Since she was a child, Maya Collins was considered a genius. Born into one of the royal families that ruled large territories of Jyera before the Great Unification. Maya received the best tutors and attended the best academies in Jyera, and with her talent and family resources, she graduated as a doctor before she was even considered an adult. Not only was Maya a genius, she was hard-working and obsessed with dicine, and when she graduated at such a young age, she didn’t stop there.
Soon after, she obtained her doctorate in microbiology, and her many articles and discoveries in the area of alien pathogens made her one of the biggest nas for the first interstellar colonization of Jyera.
But Maya ended up refusing, choosing to be part of the second group. All because she would not have a leadership position in the first group. Which, for her, due to her pride in having so many achievents at such a young age, was considered unfair. But she understood that there were more experienced people from other powerful families occupying these positions in the first group.
With that, Maya continued to improve herself even more, obsessed with her studies, she had no interest in anything else. Be it the opposite sex or friends. For Maya, everything was just distractions.
It was due to her talents that three days before the apocalypse began, Maya was one of those selected and received a high-level confidential mission from the governnt to study a strange pathogen that was infecting all the animals in the world. The objective was to try to quickly discover a cure, or ways to contain the infection...
But the worst seed to have happened; Maya only received a few samples of the virus, and so animals that were already dead when they arrived at her laboratory. The other scientists who were supposed to join her on her mission never ca, and contact with the governnt was cut off.
A day before the chaos began, she received a ssage from her father, saying that the disease had spread to humans as well, and he was one of those infected. Most of the high-ranking officials, fearing the lethality and aggressiveness of the disease, decided to flee, joining the first colonization group in the hope of escaping the disease.
And before communications were cut off, her father’s last ssage told her not to hold back in protecting herself from infected people and animals, and that the family’s state-of-the-art jet was on its way to pick her up... But as it turned out, her ride never arrived, and the one who ca to Maya’s rescue was a young firefighter.
Despite being young, Rick was fearless and demonstrated great experience and leadership skills. He also had a lot of information about what was happening, and most of this information matched what Maya had obtained from the Governnt so far. The way he treated the infected, eliminating them without rcy. It could be considered cold and frightening to others.
But for Maya, who had to deal with the many corpses coming back to life inside the quarantine area... She knew that this was the norm now, and those who didn’t adapt quickly would die in the first few days of this new pandemic.
The Virus, called ZY by Rick, would continue to mutate through its hosts to continue its spread until the entire world was infected. There was no cure, nor anyone to co and save us; everything would depend on whether we would adapt or perish.
After Rick said those heavy words about adapting or perishing, Maya decided to follow the young firefighter... And without realizing it, the obsession she had for her job had slowly begun to change to the man she had just t... Although this new obsession is still mixed with her old obsession, creating a very strange new one...
***
The day dawned in Pineview Village, and after learning that Joe went out with an old hunter to loot a small Hunting Store on the outskirts. Rick, Maya, and the soldier took the jeep and headed towards the supposed store to check why they hadn’t returned last night.
While Rick was driving, he was answering the many questions from the curious doctor again, and so of those questions had started to get strange...
"So you’re already a level 2 mutant, right?"
"Yes..."
"And the only way to beco one would be to consu at least 10 level 1 crystals or a single level 2 crystal, right?"
"Yes..."
"Have you ever tested other ways to help soone reach level 1 or even level 2 without crystals?"
"Well, no... But—"
"Have you ever tried a blood transfusion?"
"No, but I don’t think—"
"Bone marrow transfusion?"
"No..." Rick replied, this ti no longer refuting the woman...
"Organ transfusion?"
"Not either..."
Maya thought for a mont and said: "Let’s do more tests when we get back then."
"Okay..." While Rick agreed, he heard Maya talking to herself one last ti...
"Organ transplants can be complicated, but we can do the others... We have to check your saliva and sperm too..."
Rick almost lost control of the vehicle with the woman’s last sentence, but he soon cald down and rembered that everyone said she was a very peculiar person... So he considered that this was normal.
When he arrived in front of the store, he finally saw the box truck that Joe had used to get here. And on the roof of the place, he saw the giant and the old hunter waving at them and gesturing towards the garage of the place. Soon, the reason for them being "trapped" there was revealed to be a bear the size of a car, which had made the garage of the store its new cave...
"Can we handle it?" asked the soldier, holding his weapon tightly, and wondering if his rifle would have any effect on that monstrous thing...
"Yes, it’s big, but it must still be at level 2. Stay in the car and wait for to take care of it."
Although it was unusual for a level 2 mutant animal to appear so quickly, so animals and zombies devoured other mutants of the sa type. Although it was a fast path to evolution, this made them start to be targets of other mutants as well. In addition, the price of this fast evolution would be to maintain their initial low intelligence...
Therefore, the fight against the bear was not sothing complicated, it was big and slow. As soon as she saw Rick approaching the store, she ran towards him like a bull in a straight line. Rick dodged to the left and made a deep cut in the bear’s side. It roared and spun around, trying to hit with its right paw. Rick jumped back and threw one of the smaller hatchets from his inventory, catching the beast’s right eye.
"GROWW"
In anger, she roared again. Rick took advantage of her distraction, wasting no more ti and taking advantage of her blindness on the right side. Rick advanced at his fastest speed, crossing the few ters quickly and stopping next to the bear’s head.
"Swoshhh"
The axe, which had now been improved overnight by the store’s function and was always sharp, opened the monster’s skull as if it had cut a fruit. The creature roared and tried to turn around even though it was seriously injured, but Rick repositioned the axe for a second cut, this ti burying it in the monster’s brain.
"Phew"
Rick sighed in relief after confirming that she was dead... It took two blows with his maximum strength to the head to finish off this huge, resilient creature. If it were his future self, he would have done it all with a single blow...
While removing his axe and using the system’s ability to extract the level 2 crystal, Rick saw Joe and the old hunter coming down from the roof of the store, and Maya and the soldier getting out of the car.
At that mont, a shiver ran down the back of Rick’s neck, and his eyes widened, it was as if his thoughts had accelerated, he knew sothing was wrong, his instincts and sothing else were warning him of it, but his body didn’t respond to the accelerated speed of his thoughts. Before he had ti to do anything, the sound of an energy weapon rang out.
"PSHIUUU"
When the sound of sothing burning passed, Rick felt pain and looked down to see a hole near his heart with smoke coming out. He had been hit by sothing that burned, and even went through the strong protections that the firefighter’s suit provided.
He staggered, trying to stay on his feet, and looked at Joe, who had a serious face and was running towards him. His and Maya’s desperate screams gradually beca almost inaudible, and his vision began to get blurry; he was losing consciousness...
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