As she stood in front of the dead body of the shop owner, Shaw still had no idea why she suddenly decided to kill the man she had tolerated for quite a while.

Perhaps it was because he posed a threat to her. He clearly hated her, and if he somehow managed to level up enough, he might be in a position of power to challenge her. The possibility of that happening was almost insignificant, but it could happen. In the apocalypse, one could never be too cautious.

Perhaps it was because she simply wanted the rest of the store’s supply for herself, and the owner would never be able to survive without this supply. In that case, she might as well end his life right here right now. The NPCs wouldn’t be as quick as her blade.

Or perhaps...perhaps she just wanted this. She just wanted to see the blood rush out of the open wound and hear the man choke to death. She just wanted to see the fear in his eyes and the gargling of his fractured throat. She enjoyed the feeling of being able to decide someone’s life and death with the flick of a finger. The man lived because she spared him, and he died because she changed her mind.

Shaw enjoyed killing. So much so that she was almost addicted to it. She was really good at it, too. It was a really satisfying way for her to relieve her stress. Fate had not been kind to her. For twenty years, she was injured and maimed countless times in the hands of fellow players and NPCs alike. When the Developers turned against the survivors, she watched her own people, brothers and sisters in arms who she had fought side by side for years, getting mowed down like wheat. In the end, as the last human on Earth, she wasn’t even given the luxury of oblivion. Instead, she was brought back to this harsh world, and she had to endure the horror and despair all over again.

She was forced to live a life she wanted no part in. If it wasn’t for the hatred that still burned in her heart, she would’ve turned her weapon on herself already.

She couldn’t find back against fate or the Developers, but she could take out some of her repressed anger and stress on this sorry excuse of a man. As her blade danced across the man’s throat, she finally felt a sense of control. A sense...of power.

Shaw knew what she was doing here was sadistic and pathetic, but she did it anyway simply because she wanted to. In the end, she never was a hero, and she had no intention of being one. She cared for humanity as a whole, and she wished to revert the tragic fate of the full extinction of mankind, but that didn't mean she was a good person. Not at all.

Shaw spent a few more minutes stripping the building of anything of value before turning and leaving, her mood made a little better with the satisfying kill.

Officer Emily Dayne of the Chicago Police Department checked her service weapon, a Glock handgun, once again. Her hands were shaking in fear, but she forced herself to remain as calm as possible. She was a police officer, and it was her duty to protect the people of this nation regardless of what happened.

This day started out like any other day. Emily and her partner got on their police cruisers and started patrolling their way across the city of Chicago. A few hours into the patrol, Emily, the driver, suddenly lost control of the vehicle. Neither the steering wheel nor the pedals worked anymore, and the two officers could only watch helplessly as their cruiser smashed into a car in front of them.

They were lucky. All around them, all hell had broken loose. Cars were running into each other, as well as traffic lights and civilians alike. Before the officers realized what happened, three dog-headed humanoids appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road. As soon as they showed up, they started striking down the confused civilians all around them with dagger-like claws.

Emily and her partner drew their weapons and, after some shooting, put these beings down. Unfortunately, that was far from the end of the story.

The officers quickly realized that all forms of communication were down. Police radio. Phones. Wifi. And the horns and gunshots coming from all directions made it clear that this wasn’t a standalone situation. No...this was a city-wide event, if not a worldwide event. In other words, help likely wasn’t coming.

For the next hour, Emily tried her best to do her job. She and her partner did all they could to round up and protect any survivors they could find while making their way to their precinct, which should hopefully be safer than on the road. A lot happened in that hour. They were able to find another half a dozen or so officers. At one point, they rallied nearly a hundred survivors, but that was when things took a change for the worse. A spider as big as a truck suddenly came out of nowhere and attacked the survivors without hesitation. Within minutes, it melted dozens of horrified survivors, flesh, skin, and clothes alike, with its acid. Emily’s partner shot it a dozen times, but all the bullets got deflected right before the spider stepped on the officer and crushed the man alive.

