"Just relax, we’re all old humans, nobody gains a thing by killing you."
"It’s like... just trying to start a conversation, sheesh... We’re such noobs that we don’t even qualify to be killed. When will I ever evolve!"
"I want to evolve too. I was a wimp even before the Apocalypse, spending every day reading web novels, dreaming of the day I’d beco the protagonist. Then the Apocalypse ca, and I watched those laborers turn into new humans, calling the shots. I thought it was my chance, but damn, what happened?"
"Yeah, I was a loser before the Apocalypse, and I’m an even bigger loser after it."
With the first person opening up, the others began chiming in, mocking themselves as if it eased the misery of everyday life. None of the self-deprecation received validation from the others, as they all knew too well that such mockery was their way of coping with the faults they found hardest to explain.
"Haha, we’re all the sa, exactly the sa."
"What do you an the sa? I’m a loser here, and I might be one for life, but at least you were a big shot before the Apocalypse, you had your mont of glory, right?"
"A true man doesn’t boast about past bravery."
"Cut it out. Here we are, bullshitting, and for all we know, we could be dead sowhere tomorrow."
Everyone fell silent at the ntion of death; it was all too common after the Apocalypse. There were so many dangers in this era, and as that person said, you never knew if your number was up. After all, in the post-apocalypse, many things were beyond ordinary people’s control.
Feeling the atmosphere get a bit eerie, soone tried to lighten the mood with a joke, but there wasn’t much of a reaction; it just fizzled out.
"I’m most afraid when the air suddenly goes quiet."
"Right, since we’re going to die anyway, brothers, let’s eat and drink well. The Peace Party’s got plenty of food, might as well die with a full belly."
"Exactly!"
"Everyone’s already here, nobody else ca in tonight."
A few Peace Party soldiers looked out into the darkness; no one could be seen. The bounty hunters who had left during the day had all returned, or perhaps so hadn’t, hiding in so corner of the wasteland or maybe already dead inside.
But no sooner had those words been spoken than several figures suddenly appeared in the darkness, illuminated hazily by the searchlight, prompting the soldiers to mock the speaker.
"Got a slap in the face, huh? You said there’s no one, then who are those people?"
"Heh, keep it down. You guys know Old Turtle well enough; whatever he says won’t happen is bound to happen."
"That’s true too."
"Wait, sothing’s strange, look."
Suddenly, a soldier expressed his doubts.
"What’s up?"
The others moved to look into the darkness outside. On closer inspection, sothing was indeed odd. These people who had appeared all of a sudden seed to be in a hurry, jogging toward the East-3 Gate, very unlike the ones who had been steadily entering the United District.
"Hurry up! I caught a glimpse of a Level 5 zombie, and when I looked closely, Ma De’s gone!"
"Damn, for real? Don’t scare like that!"
"Do I look like the kind of person who lies? Stop talking and move! I did see it, and now I have no idea where it is. Everything’s pitch dark around here, but there are Peace Party soldiers stationed up ahead. Once we’re in the Central District, we should be safe."
The group of survivors hurried their steps, running toward the East-3 Gate, glancing back every three steps as if fearing sothing was right behind them.
And their odd expressions naturally caught the eyes of a few Peace Party soldiers. The survivors sighed with relief upon reaching the East-3 Gate and quickly took out their identity tags to swipe on the checkpoint’s scanner.
[Beep, identity confird.]
As the chanical voice sounded, a few soldiers, curious about what they had experienced, stopped one of the n and asked, "Hey, buddy, what’s up with you guys? Why the panic?"
"Oh man, don’t even ntion it. On our way here, our captain said he accidentally saw a Level 5 zombie standing sowhere and told us to hurry back."
"A Level 5 zombie? Where? Didn’t see it though?"
"Who knows? We just rushed back when we heard."
"Alright then, you guys go ahead."
"You busy."
Watching the survivors walk away together, the soldiers didn’t pay much attention. They had no choice; working for the Peace Party always involved dealing with zombies. It’s not like they were afraid of zombies—they had even experienced the bizarre scenes of fighting alongside them.
One could say that while for most people, zombies were monsters, for the mbers of the Peace Party, they were comrades-in-arms, nothing to be feared at all.
So, no one really paid any heed to what those survivors had said.
The soldier who had asked the question picked his nose, dug out a lump of greenish snot, and when no one was looking, quickly popped it into his mouth before heading back into the crowd.
"Nothing to worry about, those guys probably just got a scare from seeing a zombie..." The soldier who returned recounted word for word what the survivors had said.
"Hmm, I thought it was sothing serious."
"That’s not right, though. Shouldn’t zombies go after humans once they catch their scent? How co those guys didn’t have any trouble?"
"Yeah?"
"Pfft, what’s the big deal? They probably saw it wrong."
As everyone chatted this way and that, suddenly, soone felt thirsty, stood up to grab a glass of water from the table. Just as he picked it up and was about to drink, his peripheral vision inadvertently swept across the darkness in the distance.
And in that darkness, within the dim fog illuminated by the searchlights in the distance, two figures appeared—one large and one small. The larger figure seed to be six ters tall; the smaller one was of a normal person’s height, slender and likely female, with hair draped over her shoulders. Her silhouette appeared beautiful, exuding a stunning charm—it was just unknown how attractive her face was.
There’s a saying that goes, from afar the green mountains are charming, but up close, they’re all teeth and grimaces!
The mont this soldier saw those two figures, his entire attention shifted to them.
"Hey, look over there, two people just ca out. No! It should be one; the one on the right can’t be a person, how can anyone be that tall? It’s like a goddamn zombie."
The soldier muttered, and his words drew the attention of the others, who turned to look that way and all stood up.
"It really is a zombie."
As the two fuzzy figures in the darkness got closer, all the soldiers could see what they looked like.
The tall, six-ter figure was just as they had guessed—a rotten head covered in scales, with a bloody "shawl" made of flesh trailing behind it—definitely a zombie!
And the other figure was indeed human, with beautiful long hair casually draped over the shoulders, a princess cut that lent her an ethereal quality, a delicate face without a touch of makeup, but those blurry eyes seed to have the power to steal one’s soul away.
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