind.
At least she was turning from the inside out.
At least she had not been pinned down to the concrete, ripped apart, and eaten alive by another zombie like the unfortunate truck driver who had fallen just a few feet away from her, screaming for help that never came.
In a strange, morbid way, she had avoided the worst of the initial violence.
Summer managed to let out a weak, stiff smile as the very last ember of her human awareness sank toward total darkness.
Suddenly, a sharp, crystalline chime echoed inside her mind, ringing out clearly through the silent void of her dying thoughts.
[Congratulations on being the first individual on Planet Earth to be infected!]
[Your luck knows no bounds.]
[Initiating sequence...]
[Zombie Girl Evolution System awakening...]