When it was clear the spider was far beyond what they could handle, the poor survivors lucky enough to remain in one piece did the smart thing and fled. They were joined by the surviving police officers. When their firearms became useless, even the best and brightest of the CPD had no choice but to turn and run. When a fleeing Emily saw that the spider went after another group of survivors, a part of her took a breath of relief despite knowing this was wrong.

In the end, Emily and two other officers were able to find two dozen or so civilians, and they took up shelter in an abandoned McDonald’s. The employees here were slaughtered by a group of goblins, but the officers were able to kill the tiny green monsters with their handguns.

As her thoughts came to an end, Emily looked around the restaurant once again. She counted 23 civilians and three officers, including herself. The civilians were all of different ages and were wearing different clothes, but they all shared one characteristic. They were all traumatized by what they just witnessed. She could see one woman closing her eyes and praying. She could see another man wrapping his arms around his body like a terrified little girl. Even the officers didn't look too well. Guns were good, but they could only do so much, especially since...

Emily turned to her two colleagues.

“How many rounds do we have left?”

“Not enough.” One of them replied.

“What does it matter?” The other officer, a large man, answered in an equally desperate tone. He was strong, but muscles meant little against the monsters outside. He had just witnessed half a dozen men being melted alive in front of his eyes, and their screams still echoed in his mind. “Our weapons do nothing against those...those things out there!”

Emily bit her lips. Like the others in the restaurant, she was terrified, but she forced herself to focus. She still wanted to see her family. There was no way she was meeting her end here.

“We will make it out of here.” She did her best to cheer the others up. “Think about it. With an event like this, the Army, the Marines, and the National Guard will all be called in. These monsters are tough, but what can they do against our helicopters and jet fighters? What can they do against our tanks? Sooner or later, this mess will all be over.”

She didn't know what she said would never happen...or perhaps she did, but simply ignored it for obvious reasons. Either way, the young officer did her best to insert some hope into her broken colleagues.

“We still have a job to do, gentlemen. There are 23 people here, innocent people, and we are going to escort them to safety.” She scanned across the two officers again. “Now, gentlemen, how much ammo do we have left?”

One of the officers was about to reply when he suddenly snapped to the side, where a young woman was standing in front of the glass door. She was a young woman in a blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans. The officer could distinctly see parts of her clothes that were stained red, most likely by blood. But what truly caught his eyes was what she was holding in her right hand. A silver sword.

Almost without thinking, the three officers simultaneously drew their weapons and took aim at the woman. She seemed like a human being, but the sword in her hand was enough cause for suspicion. Most people wouldn't just walk around in public with a blade in their hand.

“Lay down your weapon!” One of the officers demanded, drawing the attention of the survivors to the young woman as well.

On the other side of the door, Shaw almost wanted to snicker. The man was clearly not thinking straight. It took all of her superhuman hearing to be able to tell what the man was saying from outside the door. Still, she waved her hand and returned the Silver Sword back into her personal storage space.

To her surprise, the seemingly innocent move generated a lot of chaos among the survivors. An older woman among the survivors covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes widening in horror as if she just saw the Devil himself. A man sitting close to the entrance stumbled a few steps back in utter terror. The three officers started sweating profusely, and Shaw suspected one sudden move from her would lead to them opening fire on her.

It seemed like they had no idea what was going on with the whole player interfaces, and this realization surprised Shaw a little. Even the survivors back at her high school have gotten a chance to level up in the hour since the Launch, and these survivors, including three officers...didn't?

With her hands still in the air, Shaw slowly opened the door to the McDonald’s and walked inside. Thankfully, the three officers had enough self-restraint to not shoot her on the spot, a fact she deeply appreciated. As soon as she was inside, she did her best to de-escalate the situation. After all, she had no intention of slaughtering every single person in the group. Yet.

“Relax, everyone.” She raised her voice and scanned the room. Her hands were empty, not that it brought any reassurance to the survivors after seeing what she could do. “My name is Shaw. I am…”

“The Devil! You are the Devil!”